Ripples
Toxic Stream Cleanup a Success
After nearly six years and a multimillion-dollar
cleanup project, recent sediment samples from a Brockport tributary
leading ultimately to Lake Ontario shows a successful cleanup.
General Electric, Black & Decker and the 3M Corporation cleaned up
the PCB’s, cyanide, heavy metals and other highly toxic chemicals.
During the cleanup six homes were razed, 21,000 tons of contaminated
soils were removed from residential and commercial properties, one half
mile of tributary was cleaned and restored and more than 3,000 feet of
contaminated storm sewer was replaced.
The recent test results released by New York State environmental officials
showed the cleanup and remediation was a success and the tributary is
returning to a flourishing ecosystem.
Shawn Lessord, Erie Canalkeeper, says that much of the success came from
the persistence of a small group of committed citizens, along with the
help of the renowned environmental activist Erin Brockovich. “Erin’s
notoriety helped move along the cleanup process and make the responsible
parties aware of just how serious a situation this was,” says Lessord.
Erie Canalkeeper
John Lessord, of Erie Canalkeeper, and Erin Brockovich celebrate the successful cleanup.
Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper
Inmates in a bucket brigade remove sediment – ultimately 50 truckloads – from wetlands downstream of a prison expansion project.
Cape Fear Riverkeeper’s Non-Stick
Chemical Fight
The North Carolina C8 Working Group, a coalition
of environmental, health and safety organizations, including the Waterkeeper
Alliance and the Cape Fear Riverkeeper, are challenging DuPont, the world’s
second-largest chemical manufacturer, to commit to reductions in the production
of the chemical C8 at their facility in Fayetteville, NC.
Ammonium perfluorooctanoate or C8, is a processing aid used to make Teflon®
non-stick cookware and other water, oil and solvent-resistant products
and materials. Because of its durability, the chemical is extremely persistent
in the environment and in human bodies, and is a likely carcinogen. DuPont’s
Fayetteville facility is the only facility in the nation that still manufactures
the chemical. C8 poses a severe threat to the health and safety of the
DuPont workers and the community, as well as the adjacent Cape Fear River.
The EPA has set 2015 as the deadline for DuPont to eliminate C8 and all-related
chemicals from industrial emissions and consumer products, with a 95
percent reduction by 2010. The C8 Working Group believes, however, that
the EPA’s
deadline is far too long to allow the chemical to enter the environment,
and is skeptical that EPA’s policy and the lack of strong enforcement
will yield results.
Two New Movies Premiere:
Apalachicola River: An American Treasure
Apalachicola Riverkeeper and the Mary Brogan Museum
of Art and Science in Tallahassee will present the premier of “Apalachicola River:
An American Treasure” on March 31. The film is a collaboration of
four renowned, award-winning Florida artists – filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus,
fine-art photographer Clyde Butcher, photojournalist Richard Bickel and
musician Sammy Tedder. The hour-long film follows the Apalachicola River,
meandering through Georgia, Alabama and Florida to the port town of Apalachicola
on the Gulf of Mexico. The film explores the rich history of the area
and captures the faces of the people who live and work along its waterways,
including botanists, beekeepers, ecologists, politicians, oystermen and
townsfolk. You can view clips from the film and preview some of the photos
at http://www.apalachicolaamericantreasure.com
The Wabash: Life on the Bright White River
This hour-long documentary film captures the Wabash’s
power and beauty, and the lives of people living and working on the banks
of the Wabash. Produced by Indianapolis Public Television station WFYI
it includes a segment on the Wabash Riverkeeper, Rae Schnapp, looking
for clues about the identity of those responsible for illegal dumping
at a recent De-Trash the Wabash river cleanup. Although it is not the
same crystal clear river it was in centuries past, the Wabash is still
a jewel of rich bio-diversity, one that people are working hard to protect.
For more information, visit http://www.wfyi.org/wabash.asp
Mercury switches are used in cars to control interior lights, alarms and other electronic equipment. A new Utah mercury law will force junkyards to remove mercury switches before scrapping cars. The new law is expected to greatly reduce mercury emissions within the Great Salt Lake watershed from the Nucor Steel plant in Plymouth, Utah (Nucor Steel is one of the state’s top mercury emitters). The passage of this law demonstrates how a wide array of interests can work together for common environmental objectives. In this case, representatives from Nucor Steel, recreational hunters and anglers, environmentalists, government agencies and concerned citizens combined forces to counter auto industry lobbying and facilitate the bill’s passage.
