It’s back to court for the federal government and salmon advocates. Conservationists Tuesday once again challenged the government’s plan to manage dams on the Columbia River to protect endangered salmon and steelhead.
In January, officials released a finalized plan, known as a biological opinion or BiOp, that guides dam operations. It’s been subject to more than 20 years of legal conflict between people who want to protect salmon and people who want to produce hydroelectricity and maintain shipping channels.
“Welcome to Groundhog Day,” said Todd True, lead attorney for the challengers and Earthjustice.
True said the latest plan is far too similar to previous plans already struck down by the courts.
“We will not let the government slow-walk our wild salmon into extinction and trample our environmental laws, just because they don’t want to change the way they run the Columbia River hydro system,” True said.
Fish advocates said the most recent plan also lessens the amount of water spilled over dams to help juvenile salmon migrate out to sea.
The groups are asking the court to require an environmental impact statement, which would require public comments for a new biological opinion.
“The best way to pursue a real solution for salmon would be to have a collaborative process,” said Sara Patton, executive director for NW Energy Coalition, a clean energy advocacy group.
In 2011, U.S. District Judge James A. Redden rejected the plan and asked the Obama administration to consider more ways to recover the endangered fish.
Redden’s suggestions included spilling more water over the dams to help juvenile salmon safely make it downriver to the ocean, changing reservoirs to help fish passage, and removing the lower Snake River dams altogether.
The case has been transferred to Judge Michael H. Simon. This most recent challenge is a continuation of a lawsuit filed in 2001.
Supporters of the 2014 plan called it the most comprehensive restoration plan in the country. Terry Flores’ group Northwest RiverPartners represents commerce and industry groups that defend dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers. For her part, Flores said the challenge is more of the same from conservation groups.
She said recent high salmon returns show that the current plan is working.
“Litigation doesn’t do anything for fish on the ground. It just drags time and energy away from those kinds of efforts that actually benefit fish and puts us all back into the courtroom,” Flores said.
Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission Habitat restoration efforts such as removal of the Elwha Dam, shown here in process on October 8, 2011, have helped bring back salmon spawning grounds.
Indian Country Today
Three tribes are among the recipients of the Green Apple Awards given for environmental education initiatives by the not-for-profit group E3 Washington, a professional group that provides education on environmental development and stability.
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, President Fawn Sharp of the Quinault Indian Nation and State Senator John McCoy of the Tulalip Tribes will receive awards, E3 announced on June 11. In addition, Billy Frank, Jr., Nisqually tribal elder and longtime chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, will be honored at a gala and awards ceremony to take place on June 26.
E3 is an outgrowth of the Environmental Education Association of Washington (EEAW), the state’s professional association for environmental and sustainability educators and stakeholders. The initiative was established in 2005, when the Governor’s Council on Environmental Education asked the association to take the lead in planning environmental education, according to the EEAW website. “E3” stands for education, environment, and economy. The EEAW is in turn affiliated with the North American Association for Environmental Education.
The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe was chosen to receive the President’s Award for both honoring elder wisdom and teaching youth self-respect, said retired teacher Marie Marrs, who nominated the tribe.
“The annual paddle journeys, alcohol and drug free, are strong signs of cultural revival,” Marrs said, according to the E3 statement. “The Klallam language is taught at local high schools, as a foreign language. Tribal leaders are visible, and honored, at many community events. Native youth are enrolled in natural resource programs at the area Skill Center, as well as Peninsula College, acquiring specials skills and internships with local economic and environmental power bases such as Battelle, Olympic National Park, NOAA, Merrill Ring, the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, and the Feiro Marine Science Center, as well as their own natural resource/fisheries programs. Skill Center classes are co-taught with a tribal culture specialist as part of the team. Peninsula College has a Longhouse, a House of Learning, for special gatherings and ceremonies, the first in the nation to be built on a community college campus.”
