Native Americans have long had a close relationship with their lands and waters—sacred places and resources that define their lives. The disruptions wrought by a warming climate are forcing abrupt cultural changes on peoples with a long reliance on a once stable ecosystem.
Among the special issues affecting tribes, the 2013 Assessment of Climate Change in the Southwestern United States (SWCA) cited “cultural and religious impacts, impacts to sustainable livelihoods, population emigration, and threats to the feasibility of living conditions.”
The Hoh, Quinault, Quileute and Makah nations inhabit low-lying land along the west coast of Washington State, and face similar threats as rising sea levels and the other impacts of climate disruptions endanger their villages.
”The area is relatively vulnerable,” Patty Glick, senior global warming specialist and author of a 2007 National Wildlife Federation report, ”Sea Level Rise and Coastal Habitats in the Pacific Northwest,” told Indian Country Today Media Network in 2008. Higher wave action, wave force and destructive storm surges will increase in the coming decade, Glick said, and destructive storms such as the hurricanes will become more frequent.
The Hoh road to the beach has washed out, and the ocean has destroyed the homes that once lined their beach. In Quinault, a passing storm tossed gigantic logs onto the school grounds. These events intensified both tribes’ agenda to get higher ground returned from the Olympic National Park beyond their tiny reservation boundaries.
The Makah and the Quinault nations have large reservations, but their seaside villages are at risk, as evidenced by the recent state of emergency at Quinault headquarters in Taholah, which faced an increasingly dangerous situation with sea level rise and intensified storms, which breached a sea wall causing serious damage.
According to Climate Central, which uses data from NOAA and the USGS, there is a greater than one in six chance that sea level rise, plus storm surge, plus tides, will raise sea levels by more than one foot before 2020 along the coastline and in the Puget Sound region, where another eight tribes are situated. The Shoalwater Bay sits nearly out to sea in southwest Washington.
Rising sea levels will affect Washington’s shoreline habitat for vegetation, animals, birds and fish, according to Glick’s report. Marshes, swamps and tidal flats will be significantly affected, and salmon and shellfish habitat are expected to be significantly affected, Glick reported.
Along Alaska’s northwestern coast, melting sea ice has reduced natural coastal protection. Increased coastal erosion is causing some shorelines to retreat at rates averaging tens of feet per year. In Shishmaref and Kivalina, Alaska, severe erosion has caused homes to collapse into the sea, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, forcing these Alaska Native Village populations to relocate in order to protect lives and property.
Moving inland, “Climate change is slowly tipping the balance in favor of more frequent, longer lasting, and more intense droughts,” states the SWCA. The Navajo Nation is experiencing annual average temperatures warmer than the 1904-2011 average, cites a climate report released in March 2014. Latest figures show their drought continuing beyond 2010 studies into July 2013, indicating the drought continues.
Perhaps among the worst of those impacts are the runaway sand dunes it has unleashed, which extend over one-third the 27,000-square-mile reservation. During the 1996-2009 drought period the extent of dune fields increased by some 70%. These dunes are moving at rates of approximately 35 meters per year, covering houses, burying cars and snarling traffic, degrading grazing and agricultural lands, contributing to the loss of rare and endangered native plants, and when they occur contributing to poor air quality, a serious health concern for many of the reservation’s 173,667 residents.
Intertribal organizations around the U.S. are recognizing climate change and variability as a significant factor that can impact tribal resources, livelihoods, and cultures, cites the latest tribal climate report. The National Tribal Air Association notes that “perhaps no other community of people has experienced the adverse impacts of climate change more than the nation’s Indian tribes.”
The struggle will soon come to more tribes. Sea level rise projections do not bode well and may already be a cause of concern for the tribes along Louisiana’s Gulf of Mexico—the United Houma Nation, the Atakapa-Ishak Nation, Pointe-au-Chien Tribe, and the Biloxi-Chitimacha’s Isle de Jean Charles Band, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band and Bayou Lafourche Band. In Florida—the Miccosukee, and some locations of the Seminole Indian Reservations. Ocean residing tribal nations in California include the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla, Cahto, Chumash, Hoopa, Karok, Kumeyaay, Luiseño Bands of Indians, Maidu, Miwok, and some bands of the Pomo Nation. Some are more at risk than others.
Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee says Washington will likely adopt a California-style pollution limit on gasoline and other transportation fuels.
Inslee recently ordered a feasibility and cost study of a low-carbon fuel standard.
For months now, Washington Republicans have been predicting that Inslee will use his executive powers to enact a low-carbon fuel standard. Inslee acknowledges he’s looking at ways to do this without legislative approval. Either way he thinks Washington is poised to move forward.
“I think it’s a probability that we will be able to fashion a low-carbon fuel standard that will be effective for the state of Washington, both for carbon pollution and from a cost-containment standpoint,” Inslee said during an appearance on Seattle Channel’s “Civic Cocktail” program. “From what I know today, I think it’s a likelihood we will succeed in fashioning that, but I want reiterate we’re going to have a very sophisticated, thorough evaluation of that before I make that ultimate decision.”
A low-carbon fuel standard is basically a requirement that vehicle fuels be blended with less carbon-intensive alternative fuels. For instance, California’s standard requires a 10 percent reduction in carbon intensity of gas and diesel over 10 years.
Inslee has promised a “deliberative, public process” as he pursues carbon pollution reduction measures in Washington. Legislative Republicans oppose a fuel standard and say it could drive up the cost of gasoline.
A new draft report finds that Washington schools face threats from nine different kinds of natural hazards. Credit Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
The Oso landslide, with 41 dead and two still missing, could be the the third-worst natural disaster in Washington history after the Stevens Pass Avalanche of 1910 and the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.
But what if there had been a school in the path of the slide? The death toll could have been much higher.
A new draft report from Washington’s Superintendent of Public Instruction finds that 15 public schools in Washington are within 500 feet of a mapped landslide zone. The good news is none of those nearby slopes are considered steep and the risk of a landslide in those areas ranks as “low.”
However, the report finds another 28 Washington schools have a steep slope with a “high” risk of sliding in the immediate vicinity. And dozens more K-12 buildings are close to hills with a “low” or “moderate” risk of failing.
Six major natural hazards
It’s not just landslides. The draft report finds that Washington schools face threats from nine different kinds of natural hazards. Six of those pose the greatest threat:
Earthquakes
Tsunamis
Floods
Wildfires
Volcanoes
Landslides
“It doesn’t necessarily mean we need to start packing our bags and shutting down schools,” says report co-author Robert Dengel with Washington’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). “But talking about risk in a real and practical way.”
To that end, OSPI has partnered with 28 school districts in a pilot project to help them create their own hazard mitigation plans. Dengel gives the example of the Ocosta School District on the Washington coast where plans are underway to construct a tsunami safe haven.
In the case of landslides, Dengel says districts may want to have a geotechnical engineer do a formal on-site assessment of the slide risk. But it might not even take that to rule out a threat.
‘I’m Pretty Shocked’
Take the example of Holmes Elementary School in Northwest Spokane. It shows up in the draft report as sitting near to a steep-slope hill with a preliminary landslide risk level of “high.”
“I’m pretty shocked,” says Holmes Elementary principal Steve Barnes.
Barnes says his school is about three blocks from the Spokane River and there is a steep slope there. But if the hillside were to give way, the debris field would flow north away from the school. So how did Holmes Elementary end up on the list? Because the list was created using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping, not actual site visits.
The report emphasizes the list does not represent a “determination of landslide hazards nor the level of landslide risk.”
Wake-Up Call
Still, the principal at Holmes Elementary sees a value in being reminded of the potential for natural hazards to affect his school. “Natural disasters are pretty low, if at all, on my radar,” admits Barnes, whose school regularly drills for shootings and other human dangers. “We have lockdowns, we have shelter-in-place … so those are where we’re spending our time.”
Washington has 295 school districts with more than 2,400 campuses and more than 1 million students, according to the draft report. Dengel, the report’s co-author, says in an average-sized school district with 30 school buildings, usually only one or two would be at high risk for some sort of natural disaster.
