Environment Archives - Page 69 of 107

Wildlife cops bust black market crab ring

by GARY CHITTIM / KING 5 News

Bio | Email | Follow: @gchittimK5

January 8, 2014

BLAINE, Wash. – Washington State Fish and Wildlife officers and Lummi Tribal police teamed up this week to bust an alleged illegal seafood ring that involves distributors, commercial outlets and fishermen in three counties.

Officers simultaneously swooped in on 16 commercial fishermen, two wholesale fish companies and 10 retail establishments in Whatcom, Snohomish and King Counties. Investigators said the fishermen captured undocumented and undersized crab and sold them through the back doors of businesses that included some restaurants and nail salons.

The crab were taken before they could mature enough to spawn, stealing a future generation from a delicate and wild population.

Undercover video shows illegal crab being sold through the back doors of businesses.

“If you’re buying your shellfish from a nail salon, chances are it’s illegal,” said WDF&W Deputy Chief Mike Cenci who joined in the arrest of two fishermen at the Blaine Marina.

In that case, officers watched as the fishermen loaded two, 55-gallon buckets into the back of a pickup truck. They surrounded the vehicle and counted 60 undersized crab in large 55-gallon cans.

Officers spent several months recording illegal crab sales in back alleys and behind businesses involving tens of thousands of dollars worth of crab.

Lummi Tribal Police assisted in the arrests of tribal fishermen and the seizure of boats and vehicles used to carry out the alleged illegal transactions.

Some of those arrested face crimes ranging from civil charges to class ‘C’ felonies that carry fines and possible jail time

Wall Street Giant Backs Away From Washington Coal Export Project

David Steves, Earth Fix

A multinational banking giant is backing away from a proposal to build the West Coast’s biggest coal export project near Bellingham, Washington.

New York-based Goldman Sachs has sold its stock back to the companies proposing to build the Gateway Pacific Terminal. If built it would transfer 48 million tons of Wyoming coal each year from trains to ocean-going vessels bound for Asia.

The move comes less than six months after Goldman Sachs published a research paper titled, “The window for thermal coal investment is closing.”

Before the stock transfer, Goldman Sachs had a 49 percent stake in the Gateway Pacific project. The company proposing the project is SSA Marine. Its parent company is Carrix, Inc.

SSA Marine President Bob Watters said in a statement that after Goldman Sachs sold back its stock, a Mexican businessman named Fernando Chico Pardo made an investment in SSA’s parent company that gives him a 49 percent ownership.

Coal-export opponents said the departure of Goldman Sachs as an investor is the latest sign that Wall Street no longer sees a profitable future in mining, shipping and burning coal – considered the dirtiest sources of energy and one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.

“Goldman Sachs’ stepping away from coal export is yet another sign from Wall Street that coal export is a losing investment,” said anti-coal activist Crina Hoyer, the executive director of Bellingham-based RE Sources for Sustainable Communities.

SSA Marine and Carrix, Inc., sought to cast the departure of Goldman Sachs in a more positive light. According to their press release, Chico Pardo and the project’s original investors had stepped in with a “substantial capital injection” and remained committed to the coal export project.

Overall, the push to export Montana and Wyoming coal through the Pacific Northwest’s has struggled. Of the six coal export terminal originally proposed in Washington and Oregon, three have been dropped. In addition to the Gateway Pacific terminal on the northern shore of Puget Sound, the two other terminals still being considered are proposed for ports on the Columbia River in Washington and Oregon.

— David Steves

Gateway Pacific Terminal: near Bellingham, Wash.

Seattle-based SSA Marine wants to build a terminal within the Cherry Point Aquatic Reserve. It would ship millions of tons of coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia. The company says it would create thousands of jobs and generate millions in tax and other revenues.

Players: SSA Marine, Peabody Energy, Gateway Pacific, Korea East-West Power

Full Capacity: To be reached in 2026

Export Plans: 48 million tons/year

Train: 18 trains/day (9 full and 9 empty)

Train Cars: 1,370/day

Vessels: 487/year

What’s Next: Environmental review of the project is expected to take two years. In July 2013, Washington Department of Ecology, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Whatcom County, Wash. announced they will consider climate change, human health and the environment. They will also look at the entire route from Western mines to coal-burning plants in Asia. The public’s input was a factor in the decision for a broad review. Government agencies took in public comments from close to 125,000 people from September, 2012 to January, 2013. As part of the public-input process, 9,000 people attended seven meetings in Washington in 2012. The government agencies are required to solicit public input before they issue an environmental impact statement and from there, approve development permits. A summary of the public comment can be found here.