Great Salt Lakekeeper would like to thank all of the many concerned citizens who worked for passage of the Utah mercury switch bill. Great Salt Lakekeeper would also like to thank all of the Utah legislators who voted to make the mercury switch collection program law.
In fall 2004, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper received a call from a concerned resident in South Fulton County, Georgia. The adjacent Georgia Department of Corrections detention facility was allowing sediment-laden stormwater to flow into downstream wetlands and lakes.
Upon investigation, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper found that Corrections workers had stripped a forested hillside, piped a stream without a permit and failed to stop mud and silt from filling wetlands and lakes that drain into the Chattahoochee River. When it became clear in April 2005 that the agency was not going to satisfactorily correct the problems, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper filed a federal lawsuit for violations of the Clean Water Act.
In October 2005, Department of Corrections agreed to remove, by hand, sediment from the impacted wetlands and plant 225 large trees, thousands of native seedlings and 150 medium-size trees and shrubs, and guarantee their viability for a year. They also agreed to pursue a conservation easement to permanently protect approximately nine acres of the site from any future development.
The settlement provides substantial benefits for the affected wetlands and lakes, the neighborhood and the Chattahoochee River watershed as a whole. Since the agreement, Corrections officials have been very proactive and responsive at the site, and have made substantial progress in implementing the terms of the agreement.
California Failed to Meet Clean Air Act Standards for Pesticides
A federal judge ruled on February 22 that the state Department of Pesticide Regulation, the Air Resources Board and the California Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act when they decided nine years ago that no regulations were necessary to cut smog forming compounds in farm and commercial pesticides. The lawsuit was filed by the Ventura Coastkeeper and other advocacy groups.
In 1994, the agencies were required by the U.S. EPA to adopt regulations that would cut emissions from their 1990 levels by 20 percent in five California air basins, including San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento and Ventura. Instead, they asked pesticides manufacturers to reformulate products to reduce the toxic ozone-depleting emissions, according to the ruling.
“The agencies mandated to protect our health manipulated the numbers so they wouldn’t have to abide by regulations; they were supposed to meet reduction goals, but they cheated the process,” says Mati Waiya, Executive Director of Wishtoyo Foundation and the Ventura Coastkeeper.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton’s decision means that the Ventura Coastkeeper and the co-plaintiffs – Community and Children’s Advocates Against Pesticide Poisoning, El Comité Para el Bienestar de Earlimart and the Association of Irritated Residents – will meet with the state to discuss possible remedies for pesticides pollution that has compromised air quality and caused illnesses in California communities.
General Electric spent $65 million in public relations, legal and lobbying costs to avoid cleaning up PCBs from the Hudson River, says a recent report released by GE in response to pressure from the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment.
Between 1947 and 1977, General Electric dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the upper Hudson. The PCBs are now found in sediment, water, wildlife and people throughout the Hudson River ecosystem as far south as the New York Harbor. In 2002, the U.S. EPA ordered GE to clean up the PCBs. But GE has been delaying the process since 2005, when the dredging was to begin. Instead, GE’s money and time has gone towards perpetuating the myth that the PCBs are encrusted in a layer of sediment, and therefore pose no risk to the river ecosystem or to the people who fish, swim and drink from the water.
GE waged a massive public relations, legal and lobbying campaign to avoid dredging. They produced infomercials on the “dangers” of dredging, started phony websites and planted “no dredging” road signs around the area. They challenged the constitutionality of the Superfund law, but lost, and are currently suing the government to prevent enforcement of the law. They continue to lobby through trade associations.
“But for a company that makes profits of at least $4 billion each quarter, why not pay their dues?” says Robert Goldstein, senior attorney at Riverkeeper.
Study Confirms Cancer in South River Fish
On January 24, 2006, a joint U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and South
Riverkeeper study confirmed suspicions that red lip growths on catfish
from Maryland’s South River are a form of skin cancer. Nineteen
of 30 brown bullhead catfish collected last year from the South River
near Annapolis, MD, were found to have cancer.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports, “In studies conducted
over the past 10 years, the Service linked the types of tumors found in
bullheads with a class of chemicals known as polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons.
Petroleum, coal and other fossil fuels contain [these chemicals]. They
enter rivers through water runoff and build up in sediments where bullheads
live. Service biologists found high concentrations of these compounds
in areas of the Chesapeake watershed that also had a high incidence of
tumors in bullheads.”
Drew Koslow, South Riverkeeper, has already assembled a technical committee
to take more samples from the sediment and fish in the South River to
determine what is causing the cancer. This knowledge will help target
possible sources of concern, such as nearby highways and dump sites.