His bottom line: “The sky isn’t falling, but there’s definitely work to do to better protect our students.”
The draft report is titled “Washington State K-12 Facilities Hazard Mitigation Plan.” It’s the first of its kind in the nation and was made possible by a 2012 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
OSPI will accept public comments on the draft until July 25. A final report is due out this fall.
After 20 years of battling Monsanto and corporate agribusiness, food and farm activists in Vermont, backed by a growing movement across the country, are on the verge of a monumental victory — mandatory labels on genetically engineered foods and a ban on the routine industry practice of labeling GMO-tainted foods as “natural.”
On April 16, 2014, the Vermont Senate passed H.112 by a vote of 28-2, following up on the passage of a similar bill in the Vermont House last year. The legislation, which requires all GMO foods sold in Vermont to be labeled by July 1, 2016, will now pass through a House/Senate conference committee before landing on Governor Peter Shumlin’s desk, for final approval.
Strictly speaking, Vermont’s H.112 applies only to Vermont. But it will have the same impact on the marketplace as a federal law. Because national food and beverage companies and supermarkets will not likely risk the ire of their customers by admitting that many of the foods and brands they are selling in Vermont are genetically engineered, and deceptively labeled as “natural” or “all natural” while simultaneously trying to conceal this fact in the other 49 states and North American markets. As a seed executive for Monsanto admitted 20 years ago, “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”
Proof of this “skull and crossbones” effect is evident in the European Union, where mandatory labeling, in effect since 1997, has all but driven genetically engineered foods and crops off the market. The only significant remaining GMOs in Europe today are imported grains (corn, soy, canola, cotton seed) primarily from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Argentina. These grains are used for animal feed, hidden from public view by the fact that meat, dairy and eggs derived from animals fed GMOs do not yet have to be labeled in the EU.
Given the imminent passage of the Vermont legislation and the growing strength of America’s anti-GMO and pro-organic movement, the Gene Giants — Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta — and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), representing Big Food, find themselves in a difficult position. Early polls indicate that Oregon voters will likely pass a ballot initiative on Nov. 4, 2014, to require mandatory labeling of GMOs in Oregon. Meanwhile, momentum for labeling continues to gather speed in other states as well.
Connecticut and Maine have already passed GMO labeling laws, but these laws contain “trigger” clauses, which prevent them from going into effect until other states mandate labeling as well. Vermont’s law does not contain a “trigger” clause. As soon as the governor signs it, it will have the force of law.
Divisions Between Big Food and the Gene Giants
Given what appears to be the inevitable victory of the consumer right-to-know movement, some of the U.S.’s largest food companies have quietly begun distancing themselves from Monsanto and the genetic engineering lobby. General Mills, Post Foods, Chipotle, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and others have begun to make changes in their supply chains in order to eliminate GMOs in some or all of their products. Several hundred companies have enrolled in the Non-GMO Project so they can credibly market their products as GMO-free.
At least 30 members (10 percent of the total membership) of the GMA who contributed money to defeat Proposition 37 in California in November 2012, have held back on making further contributions to stop labeling initiatives in other states. Among the apparent defectors in the GMA ranks are: Mars, Unilever, Smithfield, Heinz, Sara Lee, Dole, Wrigley, and Mead Johnson. Under pressure from the Organic Consumers Association, Dr. Anthony Weil’s natural health and supplements company, Weil Lifestyle, pulled out of the GMA.
Meanwhile a number of the Gene Giants themselves, including Monsanto, appear to be slowly decreasing their investments in gene-spliced GMOs, while increasing their investments in more traditional, and less controversial, cross-breeding and hybrid seed sales. Still, don’t expect the Gene Giants to give up on the GMO seeds and crops already in production, especially Roundup Ready and Bt-spliced crops, nor those in the pipeline such as 2,4-D “Agent Orange” and Dicamba-resistant corn and soybeans, GE rice, and “RNA interference” crops such as non-browning apples, and fast-growing genetically engineered trees.