Noting that the very aim of the E3 Washington Lead Green goal is to use every location as a teaching tool, E3 Washington board president Tom Hulst—who selected the Llower Elwha Klallam for the award—said that numerous sites managed by the tribe reach this ideal.
“The E3 Washington Lead Green goal is that every place, be it a building or other site becomes a ‘learning laboratory’ for the shift to sustainability,” Hulst said. “In the case of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe multiple sites under its management meets this goal!”
Sharp will accept the Green Apple Award, which recognizes awareness of indigenous knowledge, language and values, as well as encourages a multicultural approach to environmental and sustainability education, all while exemplifying E3’s Lead Green goal, according to the release. Sharp, who is also president of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and area vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, was nominated by Olympia-based businessman Steve Robinson.
“President Sharp is a very dynamic leader whose incredible energy level is matched only by her skill as a leader and her enthusiastic approach toward serving her people as well both Indian and non-Indian people, particularly in such fields as sustainability, environmental education and health and human rights,” Robinson said in his nomination. “She has long been active in environmental education at all levels, providing leadership in the classroom, the outdoors and the intergovernmental arena. Just one example of many major successes resulting from her leadership was last summer’s Paddle to Quinault—a highly successful canoe journey that brought traditional canoes from near and far to the Quinault homeland. It was a major cultural event enjoyed by thousands, and was a huge historic achievement in helping to build bridges of understanding between tribal and non-tribal communities.”
For his part state Senator John McCoy, Democrat, will receive the 2014 Diversity in Action-Individual E3 Washington Green Apple Award, which “recognizes an individual, organization, tribe or program that demonstrates cultural awareness and encourages a multicultural approach to environmental and sustainability education programs while exemplifying the Lead Green goal,” the E3 statement said.
“Senator McCoy has been a tireless leader in many capacities which have served environmental education, multiculturalism and diversity well,” said Robinson, who nominated McCoy as well as Sharp. “His presence on ‘the hill’ in Olympia has provided an immeasurable amount of benefit to both tribal and non-tribal people and governments. He has sponsored phenomenal, far-reaching legislation, ranging from bills to integrate Indian culture and history into the classroom to a bill to establish Indian Heritage Day. Senator McCoy is one of the hardest working legislators in Olympia and he is committed to the protection and restoration of a healthy, vibrant environment for all.”
Frank, who passed away on May 5, was involved in E3 and will be honored at the awards ceremony, which will take place The awards will be presented at E3’s Summer Evening Awards Event 2014, A Summer Celebration of Environmental and Sustainability Education, on June 26.
“Billy Frank, who was E3’s honorary co-chair, was a friend to, and tireless advocate for, all people and species,” said Ruskey. “His spirit lives in us and continues to guide us, as he always will.”
RESIST: The Unist’oten Call to the Land is a documentary film that visits the fourth annual Environmental Action Camp, hosted on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory by the Unist’ot’en(C’ihlts’ehkhyu/Big Frog) clan. By re-instituting a Free, Prior, and Informed Consent Protocol on the bridge over Wedzin Kwah into their traditional territories, the Unist’ot’en are reasserting their indigenous sovereignty and standing up to industry and government who want to destroy their lands The focus of the film includes the exploration of the environmental, legal, and social issues surrounding hydraulic fracturing, tar sands, and the proposed Kinder-Morgan, Pacific Trails Pipeline, and Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline projects in British Columbia. The film’s themes also include indigenous sovereignty and decolonization, as well as documenting one of the most important resistance camps in North America and the movement it is a part of.
The people of the area gave notice in 2006 of their opposition to the Pacific Trails Pipeline and accused the company of avoiding consultation with the hereditary owners and chief, by approaching individual bands and tribal councils. The companies involved, Apache Canada and Chevron Canada in a 50-50 ownership agreement, tout in press releases that they have the support of 15 of 16 Indian bands, which only have jurisdiction on reservations. The film examines the differences between the imposed colonial Indian Act and the traditional governance systems of hereditary clans and chiefs.