Coal Ships And Tribal Fishing Grounds

Ashley Ahearn, 1/9/14

BELLINGHAM, Wash. — Dozens upon dozens of crab pot buoys dot the waters around Jay Julius’ fishing boat as he points the bow towards Cherry Point. The spit of land juts into northern Puget Sound.

SSA Marine says Cherry Point is an excellent location to build a terminal because it’s surrounded by deep water with quick access to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Pacific Ocean. If the company has its way, up to 48 million tons of coal could move through these waters each year aboard more than 450 large ships bound for the Asian market.

But if the Lummi and other tribes exercise their treaty fishing rights, there may not be any coal ships servicing American terminals in these waters.

Watch: Tribal members talk about coal exports and their fishing rights:

‘People of the Sea’

One out of every ten members of the Lummi Nation has a fishing license. Ancestors of the Lummi, or “People of the Sea” as they are known, and other Salish Sea peoples have fished the waters surrounding Cherry Point for more than 3,000 years. Today Lummi tribal officials are sounding the alarm about the impacts the Gateway Pacific Terminal could have on the tribe’s halibut, shrimp, shellfish and salmon fishery, which is worth a combined copy5 million annually.

“You have numerous fishermen up here right now,” says Julius, a member of the Lummi tribal council. He’s gesturing at the nearby crab pots as his boat idles a little more than 50 yards from the proposed site of the Gateway Pacific Terminal, one of three coal export facilities under consideration in Oregon and Washington. “What does that mean to our treaty right to fish? This would be no more.”

Tribal treaty fishing rights could play a major role in the review process for the Gateway Pacific Terminal. According to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, nine tribes’ treaty fishing grounds would be impacted by the Gateway Pacific Terminal and the vessel traffic it would draw.

‘Usual and Accustomed’ Fishing Areas

In the mid-1800s tribes in this region signed treaties with the federal government, ceding millions of acres of their land. Native American populations plummeted and the survivors were relegated to reservations. But the tribal leaders of the time did a very smart thing, says Tim Brewer, a lawyer with the Tulalip tribe in northwestern Washington.

“They insisted on reserving the right to continue to fish in their usual and accustomed fishing areas. It is an extremely important part of the treaty,” Brewer says.

Lummi tribal fishermen at the end of a day on the water. (Ashley Ahearn)

Those treaty rights weren’t enforced in Washington until a landmark court decision in 1974 known as the Boldt Decision. It forced the state to follow up on the treaty promise of fishing rights that were made to the tribes more than a century before.

Brewer says the phrase: “usual and accustomed”—language that appears in the treaties signed by the Lummi and many other Northwest tribes—has implications for development projects, like coal terminals.

“If a project is going to impair access to a fishing ground and that impairment is significant that project can not move forward without violating the treaty right,” he says.

Since the mid-‘70s, tribes have begun to flex those treaty muscles.

In 1992 the Lummi stopped a net pen fish farm that was proposed for the waters off of Lummi Island by a company called Northwest Sea Farms.

The Lummi demonstrated that constructing the floating net pens would block tribal access to their usual and accustomed fishing grounds. “In that case the (U.S. Army) Corps of Engineers denied that permit on that basis,” Brewer says. “There was no agreement that was able to be worked out there.”

But, in other situations, agreements have been made.

Dwight Jones, general manager of Elliott Bay Marina. (Ashley Ahearn)

Though it’s a ways away, the iconic Seattle Space Needle peeks out amongst the masts of hundreds of sailboats neatly tucked into their berths at the Elliott Bay Marina, just north of downtown. It’s the largest privately-owned marina on the West Coast. And it was built within the usual and accustomed fishing area of the Muckleshoot tribe, back in 1991.

It took 10 years of environmental review. The Muckleshoot fought the project.

“It was contentious, I guess would be the right word,” says Dwight Jones, the general manager of Elliott Bay Marina. The Muckleshoot “could have stopped the marina from being built.”

But instead the tribe came to an agreement with the backers of the Elliott Bay Marina.

Muckleshoot tribal members contacted for comment on this story did not respond.

Jones says the owners of Elliott Bay Marina paid the Muckleshoot more than copy million up front and for the next 100 years they will give the tribe 8 percent of their gross annual revenue.

“Anyone who’s in business can tell you that 8 percent of your gross revenues is a huge number,” he says. “It really affects your viability as a business.”

When asked if he had any advice for companies that want to build coal terminals in the Northwest, Jones laughed.

“I’d say good luck. There will be a lot of costs and chances are the tribes will probably negotiate a settlement that works well for them and it will not be cheap,” he responded.

Deal or No Deal?

SSA Marine and Pacific International Terminals—the companies that want to build the terminal at Cherry Point—have lawyers and staff members working to make a deal with the Lummi to get the terminal built. The companies declined repeated requests to be interviewed on the subject.

