Water is the essential life-giving force on Earth; we literally cannot live without it. Compared to many parts of the nation and the world, New England is blessed with an abundance of clean, fresh water. Yet in overabundance water can also be a powerfully destructive force. Tropical Storm Irene reminded Vermonters of this truism last year when flood waters washed away roads, bridges, homes, and livelihoods. Fortunately, many of the same things New Englanders can do to protect ourselves from flooding also help to keep our water clean and full of healthy aquatic wildlife.

Don’t believe it? Well, to quote the John Fogerty song, “I know it’s true, oh so true, ’cause I saw it on TV.” Vermont Public Television to be exact, which is broadcasting documentary films in the Bloom series produced by the Emmy Award-winning team at Bright Blue Media. The clip below is from the upcoming episode “A New Reverence for Water,” which highlights emerging solutions to the pollution and flooding problems that poorly controlled “stormwater” runoff from the developed landscape are causing in communities throughout New England.

If this clips whets your appetite, you can see the full episode this Thursday at 8:30 p.m. on Vermont Public Television  (or you can watch it on You Tube here), right after another episode showing at 8:00 p.m.–Bloom: The Agricultural Renaissance (also on YouTube here).

CLF advocates (myself included) appear along with regulators, academics, local and national policymakers, and business-people with experience implementing the pollution solutions highlighted in the films. Author and 350.org founder Bill McKibben and United Nations Senior Adviser on Water Maude Barlow are among those also featured in the documentaries that are narrated by Academy Award Winning Actor Chris Cooper.

From Vermont to Portland, Oregon, the documentaries depict pollution solutions and illustrates how simple, affordable changes to our built environment and our food production will help us ensure enough clean water and flood resiliency. It’s truly must-see TV.

The headlines following yesterday’s federal court decision overturning Vermont laws giving the legislature a say in the continued operation of Vermont Yankee make it seem like the case was a total victory for Louisiana-based Entergy Corporation and its multi-million dollar legal dream team.  Not so!

The decision makes clear that State officials — specifically the state’s Public Service Board — still have broad authority to deny Entergy the “Certificate of Public Good” on grounds that are traditionally within the authority of the state to decide, including economics, land use, and trustworthiness of the plant’s owners to be honest, fair-dealing members of the state’s business community.  Unless Entergy receives a Certificate of Public Good authorization from the Board, it cannot continue operating the plant for another 20 years past its long-scheduled retirement date of March 2012.

Nothing in the Court’s decision upsets that aspect of longstanding Vermont state law — a law that applies to all sorts of power generating projects located in Vermont’s borders — the so-called “Section 248 process”. On page 4 of the Court’s decision the judge clearly states as follows:

“This Court’s decision is based solely upon the relevant admissible facts and the governing law in this case, and it does not purport to resolve or pass judgment on the debate regarding the advantages or disadvantages of nuclear power generation, or its location in this state. Nor does it purport to define or restrict the State’s ability to decline to renew a certificate of public good on any ground not preempted or not violative of federal law, to dictate how a state should choose to allocate its power among the branches of its government, or pass judgment on its choices. The Court has avoided addressing questions of state law and the scope of a state’s regulatory authority that are unnecessary to the resolution of the federal claims presented here.”

So where does that leave things?

Fortunately, CLF has played a leading role in the ongoing Public Service Board proceedings involving Entergy’s application for a new Certificate of Public Good.  Tapping some leading industry experts, CLF has presented a clear case that continued operation of the Vermont Yankee is NOT in the public good of the citizens of Vermont.

Our case rests entirely on grounds that are specifically not placed out of bounds by the Court’s decision yesterday.  These include economics and the failure to have sufficient funds available close the plant and restore the site at the end of its useful life.  Also the claims of an economic benefit from the revenue sharing agreement and the lack of a power contract all show that continued operation does not benefit Vermont.  Add to that the failure of Entergy officials to be forthcoming and provide truthful information about underground pipes, and Entergy’s failure to abide by existing water quality permits and there are many areas of traditional state concern that remain.

The court’s decision is a definite setback, but there are still many opportunities.  Vermont shouldn’t be forced to prop up this old reactor.  Enough is enough.  The Court’s decision left many avenues still open for Vermont to have a say in whether Vermont Yankee continues to operate for another twenty years.

There are some things that you cannot capture adequately in words alone. The impact of nutrient pollution on fresh water bodies like Lake Champlain is one.

