Environment Archives - Page 40 of 106

With one more nail in its coffin, is Keystone XL history?

By Heather Smith, Grist

This past weekend, on June 29, TransCanada’s permit from the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission to build the Keystone XL pipeline quietly expired.

Well, sort of quietly. The Cowboy & Indian Alliance, which marched on Washington in opposition to Keystone XL earlier this year, held a celebratory buffalo roast at the Rosebud Sioux Spirit Camp and raised a flag with an image of a black snake cut into three parts.

The flag referenced an old prophecy about a black snake that would threaten the community’s land and water. Earlier interpretations had held that the snake was the railroad, and then the highway system. But when the plans for Keystone XL emerged, it seemed clear that, since both black snakes and Keystone XL traveled underground, this was definitely the black snake — or at the very least another one.

With South Dakota’s permit expired, Nebraska’s held up in litigation, and Montana blocked from the already-completed portions of Keystone XL in Kansas by South Dakota and Nebraska, the snake is cut up in three parts, at least for now.

The expired permit means that TransCanada will have to go through the application process all over again, facing a much more unified resistance than it did the first time around. The fracking boom in places like North Dakota will also make it much harder for TransCanada to argue — as it did the first time around — that Americans need Canadian crude so urgently that a Canadian pipeline company should be given powers of eminent domain to bring it here.

Keystone XL could still get built, of course. But as time goes on, and the date of the State Department’s yes/no ruling on it keeps getting pushed farther and farther into the future, it seems less and less likely.

KXL’s opponents shifted the balance of power by using many different tactics at once — massive national protests; small-scale civil disobedience along the path of the pipeline’s construction; and grassroots politicking and organizing at the local level by groups all along the pipeline’s proposed route.

The fight against the pipeline is a vindication of the “everything but the kitchen sink” school of organizing, where small groups — like the Cowboy & Indian Alliance — join forces with other organizations for large short-term events, but continue working solo on the kind of gradual, incremental struggles that take years. This is not the kind of organizing that makes it into the history books, because its story is complex and it often lacks obvious heroes. But it’s an approach that, at least in this case, is making history.

The Climate Guide To Governors

Thinkprogress.org

By Tiffany Germain, Guest Contributor and Ryan Koronowski on July 1, 2014

Climate denial runs rampant in the halls of Congress, with over 58 percent of congressional Republicans refusing to accept the reality of basic climate science. A new analysis from the CAP Action War Room reveals that half of America’s Republican governors agree with the anti-science caucus of Congress.

Click image to view detailed information on each state.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has made it clear through countless meetings with governors and state figures that the only way the new Clean Air Act regulations targeting carbon pollution will work is if the nation’s governors are on board.

Indeed, much of the progress that has already been made to address climate change and begin the switch from fossil fuels to clean energy started in the states. California has been busily implementing its cap-and-trade law, doubly approved by voters in 2010. It’s been going so well that recent auctions have sold out of permits, and its governor, Jerry Brown, is implementing the rest of the law fairly smoothly. California is so far ahead of the rest of the country that when Congress passed the Clean Air Act, it granted special authority to the Golden State so it could adopt even stronger fuel efficiency standards.

RGGI (pronounced “Reggie”) is the cap-and-trade program adopted by nine states in the northeast. Though it stalled at first, a simple correction last year lowered the cap and its last two auctions have been quite successful. This means that as those states seek to comply with the Clean Air Act regulations on power plant carbon pollution once they are finalized, it will be that much easier because their economies have already started to build in a cost of emitting carbon dioxide through RGGI. Most of their governors have taken additional steps to invest in energy efficiency and renewable power sources, but one of them, Maine Governor Paul LePage has denied the reality of climate change and stood in the way of clean energy development. Chris Christie actually pulled his state out of RGGI, and has rejected recent suggestions that rejoining the pact would be the easiest way for businesses to comply with the Clean Air Act carbon rule.

Governors who deny the science behind climate change can do significant damage to our nation’s environmental and public health protections. LePage has claimed that “scientists are divided on the subject,” when in actuality, less than 0.2 percent of published researchers reject global warming. During LePage’s tenure, he has argued that Maine could potentially benefit from the effects of climate change, vetoed legislation that would help the state prepare for extreme weather, and has attempted to dramatically reduce the states renewable energy standards to benefit large corporations. He also tried to sneak through a proposal that would exempt the state from certain anti-smog regulations, undoing protections that have been in place for almost 25 years. These views are wildly unpopular among his constituents –- a 2013 poll found that 85 percent of residents believe climate change is happening and 75 percent believe it’s the government’s responsibility to take action.