The camp is also in the path of the Enbridge pipeline, another project the people oppose, which would carry tar sands oil through the territory. A unique aspect of the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) that the Pacific Trails Pipeline would carry to Kitimat for export to Asia, is that it is produced using a process called fracking. There is a sizable shale deposit of LNG in northeastern BC, around the areas of Fort St. John and Fort Nelson, whose rivers and creeks flow to the Liard River and other tributaries that eventually empty into the Arctic Ocean. This particular process of extraction is particularly toxic to eco-systems because it involves injecting chemicals into the earth and creating small explosions, and these chemicals seep into the shale formation releasing gas, but also poisoning aquifers and water sources, despite safety measures. If the Pacific Trails Pipeline is built, it would pave the way for Enbridge and other proposed gas and oil pipelines, what has been called a “Carbon Corridor.”
Through the construction of a cabin, a traditional pithouse, and permaculture garden on the proposed pipeline routes, the Unist’ot’en and their allies have thus far been successful at preventing construction on the projects that would illegally cross into their territories and cause further damage to their traditional food systems and ways of living. The Unist’ot’en people ask for grassroots support in their fight against corporations and industries aiming to destroy this beautiful land they live on. We aim to not only create a window through which the viewers can witness the ongoing struggle faced by the Unist’ot’en, but help them engage in the movement as they see fit, as the issues explored in the film have moved outside of the indigenous sphere and are destroying an environment which we must preserve in order to continue to exist as a species. By creating a piece that is not only educational and motivating, but also artistic, we hope to leave the viewers with a desire to expand on what we have given them and add to the collective story of history in the making.
The environmental, racial and social issues of this movement effect EVERYONE of US ! GET UP ! GET OUT AND RESIST !
More information on the Uni’stot’en People and there camp can be found at – unistotencamp.com
SEATTLE — Under the new rules released by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, each state has a specific percentage by which it has to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.
The average of all the individual state-level cuts will be CO2 emissions from power plants 30 percent below 2005 levels.
Washington has one of the lowest CO2 emissions levels from electricity generation in the country.
Yet, under the new EPA rules, Washington is on the hook to cut those emissions by more than any other state.
“It’s a goal that we can, should and will meet, in part because we’ve already taken early action in our state,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told EarthFix.
Inslee’s confidence comes, in part, from the fact that his state has already finalized plans to phase out Washington’s only remaining coal fired power plant by 2025.
The plant is responsible for almost 70 percent of the state’s emissions from electricity generation.
That’s almost exactly how much the EPA says Washington has to cut to meet the new requirements.
“Yes, we are ahead of the game,” says KC Golden, senior policy advisor for Climate Solutions, an advocacy group based in Seattle, “but if you measure by what we need to be doing in order to stave off dangerous climate change then we’re behind the game.”
Washington has already committed to more renewable energy and energy efficiency at the state level. But Golden says there’s a lot more work to be done, and the EPA rules are actually pretty lenient.
Golden and other environmentalists say that the state needs to stop buying coal power generated elsewhere. Washington has a dirty little secret: While most of the electricity consumed in Washington comes from hydropower, 15 percent comes from coal.
And a large portion of that comes from plants in Montana and Wyoming.
Golden says the EPA rule will encourage those states to find cleaner sources of power to sell to West Coast states.
“States like Montana and Wyoming have a lot of coal but they also have a lot of wind and sun. Most of the customers are in the coastal states and they want clean power. If you’re in the power supply business, the customer’s always right.”
But wind and sun aren’t always reliable, and the transition off coal won’t happen over night, says Kimberly Harris, CEO of Puget Sound Energy, the largest investor-owned utility in Washington State. PSE gets 30 percent of its power from coal, more than half of it comes from out-of-state.
