Environment Archives - Page 41 of 107

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

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.

First Nations ceremonial shaming rite targeted at federal government

An ancient First Nations ritual steeped in symbolism is going to take place in the nation’s capital this summer.

by Carlito Pablo on Jun 25, 2014, Straight.com, Vancouver BC

First Nations carver Beau Dick says a copper shield, like the one he holds, will be shattered in Ottawa in a symbolic gesture of anguish.Carlito Pablo — First Nations carver Beau Dick says a copper shield, like the one he holds, will be shattered in Ottawa in a symbolic gesture of anguish.
Carlito Pablo

A copper shield will be smashed on Parliament Hill, an act believed never to have been done before in Ottawa. Called copper cutting, the ceremonial shaming practice will evoke what many consider to be a broken relationship between the federal government and Canada’s aboriginal people.

“Our coppers are a symbol of justice, a symbol of truth, a symbol of balance,” according to Beau Dick, a renowned carver from Vancouver Island’s Namgis First Nation.

At his UBC studio, the resident artist in the department of art history, visual art, and theory explained that breaking copper constituted an insult in old times.

“It is banishment. It is an expression of extreme disappointment and anguish,” Dick explained to the Georgia Straight.

The ritual, indigenous to Natives of the Pacific Northwest, had not been practised for decades until the 59-year-old artist revived it last year.

After marching for a week from the northern tip of Vancouver Island with relatives and supporters, Dick shattered a copper shield in front of the B.C. legislature in Victoria on February 10, 2013.

During a gathering at UBC later last year to celebrate his artist residency, the idea was born to perform the ceremony in Ottawa. One of those present at that social event was Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw. Also a famous carver, Guujaaw is a former president of the Council of the Haida Nation.

When aboriginal representatives meet on Parliament Hill on July 27 for the shaming ceremony, it will be Haida copper that will be split.

“We’re facing a federal government here that has shown total disregard for the environment, for the wildlife, for the people of the coast, and we want to express that in the best way that we can and that’s in the breaking of the copper,” Guujaaw told the Straight in a phone interview.

Foremost among the grievances is Ottawa’s recent approval of Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway oil pipeline, a $7.9-billion project that has divided First Nations in B.C.

“It’s a one-show pony over there. They’re only interested in oil,” Guujaaw noted.

The Haida artist also mentioned cutbacks to Fisheries and Oceans Canada undermining the conservation of marine resources that many Native groups rely upon for food and cultural purposes. Guujaaw said he doesn’t expect anything to change on the part of the government anytime soon.

As to what aboriginal people want to put across to Ottawa, Guujaaw said: “The message will be the ceremony.”

In the past, copper was a marker of Native wealth and status, according to Eldon Yellowhorn, chair of SFU’s department of First Nations studies. When chiefs held a potlatch, the metal was given as a gift, said Yellowhorn, who hails from Alberta’s Piikani First Nation.

Although the planned breaking of copper may be symbolic, he noted that it’s indicative of Native sentiment about processes around projects such as oil pipelines. “Many of them feel that they haven’t been consulted,” Yellowhorn told the Straight by phone, “so I’m sure this is a way of illustrating to the government that they’re not pleased.”

Like broken metal, frayed relationships can be restored, but there should be amends, according to Dick. “There has to be atonement,” he said.

On Wednesday (July 2), Dick and Guujaaw will meet at the UBC First Nations House of Learning for ceremonies to kick-start a cross-country journey to Ottawa. Dick’s five-year-old grandson and an almost 90-year-old aunt are coming along.

“We as a First Nation group want to move forward together in unity with our fellow men to create a better world,” Dick said. “I think that this is where we start this notion of reconciliation and unity.”

Field Notes: a Visit to Lummi Nation’s Sacred Summit and the Protection of the Salish Sea

By Ana Chamgoulova, Summer Law Student Volunteer at West Coast Environmental Law, 25 June, 2014

The 10 day Water Festival hosted by The Lummi Nation of Washington State wrapped up on June 22nd. I had the opportunity to attend part of the festival, along with another law student volunteer and WCEL Staff Lawyer, Eugene Kung. The part we were present for was the Stommish Sacred Summit, which consisted of a day of presentations on the topic of Sacred Obligations, a talk by Winona LaDuke, and a rally against a proposed coal port in the Salish Sea. These events hold great relevance for the environmental movement and the fight against fossil fuel projects in Canada.