Meanwhile, Governor Rick Perry (R-Texas) has reiterated time and again that he’s “not afraid” to call himself a climate change denier. Yet his home state has suffered more climate-fueled disasters than any other, with an astounding 58 climate-fueled disaster declarations since just 2011. The ongoing severe and widespread drought has directly impacted the agriculture industry, which is one of the largest in Texas. 2011 was the driest year in state history, causing a record $7.62 billion in agricultural losses.

When asked if he believes in climate change, Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) replied “No.” “I have not been convinced.” Yet Florida is one of the first states that will feel the very severe impacts of climate change, as sea-level rise and severe storms threaten to wipe away popular tourist destinations along the coast. In fact, Rolling Stone reported that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has listed Miami as the number-one most vulnerable city worldwide in terms of property damage, with more than $416 billion in assets at risk to storm-related flooding and sea-level rise.

Fossil fuel interests have been funneling millions to Republican governors who are willing to block regulations that could potentially hurt their bottom line. In total, the fifteen governors who have denied climate change have taken $15,013,754 in campaign contributions from oil and gas over the course of their careers, with a large majority of that going to Gov. Perry. Republican governors who haven’t denied climate change have taken only $3,019,123. In contrast, all Democratic governors have taken a total of $1,403,940. That means that over 77 percent of all oil and gas contributions are being funneled to governors who are outspoken about their disbelief in climate science. On average, climate deniers have taken $1,072,397, while the remainder of governors have only taken an average of $126,373.

While the oil and gas industry is able to reap the benefits, local communities and taxpayers are suffering the dire long-term consequences. Combined, the states who are represented by climate deniers have suffered from 167 climate-fueled extreme weather events that required a presidential disaster declaration in 2011 and 2012. This has cost the federal government, and therefore taxpayers, almost $17 billion in cleanup costs.

Now, more than ever, governors will play a critical role in combating the impacts of climate change. While Congress has refused to move forward on any climate action plan, even voting 109 times last year alone to undermine environmental protections, some governors have pushed forward on their own. “Governors see the impacts of climate change first hand, and have a real understanding of the costs related to health, infrastructure, and their state’s economy,” said Ted Strickland, President of the Center for American Progress Action Fund and former governor of Ohio.

“If the U.S. is serious about being a leader in addressing climate change and taking advantage of the economic opportunity in clean energy and energy efficiency, it is going to be because states and governors lead the way. The only way the Clean Power Plan is successful is with governors getting on board, as many already have.”

Still, many governors will not be guiding their states to lower greenhouse gas emissions because they aren’t convinced carbon pollution is a bad thing, while actively discouraging strong renewable energy industries in their states.

Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Finishes River Otter, American Dipper Study in Elwha River Watershed

A river otter rests on a log in the Elwha River. Click the photo for more pictures from the three-year study. Photo: Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

Source: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe is wrapping up its four-year study on river otters and American dippers in the Elwha River watershed.

The tribe has been studying how the animals use the river for food and habitat and how those needs have been impacted by the recent removal of the river’s Elwha and Glines Canyon dams.

Since the early 20th century, the dams prevented salmon from spawning beyond the first five miles of the river, denying wildlife an important food source. The upper watershed also was deprived of the marine-derived nutrients that salmon carcasses provide to the surrounding ecosystem.

As the dams have been removed and salmon have been able to move upriver, the otters and dippers have been taking advantage of the new resources, said Kim Sager-Fradkin, the tribe’s wildlife biologist.

Between 2011 and 2014, blood, feather, toenail and tissue samples were collected for genetic and diet analysis. The tribe also tagged 11 otters with radio tracking devices and tagged 246 dippers with small leg bands to track migration patterns.

“Despite disruptive dam removal activities, at least one tagged otter continued to frequent areas around Glines Canyon Dam,” said Sager-Fradkin. “Sediment loads in the river, however, appeared to impact which areas of the river that otters used, with otters using more side channel, tributary and saltwater habitats during periods of high sediment loads in the river channel.“Overall though, we found most of them moving throughout the Elwha watershed and Strait of Juan de Fuca, from as far south as the Glines Canyon dam when it was still fully intact, to as far north and east as Port Angeles harbor.”

Dippers also used tributary and side channel habitats during dam removal and increased sediment loads in the river, she added.

Analyses of the animals’ diets showed that both otters and dippers are eating more marine-derived nutrients now than before the dams started to come down.

“Presumably this is either through direct consumption of salmon or through consumption of aquatic macroinvertebrates that have become enriched with marine-derived nutrients,” she said.

In addition, female dippers breeding in areas without salmon had worse body conditions compared to dippers breeding in areas with salmon. Also, adult dippers found in areas with salmon migration had higher survival than those in areas without salmon.