“You cannot just shut down coal units and expect for the grid to continue to operate,” she told a crowd at the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners in Seattle last week. “Any type of a retirement has to be transitional because we have significant decisions to make and … this really needs to be a regional approach.
Inslee has been pushing Washington to join regional carbon cap and trade systems –- like the one already in place in California — but hasn’t been able to get the necessary legislation passed.
The new EPA rules will lead to reduced coal-fired power in the U.S. – but the rules don’t apply to coal that is exported and burned elsewhere.
That’s an issue for Washington. It’s currently reviewing proposals to build two coal export terminals.
As coal becomes more heavily regulated and less fashionable in the U.S., coal companies are more eager to ship it elsewhere – despite the fact that the emissions from burning that coal in Asia will impact the climate, globally.
FILE – In this Nov. 6, 2013 file photo is a warning placard on a tank car carrying crude oil near a loading terminal in Trenton, N.D. U.S. Matthew Brown AP Photo
The rapid increase of trains carrying crude oil across the region has raised alarm bells in the wake of a series of serious accidents. Communities and first responders say they can’t adequately prepare for possible disasters because railroads are not required to give any information on the shipments.
That’s about to change, at least to some extent, with a new regulation that takes effect Friday.
An emergency order from the U.S. Transportation Department will require railroads to tell states how many trains carrying highly-volatile Bakken crude are expected to travel through each week, and on which routes.
The order was issued just a week after the latest oil train accident — a derailment in Lynchburg, Virginia — that sent eight-story fireballs into the sky.
A ‘Small Step’; ‘Hardly Where We Need To Be’
“I think it’s a very small step in the right direction,” said Eric de Place, policy director with Seattle’s Sightline Institute, an environmental think tank that has been reporting on what it calls an emerging “pipeline on rails.” He says the new federal rules don’t go far enough.
“Let’s keep in mind, this is not requiring them to use safer tank cars. This is not requiring them to slow down in our neighborhoods. This is not requiring them to inform emergency responders of the dangers,” de Place said. “All they’re having to do is tell us some very rough figures about how many potentially explosive trains are in our states. So, it’s better than nothing, but it’s hardly where we need to be.”
Sightline has been documenting the growth in oil train traffic. DePlace says nationally, it’s increased nearly 60-fold over the past five years.
Info Will Help Communities Better Prepare
Barb Graf, director of emergency management for the city of Seattle, testified at a recent hearing on rail safety before the U.S. Senate.
She says fire departments need to know when mile-long oil trains are passing through. The new rule will help communities better prepare for disasters “in the same way that we have ongoing discussions with geologists and scientists about what’s our earthquake threat, what’s the recurrence rate and that type of thing,” she said.
“This just gives us more information about the kinds of hazardous materials that would be in our community at any given time,” Graf said.
Advocates for more regulation say they’ll keep pushing. They want more specifics on the shipments, as well as tougher standards for tank car safety. They also say it should apply to all shipments of oil by rail, not just the longest trains carrying Bakken crude.
This image of the coal-fired plant in Colstrip, Mont., was made in the 1980s by Montana native David T. Hanson. It was part of an exhibit at Modern Museum of Art in New York. | credit: David T. Hanson |
SEATTLE — The Obama administration’s new rules to cut carbon emissions fueled energy sector leaders’ conversations about the future of coal in the West during their gathering here this week.
The Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners on Wednesday wrapped up its conference — a gathering of the people who decide where the region’s power comes from and how to regulate it.
“The answer is a resounding yes, the question is how much?” said Travis Kavulla with the Montana Public Service Commission. He’s one of the guys calling the shots on what kind of power his state produces, and what it will cost consumers. Montana mines and burns a lot of coal. So, as you might imagine, Kavulla’s not too pleased with the EPA right now.
“The bottom line is that the EPA seems set on establishing state by state goals, based on particular building blocks, a particularly infantilizing term, I think,” he told the crowd.
