Courtesy Environmental Protection Agency The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue water quality rules to uphold certain levels of fish consumption.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has told the State of Washington it intends to step in to develop a federal plan for the state’s human health water quality criteria as the state did not finalize a plan by year’s end, a deadline EPA gave the state last April.
The EPA’s rulemaking process, in part tied to the human fish consumption rate, will overlap the state’s potential timeline but preserves the EPA’s ability to propose a rule in case the state does not act in a timely manner, EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran wrote to Department of Ecology head Maia Bellon on December 18.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, the state must adopt standards that ensure rivers and major bodies of water are clean enough to support fish that are safe for humans to eat. Washington’s current standard assumes people eat just 6.5 grams of fish a day, or about one filet a month.
Tribal leaders with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, which represents 20 western Washington tribes, met with the EPA’s McLerran in September seeking to step in and set new water-quality rules for the state, after sending Washington Gov. Jay Inslee a letter expressing dissatisfaction with his proposed draft rule change last July.
Inslee’s draft rule would raise the fish consumption rate to 175 grams a day to protect people who eat one serving of fish per day, a figure that tribal leaders accept. But it has taken the state two years to work out the new draft rule in a political push-pull between business interests and human health advocates, which have each missed their own deadlines in the process.
Tribal leaders say they are also “deeply concerned” about a proposal privately advanced by Inslee that would allow a tenfold increase in allowable cancer risk under the law. The EPA letter asks Washington to explain why a change in the state’s long-standing cancer risk protection level is necessary.
The state’s draft rule is now expected in January, but since the EPA believes it can complete a proposed federal rule by August 2015, the state is looking at a limited time period in which to finalize its rulemaking process.
If not, the EPA is prepared to move forward with rulemaking that McLerran wrote considers the best science, and includes an assessment of downstream water protection, environmental justice, federal trust responsibility, and tribal treaty rights.
Members of the Tualatin Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited toss used Christmas trees into a side channel of the Necanicum River on the Oregon Coast. | credit: Michael Ellis
Most Christmas trees get kicked to the curb and ground up into mulch after the holidays. But a Portland-area conservation group is trying to change that.
The Tualatin Valley chapter of Trout Unlimited has found used Christmas trees make great salmon habitat when placed in coastal waterways.
Next month, they’re launching the third year of a program they call Christmas for Coho. They’ll collect used Christmas trees on three Saturdays in January and place them in the Necanicum River, coastal stream in northwest Oregon.
There, once submerged in water, the dying trees will take on a whole new life.
Michael Ellis, the group’s conservation director, said the trees provide valuable woody debris that salmon can use to hide from predators.
“It’s pretty incredible. We’ll be putting trees into the Necanicum River and you can actually observe fish flocking to these trees,” he said. “They’re just looking for this kind of cover.”
The trees also feed microorganisms that attract other critters for baby salmon to eat before they head out to sea.
Coho Sanctuary is one of the wetlands where the group has placed trees. Its owner captured underwater videos of young coho salmon swimming through the habitat.
Ellis said the group has found lamprey and other wildlife using the habitat, too.
“We’ve seen salamander egg masses being laid on the Christmas trees,” he said. “So we believe it’s really enriching the environment quite a bit for just about everything that uses the wetland. It’s pretty neat, really.”
Ellis’ group will be collecting used Christmas trees on January 3, 10 and 17 from 9 am to 4 p.m. at two fly-fishing shops: Northwest Fly Fishing Outfitters in Portland and Joel La Follette’s Royal Treatment in West Linn.
The group requests a $10 donation to cover the cost of transporting the trees.
SEATTLE (AP) – Greenhouse gas emissions in Washington state dropped by about 4.6 percent between 2010 and 2011, led by reductions in emissions from the electricity sector, a new state report shows.
The latest data shows that about 91.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide or its equivalent was released in 2011, compared to about 96.1 million metric tons the year before.
Emissions are on a downward trend, but still about 4 percent higher than in 1990.
The report comes as Gov. Jay Inslee is proposing sweeping policies to combat climate change, including a cap-and-trade program that would charge large industrial polluters for each metric ton of emissions they release.
