Mr. Whitcomb and other organizers of the cleanups
said they wanted to focus on getting the job done, rather than
assigning blame. “Our
attitude was, ‘Let’s just get it fixed,’” said
Scott Hymes, executive director of the Severn Riverkeeper Program.
“We like when federal agencies follow their own rules,” said
New Jersey/New York Baykeeper Andrew Willner. “The Corps has issued
a permit and contract for a project that is a navigational dredging project
on a Superfund site.” And that, says Willner, means the Army Corps
is required to conduct what is known as a supplemental impact study before
going through with its plans.
“When you get right down to it, the ecological risk trumps the economic
potential, and, in fact, it drives the economic potential way down,” said
North Sound Baykeeper Wendy Steffensen.
“I would look at San Diego as a really incredible anomaly,” said
Bruce Reznik, executive director of San Diego Coastkeeper... “We
never thought they were going to do this so quickly.”
Both the Canadian Environmental Law Association and the Lake Ontario
Waterkeeper want the ministry to require Hamilton, St. Catharines, Toronto
and Kingston to ensure beaches affected by combined sewer overflows be
open for swimming 95 percent of the time…Waterkeeper president
Mark Mattson said yesterday, “The targets were to be met within
10 years. It’s been 12 now, and we asked the ministry to move from
guidelines to mandatory rules. They said they would study it.”
“Our organizations will continue to fight for the cleanup of the
Passaic River and Newark Bay, and to reclaim these waterways for the public,” said
New York/New Jersey Baykeeper and local angler Andrew Willner.
“Unfortunately, when we have water at such a high volume as we have,
the sheer force of the water sometimes carries undesired items into the
river,” said Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper.
Assateague Coastkeeper Jay Charland investigated a report from West Ocean
City residents of a gleaming water trail in the coastal bays last week,
which he followed from the area’s fishing canal to Frontier Town
for over 2 1/2 miles, eventually concluding it was an oil slick.
“Accidents happen,” said David McLain, senior policy director
for the Apalachicola Riverkeeper group. “And I will be concerned
so long as there is that potential.”
In 2000, [Santa Barbara] Channelkeeper took some water samples
and, in the process, found the first evidence of resin beads at the beach… Based
on these findings, Ventura Coastkeeper filed a notice in October 2002 of
intent to sue Puretec for violations of the Federal Clean Water Act.
Other January/February issues of the Christian Science Monitor, E Magazine
and the Waterkeeper Alliance organizational magazine Waterkeeper have
also published stories about mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
The cities of Concord and Kannapolis have asked permission to transfer
up to 38 million gallons a day from the Catawba River into the Rocky
River basin… Catawba Riverkeeper Donna Lisenby told City Council
members on January 3 that the transfer request doesn’t adequately
address the effect that water removal would have on the river, especially
in drought conditions.
With a $239,000 grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection, an effort will be mounted to identify any sources of pollution
and areas of erosion. Persons who have stepped forward to monitor the
creek are a diverse group, according to Faith Zerbe, monitoring coordinator
with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, one of the partners involved in
the project.
The Pensacola Gulf Coastkeeper changed its name [to Emerald Coastkeeper],
appointed a new Coastkeeper and welcomed four new board members Wednesday.
Lisa Rainwater van Suntum, Riverkeeper’s Indian Point person said
[events] last August and September “showed us just how unprepared
and ill-equipped FEMA is when it comes to evacuating high population
densities.” Add to that, Indian Point “had a slew of safety
problems this past year,” she said.
Earthjustice, representing American Rivers, Environmental Defense, National
Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social
Responsibility, Sierra Club, Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council and Waterkeeper
Alliance, filed the amicus brief on the side of the U.S. government in
the two consolidated Clean Water Act cases, Rapanos v. U.S. and U.S.
v. Carabell, that the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear February 21.
Deborah A. Mans, a policy director for NY/NJ Baykeeper, a Keyport-based
environmental group, urged planners to withdraw the proposal because
she said residents were not given adequate notice about it.
Eleven candidates out of 12 running in the three federal ridings directly
impacted by the controversy over the Petitcodiac River causeway favour
opening the structure, a survey by the Petitcodiac Riverkeeper says.
Donna Lisenby, executive director of the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation
and a leading activist against the Concord-Kannapolis proposal, said
those numbers are evidence that the state needs to be more careful in
granting inter-basin transfers.
Georgia Trend’s 2006 listing of the 100 most influential Georgians
includes two people from Northeast Georgia. Others with ties to the region
on the list of 100 were Sally Bethea, executive director of the Upper
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper…
“There were fierce battles in the beginning, but with time, everyone
came to see that it was in the state’s best interest to preserve
the Empire Tract and to think in terms of ecotourism about the river,” said
Captain Bill Sheehan, a Secaucus resident who heads the Hackensack Riverkeeper
environmental group. “Now everyone is pretty much on the same page.”
The Deltakeeper Chapter of Baykeeper and the California Department of
Parks & Recreation signed a consent decree on January 13 to prevent
hundred year-old toxic waste at Empire Mine State Historic Park from
continuing to pollute nearby waterways.
NY/NJ Baykeeper [conservation director] Greg Remaud recently met with
Holmdel officials to discuss the possible sale of Hazlet’s development
rights for a 14-acre tract of land known as the Mahoras Preserve, for
incorporation into a proposed greenway.
Does the sight of cattails put you in a trance? Do you collect sea shells?
Are you enthralled by blue herons? Then, if you’re a college-bound
high school senior with good grades, you may want to apply for the sixth
annual Ron Vellekamp Environmental Scholarship offered by Hackensack
Riverkeeper.