The Lummi are Coast Salish people, whose combined traditional territory stretches throughout the Pacific Northwest, from the northern limits of the Strait of Georgia through Puget Sound (together known as the Salish Sea), and covers present-day Vancouver, Victoria and Seattle. The Lummi have close trade, cultural and family ties with Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and Musqueum, the Coast Salish First Nations that may be more familiar to the Canadian audience. The Oregon Treaty of 1846, which set the present-day Canada-USA boundary, determined their divergent courses of history. And yet, as my fellow law student volunteer Elizabeth Zarpa put it:

Their lineage and kinship with other Coast Salish nations stretches across international boundaries here in Canada. The struggles which they face against natural resource companies imposing pipelines, railways and tankers throughout their territories is similar to what other First Nations in Canada experience.

Stommish Sacred Summit

The Water Festival includes such events as a film festival, canoe races, a carnival and the Sacred Summit, and it is part of the cultural revitalization efforts by the Lummi Nation. The Sacred Summit in particular was organized in accordance with the Lummi traditional laws, opening with a prayer and selection of prominent community members to act as witnesses. I am personally always honoured and excited to attend such events, because of the palpable resilience and sacredness of Indigenous traditions. It helps that there is usually bannock being served.
The day’s events were held in a giant longhouse supported with massive cedar trunks, some of which have been carved into beautiful totem poles.

The day began with welcomings from elected council member Jay Julius and Hereditary Chief Tsilixw. Despite the two representing different sources of leadership, one from a Tribal Council established by the United States government and the other from a traditional system of governance, they both spoke about the sacred obligation to protect the environment in their traditional territory. To them, the environment is not something external to human life, but is the source of their livelihood. Lummi have survived and thrived off of salmon, clams, mussels and other seafood abundant throughout the Salish Sea since time immemorial.

Resource extraction projects would inevitably contaminate the coastal waters and the seafood and so they would threaten the very way of life of the Lummi. The idea of protecting the environment is not just rhetoric for them, but is a matter of survival and sacred duty. We also heard from Jewell James, who Environmental Law Alert readers may remember as the master carver and spiritual leader that gifted a totem pole to the Tsleil-Waututh as a symbol of solidarity among Coast Salish Nations opposing destructive fossil fuel projects.

The Canadian Connection

The cross-border links became even more obvious when the two Canadian guests spoke: Rueben George, the Sundance Chief of Tsleil-Waututh, and Eugene Kung, staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law. Rueben spoke of the shared culture of the Lummi and Tsleil-Waututh. Despite the many years of being separated by an international border, their shared understanding of the responsibility for the environment persists. For the Tsleil-Waututh, the idea of sacred obligations to the environment found expression in the Sacred Trust Initiative, whose goal is stopping the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. Their resistance was motivated by their experience with the existing pipeline, which has had four major leaks since 2005. Because of this and other industrial developments in the Burrard Inlet, it has been harder and harder for the Tsleil-Waututh to practice their traditional way of life. Rueben doesn’t want this to happen to the Lummi, and he encouraged them to keep up their fight against the local resource extraction projects.

Eugene then spoke more specifically about the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion proposal, the flawed National Energy Board process, and the legal aspects of the resistance to this project. This Canadian project is important for the Lummi, because the tanker traffic, set to increase to 400 tankers a year, would cross their territory and threaten their water as well.

The environment transcends national borders, contaminants transcend national borders, just as the environmental movements and the Coast Salish culture should transcend national borders. Eugene also explained how strong indigenous laws can help the greater environmental movement through such legal tools as the duty to consult and accommodate where Aboriginal rights and title are involved.

Coal Port at Cherry Point

The Lummi are facing their own fossil fuel project: a proposal to build a deep-water marine terminal at Cherry Point, which would become North America’s largest coal port, exporting up to 54 million dry metric tons per year. The project got off to a rocky start with the Lummi Nation, when in 2011 the company behind the proposal failed to obtain government permits for some preliminary work but went ahead with it anyway and ended up disturbing an ancient burial site. Now, as the Sacred Trust Initiative reports, “The Lummi Nation is concerned not only about the destruction of their sacred sites, but also about the deterioration in air quality and contamination of water and soil as a result of fugitive coal dust dispersal. Shipping of coal could also have devastating impacts on fishing and fishing rights along the Washington coast.” The Lummi do have a strong legal case based on treaty fishing rights, so much so that the US Army Corps of Engineers considered denying permits for the proposal based solely on their opposition.