Republican lawmakers say the cap-and-trade program would raise gas prices and hurt businesses and consumers. They say the state is already a low-carbon producing state because of its extensive hydropower, and that there are other, cheaper ways to reduce carbon pollution.
The state’s emissions have fluctuated each year, but overall have decreased since 2007, according to the inventory, which the Department of Ecology posted on its website last week. The agency is required to complete the report every two years.
The decline between 2007 and 2011 is due to actions the state has taken to reduce emissions, including requiring major utilities get a portion of their energy from renewable sources, said Hedia Adelsman, special assistant to Ecology Director Maia Bellon.
She noted that the state’s carbon emissions have grown from 1990 levels, when the state released about 88.4 million metric tons of carbon.
A state law requires Washington to reduce overall emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, make a 25 percent cut in 1990 levels by 2035, and make greater reductions by 2050.
“We still need to take action. We are making a lot of progress but there’s still work to do,” Adelsman said. “We need comprehensive policies to make sure we not only get to 2020 but 2035.”
Some leading Republicans have challenged that statute, calling them “non-binding goals.”
According to the report, yearly fluctuation is due in large part to changes in the state’s production of hydroelectricity.
A drought in 2010, for example, led to lower hydropower output that year, requiring utilities to buy more coal and natural gas power that release more carbon emissions than hydropower. In 2010, hydropower was running 60 percent, compared to about 73 percent in 2011.
Transportation made up the largest chunk of emissions with about 46 percent of the state’s emission, or roughly 42 million metric tons in 2011. On a per person basis, the state produces slightly less emission from on-road gasoline than the national average.
Tulalip fisheries technicians spawn female chum salmon at the tribes’ Bernie “Kai-Kai” Gobin Hatchery.
By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
Tribal and state co-managers continue to improve their ability to track hatchery salmon in the Snohomish watershed.
Both the Tulalip Tribes’ Bernie “Kai-Kai” Gobin Hatchery and the state’s Wallace River Hatchery recently installed new chillers to better mark hatchery chinook, coho and chum salmon.
“One hundred percent of all Tulalip chinook, coho and chum, and all regional chinook hatchery production, is now marked by location and brood year,” said Mike Crewson, Tulalip salmon enhancement scientist.
By altering the water temperature during incubation, hatchery managers can leave a distinct pattern on each fish’s otolith – a mineral structure often referred to as an ear bone, which accumulates daily rings. When fish return as adults, their otoliths are examined under a microscope to identify where and when they were released.
A portion of Snohomish regional hatchery fish also have coded-wire tags inserted into their snouts for identification in fisheries where otoliths are not examined. Also, adipose fins from most hatchery chinook and coho are clipped, which identifies them as hatchery fish but does not tell fishery managers where they are from.
While both of these methods can be expensive and hard on the fish, otolith marking is a cost-effective way to ensure that all the fish are marked and uniquely identifiable simply by changing the temperature of the water going to the eggs.
Tulalip also has hired additional staff and increased the number of returning fish that are sampled from the spawning grounds and in regional fisheries and hatcheries. Tribal technicians remove the heads of spawned-out fish in rivers and hatcheries, and from a representative number of the catch, and read the otoliths in the tribes’ stock assessment lab.
“We run all the otoliths for the entire area,” Crewson said. “It’s an important tool to assess straying and genetic risk and protect tribal treaty rights.”
Data show a significant reduction in hatchery strays since 2004 when 100 percent of the remaining hatchery chinook production was switched to the local native Skykomish River summer chinook broodstock.
“Our treaty fishing rights depend on these fish,” said Terry Williams, Tulalip’s fisheries and natural resources commissioner. “As long as natural production is limited by habitat loss and damage, we will need hatcheries.”
Richard Fox on his Skagit County property. On Tuesday a judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Fox and his wife, Marnie, challenging a rule that prevents them from drilling a well. The rule is meant to provide water for spawning salmon during dry months. | credit: Ashley Ahearn / KUOW
EVERETT, Wash. — A judge ruled against a couple Tuesday after they sued for the right to drill a well and build a new home on their property in Skagit County.