A nutrient overload fuels a toxic algae bloom on the surface of Mississquoi Bay making the water unsafe for swimming and unpleasant to be around.

Photo by Lake Champlain Lakekeeper Louis Porter

That is why the Emmy-award winning film “Bloom: The Plight of Lake Champlain” was such an important development in the effort to raise awareness of the Lake’s problems and the urgent need for action. Christopher Kilian, Director of CLF’s Vermont office and its regional Clean Waters and Healthy Forest program, was featured in that documentary, which was narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Chris Cooper. You can watch a clip with Chris Kilian from the first Bloom here.

Tonight marks the premiere of the Bloom sequels–a series of three related short programs also narrated by Chris Cooper under the title “The Emergence of Ecological Design.” Each film focuses on one of the major causes of pollution to the Lake—agricultural discharges, urban runoff (aka stormwater), and sewage treatment—and highlights emerging solutions for each.  Because CLF’s Clean Water and Healthy Forest program is driving solutions to all of those problems, CLF clean water advocate Anthony Iarrapino (that’s me) appears in all three.

Tonight’s premiere screening is free and open to the public starting at 7:00 p.m. at the Palace 9 Theaters in South Burlington.  If you can’t make the show on the big screen, look for Bloom: The Emergence of Ecological Design on Vermont Public Television over the coming months.  You can also buy DVDs from the producers at BrightBlue Media at their website www.bloomthemovie.org where you will find clips of the new films.

All of those who love the peace and quiet, clean water, clean air, and abundant wildlife in the Vermont back-country are applauding the decision by Vermont Agency of Natural Resources officials to reverse course on an agency rule that would have allowed ATV clubs to crisscross and fragment Vermont state lands with ATV trails.  This decision should help protect state forests and wildlife preserves from often-destructive, high-impact motorized activity and maintain Vermont’s longstanding tradition of sound public land management.

ATVs are powerful machines that can churn up sensitive wetlands, destroy wildlife habitat, and create noise, air, and water pollution in sensitive forest environments

Since the previous administration of Governor James Douglas moved forward with this flawed rule that would have opened all state lands to ATV trail construction, CLF has been working with a coalition of organizations and concerned citizens to prevent the rule from taking effect.  CLF offered testimony that helped sway a legislative committee to unanimously object to the rule.  When the Douglas Administration moved forward with the rule over legislative objection, CLF filed a lawsuit challenging the rule’s validity.  In the Agency’s press release announcing the decision to abandon the ATV rule, Secretary Markowitz specifically referenced CLF’s lawsuit as a factor in the decision not to move forward:

“Markowitz said ‘in 2009, [Vermont's] Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules voted unanimously to object to the ATV rule. They strongly believed that ANR did not have the power to adopt the regulation. Because we cannot point to clear authority to adopt this rule, the regulation is vulnerable to legal attack, with little likelihood of prevailing in court.’ The rule has been challenged in the Washington County Superior Court by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF). Markowitz states, ‘it does not make sense to try to defend the ATV rule in court given that LCAR has already determined that no authority to adopt the rule exists.’ 

CLF knows that this important victory is not the end of the struggle to protect our public lands from being overrun with ATVs. The ATV clubs are well-organized and well-funded by manufacturers who push hard to open up public lands to ATV use so that they can expand the recreational market for these gas-guzzling machines.  Agency officials are also hinting that some limited access might be granted in the future. With your support, we will keep working to keep our forests free of the pollution and habitat fragmentation that ATVs bring in their wake.

In their rush to exploit recovery efforts from Tropical Storm Irene, ideologues who perpetually fight against regulation and science and who posture as the defenders of traditional “Yankee” values are forgetting two important rock-ribbed principles.

The first is frugality. There has been a lot of loose talk about how much money was supposedly saved by largely ignoring environmental review and permitting as bulldozers, excavators and dump trucks rushed into rivers across Vermont in dozens of places. Understandably, given the dire situation facing the state at the time, these claims are based on initial, back-of-the-envelope cost estimates made with little or no analysis. However, using those alleged savings to argue for a change in policy is irresponsible as a matter of policy, and discourteous to basic math.

The accounting trick the deregulation folks are trying to pull off ignores the near-term and future public and private costs that Vermonters will inevitably incur and in some cases are already incurring to fix the problems caused by hasty “restoration” that did more harm than good. The overall restoration effort was extraordinary, and the state’s road system has been rebuilt quickly. But as any old hill farmer can tell you, a quick repair is rarely the last fix you need, and haste, even when necessary, makes waste.