The Elwha Dam has been fully removed since 2013 and the Glines Canyon is expected to be fully removed by the end of 2014.

A Wonky Decision That Will Define the Future of Our Food

Governor Inslee Is Now Weighing the Acceptable Cancer Rate for Fish Eaters Against Business Concerns

By Ansel Herz, The Stranger

Washington State has two choices: a 10-times-higher rate of cancer among its population, particularly those who eat a lot of fish, or a bedraggled economy. That is, assuming you believe big business in the long-running and little-noticed debate over our “fish consumption rate,” a debate that Governor Jay Inslee is expected to settle, with significant consequence, within the next few weeks.

The phrase “fish consumption rate” sounds arcane and nerdy, for sure, but it really matters, and here’s why: There are a plethora of toxic chemicals—things like PCBs, arsenic, and mercury—that run off from our streets, into our waters, and then into the bodies of fish. The presence of those pollutants puts anyone who eats fish (especially Native American tribes and immigrants with fish-heavy diets) at higher risk of developing cancer.

Knowing this, the state uses an assumed fish consumption rate (FCR) to determine how great cancer risks to the general population are and, in turn, to set water-cleanliness standards that could help lower cancer rates. Currently, Washington’s official fish consumption rate is just 6.5 grams per day—less than an ounce of fish. Picture a tiny chunk of salmon that could fit on your fingertip. That’s how much fish the state officially believes you eat each day. But that number is based on data from 40 years ago. Everyone admits it’s dangerously low and woefully out of date.

Three years ago, Oregon raised its FCR up to 175 grams (imagine a filet of salmon), the highest in the nation. Now it’s up to Governor Inslee to update Washington’s FCR. Jaime Smith, a spokesperson for the governor, says he’ll make the final call in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, as with anything else, there are groups lobbying Inslee on either side. The business community—including heavyweights like Boeing, the aerospace machinists, local paper mills, the Washington Truckers Association, and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce—want our FCR to be lower. In a letter to Inslee on April 1, they warned that a higher FCR would result in “immeasurable incremental health benefits, and predictable economic turmoil.” In other words, the letter says, a one-in-a-million cancer risk for people who eat a lot of fish would hurt the economy, while a one-in-a-hundred-thousand risk is more reasonable.

Smith, the governor’s spokesperson, says the governor wants to raise the FCR in a way “that won’t cause undue harm to businesses. Obviously business has a stake in this.”

But, Smith says, “at the same time, we have people who eat a lot of fish.” Businesses have hired consultants who’ve painted worst-case scenarios, she explains, “that probably aren’t realistic.”

At the end of the day, does the governor’s office have any evidence that raising the fish consumption rate would actually kill jobs? “Not necessarily,” Smith says. She hinted that Inslee will raise the rate to a number close to Oregon’s.

In fact, businesses like the Northwest Pulp and Paper Association made the same dire predictions before Oregon increased its FCR to 175 grams per day. What happened? “We are not aware of any business that has closed that was directly attributable to those rules,” says Jennifer Wigal, a water quality program manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Were there job losses? “Not that I’m aware of,” she says. Broadly, Oregon employment rates have continued to trend upward since the recession, while the job availability in the paper and pulp industry, she says, has long been slowly declining.

Opposite the business community are Native American tribes, environmental groups, public-health experts, and the Seattle Human Rights Commission. (In a strongly worded March resolution, the commission said the state should raise its fish consumption rate to same level as Oregon’s.) Jim Peters, of the Squaxin Island Tribe, says the waters of Puget Sound, where tribal members have always fished, need to be better protected from pollutants. “It’s part of our life,” he says. “It’s part of our culture.” The tribes are “pro jobs,” Peters says, but “Boeing has been unwilling to come and talk with us.”

This is a defining moment for Inslee: Where he sets this number, the FCR, will send another signal about his willingness to stand up to Boeing (after his support of $8.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the company last year). It will also show whether or not he’s serious about following through on his commitments to do battle on behalf of the environment, promises he ran on. So keep an eye out. And in the meantime, says University of Washington public-health professor Bill Daniell, don’t eat the fish near Gas Works Park.

Can Canada’s indigenous communities stop Prime Minister Stephen Harper from turning the country into a petrostate?

foreignpolicy.com

VANCOUVER, Canada — On Canada’s western coast, where rain-forested mountains dip into gray-blue seas, the political anger is ready to explode. The indigenous people, whose ancestors have fished, hunted, and thrived here since the last ice age, are furious about an energy policy dreamed up in Ottawa that they fear could permanently damage their land and destroy their way of life.”Opponents can mock our love of our home as sentimental, but it won’t change what we feel,” the award-winning indigenous novelist Eden Robinson wrote recently in the Globe and Mail. “[T]he mood in our base is simmering fury.”