America’s giant food companies and their chemical industry allies understand the threat posed by truthful labeling of GMOs, pesticides, antibiotics, growth promoters and toxic chemicals. They understand full well that the GMO monocrops and factory farms that dominate U.S. agriculture not only pose serious health and environmental hazards, but represent a significant public relations liability as well.
This is why the food and GE giants are threatening to sue Vermont and any other state that dares to pass a GMO labeling bill, even though industry lawyers have no doubt informed them that they are unlikely to win in federal court.
This is also why corporate agribusiness is supporting “Ag Gag” state laws making it a crime to photograph or film on factory farms. Why they’re lobbying for state laws that take away the rights of counties and local communities to regulate agricultural practices. And why they’re supporting secret international trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that will, among other provisions, enable multinational corporations to sue and eliminate state and local laws on matters such as GMOs, food safety, and country of origin labeling.
The bottom line is this: Corporate America’s current “business-as-usual” strategies are incompatible with consumers’ right to know, and communities’ and states’ rights to legislate.
Coca-Cola, Pepsi, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Campbell’s, Safeway, Del Monte, Nestlé, Unilever, ConAgra, Wal-Mart, and every food manufacturer with GMO-tainted brands, understand they’re not going to be able to label their products as “produced with genetic engineering,” or drop the use of the term “natural” on GMO-tainted products, only in Vermont, while refusing to do so in other states and international markets. This is why their powerful front group, the GMA, is frantically working in Washington, D.C., to lobby the FDA and the Congress to take away the right of states to require genetically engineered foods and food ingredients to be labeled, and to allow them to continue to label and advertise genetically engineered and chemically-laced foods as “natural” or “all natural.”
Industry’s Last Chance: Indentured Politicians
Conspiring with the GMA, Monsanto’s minions from both the Republican and Democratic parties in Congress, led by the notorious Koch brothers mouthpiece, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), introduced in early April in the House a GMA-scripted bill to outlaw mandatory state GMO labels and allow the continued use of “natural” or “all natural” product labels on a wide range of Frankenfoods and beverages.
The GMA’s federal offensive to prop up the dangerous and evermore unpopular technology of transgenic foods comes on the heels of two high-profile ballot initiative battles in California (2012), and Washington State (2013), where GMA members were forced to spend almost $70 million to narrowly defeat GMO labeling forces. The 15 largest contributors to stop GMO labeling in California and Washington include the following GMA members:
These “dirty tricks,” “dirty money” ballot initiative victories in California and Washington now ring hollow. If Congress or the FDA, prompted by these same companies, dare to stomp on states’ rights to require GMO labels on GMO food, if they dare to repress the rights of millions of consumers to know whether or not their food is genetically engineered, they run the very real risk of detonating an even larger and more vociferous grassroots rebellion, including massive boycotts and a concerted effort to throw “Monsanto’s Minions” out of Congress. The widespread furor last year over the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act,” surreptitiously appended to the Appropriations Bill, and then, after massive uproar, subsequently removed, is but a partial foreshadowing of the turmoil yet to come.
Likewise Congress or the FDA should think twice before legally sanctioning the patently outrageous practice of allowing companies to continue to label or advertise GMO or chemically tainted food as “natural” or “all natural.”
Given the fact that 80-90 percent of American consumers want genetically engineered foods to be labeled, as indicated by numerous polls over the last 10 years, and given the fact that it is obviously unethical and fraudulent to label or advertise GMO or heavily chemically processed foods as “natural,” even the FDA has so far declined to come to the rescue of Monsanto and Big Food. In the face of 65 so far largely successful national class-action lawsuits against food companies accused of fraudulently labeling their GMO or chemically-laced brands as “natural, “Big Food’s lawyers have asked the FDA to come to their aid. But so far, the FDA has declined to throw gasoline on the fire.
It’s clear why “profit at any cost” big business wants to keep consumers in the dark. They want to maximize their profits. The consumer, the environment, the climate be damned. But let’s review, for the record, why truthful food labeling is so important to us, the overwhelming majority of the people, and to future generations.