Getting Out of the Fossil Fuel Economy

The highlight of the Sacred Summit for me was a very inspiring talk by Winona LaDuke, an internationally renowned Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) activist. People from all over Whatcom County, Bellingham and Seattle joined us for her talk. Environmental work can sometimes feel like a game of whac-a-mole, with a new pipeline or coal mine or refinery being proposed every few months. We live in the fossil fuel age, from the car-friendly infrastructure of our cities to the policies and subsidies our governments use to promote an oil-based economy. Ms. LaDuke reminded us of the bigger picture, of the dangers posed by climate change, of the inevitable end to big oil. We should be aiming for a graceful transition instead of a catastrophic crash, and we should do it as soon as possible. Every pipeline that we stop should give our governments pause about their energy policies. Every renewable energy project and conservation measure will decrease our own dependence on fossil fuels.

The WCEL delegation at the end of a long day, left to right: Ana Chamgoulova, Elizabeth Zarpa and Eugene Kung

The evening wrapped up by calling forward the witnesses, who gave their reflections on the evening. Their job throughout the day was to make sure everything was done properly, and their reflections legitimized the event according to traditional Lummi law. I could feel the significance of following protocol and doing things property in this great longhouse, and how the Lummi drew strength from the thousands of years of history so they can continue to fulfill their sacred obligations.

West Coast Environmental Law has long been working within the Canadian legal system to advance and uphold indigenous laws to protect the environment. This trip gave me a more international perspective on our work and reminded me that there are a lot of people – Aboriginal and not – fighting for a better world. This Earth is of all of our home.

By Ana Chamgoulova, Summer Law Student Volunteer at West Coast Environmental Law

Capitalizing on Fear

by Jay Taber on June 30, 2014, Intercontinental Cry

Tea Party Terrorists, published 29 April 2013 at IC Magazine, notes that in Whatcom County, Washington, “Wise Use ideology and anti-Indian rhetoric today — as the Tea Party and Wise Use hate entrepreneurs try to capitalize on fear over water rights and anxiety over economic salvation by the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal — again threaten to throw the region into turmoil.” Written shortly after the Anti-Indian Conference, promoted on KGMI radio by Tea Party leader Kris Halterman, and organized by anti-Indian activist Skip Richards, the concern about organized racism entering the electoral arena was a valid one.

Hate For Hire, published 27 April 2013 at IC Magazine, notes a special report by Charles Tanner that includes revelation of a scheme by anti-Indian organizers at the conference to finance a hate campaign against the Lummi Nation, using funding by the consortium behind Gateway Pacific Terminal. While the Anti-Indian Strategy by KGMI to drum up resentment against Lummi Nation was a vital vehicle for promoting the hate campaign, it was the insertion of monies from the Gateway Pacific Terminal consortium that would provide the fuel.

Anti-Indian Power, published 18 April 2013 at IC Magazine, notes that the Anti-Indian Movement infrastructure of national umbrella organizations like Citizens Equal Rights Alliance (CERA) — the conference sponsor — is effective when paired with local anti-Indian groups. In Whatcom County, those groups include Citizens Alliance for Property Rights (CAPR) and the Tea Party.

Coalgate: The Gateway Pacific Terminal Scandal, published 23 February 2014 at IC Magazine, notes that CERA celebrity Philip Brendale — speaking at the April 2013 conference — offered his non-profit to serve as a conduit for coal company monies, which in turn could be used for an attack on Lummi Nation and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians that are opposing Gateway Pacific Terminal. As Brendale put it, this would enable them to, “take these tribes down.”

In August and September 2013, Tea Party leader and KGMI radio host Kris Halterman established the Save Whatcom and Whatcom First PACs with $149,000 from the Gateway Pacific Terminal consortium. Further funds from the consortium for the Tea Party slate followed in November, after being laundered through the Washington Republican Party. In October and November 2013, Craig Cole was appointed by Gateway Pacific Terminal developer SSA Marine to lead Team Whatcom in supporting the Tea Party slate.

As noted in Hubris Syndrome, published 26 February 2014 at Public Good Project, Cole may actually believe there is a media conspiracy out to get him. If that is so, it is hard to say how reckless he might become.

The Politics of Land and Bigotry, published 14 February 2014 at IC Magazine, notes that “the Wall Street/Tea Party convergence is counting on intimidation and thuggery to maintain power and privileges based on wealth and race.” Unless moral authorities once again step forward to protect activists and journalists who support Coast Salish nations in their quest to save the Salish Sea, threats like Craig Cole’s will be emulated by the Tea Party and Christian Right.

Breaking News – Climate Activists Blockade Oil Terminal, Demand Halt to Crude-By-Rail traffic in Pacific Northwest

By: Global Justice Ecology Project

PORTLAND–This morning, climate justice activists with Portland Rising Tide shut down the ArcLogistics crude oil terminal in Northwest Portland.