The case marks the latest battle in the ongoing fight over water rights in Washington’s Skagit River valley.
Snohomish County Superior Court Judge George Appel dismissed the case brought by property owners Richard and Marnie Fox. He told the couple that they can’t build a home on their property because they don’t have legal access to water.
That’s because of a 2001 rule that basically says there has to be enough water left in the Skagit River to protect spawning salmon
The courtroom was packed. There were a lot of people who had come in from rural parts of the county because this rule affects a lot of property owners. More than 450 property owners stand to have their property values decreased because of this rule — because they no longer have legal access to water.
Critics of the rule said they are calling on state legislators to reexamine this 2001 rule to see what can be done to reset the balance the interests of property owners with the interests of protecting fish.
Greenpeace via Reuters Greenpeace wanted to catch the eyes of those in power with this sign. But it caught attention for the wrong reasons, by damaging one of Peru’s most famous and precious archaeological sites.
Indian Country Today Media Network
The glaring yellow letters, urging respect for the environment, proclaimed, “Time for Change! The Future is Renewable.”
However, the very respect being demanded for the planet was not accorded to the Nazca Lines, an ancient UNESCO Heritage Site in Peru, by Greenpeace workers who tromped all around and upon one of the phantasmagorical figures depicted on the sacred site in order to plant their message.
While the banner did catch eyes, it did not do so for the reasons the environmental activists had hoped. Now the Peruvian government plans to file criminal charges against the environmental group for its irreversible destruction of one section of a national treasure. The delicate drawings, etched into the desert on Peru’s coast between 2,000 and 1,500 years ago, depict phantasmagorical figures such as a spider and a hummingbird—sketches that are now indeed accompanied by footprints and even an imprint of the letter “C” from the word “Greenpeace.”
“It’s a true slap in the face at everything Peruvians consider sacred,” said the country’s deputy culture minister, Luis Jaime Castillo, to the Associated Press. “They are absolutely fragile. They are black rocks on a white background. You walk there and the footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years. And the line that they have destroyed is the most visible and most recognized of all.”
The idea, Greenpeace said in an initial apology that expressed sorrow at the Peruvian people’s upset rather than remorse at having damaged the ancient site, was to catch the eye of delegates flying over the area en route to climate talks in Lima. Greenpeace’s volunteers had been “absolutely careful to protect the Nazca Lines,” Greenpeace spokeswoman Tina Loeffelbein told BBC News. But a photo taken by a drone and published in The New York Timesclearly shows footprints and even an imprint of the letter C in the area near the hummingbird.
Drone image of damage to Nazca Lines by Greenpeace message (Photo: Peru Ministry of Culture, via The New York Times)
Castillo told the Timesthat about a dozen activists trudged more than a mile through the desert to the forbidden area to place the letters. Greenpeace’s very attempt to mitigate any damage—by walking single file—may have exacerbated the damage, according to Castillo’s description.
“A bad step, a heavy step, what it does is that it marks the ground forever,” he told The New York Times. “There is no known technique to restore it the way it was.”
Greenpeace workers lay out letters for environmental message in delicate, and therefore restricted, territory in the Peruvian desert, damaging the famed Nazca Lines. (Photo: Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press)
Greenpeace has since released a second statement about the debacle.
“The decision to engage in this activity shows a complete disregard for the culture of Peru and the importance of protecting sacred sites everywhere. There is no apology sufficient enough to make up for this serious lack of judgment,” said Greenpeace U.S. Executive Director Annie Leonardon December 12. “I know my international colleagues who engaged in this activity did not do so with malice, but that doesn’t mitigate the result. It is a shame that all of Greenpeace must now bear.”
She acknowledged that the “Nazca Lines situation has undermined the trust of many allies and supporters that we have been working so hard to build” and promised to earn back that trust.
“I know it will take time and substantial effort to rebuild the trust we have lost, and I am committed to doing that,” Leonard said. “I am also committed to ensuring that those responsible are held accountable and that we put safeguards in place to ensure that nothing like this happens ever again.”