“I think they’re quite disgusting,” says Lummi council member Julius when asked how he feels about the terminal backers’ efforts to make inroads with the Lummi. “It’s nothing new, the way they’re trying to infiltrate our nation, contaminate it, use people.”

This past summer Julius and the Lummi tribal council sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers. The federal agency will have final say over the key permits for the coal terminal.

In the letter the Lummi assert their “unconditional and unequivocal” opposition to the project, and lay out the reasoning behind their position, which centers around threats to treaty fishing rights and the tribe’s cultural and spiritual heritage at Cherry Point.

But there’s a line at the end of the letter, which legal experts and the Army Corps of Engineers say leaves the door open for continuing negotiation on the Gateway Pacific Terminal. It reads:

“These comments in no way waive any future opportunity to participate in government-to-government consultation regarding the proposed projects.”

Diana Bob, the Lummi tribal attorney who was involved in drafting the letter, declined to be interviewed for this series.

This is the second of a two-part series originally published at Earthfix.opb.org. ICTMN posted Part I last week.

Is ‘Polar Vortex’ Attributable to Climate Change? Yes.

A person walks in frigid temperatures near Constitution Avenue, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014, in Washington. The National Weather Service said the mercury bottomed out at 3 degrees before sunrise at Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport, with a wind chill of minus 16. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

As temperatures plummet, a reminder: ‘Every weather event in the modern world is attributable to climate change.’

By John Queally Mint Press News

Weather isn’t climate and the climate isn’t weather, but if someone asks whether the ‘polar vortex’ now being experience by tens of millions of people across the country is driven by climate change, you don’t have to wait for the next wave of scientific research to come out. The answer is ‘Yes.’

Sadly and predictably, however—as much of the nation faces the coldest temperatures seen in nearly two decades on Monday and into Tuesday— the push of bone-chilling arctic air into southern Canada and much of the United States has the climate change denialists pushing their familiar falsehoods about how near-record lows nationwide somehow disproves global warming.

In just one example, multi-millionaire and political pundit Donald Trump took to Fox News on Monday morning to say that the freezing temperatures help prove that there is a great “hoax” around climate change. “You know,” Tump said when asked to explain, “I think the scientists are having a lot of fun.”

On Monday, federal and state agencies issued dire warnings about freezing temperatures that have blanketed the midwest, saying that millions of Americans are under threat by windchill temperatures today and tomorrow that could be life-threatening. Temperature readings, factoring in windchill effect, were reported as low as -63°F in Montana and -50°F in places in North Dakota and Minnesota.

But the effort by Trump and others to portray the phenomenon known as the “arctic vortex” as some an event that discredits the international scientific consensus on the relationship between industrial society’s relationship to planetary climate change, however, is being met with a firm rebuke of its own by climate activists, weather experts, and scientists.

As climate justice campaigner Jamie Henn of 350.org tweeted Monday:

No, the cold snap doesn’t mean global warming is over, the Arctic is just drunk: http://bit.ly/1cwuOOP

The article referenced by Henn, wrriten by Greg Landen at ScienceBlogs.com, says that the “apparent contrast between extreme cold and global warming is actually an illusion.”

In what way? Landen continues:

The Polar Vortex, a huge system of moving swirling air that normally contains the polar cold air, has shifted so it is not sitting right on the pole as it usually does. We are not seeing an expansion of cold, an ice age, or an anti-global warming phenomenon. We are seeing the usual cold polar air taking an excursion.

So, this cold weather we are having does not disprove global warming.

In fact, it may be because of global warming. The Polar Vortex can go off center any given winter, but we have been having some strange large scale weather activity over the last few years that is thought to be related to global warming that may have contributed to this particular weather event (explained here). This may be an effect of this strangeness, though the jury is still probably out on this particular weather event.

According to Dr. Dim Coumou, a senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) near Berlin, who spoke to Agence France-Presse, what drives the polar vortex is the difference in temperature between the Arctic region and those in the mid-latitudes closer to the equator.

“The reason why we see these strong meanderings is still not fully settled,” Coumou told AFP, “but it’s clear that the Arctic has been warming very rapidly. We have good data on this. Arctic temperatures have risen much more than other parts of the globe.”

The idea that any particular “weather event” is or is not climate change, however, belies the deeper fact that all weather events are complex results of underlying climate conditions. As Jim Naureckas, a journalist at the media watchdog group FAIR, explained to his readers in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines last year, “attributing particular weather events to climate change is ridiculously easy.”