Robinson lives in Kitamaat Village, a small community some 400 miles north of Vancouver, near where the Kitimat River meets salt water. Its 700 indigenous inhabitants belong to the Haisla nation, one of 630 such recognized “First Nations” across Canada, which has called this coastal region home for thousands of years, going back to long before European settlers first arrived in the 18th century.

Lately the Haisla have had to reckon with a new unwelcome visitor: Calgary-based Enbridge, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel transporters. If the Northern Gateway project the company has been proposing for the past decade goes forward, a pipeline pumping 525,000 barrels per day of heavy crude from Alberta’s oil sands would end within walking distance of Robinson’s home. Tensions in her community are so high, she wrote, that “people will spit at you if they think you support Enbridge.”

It’s likely they will also spit at someone they think supports Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In June, his Conservative government approved the $7.3 billion Gateway project, which would ship oil across the Rocky Mountains to the Port of Kitimat, load it onto supertankers, and sell it for a premium to Asian markets. To reach the Pacific, supertankers must first navigate the winding Douglas Channel. In 2006, a provincial ferry crashed and sank in the channel, and people living in the nearby Gitga’at Nation village of Hartley Bay fear that history will repeat itself — but on a scale of environmental and cultural damage hard to fathom. They recently stretched a 2.8-mile crocheted rope in protest of Gateway across the Douglas Channel.

“Each stitch is shaped like a teardrop,” said blockade organizer Lynne Hill, “because this is a very emotional thing for us.”

For Harper, Gateway promises a $300 billion GDP boost and the prestige of achieving his most important foreign-policy goal, to remake Canada into a global “energy superpower.” But to many First Nations living along the pipeline’s 731-mile-long route, Gateway symbolizes “everything that people don’t want,” Robinson said.

They intend to fight the pipeline in court by arguing for legal authority over land they’ve lived on for millennia and never surrendered to the federal government. A landmark decision from Canada’s Supreme Court on June 26 may have brought groups like the Haisla one step closer to achieving that authority.

Tension between indigenous people and the pipeline project are nothing new. In 2006, Enbridge sent surveyors, chain saws in hand, into the ancient forest near Kitamaat Village to scout sites for an oil terminal. They felled 14 trees that bore living evidence of First Nations history: deep notches made by the Haisla hundreds, or perhaps even thousands, of years earlier. “We compared it to a thief breaking into your house and destroying one of your prized possessions,” Haisla Councilor Russell Ross Jr. told me in 2012.

The relationship between the Haisla First Nation and Enbridge only got worse. Five years after the tree-cutting incident, the company offered a $100,000 settlement, which was “almost an insult” in the opinion of Chief Councilor Ellis Ross, as he stated in a letter to Enbridge’s president. Even worse was Enbridge’s additional offer to make amends with a “cleansing feast.” If such a ceremony was practiced widely in Haisla culture, Ross wasn’t aware of it.

“I have never witnessed Haisla Nation Council initiate a cleansing feast and I doubt I ever will,” he wrote to the firm. “I would appreciate it if your company’s shallow understanding of our culture is kept out of our discussions.”

All along the Gateway route, Enbridge was making similar cultural flubs. These gaffes, along with a negotiating style Robinson described as heavy on “talking points” and light on listening, had by 2011 caused 130 First Nations across British Columbia and Alberta to oppose the project, many of them not even directly impacted by it. “If Enbridge has poked the hornet’s nest of aboriginal unrest,” Robinson wrote, “then the federal Conservatives, Stephen Harper’s government, has spent the last few years whacking it like a pinata.”

The whacks began coming after Harper’s Conservatives won their first-ever majority rule in 2011. Since then, his Conservative Party has made it easier to get oil and gas projects approved, has cut environmental protections, and has proposed contentious changes to indigenous education. “It’s felt like the Conservatives have just been hammering us with legislation,” Robinson said. Tension with the Conservatives are so widely felt among First Nations that in late 2012 there emerged a protest movement called Idle No More, whose sit-ins, rallies, and hunger strikes brought national attention to the cause of indigenous sovereignty.

This May, a United Nations envoy deemed native distrust of Harper a “continuing crisis.” On Gateway, Harper has done little to ease the problem. After the U.S. rejection in early 2012 of TransCanada’s Keystone XL, a pipeline that was supposed to link Alberta’s oil sands to Texas, the prime minister “expressed his profound disappointment” to U.S. President Barack Obama, Harper’s office said in a statement. A week later, at the World Economic Forum, Harper vowed to export oil to Asia instead. Projects like Gateway were now a “national priority,” he declared.