“We are not ready to accept apologies from anybody,” Castillo told The New York Times. “Let them apologize after they repair the damage.”
Richard Fox and his wife, Marnie, want to build a house and garage on their property near the Skagit River. The state says they can’t have access to the water necessary to approve their building permit. ASHLEY AHEARN
By Ashley Ahearn, Earthfix
SEDRO-WOOLLEY, Wash. — The house was going to be modest, 1,300 square feet with a big porch looking out over acres of fields. Next to it would be a garage with a caretaker’s apartment over it.
“I’m kind of an old guy already,” Richard Fox said, standing in the pouring rain on his property and gesturing to the spot where he and his wife’s dream retirement home was to be built. A handful of drenched cows looked on, vaguely curious.
“We’re not trying to break the law. We’re just trying to build a house. That’s all we’re trying to do,” he said. “Let us move on with our lives.”
Richard and Marnie Fox already have the plans in place. The well is drilled. The septic is in.
But Skagit County won’t issue them a building permit. By doing so, the county says, it would be violating a rule established in 2001 that says there has to be a certain amount of water left in the Skagit River to protect fish. And drilling more domestic wells like the Foxes’ will deplete the flow of the river.
The case will be heard Tuesday in Snohomish County Superior Court. The Washington Department of Ecology and the Swinomish Tribe are intervening in the case.
This is just the latest skirmish in an ongoing war over the future of water use in the Skagit River watershed. The Foxes are one of more than 450 homeowners who have been denied access to well water because of what is called the Instream Flow Rule. The rule established a water right for fish that trumps property owners who want to tap into groundwater reserves after the rule went into effect in 2001.
The rule has meant precipitous drops of up to 80 percent in property values for those 450-plus homeowners because the state has effectively invalidated their water rights.
For those landowners and other would-be developers in the area it’s a tough pill to swallow; especially when it’s pouring rain and there are flood warnings in place for the Skagit River.
For Richard Fox, it doesn’t help that his property has turned into a mini-lake. But that is not always the case. During the late summer months conditions here and elsewhere in the Skagit basin are dry. That’s when groundwater is a critical source of water for the Skagit and its tributaries. If more property owners, like the Foxes, are allowed to suck groundwater out via their wells, that will take water away from fish when they need it most, Ecology and the Swinomish Tribe assert.
During the drier parts of the year, groundwater can make up between 40 and 90 percent of the water in Skagit River tributaries (of which there are more than 2,000), according to research done by the Department of Ecology in preparation for the 2001 Instream Flow Rule. Other research from the U.S. Geological Survey supports those findings.
“This is the critical timing problem that we face,” said John Rose, a hydrogeologist with the Washington Department of Ecology. “We have these periods where the primary amount of inflow into our rivers is groundwater. It happens when we’re having the biggest drawdown due to human use and then right immediately afterwards, when we’re at the lowest levels, is when you have the fish runs.”
It may seem like an intractable problem, but Ecology has been exploring ways to offset the water usage of new development by installing rainwater catchment systems and trucking in water. Ecology is also speaking with hydropower operators on the river – Puget Sound Energy and Seattle City Light – to see about getting them to release more water from above the dams during those late summer months to accommodate the higher demand.
However, the dam operators have their own set of problems, as they face a future with less glacial runoff to supplement their reservoirs.
Rainwater catchment systems present an added cost for property owners, as do water truck deliveries.
“It’s just not necessary,” said Zachary Barbornias of Just Water Alliance. “Who’s going to pay for that?” Just Water Alliance has joined with Washington Realtors, the Building Industry Association of Washington, the Washington State Farm Bureau and others to petition the state to repeal the instream flow rule, arguing that Ecology’s proposed mitigation attempts are costly and “provide little or no actual benefit to instream resources.”
Zachary Barborinas is the head of the Just Water Alliance, which opposes the instream flow rule because it limits development. Credit: Ashley Ahearn.
“We support all of the habitat restoration that goes on and millions that are spent. We, as taxpayers, pay for that,” Barborinas said, “but Ecology at the same time should be setting aside water for people. That’s the bottom line.”
