On Tuesday, CPR Member Scholar Catherine O'Neill testified about mercury pollution from chlor-alkali plants at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection.
At least one in ten women of childbearing age in the United States has blood levels of mercury that threaten the neurological health of her newborn babies. Chlor-alkali plants are a major source of mercury pollution (which we are exposed to primarily through eating fish), even though only four of the plants in the United States still use a mercury-emitting technology. It's completely unnecessary, O'Neill argued, because the industry developed an alternative technology decades ago that does not use any mercury. Approximately 95 percent of chlor-alkali is produced using those newer processes, "diaphragm cell" and "membrane cell."
Said O'Neill: "For years now, we've tried waiting this problem out, allowing the chlor-alkali plants to switch over to mercury-free production methods on their own. It's time to stop waiting, and start requiring them to clean up their act, so as to reduce this serious and entirely unnecessary risk."
Full textYesterday, as the Executive Council for the Chesapeake Bay Program held its annual meeting, President Obama issued an Executive Order on Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration (a first), declaring the Chesapeake Bay a national treasure and signaling that EPA will play a strong role in leading Bay cleanup. For years, federal leadership on the Bay has been missing in action. President Obama's move is dramatic, and we dare to hope that this could be a turning point.
Full textCattle, chickens, and hogs create more than 500 million tons of manure in the United States annually -- three times more than the sanitary waste produced by people. Yet, in contrast to a concerted federal and state effort to fund and build sewage treatment plants since the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972, dealing with the water pollution problems caused by animal waste has been like wrestling a greased pig -- a stinky, frustrating mess.
Regulating agricultural waste in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has been no less frustrating than in any other area of the country. And it's no secret that nitrogen and phosphorous loadings from manure are killing the Bay. Recent developments in the Bay watershed, however, could signal a new direction on regulating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs -- factory farms) and the application of manure to cropland by farmers. An emerging coalition of 40 environmental groups -- from the smallest Riverkeeper to the National Wildlife Federation -- wrote a letter this week to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and the governors of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania (the primary states comprising the Chesapeake watershed) demanding comprehensive action on Bay pollution, including agricultural runoff (disclaimer: CPR advised the coalition on the letter). If EPA leads like it could, a cleaner Bay could move from dream to reality.
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The National Environmental Policy Act, which became law on January 1, 1970, is the oldest of the major federal environmental laws. It has been a model for environmental assessment laws in numerous states and other nations, but it still comes in for a lot of criticism at home.
Some criticisms are surely justified. As Dan pointed out here, NEPA has yet to fulfill the promise of its lofty goals. NEPA has never quite managed to make environmental impacts central to federal decisions at the conceptual level, the point where key choices are made about what initiatives to pursue and what priorities to assign. Predictions about environmental impacts or the effectiveness of mitigation are hardly ever later reviewed. And in too many cases, environmental analysis is simply used to paper over decisions that have effectively already been made; in those situations NEPA seems to impose costs and delays without any corresponding improvement in decisionmaking.
Nonetheless, NEPA remains an important and useful law. It drastically changes the political landscape by forcing agencies to publicly reveal the environmental costs of their planned actions.
Full textInterior Secretary Ken Salazar will mix it up with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show tomorrow (Thursday) night.
Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff told CNN that Salazar is looking forward to talking about "his work implementing President Obama's vision for building a clean energy economy and his efforts to protect America's treasured landscapes. Time permitting, of course, the Secretary will be glad to offer Stewart some fashion tips, including how best to sport a cowboy hat and bolo tie."
Salazar will be the first Interior Secretary to appear on the show. We'll check it out.
Full textThis post is written by CPR Member Scholars Dan Tarlock and Holly Doremus
How has the Department of Interior fared during the first 100 days? If history is any guide, the issue may be more important than many people assume. With one major and one minor exception, Secretaries of the Interior stay put in Democratic administrations. Franklin Lane served from 1913 until the last year of the Wilson Administration. Harold Ickes was FDR's only Secretary and he served until his 1945 registration in the Truman Administration. Stuart Udall served during the entire Kennedy and Johnson Administrations; Cecil Andrus did so under President Carter, and Bruce Babbitt lasted for the full two terms of Bill Clinton's tenure in office. Harry Truman is the exception, but he had only two secretaries during his nearly 8 years in office.
The short answer to the question is the record is mixed and the jury is still out, although the Department is moving away from some of policies of the Bush Administration DOI. Given the sorry record of the Department from 2000-2008, the improvement bar is a very low one. But the burden is still on the DOI and the relatively unknown Secretary Salazar to prove that it will adopt policies that are responsive to the unmet need for natural resource management grounded in science and 21stcentury economic realities.
Full textInside the Washington Beltway, we are awash in stories about President Obama's first 100 days. Some are comparative -- how is Obama doing in relationship to Franklin Roosevelt at the same point in his first term? Some are pure spin -- "[we're competent and we love each other!]" opines Rahm Emanuel, the obviously biased Obama chief of staff. And some are substantive -- has he kept his campaign promises and, if not, how many more miles does he have to go before he sleeps?
On the issues in our bailiwick, the President gets an "A" for effort, a "B" for execution, and an "incomplete" for the course as a whole.
Full textNever mind the unusual wave of intersex fish or the mutant frogs appearing in a waterway near you.
Earlier this week the Associated Press published the results of an investigation of pharmaceuticals in the nation's waters. The reporters found that U.S. drug companies have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways, including compounds such as: lithium, used to treat bipolar disorder; warfarin, a blood thinner also used as a rodenticide and pesticide; and tetracycline hydrochloride, an antibiotic. This investigation follows an equally disquieting finding published last year that trace amounts of pharmaceuticals were found in the drinking water of 24 major metropolitan areas.
Full textThis item is cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet.
Quite a bit, and most of the news is bad.
American Rivers has declared the Sacramento-San Joaquin the most endangered river in the United States.
The longfin smelt has been listed as threatened by the state, but it is not going to be federally listed, at least not yet.
Commercial salmon fishing off the California coast is one step closer to being formally closed for 2009.
And while late rains have increased water supplies, some farmers are still slated to get little or no water this summer.
Full textTomorrow, Tuesday, Frontline will air Poisoned Waters, a two-hour documentary on the continuing pollution of American waterways (9pm on many PBS stations; check your local listings). Having seen part of the program, I recommend it. Watching a bulldozer move chicken manure - much of which will end up in the Chesapeake Bay - and seeing filthy stormwater drains pouring into Puget Sound serve as stark reminders for why fighting for clean water matters.
Six-legged frogs swim in the Potomac River. The oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay is decimated, only two percent of what it was fifty years ago. Approximately 150,000 pounds of untreated toxins drain into Puget Sound every day. One large industrial hog farm produces the same amount of waste as a city the size of Philadelphia annually - and much of this waste runs off into our rivers. The ways our waters are in trouble go on and on.
Poisoned Waters reminds us that, while much has been done to clean up our waterways in the 37 years since the Clean Water Act was passed, much more must be done. Full text