The “building blocks” include boosting energy efficiency, getting more renewable energy on the grid and using less coal.
Puget Sound Energy, an investor-owned utility based in Bellevue, Washington, gets more than 15 percent of its power from Montana coal. PSE is under mounting pressure from voters and the state government to kick its coal habit, and the new EPA rules add to that pressure.
“It’s very easy for part of our country to be rejoicing after yesterday and say ‘There, we’re just going to shut it all down.’” Well, that’s not going to work,” said Kimberly Harris, president and CEO of Puget Sound Energy. “You cannot just shut down coal units and expect for the grid to continue to operate. And we have an obligation to serve.”
Harris says that transitioning off of coal is possible, but it will take time – and states will have to work together.
“Any type of a retirement has to be transitional because we have significant decisions to make and investment and planning to do as a region. This really needs to be a regional approach,” Harris emphasized.
Washington’s in good shape to meet the EPA requirements, pretty much just by phasing out its only coal plant, which operates in Centralia. But Montana is going to need help lowering its CO2 emissions and getting more renewables online.
But who will will pay for it?
“From an investor’s point of view, all of this looks like a giant investment opportunity,” said Mike Weinstein, an investment analyst with UBS Securities in New York.
Weinstein said investors will be looking to throw money at new technology to cut CO2 emissions at the smokestack or sequester those emissions underground.
Some other winners, according to Weinstein? Renewable energy, natural gas and maybe nuclear power.
He also stressed the role of energy efficiency in helping utilities meet the EPA requirements, and keep costs down.
Jennifer Green and sidekick Jasper are helping to keep the Tulalip community clean.
By Kim Kalliber, Tulalip News Writer, June 5, 2014
TULALIP, Wa. – Meet Tulalip resident Jennifer Green and her buddy Jasper. I met up with Jennifer, and her large bag of trash, this morning on the Tulalip Reservation near the Red Church. Jennifer is not only getting fit, but is helping to keep the reservation beautiful by walking twice a week, picking up litter.
Having recently shed 80 pounds, Jennifer said, “With all my new energy, I’m making it further and further around the reservation.”
According to Oprah.com, “If every person picked up just one piece of litter today, there would be over 300 million fewer pieces of litter. If every person picked up 10 pieces of litter, there would be 3 billion fewer pieces damaging our environment. If you and your friends spend just one hour today picking up litter in your own neighborhood, you will not only pick up thousands of pieces of trash, you will also make a tremendous impact on your community.”
Thanks Jennifer for making a difference in our community!
SHORELINE, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday signed an executive oder aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The order creates a task force and charges it with deciding how to tax and cap carbon emissions at the state level. The task force will present a plan to the state Legislature at the beginning of 2015.
The executive order also calls on state agencies to work on phasing out coal power, improving energy efficiency in buildings and exploring the impacts of a low carbon fuel standard – among other things
The first-term Democrat surrounded himself with symbols of the green-tech future he’d like to bring about: he signed the document at a table made out of a solar panel with electric cars parked nearby. Along with politicians, the event was witnessed by the next generation of automotive techs looking on at Shoreline Community College’s Automotive Training Center.
“Today I’m signing an executive order that will determine how we reduce carbon pollution in our state because our grandkids won’t care much for our preamble or our speeches,” Inslee said during the event. “They will care about what is true and what we did.”
Inslee stressed the need for buy-in from business leaders in developing the plan.
Ada Healey, a vice president with Vulcan Real Estate Group, will serve on the task force. She said the company’s chairman, billionaire Paul Allen, and CEO Jody Allen are behind the push to address climate change.
“It’s troubling to them, as well as all of us, that we’re still debating whether climate change is a real concern rather than pulling together and deciding what we’re going to do about it,” Healy said.
Instituting a tax or cap on carbon emissions will require the approval of the state Legislature. That’s been hard to get so far.