The reason for that, he continues, is because (emphasis his):

“Every weather event in the modern world is attributable to climate change. This is because weather is a chaotic system, which is to say it varies wildly based on initial conditions. Once we raised global temperature by a degree Celsius—which is an enormous intervention in the physical world—we irrevocably changed all weather, producing an entirely different set of events than the ones that would have otherwise occurred.”

In other words, the whole debate about whether this hurricane, that tornado, or the current ‘polar vortex’ is or isn’t climate change misses the point.

Writing about the climate dynamics that are driving the current ‘polar vortex’ event Jeff Masters, meteorologist and founder of the popular Wunderground blog, explains:

In the winter, the 24-hour darkness over the snow and ice-covered polar regions allows a huge dome of cold air to form. This cold air increases the difference in temperature between the pole and the Equator, and leads to an intensification of the strong upper-level winds of the jet stream. The strong jet stream winds act to isolate the polar regions from intrusions of warmer air, creating a “polar vortex” of frigid counter-clockwise swirling air over the Arctic. The chaotic flow of the air in the polar vortex sometimes allows a large dip (a sharp trough of low pressure) to form in the jet stream over North America, allowing the Arctic air that had been steadily cooling in the northern reaches of Canada in areas with 24-hour darkness to spill southwards deep into the United States. In theory, the 1.5°F increase in global surface temperatures that Earth has experienced since 1880 due to global warming should reduce the frequency of 1-in-20 year extreme cold weather events like the current one. However, it is possible that climate change could alter jet stream circulation patterns in a way that could increase the incidence of unusual jet stream “kinks” that allow cold air to spill southwards over the Eastern U.S., a topic I have blogged about extensively, and plan to say more about later this week.

Lastly, this video posted at the Mother Nature Network and featuring Masters as well as Rutgers University professor Jennifer Francis, helps explain the dynamics by which a warming planet can result in freezing cold weather patterns and extremes of all kinds:

EPA Proposes Standards For Cleaner Burning Wood Stoves

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed new standards that would require cleaner burning wood stoves. | credit: EPA/Flickr

By Amelia Templeton, Earth Fix

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed stricter air emissions standards for wood stoves. It also plans to regulate, for the first time, emissions from pellet stoves, fireplace inserts and other wood burning devices.

The EPA proposal comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Oregon and six other states. They alleged that the EPA’s failure to update manufacturing standards for wood stoves since 1988 violated the Clean Air Act and left rural residents at risk of health and breathing problems.

Read: Oregon, Puget Sound Air Agency Sue EPA For Tougher Wood Stove Regs

Craig Kenworthy, executive director of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, said in the short term the EPA’s proposed rule would in effect catch the rest of the country up to the Northwest, where state emissions standards require new stoves to emit no more than 4.5 grams of particulates per hour.

“The technology and the ability of companies to make cleaner devices has made leaps and bounds. I think Oregon and Washington have proved that the first EPA standard is achievable. We’ve had a market, and had manufacturers meeting that market,” Kenworthy said.

Over a five-year period, the EPA has proposed ramping up its standards, eventually requiring new stoves to emit no more than 1.3 grams of particle pollution per hour. The fine particles of pollution in wood smoke have been linked to asthma, respiratory problems, heart attack, cancer and premature deaths. Several cities in the Northwest including Tacoma, Wash., Oak Ridge Ore. and Klamath Falls, Ore. have struggled to meet national air quality standards due to wood stove and fireplace smoke. In Oregon, homeowners are required to remove old wood stoves before selling their home and Washington bans the sale of older models.

But tightening standards for new stoves is also an important part of tackling wood smoke pollution in growing communities, Kenworthy said.

“As growth occurs in these communities, over time even the cleaner devices could overwhelm the gains we’re making in removing the older devices.”

Wood stove manufacturers located in the Northwest said they welcome the new proposed standards and have invested heavily in research and development of clean-burning technology. One of the largest wood stove builders in the country, Travis Industries, is located in Mukilteo, Wash. and has built a reputation for designing high efficiency clean-burning stoves.

Last year, Travis was selected to compete in a “Wood Stove Decathlon” that highlighted the best stove designs from around the world.

The Cape Cod

Travis’s Cape Cod stove emits less than a half-gram of particulates per hour, making it the cleanest-burning EPA certified wood stove.

Perry Ranes, the national sales manger for Travis, said the stove uses two engineering techniques to achieve its emissions reductions: a system that preheats the stove’s air, creating a hotter fire that combusts the wood more completely, and a catalytic combustor that burns up any leftover soot particles. The real trick, Ranes said, is a design that’s efficient and also looks good.

“The secret to all of this is not only designing something that the average individual can use, but at the same time is something that’s eye-appealing that you’d really like to have in your home,” Ranes said.

