Today CPR releases Reauthorizing the Chesapeake Bay Program: Exchanging Promises for Results (press release, full report).
For years, the jurisdictions within the Chesapeake Bay watershed (the states and Washington D.C.) have essentially not faced consequences for failing to meet pollution-reduction targets. It's not surprising that the Chesapeake Bay has languished.
What the new CPR report recommends is almost an obvious next step: the states should face consequences for not meeting goals. The report calls on Congress to empower the EPA to impose penalties on jurisdictions that flunk.
The report says that Congress should reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay Program with changes to require Bay jurisdictions to set a statutory deadline of 2020 for Bay restoration, and require Bay jurisdictions to establish five sets of two-year milestones outlining the interim reduction requirements necessary to achieve that deadline.
Full textIt’s a frackin’ mess out there in the world of natural gas extraction – exploding houses and water wells, dying cattle, and curious rashes. The Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources of the House Natural Resources Committee recently held a hearing to explore the risks of hydraulic fracturing, or fracing (sometimes spelled, “fracking”), which is currently exempt from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Representatives Diana DeGette (D-CO), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), and Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced a bill to close the exemption, known as the “Halliburton Loophole,” secured by the eponymous company under the Bush-Cheney Administration in 2005. The proposed bill would also require the industry – the only industry exempt from the nation’s Safe Drinking Water Act – to disclose the chemicals used in fracing.
The hydraulic fracturing process is used in most natural gas wells. A highly pressurized solution of water, sand, and chemicals are injected into wells that extend thousands of feet into the earth’s crust, creating fissures in the layer of shale where natural gas can flow upward to be collected.
Among the chemicals used in fracing is benzene, which was found in water bodies in Colorado and Wyoming and linked to gas drilling. In an extreme case, a house in Bainbridge, Ohio, exploded when the neighborhood water accumulated so much methane that the house lifted off its foundation. A later study by a state agency concluded that pressure caused by fracing pushed the gas into the aquifer. Industries refuse to disclose the chemicals in their fracing solutions, claiming that the information is proprietary and akin to revealing the formula to Coca-Cola.
This week, a subcommittee of the House Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing on the problem of waste pharmaceuticals ending up in the nation’s waterways. The issue sounds trivial – does Congress really need to spend its time worrying about people with a few left-over prescription pills flushing them down the toilet? The answer is yes. The cumulative volume of pharmaceuticals flowing from America’s bathrooms (and hospitals and landfills) to our rivers and lakes is significant, and even low levels can harm fish and wildlife. As a result, the environmental impacts of careless drug disposal are serious.
Some pharmaceuticals, known as endocrine disruptors, mimic female hormones in fish, “feminizing” male fish and interfering with reproduction. Even if only one species in a waterway is directly affected, the loss can propagate through the food chain – if the fish that feed predators disappear, the predators tend to follow. Birds, mammals, and reptiles living in and near waterways can also be affected. And the impacts may extend to human health as well; a variety of pharmaceuticals are now readily detectable in drinking water. There is still much we don’t know about the impacts of pharmaceuticals on the environment. But there is enough data to know there is reason for concern.
Full textOver the past few months, the Obama Administration has sent mixed signals on mountaintop mining, the practice of blowing the tops off mountains containing coal and piling the left-over rubble in valleys and streambeds. Early on, things seemed to be going well for the environment. First, EPA objected to the issuance of two specific permits for mountaintop removal under Clean Water Act section 404, and announced that it would review hundreds of others. Then the Department of Interior asked a court to remand a Bush-era rule that made it easier for coal companies to dump their mountaintop waste in valley streams. But then, to the consternation of the environmental community, EPA announced that after review it would allow 42 of 48 pending permits in one Corps of Engineers district to go ahead, objecting to only six. Now the Administration has announced an interagency agreement on a coordinated policy intended, according to Nancy Sutley, who chairs the White House Council on Environmental Quality Full text
Cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.
In a decision that shows the power of Chevron deference, Friends of the Everglades v. South Florida Water Management District, the 11th Circuit has upheld EPA’s water transfers rule, which provides that the act of moving water from one waterway to another does not require a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit under the Clean Water Act. The question of whether water transfers are subject to CWA permitting has been litigated several places, but most fiercely in the Everglades, where the Corps of Engineers’ Central and South Florida Project moves lots of water, containing lots of pollutants, in directions it would not otherwise go.