In 2006 Ecology brokered a deal with Skagit County that would have satisfied Barborinas and other landowners by changing water allocations in order to allow for development in the Skagit basin. The Swinomish Tribe sued Ecology, saying it had no right to change the rule to allow for any more wells. That battle went all the way to the State Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the Swinomish in October of last year.
The Fox case represents the next round in the ongoing legal battle between development interests and environmental interests in the Skagit watershed, and it is wearying for everyone.
“Washington State Supreme Court has ruled on this issue already,” said Larry Wasserman, referring to the 2013 State Supreme Court decision. Wasserman is the environmental policy director for the Swinomish Tribe, which is intervening in the Foxes’ case on Tuesday. He’s worked on this issue on behalf of the tribe for more than 20 years. “This is settled law and the science behind that rule and that law has been well established, well vetted and supported fully by the Washington Department of Ecology.”
The Swinomish and other tribes argue that the river has been depleted, bit by bit, as each new home or development has gone in over the years and no further groundwater depletion should be allowed.
“At some point you reach a point where any additional impact is too much,” Wasserman said. “And if we say, ‘Well just these 400 or 500 landowners’ [which would include the Foxes], what happens to the next landowner that comes along and makes the same argument, and the next one after that? The issue is we have an inadequate amount of water right now.”
The Swinomish Tribe and Ecology have both indicated that they will appeal if the court rules in favor of granting the Foxes a building permit on Tuesday. And so the fight will go on, with countless more dollars spent on legal fees by the state, the tribes and building interests.
“This is kind of ground zero for the state right now for water issues,” Barborinas said. State legislators have been meeting with interested parties in the Skagit to brainstorm possible legislative solutions to the water fight.
U.S. Geological Survey/AP Photo The mechanics of a subduction zone.
Terri Hansen, Indian Country Today
The Cascadia fault in the Pacific Northwest is locked up, meaning that a massive megathrust earthquake could occur at any time, seismologists are warning.
“It’s impossible to know exactly when the next Cascadia earthquake will occur,” said Evelyn Roeloffs of the U.S. Geological Survey, speaking last year on the 313th anniversary of a massive quake that hit in 1700—the last major one in the region. “We can’t be sure that it won’t be tomorrow, and we shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming we have decades to prepare.”
The tectonic plates normally glide and rub against each other, but periodically they become wedged together. When the fault quits sliding and becomes “locked” in place, it builds energy until it finally ruptures, relieving hundreds or thousands of years of stored-up stress in seconds, Roeloff said.
Now, earthquake scientists from Canada and the U.S. who monitor seismic activity along the Cascadia coast have concluded that the dangerous fault line is fully locked, which carries serious implications for an earthquake in the Pacific Northwest.
“What is extraordinary is that all of Cascadia is quiet,” University of Oregon geophysics professor Doug Toomey told the Associated Press earlier this month.
Research on the Cascadia Subduction Zone in 2012 and 2013 led researchers to similar conclusions.
A big unknown, Toomey told AP, is how much strain has accumulated since the plate boundary seized up, and how much more strain can build up before the fault rips and unleashes a possible magnitude 9.0 megaquake and tsunami.
“If there were low levels of offshore seismicity, then we could say some strain is being released by the smaller events,” Toomey told AP. “If it is completely locked, it means it is increasingly storing energy, and that has to be released at some point.”
Toomey said he is “very concerned” and said it is imperative that people in the Northwest continue to prepare for a big earthquake.
Cascadia’s Subduction Zone is a very long, very dangerous undersea fault that divides the Juan de Fuca oceanic and the North America continental plates. It runs from British Columbia down through Washington and Oregon and into northern California, as does a volcanic mountain range.
The fault has produced at least seven magnitude 9.0 or greater megathrust earthquakes in the past 3,500 years, a frequency that indicates a return time of 300 to 600 years.
The massive earthquake on the night of January 26, 1700, was one of the world’s largest. The Cascadia fault ruptured along a 680-mile stretch, from the middle of Vancouver Island to northern California, producing tremendous shaking and a huge tsunami that swept across the Pacific.