The EPA estimates the health and economic benefits of the proposed standards at $1.8 to $2.4 billion annually.  The agency is taking comments on the proposed rule for 90 days and expects to issue a final rule in 2015.

Wash. Officials Say Shellfish Is Safe For China To Import

Ashley Ahearn, Earth Fix

SEATTLE — Washington state officials said Tuesday they found lower contamination levels when they tested geoduck clams than those alleged by China when it said geoduck imported from Puget Sound had high levels of arsenic.

China cited its findings in December when it imposed the largest ban on shellfish imports from Northwest waters — as well as from California and Alaska — in the region’s history.

Chinese officials said they found inorganic arsenic levels of .5 parts per million in the shellfish they tested in October.

But Washington officials’ tests produced different results.

“Only one of the whole samples was above China’s standard of .5 (parts per million) and everything else was below that, so that was good news,” said Dave McBride, who oversaw the testing at the Washington Department of Health.

The Department of Health tested more than 50 geoduck clams from the allegedly contaminated area, analyzing the different body parts of the clams to compare arsenic concentration levels.

The details of the test results are perhaps revealing than the overall “whole sample” figures. The skin of the clams tested by Washington exceeded China’s safe levels of inorganic arsenic by as much as three times, although McBride said that should not be worrisome to China, given how the Chinese consume geoduck clams.

“People generally do not eat the skin and we would advise people, when you eat geoduck, to remove the skin,” he said. “What we think is that, for the vast majority of the public, this is not a health issue at all. Obviously, when we’re talking about a carcinogen there is always the risk for high consumers.”

McBride added that the whole, or averaged samples, for several other clams came close to the .5ppm limit set by the Chinese.

The World Health Organization is said to be considering setting safe levels for inorganic arsenic in food in the .2-.3ppm range in 2014.

The shellfish that tested high for inorganic arsenic in China were harvested from a tract of land managed by the Department of Natural Resources that has since been closed. The tract is within the shadow of a copper smelter that was operated near Tacoma for 100 years.

“Well we know that arsenic levels are elevated in the surface soils in that area,” said Marian Abbett, manager of the Tacoma smelter clean up for the Washington Department of Ecology. Soil samples from the surrounding land show levels of arsenic between 40 and 200ppm, though that number does not directly equate to levels of arsenic that will end up in the water, or in shellfish.

Soil arsenic levels resulting from the historic deposition by the Tacoma smelter
in the vicinity of the geoduck tracts of interest. (Courtesy: ATSDR/DOH)

Inorganic arsenic levels are higher in soils in the area immediately surrounding the smelter, though wind patterns also lead to higher concentrations ending up in soil samples to the northeast of the smelter, where the shellfish were harvested.

“I’d be nervous after a big rainfall event,” said Kathy Cottingham, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Dartmouth College who studies arsenic exposure and human health. “With soils that contaminated you need to worry about the episodic events of a big rainstorm or snowmelt causing pulses into the water.”

The area was closed to all shellfish harvest until 2007, when the Puyallup Tribe petitioned state agencies to reopen the tract for geoduck harvest. At that time the Department of Health conducted tests on geoduck in the area and found levels of .05ppm. That’s an order of magnitude below the amount found by the Chinese in October of 2013 and well within the safety parameters set by the Chinese.

However, state agencies have not tested for inorganic arsenic or other metals in shellfish from the area since it was reopened in 2007.

Arsenic is a carcinogen that has also been associated with long-term respiratory effects, disruption of immune system function, cardiovascular effects, diabetes and neurodevelopmental problems in kids.

“There’s no safe level, but at some point you’ve crossed the threshold to being really dangerous and we don’t quite know where that threshold is at this point,” Cottingham said.

The Food and Drug Administration has delayed setting a safe level for arsenic in food. Washington state does not regularly test for arsenic in shellfish.

McBride said he did not see a need to test the Tacoma site further after his agency’s extensive sampling.

“I think we have a pretty good handle that this area is pretty clean and wouldn’t require further testing,” he said. “The lab results have been sent to (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and NOAA has sent them on to the state department to the Chinese (as of yesterday). We’re waiting to hear if and when the ban might be lifted.”

Northwest Teams Lead A Growing ‘Green Sports’ Movement

Cassandra Profita, Earth Fix

Northwest sports teams are leading an effort to use the widespread appeal of basketball, football, baseball and hockey to spread an environmental message.

A group formed by six teams in Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., called the Green Sports Alliance set out three years ago to improve the environmental performance of professional sports. The alliance has grown to hundreds of teams across the country that are now competing to see who can be the greenest.
Baseball fields, basketball arenas and football stadiums across the country are installing solar panels and wind turbines. They’re selling local and organic food to their fans, and replacing trash cans with recycling and compost bins.