Here are three major, indeed life-or-death, issues that drive America’s new anti-GMO and pro-organic food movement:
(1) There is mounting, and indeed alarming, evidence that genetically engineered foods and crops, and the toxic pesticides, chemicals, and genetic constructs that accompany them, are hazardous. GMOs pose a mortal threat, not only to human and animal health, but also to the environment, biodiversity, the survival of small-scale family farms, and climate stability.
(2) Genetically engineered crops are the technological cornerstone and ideological rationale for our dominant, out-of-control system of industrial agriculture, factory farms, and highly processed junk food.America’s industrial food and farming system is literally destroying public health, the environment, soil fertility and climate stability. As we educate, boycott and mobilize, as we label and drive GMOs off the market, we simultaneously rip the mask off Big Food and chemical corporations, which will ultimately undermine industrial agriculture and speed up the “Great Transition” to a food and farming system that is organic, sustainable and climate stabilizing.
(3) Fraudulent “natural” labels confuse consumers and hold back the growth of true organic alternatives. Consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as “natural,” or “all natural”and those nutritionally and environmentally superior products that are “certified organic.” Recent polls indicate that many health- and green-minded consumers remain confused about the qualitative difference between products labeled or advertised as “natural,” versus those labeled as organic. Many believe that “natural” means “almost organic,” or that a natural product is even better than organic. Thanks to growing consumer awareness, and four decades of hard work, the organic community has built up a $35-billion “certified organic” food and products sector that prohibits the use of genetic engineering, irradiation, toxic pesticides, sewage sludge and chemical fertilizers. As impressive as this $35 billion Organic Alternative is, it remains overshadowed by the $80 billion in annual spending by consumers on products marketed as “natural.” Get rid of fraudulent “natural” labels on GMO and chemically tainted products, and organic sales will skyrocket.
With the passage of the Vermont GMO labeling law, after 20 years of struggle, it’s time to celebrate our common victory. But as we all know, the battle for a new food and farming system, and a sustainable future has just begun
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell will be in Washington State on April 24, to provide keynote remarks at a tribal summit organized by U.S. Representative Derek Kilmer (WA-6) and hosted by the Suquamish Tribe.
The summit will be held at the Port Madison Indian Reservation on Bainbridge Island. Jewell will meet tribal leaders and tour the Suquamish hatchery and seafood plant with Leonard Forsman, tribal chairman.
Accompanying Jewell on the visit will be Larry Roberts, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs, and Stanley Speaks, Northwest Regional Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Jewell is chair of the White House Council on Native American Affairs a role that has her overseeing a comprehensive effort to enable Federal agencies to work more collaboratively and effectively with tribes to advance their economic and social priorities and improve conditions for American Indians and Alaska Natives according to an Interior press release.
The summit on Thursday will include discussions on economic development, tribal sovereignty and the impact of climate change on American Indian communities to be held in the Suquamish Community House (House of Awakened Culture). Representatives from the nine tribes within the 6t Congressional District – the Hoh, Lower Elwha, Makah, Quinault, Quileute, Jamestown S’Klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam, and Skokomish – have been invited.
The Northwest would see more oil trains like these under proposed rail-to-ship terminals on Washington’s Grays Harbor. That’s the subject of public hearings Thursday and Tuesday. | credit: Flickr
Environmental regulators in Washington state are expecting a lively crowd Thursday in the coastal city of Hoquiam, where the public gets a chance to weigh in about increased crude oil train traffic.
Developers are proposing side-by-side marine terminal expansions on Grays Harbor along the Washington coast. They would receive crude oil by rail from the Northern Plains and send it out by barge and tanker to West Coast refineries. This would add to the already fast-rising number of crude oil trains crossing the Northwest. Environmentalists, shellfish growers and coastal tribes are organizing in opposition.
But one powerful state senator asserts that oil trains are “going to be with us for a while.” Republican Doug Ericksen represents a district in northwest Washington that is home to two oil refineries.
“Simply saying no — coming to a meeting and saying we just don’t want any oil coming through Washington state — that’s not realistic. It’s not going to happen. That would actually be devastating to our economy, trying to prevent these crude oil stocks from moving to our refineries,” he said.