Portland resident Irene Majorie, 22, locked herself to a 55-gallon barrel filled with concrete that was placed on the railroad track leading into the facility. Train cars enter from a nearby yard to offload oil into 84 storage tanks, before it is piped onto oceangoing ships bound for West Coast refineries.

Majorie’s arm is locked to a piece of metal rebar embedded in the Attempts by law enforcement to move her and the barrel simultaneously would likely result in grave injury; likewise, any train traffic would threaten her life.

Irene Majorie this morning

“This is about stopping the oil trains,” said Majorie. “But beyond that, it is about an industry and an economic system that places the pursuit of profit before the lives and relationships of human beings seeking survival
and nourishment, and before the communities, ecosystems, and planet of which we are a part.”

Oil trains are coming under increasing scrutiny recently owing to their propensity to derail in fiery explosions. Portland Rising Tide, however, disputes the notion that an oil train is ever safe, since crude oil is only transported to be burned. Whatever the risk of explosion, the guaranteed result is a worsening of the climate crisis, which is already wreaking ecological havoc and claiming human lives.

US crude oil production has risen from ~5 million barrels per day in the late 2000s to ~7 million barrels per day currently. Increased extraction is North Dakota’s Bakken Shale has resulted in a dramatic rise in oil train traffic, with 250% more oil trains traveling Oregon rail lines in 2013 than in the previous year. Governor Kitzhaber has expressed “deep concern” about oil trains but thus far done nothing to stop them.

“Society should be engaged in a rapid, radical decline in fossil fuel use,” said David Bennett. “Instead, policymakers—even those who claim to understand the magnitude of the climate crisis—are forcing us to engage in an absurd conversation about creating ‘safe’ oil trains and building more fossil fuel infrastructure.”

The ArcLogistics terminal, which began operation in January, is one piece of infrastructure facilitating increased oil production. When ongoing construction is completed, the facility will have the capacity to transport 16,250 barrels of oil per day.

In April, Portland Rising Tide entered the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s offices in downtown Portland, issued termination letters to employees at their desks, and announced the formation of a new People’s Agency, which would carry out DEQ’s mandate free of corporate influence. This is the first enforcement action of the nascent agency.

“If our policymakers listened, we would demand an immediate halt to oil train traffic in Oregon and the closure of all crude oil terminals,” said Emma Gould. “Since they don’t, we’re halting oil trains ourselves.”

Activists at the ArcLogistics crude oil terminal in Northwest Portland today.

Could An Alliance Of Tribes And Farmers Solve Klamath’s Water Woes?

The Klamath Basin spans northern California and southern Oregon and has seen frequent water crises between the farming, ranching, tribal and environmental communities. | credit: Devan Schwartz

By Devan Schwartz, OPB

A second straight year of water shutoffs in the arid Klamath Basin is drying up ranchland and forcing many ranchers to sell their cattle early.

But the water woes have created an unlikely alliance that could lead to a historic solution.

Scott White is the Klamath Basin watermaster. He has the difficult task of telling ranchers to turn off the water they use for cattle and crops.

“It was probably one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to do – it was a terrible feeling,” said White.

After decades of court wrangling, state water rights became enforceable in the Klamath Basin last year.

Klamath Basin Water Rights

This is how it plays out. Those with the oldest rights make a call to the state of Oregon for the amount of water they’re legally granted. Until those amounts are met, the watermaster shuts off so-called junior water users.

“It was extremely difficult when you’re driving up and down doing your follow-up and seeing all those fields dry up and folks aren’t out working the fields,” White said.

In drought years like last year and this year, that means a lot of spigots turned off, a lot of fields going dry.

So who are the senior water users? In the Klamath Basin, it’s two main parties: a group of farmers from a federal agricultural project and the Klamath Tribes.

When project farmers make a call, water is diverted from Upper Klamath Lake to fields of onions, potatoes, mint, horseradish and grains.

Tribal water rights are a different story. Their water is kept in tributaries to the lake rather than going to ranches. That extra water is meant to improve stream health for fishing and gathering on former tribal lands.

Don Gentry, chairman of the Klamath Tribes, says the long-term goal is restoring waterways for the return of salmon. Four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River have blocked salmon passage for nearly 100 years.

Don Gentry

“I’m always aware of the fact that we don’t have salmon up here anymore,” Genry said. “A number of our tribal members, elders, people that have gone on and aren’t with us here today, talk about the importance of those fisheries and where they caught the fish at.”

2001: A Bad Year In The Klamath Basin

In the flashpoint summer of 2001, the tribes and farmers were in strong opposition. The government kept water in the river system to support fish while project farmers saw their irrigation water shut off.

The bad blood ran deep — with threats of violence and antagonistic signs lining the highway.