Supporters of this movement say sports offer a fun, non-political way to promote environmentalism. It saves money, cuts carbon emissions, and the environmental benefits count toward the teams’ record of community service.

Tracking Green Stats

The green sports game isn’t as exciting to watch as a slam dunk, a home run or a touchdown. But it has racked up some impressive stats:

The Portland Trail Blazers have cut the carbon emissions at the Moda Center by 50 percent since 2008 and saved $3.3 million in utility costs in five years.
The Seattle Seahawks and Sounders installed the largest solar array in the state of Washington at CenturyLink Field in 2011; and
The Seattle Mariners raised their recycling rate from 38 percent in 2010 to 90 percent in 2013 and saved $2.2 million in utility costs in seven years.

The teams are tracking their environmental performance with help from the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Environmental Protection Agency. So they know where they stand in the environmental rankings. According to Martin Tull, executive director of the Green Sports Alliance, that has spurred some friendly competition.

“When one facility puts up 3,000 solar panels, the next time an owner is going to build a stadium, he wants to have 3,001,” Tull said. “We try to use that as much as we can to give them little catalyst to have the biggest solar array or to have the least energy used.”

Scott Jenkins, vice president of ballpark operations for the Seattle Mariners, said his team has been trying to match the San Francisco Giants’ recycling rate for years. This year, the Mariners fell a little short once again as the Giants reached a 95 percent recycling rate.

“Every time I think we’re going to catch up to them they raise the bar a little bit more,” Jenkins said.

Tracking environmental performance has also yielded some interesting data. When the Blazers commissioned a study to measure their carbon footprint in 2008, it revealed that 70 percent of the carbon emissions associated with the Moda Center come from fan and employee transportation to and from the arena. Team transportation and business travel, by comparison, only accounted for 4 percent of the team’s carbon emissions.

“That surprised us all,” said Justin Zeulner, sustainability director for the Blazers. “We realized we have to start engaging with our fans and our community to get to our impacts because they’re the ones selecting behavior. They’re the ones that decide: How am I going to get to the game?”

Making it fun

Sports teams aren’t looking to bog people down with environmental doom and gloom. Instead, they say, they try to make the idea of sustainable living fun. One hockey arena, for example, invites fans to shoot aluminum cans into the proper recycling receptacle.

The Mariners introduced two recycling superheroes: Captain Plastic and Kid Compost. They roam the concourse of Safeco Field offering photo ops and recycling and composting assistance. The compost from the games goes to Cedar Grove Composting, which in turn creates bags of Safeco Soil made from compost at its facility. Fans can take that compost home to use in the garden; the team also offers “kitchen catchers” to hold household food scraps.

The Blazers have a living wall that invites fans to high-five a hand print if they support the team’s environmental mission. It also has a chalkboard for people to share how they’re going green in their own lives.

Watch the video:

Saving money

Tull says money is another motivation for teams going green – and one the alliance uses to attract new members.

“When we sit down with a new team that we haven’t worked with we ask a very simple question: Would you like to learn how other teams have saved millions through conservation,” he said. “And what do you think they say? They say hell yeah.”

Northwest sports teams are among the first to prove that conservation measures such as replacing light bulbs and reducing water use at event centers have a quick return on investment.

“When you look at your bottom line and say I’m saving $400,000 a year in utilities, I’m saving $200,000 a year on my waste costs, and I’m building brand value and doing what’s right, it really is a no-brainer to get into that area,” said Scott Jenkins, vice president of operations for the Mariners.

Selling environmentalism

For those who are rooting for a cleaner environment, Tull says, sports teams are a great way to sell the idea to a mass market.

“If I talk to a middle school student and say, ‘Did you realize the Portland Trail Blazers cut their energy use in their house by 30 percent?’ It’s a lot more exciting than if we say, ‘Did you realize that this local bank did a retrofit and cut their energy use?’”, said Tull. “Even with the exact same statistics it’s always going to be more exciting if it comes through the lens of sports.”

Allen Hershkowitz, director of the Natural Resource Defense Council’s Sports Greening Program, says his environmental group hatched the idea of using sports to sell environmentalism back in 2004.

Sporting events themselves don’t have huge environmental impacts, he says, “however, where the impact of sports is enormous is in its cultural and market influence. The cultural and market influence of sports is almost unparalleled.”

He cites a statistic: 13 percent of Americans follow science while 63 percent follow sports.