For Harper, the economics of the project provide good reason for its priority status. Enbridge estimates that, once completed, Gateway would boost Canada’s GDP by $300 billion over the next three decades. Ottawa alone stands to gain $36 billion in taxes and royalties. And there is the issue of Canada’s role in the world. One month after the World Economic Forum, in February 2012, Harper traveled to China, where an influential crowd of Chinese business executives that Canada is “an emerging energy superpower” eager to “sell our energy to people who want to buy our energy.”

While Harper delivered that pitch in Europe and Asia, his then-natural resources minister, Joe Oliver (now finance minister), was declaring war on Gateway opponents back at home. In an open letter, Oliver lashed out at the “environmental and other radical groups” that in their protests against the pipeline project “threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.”

It was a tactical stumble, wrote George Hoberg, a University of British Columbia professor who studies the Gateway standoff, that pushed “many moderates who were offended by the style of the attacks into strong opponents of the pipeline.” Oliver’s letter was mentioned again and again during two years of federal hearings on Gateway, for which 4,000 Canadians registered to speak.

By the time those hearings finished last December, Gateway had become one of the top political issues in Canada. Much credit for that is due to a sustained media campaign coordinated by British Columbia’s major green groups, which deliberately evoked memories of Exxon’s 1989 Valdez disaster. On the spill’s 20th anniversary in 2009, they declared a “No Tankers Day.”

“There will be a sacrifice we’re asked to make at some point, and the [ecological] damage will be permanent,” said Kai Nagata from the Dogwood Initiative, one of the leading groups in that campaign. “Nobody’s come up with a compelling argument about why we should accept those risks.”

The continual focus on Gateway’s risks — to one of North America’s vastest wildernesses and to the indigenous people living within it — allowed green groups to broker alliances with First Nations all along the pipeline route. They appeared together at joint press conferences and waged a two-front opposition to Gateway so effective that, by this June, nearly 70 percent of people in British Columbia opposed immediate federal approval of the project, according to a Bloomberg-Nanos poll.

“The reason why Gateway has become such a political albatross for Stephen Harper,” Nagata explained, “is he’s managed to find a way to align the majority of British Columbians with the majority of First Nations.” Not to mention Vancouver’s mayor, British Columbia’s premier, and Harper’s political opponents in Ottawa, all of whom have spoken out against the project.

None of that opposition has deterred the federal Conservatives, though. In mid-June Harper’s government officially approved Gateway, deeming it “in the public interest.” Within hours of the announcement, a coalition of almost 30 First Nations and tribal councils in British Columbia were vowing to “immediately go to court to vigorously pursue all lawful means to stop the Enbridge project,” and promising that “we will defend our territories whatever the costs may be.”

Unlike in the United States, where indigenous peoples were conquered and then settled on reservations, few along Gateway’s proposed route have ever surrendered territory. What power they actually wield over that territory is legally disputed. Yet a Supreme Court decision on June 26 granting land title to the Tsilhqot’in First Nation gives greater legal standing to native groups with unresolved land claims.

The consequences of that decision, as well as the autonomy it ultimately provides to indigenous people, will be decided if groups like the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, which represents eight First Nations across central British Columbia, challenge Gateway in court as unconstitutional. “What we’ll really be doing is testing our authority and our jurisdiction over the land,” said Terry Teegee, the council’s tribal chief. “It’s really hard to imagine this project going ahead.”

Enbridge is still confident. “We are prepared” for legal challenges, the company’s CEO, Al Monaco, said during a recent conference call, in which he contested the notion that people like Teegee speak on behalf of all First Nations. Monaco argued that 60 percent of indigenous people living along Gateway’s route in fact want to see it built (a claim called “ridiculous” by the Coastal First Nations group). Those court battles that First Nations do bring, in Monaco’s opinion, are likely to be resolved in Enbridge’s favor over the next 12 to 15 months. Gateway’s construction could begin shortly after. “This is not necessarily an endless process,” he said.

For indigenous people like Robinson, as well as the Unist’ot’en husband and wife now living in a wood cabin built intentionally along the pipeline’s path, the fight against Enbridge stands in for a larger cultural struggle. So long as companies and governments continue to view the rights of First Nations “as an impediment to getting what they want,” Robinson said, the struggle will surely continue.

Jennifer Castro/Flickr Creative Commons

Macklemore joins group demanding Duwamish river clean-up

by GARY CHITTIM / KING 5 News

SEATTLE – A newly formed group of community leaders who say they represent residents, Tribes, workers, fishing families and others, is demanding a better cleanup plan for the Duwamish River.