Last year Inslee convened the bipartisan Climate Legislative and Executive Work Group. It was supposed to pursue the same agenda as that set by the governor for his new task force. But Democrats and Republicans on the work group failed to reach an agreement.
Democratic members of the panel issued a report that recommended many of the same strategies the governor is now pursuing through executive order.
Republicans on the panel issued their own minority report. It recommended incentivizing more hydropower generation in Washington, embracing nuclear power and promoting research and development of new energy technologies. Throughout the CLEW process, the Republicans cautioned that strategies to reduce carbon emissions in Washington could drive up the cost of energy and hurt the state economically.
Olympia environmental attorney Jay Manning was the head of the Department of Ecology from 2005-09 and then served as chief of staff for former Gov. Chris Gregoire. He said Inslee’s experience as a state and federal representative means he knows it will be tough to get a carbon tax or cap through the state Legislature.
“I don’t think anybody thinks it’s going to be easy but that’s how the process works. So I applaud the gov for putting together this process and then there will be a lively debate, without a doubt in the 2015 session,” Manning said.
So far, Washington is not on track to meet emissions reductions goals set by the state Legislature back in 2008.
Inslee’s order calls on his budget office to conduct a feasibility study of a California-style low-carbon or “clean fuel” standard. This is a requirement that transportation fuels like gasoline be blended with lower-carbon ethanol. According to Inslee’s office, transportation accounts for 44-percent of Washington’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
In recent months, Washington Republicans and the oil and gas industry have sounded the alarm about a low-carbon fuel standard, warning it would drive up the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Oregon is currently in the process of writing its own rules for a similar standard.
Washington, with its abundant hydropower, is considered a low greenhouse gas emitting state. In 2010, total emissions were 96.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, according to the state’s consultant. Washington’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is from gasoline burned by cars and trucks. Electricity from coal is the second largest source.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee at the State of the State address in January. Flickr/Jay Inslee.
By Robert McClure, InvestigateWest; Source: The Herald
OLYMPIA — How much risk of cancer from eating fish is too much? Gov. Jay Inslee has privately advanced a proposal that would likely pass legal muster but which worries Indian tribes and environmentalists. It would allow a tenfold increase in allowable cancer risk under the law.
It’s either that, the governor has told a panel of his advisers, or the state will have to consider regulatory breaks for polluters that the state has not traditionally granted in the past.
For example: giving factories, municipal sewage treatment plants and others who dump pollution into waterways 20 years or perhaps even more to come into compliance with new toxic-waste limits.
Caught in crossfire between Indian tribes and business interests, Inslee stepped into the controversy last spring after his predecessor, Chris Gregoire, short-circuited plans by the state Ecology Department to make water pollution rules more protective of people who eat a lot of fish. Gregoire’s move came a day after the former governor met with a senior Boeing Co. executive who strongly objected to tighter restrictions on toxic pollution, as InvestigateWest was the first to report.
Inslee’s first step was to organize a panel of advisers, including business and tribal officials. It was in front of that group in February that the governor laid out the choices as he saw them, according to several people who attended the meeting.
Now Inslee is on the verge of handing down orders to the state Ecology Department on how to proceed. It’s a decision fraught with political tension because Inslee has allies in the tribes and in business.
“The governor came into this issue, inherited it, hearing both that this is going to kill business and hearing this is necessary to protect Washington citizens who are heavy fish consumers,” said Ted Sturdevant, who first pushed the tighter limits as director of Ecology and is now Inslee’s chief adviser on the issue. “He’s been looking for a path that does both — that protects people who eat a lot of fish and that doesn’t kill the economy.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly told Washington that the state must fix its system for regulating water pollution under the federal Clean Water Act.
What needs fixing is the fish consumption rate: an official state estimate of how much fish people eat and a key part of Washington’s formula for deciding how much pollution is allowed. The more fish people consume, the more exposure they face to water-borne pollutants, and the less pollution can be discharged into waterways under the Clean Water Act.