For a long time, the tribes and farmers say they could barely sit down at the same table. Now they’re more united than ever.

Both groups support a bill that would remove the Klamath River dams, stabilize the basin’s water supplies and do wide-scale environmental restoration.

Gentry sees great upsides for the tribes. “We really believe that what we’ve built into this is going to help us immeasurably to restore our fish,” he said.

Greg Addington represents Klamath Project farmers. He says the bill would benefit many Klamath Basin stakeholders who joined an agreement to make it happen.

The Klamath Agreements

“This agreement doesn’t make more water,” Addington said. “What it does is it gives people more certainty. So, we’d be knowing early in the season what our amount of water is so that we would avoid involuntary shortages — and that’s really the big thing.”

Addington says the Klamath Tribes made the first move in their partnership. “They were the ones also that came to the table and said, ‘Look, there’s a better way — and a way to share water.’”

Many ranchers were holdouts. They hoped to be awarded the best water rights. When the tribes and the project farmers prevailed, the incentive to stay outside the tent evaporated.

Support for the legislation now includes a majority of those ranchers. So even in a drought year with widespread water shutoffs in the Klamath Basin, there’s hope for a solution.

An Unprecedented Environmental Solution?

Experts say that solution would have historical and ecological significance. This includes Michael Hughes, who directs the environmental sciences program at Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls, Oregon.

Waterfowl at Klamath Lake. Credit: Flickr

“This has never happened in our country — and to my knowledge it hasn’t happened anywhere in the world,” Hughes said.

He argues that the Klamath Basin’s natural resource challenges are more complex than any in the nation’s history. That includes Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River Delta, the Colorado River, or even the Columbia River here in the Northwest.

“Each of them is overshadowed in some way or another by what’s happening in the Klamath,” he said.

No Easy Path For Solving Klamath’s Water Woes

Solving the Klamath Basin’s water woes would be a major accomplishment. And even with some momentum, it remains a difficult one.

A related bill was introduced in Congress in 2011, but it didn’t go anywhere. An updated, more economical version — still about a half billion dollars — is headed for a likely Senate vote this year. It carries support from all four of Oregon and California’s senators.

But the hurdle of a divided Congress remains a very real one. Some conservation groups say the bill doesn’t go far enough for parched wildlife refuges in the Klamath Basin. And some ranchers are still fighting in court for better water rights.

In the meantime, watermaster Scott White will keep telling water users to turn off their spigots.

White says he wishes the situation was different — whether through a political solution or even a few more rainstorms.

“If I could put something on my wish-list, the next 10 years would be extremely wet,” White said. “I can’t remember the last time I got a phone call complaining about too much water.”

NOAA to consider taking humpback whales off endangered list

By YERETH ROSEN yereth@alaskadispatch.com

June 25, 2014 Alaska Dispatch

Alaska’s humpback whales came a step closer to moving off the endangered species list this week when an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a positive initial finding on the merits of the state’s petition to delist a population of the marine mammals.

On Wednesday, NOAA Fisheries announced a positive finding, which means the agency “has determined that the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted,” said a release on the finding.

The State of Alaska petitioned the agency in February to delist the central north Pacific population of humpbacks, which travels between Hawaii and Alaska. An estimate at that time put the entire north Pacific population at 21,800, up from about 1,000 in 1966, the year commercial whaling ended. The central north Pacific stock — the population segment targeted by the state’s petition — is believed to number at least 5,833, NOAA said Wednesday.

Another organization, the Hawai’i Fishermen’s Alliance for Conservation and Tradition, is also seeking delisting, but for the entire north Pacific population. NOAA issued a positive 90-day finding on that petition last August.

The positive findings on the Alaska and Hawaii group’s petitions mean NOAA will conduct status reviews of the central north Pacific and entire north Pacific populations. Those reviews generally take a year.

NOAA is already engaged in a status review of the global population of humpback whales, a project started in 2009 and not prompted by any petition, said Julie Speegle, a spokeswoman for the agency.

NOAA plans to combine the new north Pacific population reviews into the global study, Speegle said. “Within that status review, we will look at the different stocks,” she said.

Humpback whales exist in oceans all over the world, Speegle said. Within the north Pacific population, she said, there are three stocks — the central stock that is the subject of the Alaska petition, the western stock in Asia and the stock that swims off California, Oregon, Washington and Mexico.

If any delisting occurs, that could affect regulations that protect the whales, Speegle said.

“We would go back to the regulations to determine what may be necessary or what needs to be changed,” she said. But regulation changes depend on the outcome of the status review, a range of possibilities that includes a possible change to a listing of “threatened” from the current endangered listing, she said.