The CWA requires a permit for “any addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source.” The question in the Everglades cases is whether the transfer of polluted water from one waterway to another qualifies as an “addition” of the pollutants to the receiving water. The answer matters because enormous pumps move water from canals which collect agricultural and municipal wastewater that, as the court put it in this case, “contain[s] a loathsome concoction of chemical contaminants,” into the relatively pristine Lake Okeechobee, a backup drinking water source, and the Everglades, where native ecosystems are highly sensitive to nutrient pollution.
Full textLast month, the Obama Administration urged Congress to resolve the uncertainty in the protection of the nation’s waters and wetlands under the Clean Water Act (CWA). In a letter signed by the heads of several agencies, the Administration noted the confusion, delay, and even neglect in protecting the nation’s waters in the aftermath of two Supreme Court decisions: SWANCC and Rapanos. Reports from the EPA and the EPA Inspector General have documented the impacts – 20 million acres of wetlands and isolated waters are no longer protected (subscription required).
At issue is the reach of the Clean Water Act, passed in 1972 with the lofty mandate of restoring the integrity of the nation’s waters and eliminating pollution by 1985. Although the latter goal is still out of sight, significant progress has been made in restoring the quality of the nation’s water. Under separate provisions of the Act, the EPA and the ACOE have jurisdiction over “navigable waters,” defined as “waters of the United States.” Those five words have generated tomes of commentary, leaving developers and environmentalists alike writhing in confusion.
Full textCross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.
According to Science Insider (subscription required), NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco has endorsed broader use of a "catch shares" approach to allocating the available catch in commercial fisheries. The shares strategy (also referred to as "individual transferable quotas" or "limited access privileges") gives individual participants in the fishery a permanent and transferable right to a set proportion of the total allowable catch.
In theory, assigning shares should contribute in several ways to a more sustainable fishery. By limiting entry, a shares strategy should help address the chronic problem of over-capitalization -- too many boats chasing too few fish -- which tends to ratchet up pressure for high catch levels. By giving the fishers a long-term stake in the health of the fishery, it should give them incentives to support sustainable (reduced) catch levels. In some fisheries, shares can also make fishing safer by removing the pressure to catch as many fish as possible in as short a time as possible.
Full textHere's some slippery regulatory logic: West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection says it is justified in setting less stringent levels for mercury in the state's waters than recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Why? Because, according to the WVDEP, a recent study shows that people in West Virginia eat less fish than the "average American" assumed by EPA. And if people consume less fish, they will be exposed to lower quantities of the toxic pollutants in those fish -- including methylmercury. But why might people in West Virginia eat less fish? One reason is likely the statewide fish consumption advisory warning people to limit their consumption of fish caught in all West Virginia waters, due to mercury contamination. But isn't the amount of mercury contamination permitted in the state's waters limited by the WVDEP? Well, yes. But any limitations on sources' releases of mercury are keyed to the WVDEP's water quality standard for mercury -- the one that is relatively lenient -- so sources in this case can release relatively more mercury. Which leads West Virginia to issue more restrictive fish consumption advisories. Which leads people to eat less fish. Which registers as a lower fish consumption rate in studies. Which supports WVDEP in promulgating even more lenient water quality standards for mercury. Which allows sources to release more mercury. Which leads West Virginia to issue more restrictive fish consumption advisories ...
Full textThis item is cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.
In March, I wrote here about EPA's newfound boldness on mountaintop removal mining. Under current regulations, the Corps of Engineers issues permits for that practice under Clean Water Act section 404, but EPA has the authority to veto those permits. EPA, which was entirely passive on the matter under the Bush administration, had sent objections to the Corps on a couple of permits, and announced that "it would take a close look" at others.
It is now clear that a close look doesn't mean blanket opposition. Nick Rahall, Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, has released a letter from EPA indicating that, of 48 permit applications the agency has reviewed, it has approved 42 and objected to only 6. Coal Tattoo (the Charleston Gazette's blog on all things coal mining) has the story here. NRDC's view is here.
Full textOn May 9, at the conclusion of the Fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-4) to the Stockholm Convention, negotiators from around the world agreed to add nine chemicals to the list of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are too dangerous for international trade. It was an important step toward protecting the world community from toxic exposures, but it unfortunately highlights our country's inability to take a leading role in international environmental law.
How it works
In 2001, representatives of nations from across the globe met in Stockholm to negotiate a treaty that would eliminate the production, distribution, and use of the most dangerous chemicals in the world marketplace. They originally agreed to phase out DDT, PCBs, and ten other substances known as the "dirty dozen" because of their high toxicity, ability travel great distances in air or water, and tendency to bioaccumulate in the food chain.
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