Camp Brook in Bethel is a prime example where "restoration" work done hastily in the throw-the-law-and-science-out-the-window free-for-all that followed Tropical Storm Irene is now being redone, at additional cost to taxpayers, to minimize new flooding risks caused by the hasty Post-Irene stream alteration

The second Yankee principle ignored by those who don’t want to let modern understandings of river physics, science-based laws and common sense stand in the way of their crusade against regulation is that we don’t solve our problems by pushing them on to our neighbors.

One of the purposes of the science-based river alteration regulations that have evolved in Vermont during the last few decades is to minimize and prevent flooding altogether rather than simply transfer problems onto neighboring properties. Mining gravel from the stream next to your house might prevent – for a time – your fields from flooding. But it increases the likelihood of your neighbor’s house getting washed away. Striking the balance calls for smart regulation such as Vermont has developed. To do river work right, is to do right by your neighbors.

And, although some would not have it so, those principles of true frugality, quality workmanship, and true community remain in Vermont, and must be restored along with our roads, homes, and towns.

Take for example the case of Camp Brook in hard-hit Bethel.  As reported in Sunday’s Times Argus and Rutland Herald (sorry I can’t link to the story it is behind a paywall), the bulldozers are back in the river.  But this time scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, and volunteers from nonprofit White River Partnership are guiding their work closely.  You see, the bulldozers are there trying to fix the mess (likely made with the best of intentions) that the early recovery efforts made of the Brook; a mess that, according to the news report, actually increased the risk of flash flooding and threatens upstream and downstream bridges along Rt. 12 with erosion around their abutments and more intense flows from a river artificially straightened after Irene.  Here is an excerpt that sums up the status of the Brook as a result of the rush job:

“[N]o one in the excavators really knew what the brook had looked like before.  The valley was flattened.  Berms stood mid-slope.  Where the lawn had once been, the river now braided over dirt and rocks, with no banks to direct its flow.  There were no boulders or even large rocks to add burbles to its sound or prevent flash flooding.”

After weeks of careful remediation, the new science-guided effort is restoring Camp Brook to a healthy functioning stream with natural structures that will help prevent future flooding and restore habitat for fish.  Even though it’s buried in the back pages of the paper, it’s good news for people who care about protecting property and maintaining healthy streams.  It’s bad news for the deregulation crowd because it directly contradicts the claim that we can save money by gutting environmental regulations that require recovery work to be done carefully in a manner that is consistent with science-based state and federal laws. In the long run it is cheaper for us and for those downstream to do a job right the first time lest we keep having to relearn the lesson that haste makes waste.

Tropical Storm Irene had one hell of an appetite for destruction when it comes to Vermont’s farms.  Flood waters washed away many growing crops and destroyed barns and other equipment.  Those flooded farmers who still have crops standing may also be out of luck because regulations prevent the sale of crops that may have been contaminated by flood waters. Vermonters can help farmers recover by recycling bottles and cans.

CLF is partnering with Vermont Public Interest Research Group to get the word out about the statewide Redeem to Rebuild bottle drive in an effort to raise money for the Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund. This fund was established by the Vermont Community Foundation in partnership with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture to provide support to farms that have suffered losses due to Tropical Storm Irene.

The bottle drive will run from September 21st through November 16th. You can help our farmers recover by bringing your returnable bottles and cans to any of the participating redemption centers and letting them know that you want to donate your redeemed deposits to the bottle drive. All of the nickels raised from your redeemed containers will go to the Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund.

Click here for a list of participating redemption centers.

Please help us get the word out by telling your friends, family, and neighbors today! Together, we can support our local farms while also keeping our environment clean and healthy.

Last night, I sought refuge from the oppressive heat by taking a long swim in the cool, clean water of our local lake.  Families and young children packed the shallows where they found relief from record-breaking temperatures.  Floating along in this happy summer scene, I could not help but think of how fortunate we are to live in a country where our laws recognize that our happiness, our safety, and our economy depend on our ability to keep our water clean.

Thanks to the Clean Water Act, many waters are safe for swimming. Call your Senators to let them know you support this important law and want to ensure that all of our waters are safe for swimming, drinking, and fishing before it's too late.