Ericksen agrees oil train safety is a legitimate concern. Environmental campaigners argue many of the rail cars carrying crude across the region are old and unsafe and pose grave risks to rail-side communities.
What’s Next
The City of Hoquiam and Washington Department of Ecology are jointly leading the environmental review of the planned crude oil terminals in Grays Harbor County. The public can take a look at the proposals and offer comments at Hoquiam High School Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. A second public meeting is scheduled for April 29 at Centralia High School.
This was first reported by the Northwest News Network.
Washington’s remarkable razor clam season continues as state shellfish managers plan to add digs in late-April and early May.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) announced a tentative schedule of new digs in light of updated harvest estimates that show a sufficient number of clams to support the additional openings.
“This has been a great year for razor clams,” said Dan Ayres, WDFW shellfish manager. “Clams this year have been bigger than average and abundant enough to add another series of digs.”
Final approval on upcoming digs will be announced after marine-toxin test results confirm the clams are safe to eat.
“Digging at Mocrocks has been fabulous lately,” Ayres said, noting that the upcoming series of digs includes three dates at that beach.
The upcoming digs are scheduled on the following dates, beaches and low tides:
• May 01, Thursday, 8:43 a.m., -1.0 feet, Twin Harbors, Long Beach
• May 02, Friday, 9:23 a.m., -0.7 feet, Twin Harbors, Long Beach, Mocrocks
• May 03, Saturday, 10:04 a.m., -0.3 feet, Twin Harbors, Long Beach, Mocrocks
• May 04, Sunday, 10:47 a.m., 0.1 feet, Twin Harbors, Long Beach, Mocrocks
WDFW shellfish managers will analyze harvest data after this series of digs is completed. If enough clams remain for more digs, the best tides are around the weekend of May 17, Ayres said.
Under state law, diggers can take 15 razor clams per day and are required to keep the first 15 they dig. Each digger’s clams must be kept in a separate container. Razor clam diggers are reminded that they may not harvest any part of another person’s daily limit, except for those who possess designated harvester cards.
Diggers age 15 or older must have an applicable 2014-15 fishing license to harvest razor clams on state beaches. Fishing licenses of various kinds are available on the department’s website at https://fishhunt.dfw.wa.gov and from license vendors around the state.
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.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., visits with the public after she held a discussion about raising capital for small business at Vancouver City Hall on Wednesday. | credit: Zachary Kaufman/The Columbian | rollover image for more
April 17, 2014 | The Columbian
Gov. Jay Inslee, who will have the ultimate say over the construction of what would be the Northwest’s largest oil-by-rail transfer terminal in Vancouver, hasn’t taken a stand on the project. But members of the state’s congressional delegation are weighing in.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., was in Vancouver on Tuesday and stopped to visit with The Columbian’s editorial board.
Cantwell was asked if she were a Vancouver resident, would she support building the oil-handling facility?
“It wouldn’t be something I would be promoting,” she said.
She said safety is one of her foremost concerns. In a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month, Cantwell, along with other senators, called for more federal dollars going toward addressing safety issues related to transporting crude oil by rail.
“We’re certainly willing to introduce legislation to put requirements on rail car safety because we don’t think it exists now and we’re not waiting for a voluntary system. We’re not waiting for these guys to get their act together,” Cantwell said. “We’re going to push this year.”
Earlier this week, BSNF Railway officials told Vancouver city councilors they would spend millions to prepare first responders in case of an oil spill. City officials have expressed concerns over ensuring the oil travels safely on the rail line, which runs through downtown and by the proposed waterfront development on the old Boise Cascade property.
Although city officials don’t have a say over the $110 million project proposed by Tesoro Corp. and Savage Companies, they could join other cities, such as Seattle and Bellingham, that have called for a moratorium on new oil-transport facilities until safety concerns, ranging from oil spills to explosions, are addressed.
“This industry has grown far greater than our capacity to deal with it and we need to slow down and get this right,” Cantwell said.
The proposed Tesoro-Savage oil terminal could handle as much as 380,000 barrels of crude per day. The facility would act as a transfer point for oil, arriving by rail to the Port of Vancouver and leaving by water.