“So, if you want to reach Americans, you’ve got to go where they’re at,” he said. “Using the non-political, non-partisan, politically neutral space of basketball, baseball, football, hockey, tennis, soccer to educate people about the need for recycling, energy efficiency, water conservation and safer chemical use. It’s a spectacular platform and at the same time tens of millions of pounds of carbon have been reduced.”

Peter Murchie is an environmental health manger for the EPA in Seattle. He says his agency is hoping that fans will take environmental lessons home with them from the big game. He’s hoping the movement will trickle down to younger sports teams, too.

“Sports translates down into your local communities,” he said. “If you see that the Seattle Seahawks or Portland Trail blazers being green, there’s a chance that your local little league and youth sports will also look at how they can do things in a more sustainable way. That gets an even broader marketplace.”

What about climate change?

So far, sports teams are leading by example and sticking with subtle environmental suggestions. However, this year several league commissioners sent letters to Congress acknowledging the issue of climate change.

The Trail Blazers are the first and only professional sports team to sign a climate declaration. Zeulner says he’s hoping the unifying nature of sports can move people beyond political barriers toward taking action on climate change.

“You can go to a sporting event and be sitting with people who are complete strangers to you, but you’re all focused on that energy of what’s happening on the field – what’s happening on the playing surface,” he said. “You start seeing people high-fiving each other, hugging each other over this thrill of whatever the sport is. The emotion of that sport. These are Republicans and Democrats. They’re different races. Different sexes. It doesn’t matter. Sports gives you that opportunity to strip all those barriers down and realize we actually want the same things.”

The Green Sports Alliance is already expanding into college sports and is now looking at the prospect of including teams across the globe in Europe and South America.

Federal Agency Issues Safety Alert For Oil Trains

An oil train moves along Puget Sound, headed to refineries in the Northwestern part of the state. | credit: Ashley Ahearn

Ashley Ahearn, Earth Fix

SEATTLE — An alert, issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation on Thursday said that the crude oil coming out of the Bakken formation of North Dakota poses a “significant risk” because it is more flammable than traditional heavy crude.

The DOT says that Bakken oil can catch fire in temperatures as low as 73 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s one of the reasons it should be classified as a hazardous material when transported by rail, the agency said.

Some Washington refineries are already receiving Bakken Oil by train and a handful of ports in the Northwest are considering building facilities to move the oil from trains onto ships.

BNSF Railway — the company moving the majority of Bakken oil through the Northwest — does not release information about oil train traffic.

Companies that move oil by rail do not pay into the state emergency response fund for oil spills.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposed budget for 2014 includes $652,000 for oil train emergency response by the State Department of Ecology.

Endangered Species Act Turns 40: A Look At 3 Interesting Debates

Amelia Templeton, Earth Fix

It’s the 40th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act. Much of our day to day reporting on endangered species focuses on the political controversies that arise from conservation strategies: wolf predation of livestock, water shutoffs in the Klamath Basin, mill closures after the Northwest Forest Plan.

We also do fair amount of reporting on the strange things people do to try to save individual species in peril: putting fish in trucks, removing a dam, relocating deer, and shooting one kind of owl to save another.

But what interests me the most are the big picture questions. Here are three questions conservation scientists are debating, inspired in part by this excellent conservation literature review.

1) Is It Time To Triage?

Governments and conservation groups have a limited amount of money to spend trying to recover endangered species. Those dollars are typically allocated to species judged to be the most at threat, the most ecologically unique and significant and the most charismatic. Scientists say tigers, pandas and spotted owls all benefit from a disproportionate share of conservation funding.

Researchers with the University of Queensland in Australia and the Department of Conservation in New Zealand have sparked a vigorous debate over the need to include two more criteria: the cost of management and the likelihood that an attempt to save a species will succeed.

The question of whether to stop trying to save some charismatic, highly imperiled species so funding can go to more help conserve more viable populations seems particularly relevant in the Northwest, where scientists are debating a potentially costly and risky campaign to save the spotted owl by shooting barred owls.

It’s also an idea that appears to have influenced local groups like the Wild Salmon Center, which has proposed protecting the Northwest’s strongest salmon runs and healthiest rivers as the most effective approach to salmon recovery.

2) Is There A Universal Minimum Viable Population?

Small populations are particularly vulnerable to extinction due to random catastrophe, variation in birth and death rates, and other factors. The idea of a minimum viable population was first introduced by biologist Mark Shaffer in a paper in 1981.

Getting an accurate population count of an endangered species is surprisingly difficult, and some scientists have argued for universal benchmarks for all species: 50 individuals for short-term survival, 500 individuals for the genetic health of a species, and 5,000 individuals for long-term viability.

However, many researchers have rejected the idea and argue that a species’ life history, size, environment and rate of decline all affect what constitute a viable population size.