H2OPI
Hopi to Mexico City Run Gathers Steam
Black Mesa Trust (home of the Black Mesa Waterkeeper)
is pleased to announce that the 22-member All-Pueblo Council of New
Mexico passed a resolution endorsing the Trust’s planned Hopi
to Mexico City Run scheduled for March 2006. Long-distance Hopi runners,
with runners from other Southwestern tribes and nations, will carry
sacred messages and teachings of water to the Fourth World Water Forum
in Mexico City, some 2,000 miles from Hopi.
In its Resolution, the All-Pueblo Council recognizes the impending worldwide
water crisis, including the fact that by 2050 an estimated six billion
people will experience water scarcity and affirms the duty of indigenous
peoples to safeguard Earth and share teachings and knowledge with other
people.
In addition to delivering sacred messages and related lessons of traditional
science which recognize all waters as comprising a singular life-sustaining
system, the Mexico Run will bring critical information to Native and
non-Native peoples living along the route, renew Hopi traditions and
ceremonies of distance running, reaffirm Hopi clan origins and ties to
the peoples of central Mexico and re-establish collaborative efforts
of respect among Southwestern tribes.
The Run will also recognize and honor 19 Hopi leaders, who in 1890 were
sent in chains to Alcatraz by the U.S. government as punishment for “seditious
acts.” The Hopi leaders believed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
guaranteed them full rights as U.S. citizens, including the right to
their land and water, the First Amendment right to worship and be free
from religious persecution and the right to educate their children in
their own way. The Hopi runners will honor them as they travel to Mexico,
carrying messages of peace and respect for water.
The run is undertaken in conjunction with Black Mesa Trust’s Decade
of Water observances and will serve to celebrate the Black Mesa Trust’s
successful grassroots campaign to stop Peabody Western Coal from pumping
pristine N-aquifer water to slurry coal from the Black Mesa Mine to Mohave
Generating Station in Laughlin, NV. The slurry pipeline is set to shut
down at the end of this year.
Supremes to Decide Fate of Waters Protected By the Clean Water Act:
Rapanos v. United States & Carabell v. United States
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on February 21 in two of the most important cases in the 34-year history of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Court chose to take up two Clean Water Act cases that question the reach of federal law in protecting tributary streams and their adjacent wetlands.
John Rapanos, a Michigan farmer, was given a prison sentence and $13 million in fines after he was convicted of illegally destroying 54 acres of wetlands between 1988 and 1997. Both lower courts ruled against Rapanos, holding that his activities at the sites were prohibited by the Clean Water Act and held that the federal government maintained regulatory authority under the CWA over wetlands.
Developer Carabell sought permission to fill a wetland to build a condominium complex. A ditch constructed during excavation for the condominium created a berm that sometimes overflowed with water. The ditch connects with a drain at the corner of the property, and the drain flows into a creek, which flows into Lake St. Clair – a ‘navigable’ waterway. Lower courts found that a wetland separated by a berm or other man-made barrier from a tributary remains ‘adjacent’ to that tributary, and thus the Clean Water Act’s protections apply.
In their appeal on behalf of both defendants, the Pacific Legal Foundation – a conservative legal think tank – is asking the Court to either limit the reach of the Clean Water Act to true navigable waters or to declare that federal regulators overstepped their constitutional authority. The Court will be asked to clarify whether Congress has authority to regulate wetlands on private property. Congress’ authority over these waters is derived from the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Loss of Clean Water Act safeguards for these waters would remove federal limits on pollution in millions of acres of valuable wetlands and thousands of stream miles that have been protected since the Clean Water Act’s passage in 1972.
An impressive array of public officials, hunting and fishing advocacy groups, scientists and environmental groups, including Waterkeeper Alliance, filed ‘friend-of-the-court’ briefs urging the Court to maintain the longstanding protections offered by the Clean Water Act. Members of Congress, four former U.S. EPA Administrators and the Attorneys General of 34 states and the District of Columbia expressed strong support of the Clean Water Act’s core safeguard: the requirement to obtain a permit before discharging pollutants into waters of the United States.
The court is likely to issue its decision sometime in May or June.
Cook Inletkeeper Commends Response; Calls for Better Safeguards
On February 2, a tanker carrying five million gallons of oil ran aground when extreme ice and tides ripped it from its mooring at the Tesoro Refinery loading dock in Anchorage, Alaska, spilling approximately 80 gallons of oil.