The group kicked off its “River for All” campaign with a new billboard on Highway 99 South where it crosses the Duwamish. It features their celebrity member, Seattle hip hop artist Macklemore.

Macklemore released a statement on his website, saying “We are Seattle. No bridge, boundaries or invisible man-made lines divide us. This is our home, our people and our community. This is our city’s only river.”

Group member BJ Cummings said the current plan proposed by the EPA properly addresses removal or capping of hot pockets of contamination in the river but calls for a natural recovery method for less contaminated sites. That depends on the river use its natural downriver migration of clean silt to cover the toxic areas over time.

Cummings said that is not good enough to protect the health of the residents along the Lower Duwamish who already face higher pollution exposure rates than most parts of the city.

The EPA is working on a response but has not issued it yet.

Resources

Duwamishcleanup.org

EPA Cleanup Plan

Win a kayaking trip with Macklemore

Unintentional state waiver lets FERC pre-empt state Coastal Zone rules

The Hydro Review

WASHINGTON, D.C.

06/26/2014

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued a declaratory order that FERC hydropower licensing under the Federal Power Act pre-empts state regulation under the Coastal Zone Management Act in an instance in which the state of Washington unintentionally waived its CZMA permit authority.

The June 19 ruling blocks a state-imposed stay of construction and allows work to begin on the 600-kW Admiralty Inlet Pilot tidal project (No. 12690) to be installed in Washington’s Puget Sound. FERC issued a hydrokinetic pilot project license to Admiralty Inlet on March 20. FERC and the state of Washington agreed in 2009 to coordinate procedures and schedules for reviewing hydrokinetic energy projects in state waters of Washington.

As a pre-requisite for FERC licensing, a state agency has six months from application in which to issue a shoreline management permit under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

While license applicant Snohomish County Public Utility District No. 1 filed a CZMA application with the Washington Department of Ecology in March 2012, Snohomish and Ecology advised FERC by joint letter in September 2012 that they had agreed to extend the state’s review period. However, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which administers the CZMA, found extension of the review period did not comply with federal regulations and, as a result, Ecology waived its CZMA authority.

In May 2014, Ecology issued a shoreline permit for Admiralty Inlet incorporating conditions set by Island County, Wash., under state CZMA regulations including a requirement that project construction be delayed until appeals of the permit are concluded.

“The district argues that this stay would prevent it from implementing the terms of its license, which authorizes immediate construction of the project after the commission grants the necessary pre-construction approvals,” FERC said. “Because Article 410 of the license and biological opinion require that construction can only occur during a work window of July 16 to October 14, the district argues that it could miss this work window and construction could be delayed by one to two years.”

FERC agreed to Snohomish PUD’s request for a declaratory order upholding Federal Power Act pre-emption of state regulation.

“Because Ecology waived its consistency certification under the CZMA, a Shoreline Permit under Washington’s Shoreline Act is no longer required as a matter of federal law,” the commission said. “Therefore, we grant the district’s petition and declare that the FPA pre-empts any supplementary or inconsistent state or local requirements under Washington’s Shoreline Act. The district need not comply with the state-imposed stay provision of condition 23 of its Shoreline Permit. To hold otherwise would be inconsistent with the FPA, because it would allow the state permit to stay a commission hydroelectric license.”

FERC noted that Snohomish has informed Ecology and Island County that it intends to comply voluntarily with all provisions of the shoreline permit except the stay of construction.

“As a general matter, the commission encourages licensees to comply with state and local requirements to the extent that they do not conflict with the commission’s requirements or frustrate the purposes of the FPA,” FERC said. “We recognize, however, that under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, federal law pre-empts state and local laws when Congress occupies the field by enacting comprehensive legislation that leaves no room for supplemental state or local regulation.”

“This is significant for licensees who attempt to implement license obligations but are barred or delayed by state and local regulatory authorities with standards that conflict with the license,” said Mike Swiger of law firm Van Ness Feldman, which represented Snohomish.

Subsea cable operator challenge pending

FERC said it would address in a subsequent order a challenge by Pacific Crossing, owner of PC-1, a subsea telecommunications cable linking the United States and Japan, to the licensing of Admiralty Inlet.

Pacific Crossing unit PC Landing Corp. previously requested rehearing of the licensing order, saying the project would pose a risk to its nearby fiber-optic cable in Washington’s Puget Sound.

FERC also denied a requested stay but said it would address a rehearing request by the Tulalip Tribes of Washington who contend the project would affect access to its fishing grounds.

Big Victory As Court Upholds Small Towns’ Right To Ban Fracking

New York Court of Appeals says local communities can ban controversial oil and gas drilling methods. such as fracking.