The maintenance dredging, which is done every seven to 10 years, was
put on hold in September when information by Humboldt Baykeeper was presented
to the commission, identifying elevated levels of cancer-causing dioxin
in the bay’s sediment.
Gordon Rogers, the Satilla Riverkeeper and one of the plaintiffs in
the court challenge, said the legal fight aims to set precedent for
how Georgia safeguards rare species and salt marshes as new developments
rise along the state’s 100-mile coastline.
“Ministry of Environment investigators took up the case in summer
2004 after Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and Environment Hamilton submitted
a brief with media reports, legal precedents and a description of the incident,” a
release from Lake Ontario Waterkeeper said. The joint brief had called
for the ministry to investigate “quickly and diligently.”
This school year, [Orange County] Coastkeeper started a program called
WHALES, an acronym for Watershed Heroes – Actions Linking Education
to Stewardship. Through the program, Coastkeeper works with schools to
teach subjects related to water quality and nature preservation.
The money, which the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority would
direct to restore lost habitat and clean up toxins in water and sediment,
is welcome at a time when beach closures are at a “disgraceful
level” – Bluffer’s Park in Scarborough was off-limits
for 92 percent of the last swimming season – and there are more
restrictions on eating Lake Ontario fish than ever, said Mark Mattson,
president of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.
Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper, who also serves on the Open
Space Trust Fund Committee, was disappointed the county will be awarding
the money despite the change of plans. “They came to the committee
seeking money for an open space and recreation project and turned it
into a transportation infrastructure project,” Sheehan said. “I
felt and I feel that that’s a violation of the public trust.”
Jay Charland, Coastkeeper for the Assateague Coastal Trust, and Dave
Blazer, executive director of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program, said
they supported the bill.
Steve Fleischli, the executive director of the Waterkeeper Alliance,
said that the agreement represented a milestone in efforts to protect
North Carolina’s waterways. “Over time, we will see improvement
in both groundwater and surface-water quality as a result of this settlement,” Fleischli
said. “Our focus will now turn to convincing the rest of the industry
to follow Smithfield’s lead.”
Waccamaw Riverkeeper Hamp Shuping is among those who say mines are a
danger to the vast wetland and rivers of Horry County.
Smithfield Foods, Inc. agreed to implement new environmental measures
at hog production facilities in North Carolina, settling two lawsuits
filed by an environmental group. Waterkeeper Alliance, a grassroots advocacy
group led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had targeted Smithfield as part of
its broader campaign against factory-style farms.
“The whole system has failed,” said James Holland, the Altamaha
Riverkeeper. “You see everywhere mud going into streams, and you
can’t get anything done about it without a lawyer. And that’s
not right.”
Travis Williams, Executive Director of Willamette Riverkeeper, said he
remains concerned that “what remains in the groundwater doesn’t
make it to the river.”
The Yarra Riverkeeper formed in late 2004 from representatives of several
community groups, to give the river a unified and influential voice.
There are signs the group could become hard to ignore. The Riverkeeper
has taken on developers further upstream and been vocal on several issues,
including sustainable development, and rethinking how we deal with stormwater.
“We’d been told that they were getting the oil out of the ground
as quickly as possible,” he [Basil Seggos] said. But [Hudson] Riverkeeper’s
investigation has revealed the state was not moving as quickly as it could
on the cleanup, he said.
Drew Koslow, South Riverkeeper, said anglers eat the South River’s
catfish, perch and pickerel... “A lot of kids and adults swim in
the river, [and] we don’t have the authority to close it to swimming” or
fishing, Koslow said.
“No matter how you roll the dice, it all seems like more sewage being
allowed into Puget Sound,” said Sue Joerger, executive director of
Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. “My biggest problem is it doesn’t
provide incentives for communities to truly treat their sewage, to increase
their sewage-treatment capacity.”
The environmental protection group [San Francisco] Baykeeper announced
on Monday that it had served a suit against Richmond, Veolia Water North
America Operating Services and the West County Wastewater District for
dumping large amounts of untreated sewage into the bay mostly during
heavy rains.
“During the last five months, Richmond has not taken concrete steps
to fix its system or made any real commitments to do so,” said Sejal
Choksi, San Francisco Baykeeper. “The city continues to foul its
streets, creeks and popular fishing spots with raw sewage, creating a public
health problem.”
St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon said his group will fight DEP’s
attempt to weaken water quality standards for the river.
“The harbor is going to be industrial,” [said Travis Williams,
Willamette Riverkeeper. “The question is: Is [ship-breaking] done
in a way that is safe for the harbor and doesn’t replicate problems
we’ve had in the past?”
Riverkeeper, through the Leafpack Network Program, sixth- to 12th-grade
students and their teachers from New York City and Westchester County
will investigate local river ecosystems by creating an artificial leaf
pack and examining it over time to discover aquatic insects that serve
as indicators of stream health.
Maya van Rossum of Delaware Riverkeeper Network in Philadelphia, said
that dredging would churn up in the sediment, causing those same toxins
to flow into the bay, harming marine life.
“California desperately needs strong controls on ballast water dumping,” said
Leo P. O’Brien, Executive Director of Baykeeper, an environmental
advocacy organization. “The San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary, in particular,
is one of the most invaded estuaries on earth, with a new species establishing
itself on average every 14 weeks.”
Permits issued by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to municipalities
in the Portland area don’t set enforceable pollution limits for
storm water, which may result in discharges that harm the Columbia and
Willamette rivers, the Tualatin, Willamette and Columbia Riverkeeper
groups claimed in the suit.
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