The oral history of the Makah Tribe in Washington tells of a huge earthquake that happened in the middle of the night long ago. Those who had heeded their elder’s advice to run for high ground survived. After spending a cold night in the hills with animals that also had fled the rushing waters, the survivors found that their village, along with neighboring coastal villages, had completely washed away, leaving no survivors.
Today it’s quite common to see cars backed into parking spaces in the tribal coastal villages in Washington so that in the event of a tsunami warning, drivers can make a fast getaway to higher ground. And at least one tribe, the Quileute Nation, is moving its coastal village away from the tsunami danger zone.
An emergency kit and plan are important first steps in being prepared. Download the Red Cross Earthquake Safety Checklist to learn more. Those with smart phones can text “GETQUAKE” to 90999 or search “Red Cross Earthquake” for their mobile app in the Apple App Store for iPhones or Google Play for Android.
Two tribes are among 16 communities across the U.S. designated by President Barack Obama as Climate Action Champions, “a diverse group of communities that are defining the frontier of ambitious climate action, and their approaches can serve as a model for other communities to follow,” the White House said on December 3.
The Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe of California and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians each won for a diversity of efforts in preventing, preparing for and adapting to climate change.
The designees “have considered their climate vulnerabilities and taken decisive action to cut carbon pollution and build resilience,” the Obama administration said. All were winners in a nationwide competition launched by the Department of Energy during the fall that was designed to identify and recognize climate leaders as well as provide them with federal support in mitigating and adapting to climate change.
The federally recognized Blue Lake Rancheriatribe of California created its climate action plan back in 2008, the White House said, calling it “a regional leader in strategically planning and implementing both climate resiliency and greenhouse gas reduction measures.”
Such measures include reducing energy consumption by 35 percent, committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2018, powering public buses with biodiesel fuel and adopting other energy-efficiency initiatives.
The tribe’s overall environmental programs date back to 1997, according to its website, and are rooted in a deep-seated sense of responsibility not only to its own lands but to those outside the borders.
“The Blue Lake Rancheria’s responsibility to protect the land does not stop at the boundaries of the Rancheria,” the tribe’s environmental pagesays. “The ancestors of Tribal Membership ranged all across the spectacular landscape of Northern California. Further, they had a relationship with the land that was immediate, personal, and binding—and that relationship continues through their descendants. Respect and stewardship of the environment is a powerful tenet of the Tribe’s philosophy and operations today.”
In Michigan, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians“demonstrates a holistic approach to climate action and preparedness through their energy strategy, emergency operations plan, integrated resource management plan, solid waste management plan, sustainable development code, and land use planning process, with ambitious goals including a net-zero energy goal,” the White House said. “The tribe aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by four percent per year.”
Sault Tribe Environmental Program Manager Kathie Brosemer credited the tribe’s diverse efforts in not only climate change but food security, emergency preparedness, waste reduction and other areas, she said in a statement.
“I am so proud of my administration’s Natural Resources, Health, Traditional Medicine, Housing, Law Enforcement, and Planning in pulling together our call to action to protect our Aki (Mother Earth),” said Tribal Chairperson Aaron Payment in the Sault Ste. Marie statement. “I appreciate the President recognizing our excellence.”
Each community will be mentored and coached by other experts from various federal programs, the White House statement said. In addition, each one will be assigned a coordinator to act as a liaison between the federal agencies, national organizations and foundations that are supporting the designees. The coordinator will also scout out and notify the champions of any funding and technical assistance that they are eligible for.
Such support includes tribal-focused technical assistance geared specifically toward the two designated communities. The two tribes will be eligible to participate in the DOE Office of Indian Energy Strategic Technical Assistance Response Team (START) program, which provides in-depth technical know-how. Other customized technical assistance will be offered as well, the administration said, along the lines of support for projects and programs that promote the development of clean, efficient energy.
Washington is going to witness “an assault by polluting industries” against efforts to reduce carbon pollution and retool the state’s economy around growth of clean energy, Gov. Jay Inslee warned a supportive Seattle audience on Friday.