Perforating tools, used to create fractures in the rock, are lowered into one of six wells during a roughly two-week hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Corp. well pad near Mead, Colo. (AP/Brennan Linsley)

By Nadia Prupis, Mint Press News

In a victory for fracking opponents, towns in New York today won the right to ban oil and gas production operations from their communities. The ruling may have widespread effects on the drilling industry as towns continue to file moratoriums on the environmentally harmful process.

The decision sets a precedent for environmental activists in New York as more than 170 of the state’s other municipalities wait for legal action to be taken on anti-fracking measures in their communities as well. Towns in Colorado, Ohio, California, Pennsylvania and Texas are also beginning to pursue oil and gas production bans, public interest law firm Earthjustice reports.

The New York Court of Appeals ruled 5-2 that the communities of Dryden and Middlefield can use zoning laws to prohibit heavy industry within municipal borders. The decision rested in large part on preserving the quality of life and “small town character” of both towns, which are situated in rural areas of New York and have not been historically associated with the oil and gas industry.

Industrialization, particularly fracking, would “irreversibly overwhelm” the rural character of these communities, the court stated.

The seven-judge panel said that its ruling was not a statement on the safety of the controversial practice of fracking, but about the division of state and local government power.

“These appeals are not about whether hydrofracking is beneficial or detrimental to the economy, environment or energy needs of New York, and we pass no judgment on its merits,” Associate Judge Victoria Graffeo wrote for the majority opinion.

“These are major policy questions for the coordinate branches of government to resolve. The discrete issue before us, and the only one we resolve today, whether the State Legislature eliminated the home rule capacity of municipalities to pass zoning laws that exclude oil, gas and hydrofracking activities in order to preserve the existing character of their communities,” she said.

Still, many activist groups see the decision as a victory for the environment.

“The decision by the Court of Appeals has settled the matter once and for all across New York State and has sent a firm message to the oil and gas industry,” said Earthjustice managing attorney Deborah Goldberg.

Dryden recently garnered the attention of the natural gas industry for its proximity to the Marcellus Shale, a methane-heavy formation that covers large areas of land in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Middlefield, while not in shale territory, is primarily an agricultural community that was recently evaluated as a potential natural gas resource.

EarthFix Conversation: Is There Hope For Salmon In Northwest Cities?

Alan Yeakley is the director of the School of the Environment at Portland State University and co-author of Wild Salmonids in the Urbanizing Pacific Northwest. | credit: Courtesy of Portland State University

By Cassandra Profita, OPB

Swimming through cities is a fact of life for many salmon in the Northwest. With all their pavement and pollution, cities add to the challenges salmon face as they make their way to the ocean and back to their spawning grounds.

Alan Yeakley is the director of the School of the Environment at Portland State University and co-author of Wild Salmonids in the Urbanizing Pacific Northwest. The book sets out to answer a key question: Can wild salmon populations coexist with humans in urban areas?

EarthFix reporter Cassandra Profita sat down with Yeakley to talk about exactly why cities are such a problem for salmon and steelhead in the Northwest, and what urban-dwellers can do about it.

Cassandra Profita: Tell me what got you interested in this topic. I think of it as salmon in the city.

Alan Yeakley: When the focus has been so strongly and of course rightly so on the wild land areas, agricultural areas, forested areas, the hinterlands. That’s most of the land surface, the land area, but yet it has always been recognized that these fish have to go through these lethal urban areas. So, any fish going through the entire Willamette Basin has to go through Portland. Any fish going in the Columbia Basin has to at least go through the area between Portland and Vancouver, and with those toxics coming off the streets with the sediments coming in the higher temperatures that city environments create, it’s quite a challenge for fish to go through those areas and yet it represents such a large part of the Pacific Northwest that they have to pass through twice in their lifetime.

Profita: So, are you looking at what challenges salmonids have in urban environments?

Yeakley: Yes, they range across a whole suite of issues. And it ranges from physical impacts from sediment coming into the streams at higher rates coming off of our roads, the toxic elements that are coming in either from automobile exhaust or waste, or from fertilizer that people are applying to their yards, from industrial sites. Just all manner of – you know that toxic soup that is produced from cities that hits these streams.

Every time somebody steps on the brakes in their car – including me. Today I drove my car in so that had some impact on salmon. And we’re all doing this. We’re all having these tiny little impacts that add up. We know from copper in the brake pads that has a sub-lethal effect. In other words, it’s an effect that won’t kill the fish but it will reduce their ability to function, just having some presence of copper in the water that’s coming off those brake pads. So, these everyday practices that we do, watering our lawns too much so that the water doesn’t just soak into the lawn but goes out into the street and moves into the street, particularly if we put too many pesticides, herbicides or insecticides. The insecticides affect the insects in the stream and those insects are part of the salmon’s diet. So any extra insecticides we’re putting in our yards that go into the stream will then affect the fish. These are indirect effects, but they’re still effects.