Cantwell said she recently pressed the U.S. Coast Guard for details on any safety plans in place for an oil spill.
“So we did get the comment on the record at the hearing that, yeah, we don’t really have a plan … We were glad we were able to clarify that point because we want people to understand there is no solution there,” she said.
Cantwell said she wants to hear about “what people here say about the situation.”
“I get the sense that Vancouver is painting a different picture of where they want their economy to go long-term,” she said.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, recently held a hearing to question officials from the Obama administration and city of Seattle about the safety of rail transport of crude oil.
U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, said Wednesday she’s still asking a lot of questions about safety and environmental impacts.
But in the last three years, she’s said, she has heard a lot of talk about wanting more trains, moving more commodities.
“If these folks can demonstrate they will be good community partners and meet environmental hurdles, then we should talk about it,” she said.
The governor is waiting to receive a recommendation from the state’s Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council before making a decision.
Follow reporter Lauren Dake on Twitter: @col_politics.
A series of fiery explosions expanded opposition and heightened scrutiny of a Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. oil train terminal in Vancouver, Wash., a project that promises to be a bellwether for a growing number of facilities in development along the West Coast.
As we noted in a weekend story, a majority of Vancouver City Council members recently announced they opposed the $110 million terminal, which could process 360,000 barrels of oil daily.
Here are six things you should know about the terminal proposal.
1. It’s big.
It could unload four mile-long trains a day. It could move 131 million barrels of oil annually – seven times more than moved through Washington last year. It would allow Tesoro to move oil to its California refineries for less than the full rail journey would cost.
2. After three major oil train explosions, safety concerns are now driving the debate about the Vancouver terminal.
Building the biggest oil train terminal in the Pacific Northwest was always going to be controversial. But the string of fiery oil train wrecks turned an environmental debate about oil spills and fossil fuels into one about whether the project will put residents’ lives at risk.
Here’s how Jack Burkman, a three-term Vancouver city councilman, put it: “I’m stopped everywhere in town by people I never would’ve expected to be concerned about this. There’s too much lack of understanding. While the likelihood of an accident may be really, really low, the problems we’ve seen have been horrific. That’s what people are having a hard time wrapping their arms around.”
Todd Coleman, the Port of Vancouver’s executive director, put it this way: “(For) people who would’ve otherwise been neutral – fear is powerful.”
3. The string of accidents undercut arguments that something similar couldn’t happen in Vancouver.
When an oil train derailed in Quebec last July, exploding and killing 47 people, the port and Tesoro-Savage said something similar couldn’t happen in Vancouver. They said the BNSF Railway Co., which operates the main line through Vancouver, operated under stricter standards than the rail company in Quebec.
Then a major accident happened on a BNSF rail line in North Dakota in December.
4. The Port of Vancouver has kept secret key details about the terminal.
The port signed a lease in July 2013 with Tesoro-Savage but redacted information in the contract, keeping secret how many trains could go to the site each day.
The Oregonian has asked the port to release an unredacted copy of the lease. A spokeswoman Friday said the agency was re-considering its decision.
5. The Port of Vancouver is trusting that state and federal authorities will address oil train safety.
Uncertainties about tank car safety and crude oil composition led the Port of Portland to reject crude-by-rail terminals until safety gaps are addressed. But in Vancouver, the port is counting on stronger safety standards being in place by the time the project – worth $45 million over 10 years in lease revenue to the port – finishes a state permitting process expected to take a year or longer.
There’s no guarantee safety standards will be ready by the time the terminal is, though. Improving the country’s tank car fleet, for example, could take a decade.
Coleman, the Port of Vancouver official, said his agency may have approached the project differently and gotten safety questions answered up front if it had known more accidents would follow the first major accident last July.
6. The port says a required safety plan will be a backstop if others don’t address safety issues first. But it’s unclear how robust that plan must be.
If federal and state regulators don’t improve oil train safety, Coleman, the port official, said his agency will be able to step in and require key safety measures.
The basis? Two sentences from the port’s 429-page lease with Tesoro-Savage. It says little about what’s required. The lease says:
4. The Port of Vancouver has kept secret key details about the terminal.