The fish-consumption estimate Washington uses is based on a national study conducted in 1973 and 1974 in which people filled out three-day food diaries. According to that study, and in the current state calculations, Washingtonians eat less than half a pound of fish per month, about one serving. In reality, many eat more in a single meal. Starting in the 1990s, more-rigorous studies of Northwest Indian tribes found fish consumption rates of 30 pounds per month or more among the highest consumers in the Suquamish Tribe, for example, where even the average consumer eats 14 pounds a month. Other groups, such as sport fishers and immigrant communities, are also known to eat fish in excess of the state estimate.
Critics of Washington’s one-meal-per-month figure point to Oregon, which in 2011 adjusted its rate to 11 pounds per month, or roughly one fish meal per day, making it the strictest standard in the nation. That move was designed to protect 90 percent of people eating fish in the state to a one-in-1-million standard of increased lifetime risk of cancer.
Following Oregon’s lead, Sturdevant as director of Ecology in 2011 began a process to correct Washington’s fish-consumption estimate. Vigorous protests from business and influential members of the state Legislature failed to stop the rulemaking process by spring 2012. But when Boeing took its complaint all the way to the governor, Gregoire told Ecology to go back to the drawing board.
Tribes protested. After his election, Inslee personally stepped into the controversy, tapping a panel of prominent business, tribal and municipal officials to try to reach agreement on a path forward.
Ten months later, that hasn’t happened. And in the interim, environmentalists filed suit in federal court seeking to compel the federal EPA to force action by the state or take over the whole process
Businesses and local governments rightly point out that wastewater technology is not currently available to meet the strict water-quality standards that would result if Washington adopts a fish consumption rate as high as Oregon’s.
To environmentalists and Indian tribes, that’s not the point. They rightly point out that the Clean Water Act has often required industry and others under its regulation to set a standard to protect public health and rely on that standard to drive technological innovation. That way, at least eventually, even heavy fish consumers are protected, they argue.
At a meeting at the governor’s office in early February, according to several of those who attended, the governor laid out two options, both of which lessen the potential burden on polluters:
Boost the estimate of how much fish Washingtonians are eating, but alter another pivotal part of the formula used to set pollution limits: the additional cancer risk from eating fish that is considered acceptable. Traditionally, Ecology has set that at one additional cancer case for every 1 million people exposed to a given pollutant. That number could be set at one in 100,000 instead, Inslee suggested, and remain within legal bounds. EPA allows states to set the risk at either level, so long as even highly exposed groups such as Indian tribes face risks no greater than one additional cancer case from eating fish per 10,000 people.
Keep the traditional limit of one-in-1-million increased cancer risk, but take steps to help pollution dischargers. This could include giving them variances from the rules; allowing them years or even decades to reduce pollution; or other alternatives. Similar polluter-friendly steps were taken in Oregon but traditionally have not been used in Washington. This second option, Inslee adviser Sturdevant told InvestigateWest, would have to be paired with “creative solutions” that would further protect fish eaters, although such solutions have not yet been outlined.
The EPA’s Seattle-based Region 10 oversees the Ecology Department’s enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran refused to grant an interview to discuss EPA’s position or provide another spokesman for the agency.
But recently the agency repeated its position in a letter to the Washington Ecology Department, saying an “important part of a final rule is choosing a cancer risk level that provides risk protection for all Washington citizens, including those who eat higher amounts of fish.” If the state doesn’t come up with a rule by the end of the year, EPA plans to step in and do the job itself, the letter said. The suit the environmental groups filed in federal court seeks to force such action by EPA.
Meanwhile, a coalition of business interests, local governments and a labor organization endorsed increasing the allowable cancer risk. Expecting a one-in-1-million increased cancer risk is “unacceptable,” the group wrote in a letter to Inslee.