Profita: Did you look into how salmonid populations are actually doing in urban environments? Did you look at their numbers?

Yeakley: From the city of Portland we work with Chris Prescott. He and others are doing comprehensive surveys of these salmonid populations. They do them on a routine basis every year. trying to understand population levels of salmonids. And recently Chris sent me some data about a month ago, actually, from some some encouraging results for native fish populations in Portland urban streams including salmonids that are on the uptick. So there are some encouraging results from Portland. There are also encouraging results from other cities such as Boise and Seattle and some of the other surrounding metropolitan areas in the Pacific Northwest in terms of some of the salmon numbers coming back. Of course, they’re not in any substantial numbers yet, but at least there is some presence of salmon in some of the area streams now.

Cassandra Profita: Can you tell what kinds of environments are seeing the uptick in salmon and what kinds of areas are not?”

Yeakley: “Yes, where municipal efforts have been most successful and most intense we’re seeing the best return. For instance in the Johnson Creek watershed, there have been a number of very large restoration sites, recovery sites that have been conducted by the city of Portland, the city of Gresham and with some help from other entities. All of these people working together have been able to recover stream segments’ entire floodplain areas, and that’s really notable so they’re to be lauded.

The big challenge, of course, is these habitats are not sufficient still to recover very large populations of salmonids. And they sometimes are not connected together well enough. So there will be a big stretch of nice habitat and then they’ll go through a concrete, very narrow concrete passage like an LA stream-type channel where you don’t have any riparian, any side channels, any overhanging vegetation. So it’s kind of like a Mario game where you have little stretches where the fish are really doing OK and suddenly it gets really tense again and the numbers are not going to not come back very strongly until we reconnect and get rid of some of these really lethal habitats that still remain in their path.

Profita: What have you found needs to change to accommodate fish in urban areas and what’s realistic?

Yeakley: The realistic question is really the challenge. Part of what needs to be done is just what municipalities like the city of Portland are already doing. It just needs to be continued. More of it. Because it’s working but it’s not sufficient for full recovery.

So that’s the first thing. We just need to continue what cities like Seattle, Portland and others are already doing. But then more needs to be done in the same area, so all the streams still in damaged conditions have lots of toxics going into them have lots of nearby homes that don’t have a lot of mitigation, a lot of bioswales or other retention ponds to intercept the pollutants as they come off these urban lawns. Those still need to be continually upgraded in terms of adding more interception of those toxic pollutants and more reduction of the toxic impacts of either the urban residents or of the commercial areas or industrial areas.

Alan Yeakley is the director of the School of the Environment at Portland State University and co-author of Wild Salmonids in the Urbanizing Pacific Northwest.

Obama Signs Northwest Lawmaker’s Bill For Toxic Algae Research

Algae bloom in the Pacifi Northwest. credit: Ashley Ahearn, 2012 — Algae bloom in the Pacific Northwest. credit: Ashley Ahearn, 2012

By David Steves, OPB

A Northwest lawmaker’s battle against toxic algae blooms won the support of President Barack Obama Monday, when he signed into law a bill aimed at controlling such outbreaks.

Oregon congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici and Florida Sen. Bill Nelson co-sponsored the bill, which authorizes $82 million dollars for new research meant to control toxic algae blooms nationwide.

The advocacy group Ocean Champions applauded the effort from Congress and the White House. The group’s president, David Wilmot, issued a statement saying it costs the nation about $100 million dollars a year to deal with toxic algal blooms.

Bonamici said during her floor testimony in the House that she got behind the legislation after learning that toxic algal blooms were leading to yearly die-offs of Dungeness crabs in Oregon. She also said climate change was making the problem worse.

Read Toxic Algal Blooms And Warming Waters: The Climate Connection

“This will become increasingly important as coastal populations increase and changes in the environment, such as warmer water temperatures, have the potential to alter the growth, toxicity and geographic distribution of algal blooms,” Bonamici told her House colleagues.

Northwest waters have been hit by a number of these outbreaks in recent years. Toxic algae has contaminated Washington’s Puget Sound and several lakes in Oregon, including Fern Ridge and Lost Creek reservoirs.

Algal blooms have also made shellfish unsafe to eat and have been harmful to salmon. Public health agencies have had to close beaches to shellfish harvesting and issued no-swimming restrictions for lakes in the Northwest because of such outbreaks.