In many places across the nation, the freedom to swim safely on a hot summer day was only a dream a generation ago when raw sewage and industrial pollution choked our nation’s waters.  Without the pollution controls and infrastructure investments required by the Clean Water Act and the work of groups like CLF to ensure that the law was being followed over the last forty years, water that is “drinkable, fishable, and swimmable” would still be beyond the reach of most Americans. Yet there remain many rivers, lakes, and bays from New England to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond where the Clean Water Act’s promise of water safe for recreation, drinking, and wildlife conservation have yet to be fulfilled.

POLLUTION CAN MAKE YOU “DEATHLY SICK”

Earlier this month, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe–one of the most anti-environmental members of Congress–received a stark reminder of how the dream of a swim on a hot summer day can quickly become a nightmare when we don’t have enough clean water.  Inhofe reported getting “deathly sick” from an upper respiratory illness he contracted when he swam in Oklahoma’s Grand Lake during a recent blue-green algae bloom caused by the combination of excess pollution and extreme heat. Fortunately, his 13 year-old granddaughter had the good sense not to join him in the illness-inducing swim.

Despite searing heat, swimmers stayed out of the slime-coated waters of Lake Champlain's St. Albans Bay most of last summer. Earlier this month, the Vermont Health Department warned swimmers about blue-green algae blooms that have appeared in the Bay again this summer.

From Vermont’s Lake Champlain to Cape Cod to Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay and in many lakes, rivers, and streams along the way, pollution from poorly-treated human waste and dirty runoff from streets, parking lots, and agricultural operations is feeding the growth of harmful blue-green algae of the sort that made Senator Inhofe feel “deathly sick.”  Added runoff from extreme rainfall events and hotter temperatures caused by global warming, will require even stronger clean water restoration and protection measures as we adapt in a changed climate.

THE CLEAN WATER ACT IS UNDER ATTACK

Sadly, some in Congress are attacking the EPA and the Clean Water Act, cynically attempting to free polluters of accountability under the false claim that pollution control is bad for the economy.  Click here to read about some of the “dirty water” bills being pushed through Congress by the Tea Party and some powerful Democrats who are in the pocket of the coal companies.

Twenty-eight years ago, the heavily-polluted Boston Harbor beaches were the poster children for the unfulfilled goals of the Clean Water Act.  Using enforcement tools under the Clean Water Act, CLF and U.S. EPA forced the beginning of a cleanup effort that many an overheated Bostonian can be grateful for as they head to the water this summer. The tremendous economic development that has occurred on the Boston waterfront as the water became cleaner is powerful proof that the Clean Water Act is a responsible and balanced tool for achieving many of society’s goals.  CLF and EPA are continuing the work under the Clean Water Act to ensure that Boston Harbor beaches remain safe for swimming and that citizens in upstream communities along the Charles, Mystic, and Neponset Rivers enjoy the same freedom to boat and swim without fear of becoming sick from pollution.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

As the U.S. Senate starts to consider the “dirty water” bills coming from the House, Senators are faced with a clear choice.  You can make a difference by calling or emailing your Senator and urging them to reject attempts to gut the Clean Water Act and weaken the EPA. Click here to find the phone number or email address for your Senator.  Join CLF in speaking up for clean water before it’s too late. 

Last Friday, I got a bad taste of life in a changed climate.

After barely sleeping through a night filled with constantly rumbling thunder, hail, whipping winds, and the most incredibly intense rain I have ever seen, my cell phone rang at 4:50 a.m.  The panicked voice on the other end was a friend who owns a downtown business with his wife.  Apologetically, he asked for help.  The Winooski River, which flows through downtown Montpelier, had broken its banks and was creeping toward their shop’s doorstep and they needed help getting merchandise up and out.  We spent a frantic hour packing inventory into cars as the water continued to advance and noisily poured into their basement.  Once they were as prepared as possible, I rushed to join my fellow citizens  helping other businesses as the air filled with the smell of sewage and fuel oil mixing into the river as buildings became inundated.  By 8:00 a.m., I finally got to CLF’s offices where the alarm was sounding to signal that flood waters in the basement were threatening the electricity.  Fortunately, forecasted rain did not fall and the river levels subsided throughout the course of a day that saw most businesses closed.