In a recent study, authors Curtis Flathers et al, write that while marbled murrelets in the Northwest number in the tens of thousands, the species is still endangered by loss of nesting habitat and depletion of its food sources.

They offer the passenger pigeon as an example of a species that seemed abundant but ended up extinct.

“The extinction of the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), perhaps the most abundant land bird in North America during the 1800’s (numbering 3–5 billion individuals [69]), stands as a sobering reminder that population size alone is noguarantee against extinction.”

3) Should We Be Assisting Migration?

The Oregon Climate Change Research Institute has reported that Humboldt squid from the tropics have moved into Oregon waters, birds are migrating earlier and moving further north, and small mammals in Eastern Oregon are contracting their high-elevation ranges.

Forest ecologists are predicting that climate change could threaten tree species like coastal yellow cedar and alpine whitebark pine.

Some scientists argue that many species will not be able to move or evolve quickly enough to survive climate change, and are calling for human intervention to assist migration of threatened species through the creation of seed banks and other strategies.

Where do you stand on these debates? Let us know the endangered species stories you think we should be covering.

China Ban On West Coast Shellfish Hits Tribal Divers

Lydia Sigo, a geoduck diver and member of the Suquamish Tribe, is out of work right now because of China's ban on shellfish imports. She says her mortgage is due. "I can't keep going on like this very long." | credit: Ashley Ahearn — Lydia Sigo, a geoduck diver and member of the Suquamish Tribe, is out of work right now because of China’s ban on shellfish imports. She says her mortgage is due. “I can’t keep going on like this very long.” | credit: Ashley Ahearn

Ashley Ahearn, Earth Fix

Update Dec. 24, 9:00 a.m.: NOAA’s Seafood Inspection Program has issued a report to Chinese officials with its findings regarding the tainted geoducks from Alaska and Washington. In the letter, U.S. authorities note the actions that have been taken in response, ensure that geoduck clams and mollusks for export from Area 67 meet safety requirement and request lifting of China’s ban on shellfish imports.

Ninety percent of the geoduck harvested in Washington are sold to China and Hong Kong. It’s an indicator of how much the Northwest shellfish industry relies on exports to China.

In early December, the Chinese government instituted a ban on all shellfish imports from a large swathe of the West Coast after finding two bad clams. One from Alaska had high levels of the biotoxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning. The other came from Puget Sound and tested high for inorganic arsenic. Washington does not test for arsenic in shellfish.

Read: China Imposes First-Ever West Coast Shellfish Ban
Read: Arsenic Was Toxin Of Concern In Wash. Geoduck Shipment

The crushing economic impacts of China’s move are hitting tribal fisherman in Puget Sound hard for the holidays.

At the Suquamish Tribe’s reservation on Puget Sound, Suquamish geoduck diver Lydia Sigo stands on a dock that would usually be crowded with boats bringing in their catches of geoduck. The clams can fetch up to $150 per pound in China. But today it’s quiet. There are no boats on the water — none of the 25 Suquamish tribal divers are working right now.

“That’s 25 families that really need to buy their kids Christmas presents or pay their mortgage, pay their rent,” Sigo says. “For me, I can’t keep going on like this for very long.”

The tribe is losing $20,000 each day that the ban is in place, but the impacts of the ban are being felt well beyond the reservation.

John Jones, a geoduck diver with the Suquamish Tribe, is out of work right now
because of the Chinese ban on shellfish imports. (Photo: Ashley Ahearn)

“My brothers are from Port Gamble and they’re out of work,” says John Jones, another Suquamish diver. “They shut down diving everywhere, not just for us but for the state. It impacts a whole lot of people, not just this community but all communities throughout Puget Sound, Alaska, Oregon.”

The shellfish industry in Washington is worth $270 million annually, and China is the biggest market for exports.

Waters from which China no longer permits the
import of clams, oysters and other bivalves.

This is the broadest shellfish ban China has ever put in place, but it’s not the first time China has banned a major import from the U.S. Beef imports from the U.S. have been banned for the past ten years. More recently, China rejected about half a million tons of U.S. corn because it contained a genetically modified strain.

Chinese officials have been slow to reveal details of their shellfish testing methods. That’s prompted some to raise concerns about political motivations behind the shellfish ban.

“It is possible that it could be retaliation for something,” says Tabitha Mallory, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program. “That has happened in the past.”

In 2010 China banned salmon imports from Norway, just after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the political activist Liu Xiaobo.

Mallory says it’s unclear what kind of larger political statement China could be making with the shellfish ban.

“I think it’s good to consider all the possible motivations for this,” Mallory says. “But I don’t think that we should write off the possibility that it is a legitimate accusation.”