Inslee: The polluters are coming, the polluters are coming
Inslee is preparing a four-day “agendathon” next week in which he will unveil education, transportation, pollution and tax proposals. He previewed his proposal, in populist tones, to a Washington Budget and Policy Center Conference.
The polluters — he didn’t name names — will “try to convince low income people that asthma is not a problem, that ocean acidification is not a problem,” Inslee charged. He warned that arguments by greenhouse gas emitters, perfected in California, will be deployed up the coast.
“The polluting industries are going to spend unlimited resources, unlimited dollars to convince you that unlimited pollution is a good idea,” Inslee exclaimed. ”You’re going to read the op-eds. You’re going to see the television commercials. It’s a bunch of malarkey.”
The governor’s remarks offered a prelude to what might become the state’s second seminal public battle over pollution and protecting its environment.
Republican Gov. Dan Evans went on a statewide television hookup in 1970, appealing over the heads of Republican and Democratic legislators who were blocking a package of laws that created the Washington Department of Ecology. Evans won the face off.
Four decades later, the state Republican Party is demonizing Inslee’s carbon-reduction program before it is even introduced. The GOP has raised the prospect of $1-a-gallon gasoline price increases. Such a gas price hike “is not going to happen,” Inslee said Friday.
The governor said his carbon reduction/energy program, which he will outline at REI’s Seattle store next Wednesday, is not just “happy granola.”
He will, said Inslee, present a program to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. “It is the law of this state that we reduce carbon pollution to 1990 levels by the year 2020,” Inslee said.
The program will include not-yet-specified incentives to “grow our economy, grow jobs and reduce economic inequality” in Inslee’s words. He has, as candidate, book coauthor (“Apollo’s Fire”) and governor touted clean energy industries as the 21st century’s path to economic growth.
Inslee talked of a recent meeting with inner city school students who live along the Duwamish Waterway, next to an industrial Superfund site and close by a freeway.
“What these students were showing was that there is an incredible increase in asthma the closer you get to the freeway,” Inslee said.
“We don’t find many high tech millionaires living next to freeways and large industrial areas” — Gov. Inslee. The Duwamish River, an EPA Superfund site, pictured from the air. Photo by Paul Joseph Brown, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The governor argued that all forms of pollution hit hardest at low-income residents. “We don’t find many high tech millionaires living next to freeways and large industrial areas,” said Inslee.
The governor even evoked forest fires — increasing in scope and intensity with global warming — as a source of pollution that hurts the poor. He made specific reference to the 230,000-acre Carelton Complex fire in north-central Washington last summer.
“You know who is really suffering in the Okanogan Valley right now? It’s the low-income folk,” said Inslee.
(Several of the governor’s most prominent “green” contributors have summer homes in the Methow Valley upriver from the scene of the fires.)
The passion in Inslee is genuine, a conservationist ethic that began when his biology teacher father took him to Carkeek Park and explained the life cycle of a clam. The governor has warned of ocean acidification and its danger to the state’s $300 million-a-year shellfish industry.
At the same time, however, a Republican-controlled state Senate will have great influence over his agenda. The “green” color of Seattle-area technology firms is balanced by refineries, railroads, industrial ports and resource industries.
Republican State Sen. Baumgartner: Warns against tax, revenue proposals that would disrupt economic recovery.
Just before Inslee went on, state Sen. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, warned the liberal audience that the state faces difficult choices and flagged opposition to any proposals that would hurt the state’s business climate.
Inslee can take hope in results of a new statewide business poll, conducted for Gallatin Public Affairs and the Downtown Seattle Association.
A majority of likely voters, at 53.7 percent, said it would support a tax on carbon if the levy is offset by lower sales and business taxes, with only 32.6 percent opposed.
A California-style cap and trade approach, a “free enterprise” solution once lauded by Republicans — but now decried as “cap and tax” by such figures as Sarah Palin — was favored by 51.4 percent of those surveyed.
Inslee is set on framing the statewide debate.
At one point Friday, he declared: “What we can’t tell these (low-income) kids is they are going to have to swallow asthma.”