“We anticipate that this risk level, coupled with a high fish consumption rate, will result in largely unattainable ultra-low numeric criteria, unmeasureable incremental health benefits, and predictable economic turmoil,” the group said.
One signer was Maud Daudon, president and CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, who served on Inslee’s panel of advisers and attended the meetings where the governor discussed the issue. She told InvestigateWest even the one-in-100,000 cancer rate would lead to significantly tightened water-pollution standards.
By adopting that goal, she said, “you can get industry to invest in ways that will move the needle for human health.”
Business and local governments argue, too, that they are unfairly targeted by the Clean Water Act. Pollution from factories and sewage plants has already been ratcheted down substantially since the landmark legislation was adopted in 1972. Nowadays, quite a bit of pollution flowing into Washington waterways comes not from a sewage plant or factory, but rather from the foul mix that flows off streets, parking lots and other hard surfaces during rainstorms, carrying the detritus of our modern world, including three pollutants that have proved particularly difficult to clean up: PCBs, arsenic and mercury.
Tribal interests, nevertheless, are growing impatient with the Ecology Department’s drawn-out process.
“It’s really concerning to me,” said Jim Peters of the Squaxin Island Tribe. “It seems like they have no problem having heavy fish consumers have a higher risk of getting cancer than other people.
“It’s just not something we can accept. Tribal members and my family do eat a lot of fish. It’s part of our lives and part of our culture and a staple of our diets. And we’d probably eat more fish if there were more around.”
Although Inslee has not yet said publicly how he will resolve the dispute, those involved in the discussions say it seems likely that he will find a way to allow polluters leeway on PCBs, mercury and arsenic. What form that might take remains unclear.
Kelly Susewind, a key adviser to Ecology Director Maia Bellon, argues that one case per 100,000 people “is very, very close to zero” cases, although he acknowledges that one in 1 million “is even closer” to zero.
He said the agency should be given credit for not simply focusing on protecting the average person.
“We’re saying let’s set a number that’s right for high consumers,” Susewind said.
One thing to consider is that the measure of increased cancer risk is based on 70 years of exposure to a given pollutant. Also keep in mind that Washington’s population is about 6.9 million people. So if the allowable cancer rate were to be set at one in 100,000 people instead of one in 1 million people, the difference would be roughly 62 extra cases of cancer over 70 years — if the assumptions are right. It could be more or it could be fewer.
One of Inslee’s advisers is Seattle attorney Rod Brown.
“What’s your social judgment about how much risk is acceptable for a carcinogen?” Brown asks. “It sounds like math, but it’s also a social judgment.”
InvestigateWest is a Seattle-based non-profit journalism organization focused on the environment, public health and government accountability in the Pacific Northwest.
K-Cups seem like the complicated Starbucks order of today: an expensive, caffeinated way to express your oh-so-unique taste and personality. Who needs to run out for a tall caramel macchiato when you can make a single serving of Wolfgang Puck’s Jamaica Me Crazy medium roast in the comfort of your kitchen?
Except all those little plastic cups add up to some massive trash. Ten and a half loops around the equator, in fact, according to Mother Jones. Kind of ridic for a company owned by a fair-trade, organic coffee brand, no?
Plus, the No. 7 plastic blend is BPA-free, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Even if all that plastic magically disappeared into the ether on disposal, its manufacture could be making workers sick, writes MoJo:
One concern with this plastic mix is the presence of polystyrene, containing the chemical styrene, which Hoover warns is especially worrisome for workers. A possible carcinogen, styrene can wreak havoc on the nervous systems of those handling it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
Keurig would not tell me what types of plastic go into its #7 blend, saying the information was proprietary, nor would it confirm or deny the presence of polystyrene in the mix.
If that weren’t bad enough, Keurig taxes you for being bad at math: K-Cups cost you more than twice what a bag of beans does — about $50 a pound. Damn, son! If you refuse to surrender your Keurig, reusable filters or biodegradable pods are the way to go.