Unlike other U.S. waterbodies, such as Prince William Sound and Puget Sound, laden tankers are permitted to ply Cook Inlet – even during extreme ice events – without the aid of tug boats. This grounding is just one of many incidents where heavy ice and sea conditions caused spills, accidents, injuries and property damage. For the past decade, Cook Inletkeeper and other groups have called for tug assist vessels and other safeguards in Cook Inlet.
“Now is the time to adopt new legislation that will ensure Cook Inlet fisheries and the communities they support are protected from the heightened risk of oil spills during heavy ice conditions,” said Lois Epstein, Senior Engineer and Oil & Gas Industry Specialist for Inletkeeper.
Apparent shortcomings in the operation raised many questions. Why didn’t the Coast Guard close loading and unloading operations due to the extreme ice and tide conditions? And, if tug assist vessels were not present, why weren’t the tanker engines running during loading to ensure that the ship remained under control if ice floes separated the vessel from its mooring?
“We’ll need to breakdown all phases of the response to understand why this occurred under the Coast Guard’s “extreme ice rules,” and why full response capabilities were not available within the crucial first 24 hours of the incident,” said Cook Inletkeeper Bob Shavelson.
The powerless 601-foot tanker Seabulk Pride drifted half a mile before running aground in the heart of Cook Inlet’s salmon fisheries. Fortunately, the tanker had double hulls – supported by conservationists but opposed by shipper and oil corporations in the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill – which successfully contained the oil cargo.
In response to pressure from Grand Traverse Baykeeper, local residents, non-governmental organizations and its own findings, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality filed a civil suit against Williamsburg Receiving and Storage (WRS), a maraschino cherry-processing company, for violating the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection act and an earlier consent agreement.
Wastewater from the cherry processing contains high levels of biological oxygen demand and chloride. WRS illegally discharged this wastewater into areas around its property, killing trees, vegetation and contaminating groundwater, and sending a putrid smell through the area.
Concern culminated in November when a storage lagoon broke, sending several hundred thousand gallons of untreated wastewater into the stormwater collection system, a roadside ditch and Petobego Marsh, which drains into Grand Traverse Bay. Grand Traverse Baykeeper, residents and community groups sent strongly worded letters, emails and telephone calls to the Michigan Attorney General urging that enforcement action be taken. Attorney General Mike Cox filed the suit on February 6, 2006.
WRS has a history of environmental violations; thus, Grand Traverse Baykeeper will continue to monitor developments in the case to ensure the action will protect the integrity of the Petobego wetlands and the quality of life of its neighbors.
On January 13, the Deltakeeper Chapter of Baykeeper and the California Department of Parks and Recreation agreed to prevent 100-year-old toxic waste at Empire Mine State Historic Park from continuing to pollute nearby waterways.
Tens of thousands of mines, abandoned since the late 1800s, dot the foothills of ‘gold country.’ The Empire Mine in Grass Valley operated for 106 years producing 175 tons of gold. The state purchased the 800 acre park and the toxic waste from a century of mining. Stormwater washes mercury, arsenic, cadmium, lead and other pollutants into area waterways. “The California Gold Rush left us a tragic legacy,” says Deltakeeper Carrie McNeil.
The court-enforced agreement requires that the agency prevents contaminated stormwater from entering nearby tributary Little Wolf Creek, monitors discharges from the mine and remediates hazardous mine tailings and sediments at the park. They will also address toxic discharge from the Magenta Drain, which drains some of the 300 miles of abandoned mine shafts at the park.
“For the sake of our neighbors and wildlife that rely on fish, we cannot afford to ignore the toxic legacy of our abandoned mines, says McNeil.” “It is my hope that the state will now focus sufficient resources statewide, as they are at Empire Mine, to address this problem.”
Budweiser’s 2006 Conservationist of the Year
Wendell Berryhill of Cochran, Georgia, was honored in February as Conservationist of the Year at the annual Budweiser Outdoors press reception during the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show.
Along with the title came $50,000 from Budweiser and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for the conservation group of his choice. “It is quite an honor to be named Conservationist of the Year,” said Berryhill “The best part is being able to give the money to the Altamaha Riverkeeper so that it can be used to protect our watershed.”
“As our first volunteer Wendell has actively investigated water pollution problems by conducting field research and collecting water samples at hundreds of sites,” said James Holland, Altamaha Riverkeeper. “His boating skills have helped us navigate the watershed and his angling skills have aided in documenting aquatic species impacted by pollution. These investigations have raised public awareness and protect our watershed.”