Though flood waters have receded in the neighborhoods and towns surrounding CLF’s office, reminders of last week’s terrifying deluge abound.  As you walk in the door to our building, a powerful smell of mold and mildew assaults you–a side-effect of our flooded basement.  Downtown dumpsters still overflow with discarded merchandise ruined when floodwaters rushed into low-lying businesses, some of which have yet to reopen.  Some city roads are still washed out and the City’s sewage treatment plant is assessing damage after it was completely underwater much of last Friday.  With the immediate crisis passed and the long recovery beginning, many are starting to ask whether this kind of flooding may be the new normal resulting from climate change.

Flooding at Montpelier's sewage treatment plan resulted in sewage discharges to the Winooski River. City residents await a final estimate of the cost to repair damage to the plant. (Photo credit: Louis Porter)

At this point, I am supposed to offer the obligatory caveat that we cannot measure climate change by any one single weather event.  Sadly, we don’t have to. Extreme weather is becoming the norm–just as so many climate scientists have for so long been predicting that it will.

The flash flooding that wreaked havoc across New England’s north country last week comes on top of earlier spring flooding throughout the Lake Champlain region.  In fact, Burlington, VT has recorded its wettest spring ever in 2011–as have several other parts of the country.  Before flooding came to our neck of the woods, we watched in horror as tornado after tornado flattened parts of the south and midwest.  And before that, all eyes were fixed on deluged areas along the Mississippi.  Just last spring, we were reporting on this blog about horrendous flooding caused by historic rain storms in Rhode Island and elsewhere in southern New England.  After all this, I refuse to believe the climate skeptics who argue that extreme weather has nothing to do with the rising global temperatures that made 2010 the second warmest year on record with the highest carbon output in history, pushing greenhouse gas levels to dangerous new heights.

In this last month, our region and our nation has seen climate change first hand and it sucks.  There’s just no other way to put it.

Politicians talk often about Americans as world leaders.  Unfortunately, when it comes to climate change , we are leaders in polluting the atmosphere with climate-changing greenhouse gases.  It does not have to be this way.

Americans have a choice.  It is up to us to demand that our elected officials like Senators Scott Brown and Kelly Ayotte stop doing the bidding of the mega-billionaire oil barons, coal companies, and their legions of bought-and-paid for climate change deniers while America continues to suffer devastation from climate change that they claim is not happening or is not a problem.  Climate change is happening!  It is harming Americans all across the country–from Barre, VT to Joplin, MO–and undermining the stability upon which our prosperity is based.  The time for action in Washington is long passed.

We can make the changes needed to stave off catastrophic climate change and–like Chicago–adapt to the climate change already happening.  Here in soggy Vermont, there are lots of hurting businesspeople, homeowners, and municipal officials realizing we have no time to waste…

There is no greater honor than to be recognized by your peers for the important work that you do. CLF’s Clean Water and Healthy Forest program director, Christopher Kilian, received such an honor last week at the Charles River Watershed Association’s annual meeting, where CRWA presented him with the 2011 Anne M. Blackburn Award. The award is “presented annually to an individual who has made significant contributions over a career that have resulted in singular improvements for the Charles River, its watershed and our natural environment.”

CLF is extremely proud of the clean water work that Chris and his team have done and continue to do in collaboration with CRWA and numerous other watershed partners. You can read more about this award-winning work elsewhere on our web site (e.g., cleaning up polluted highway runoff and polluted runoff from parking lots and other commercial development, and securing an agreement to prevent super-heated water discharges into the Charles from a nearby power plant). Here, however, I want to share with you some inspiring excerpts from the speech Chris delivered to an appreciative audience at the award ceremony:

We must all stand up for the basic notion of equal access to justice, including the courts, to vindicate the public interest in a healthy environment. I applaud CRWA for its willingness to stand up for clean water, including in the courts when necessary.

But the words of the law ring hollow unless they are connected to people and a place. No organization is more effectively connected to a place on earth than CRWA. Here on the Charles, my own evolving sense that an urban river can be a thriving ecological system and community amenity has been further inspired by the decades of incredible work of CRWA. CRWA’s ideal of blue cities where clean, healthy waters are present even in the densest urban areas, is a vision that is changing the world. Instead of dangerous dumping grounds, our urban waters will cool us as we safely swim in the summer, feed us as we catch fish and shellfish with our children, leave us awestruck in the presence of habitat for nature’s great bird migrations and creatures great and small, and provide a needed release as we sail, boat, and enjoy these great natural amenities.

Some, even government leaders in Massachusetts, say our work to protect clean water is done. They say that clean water is not worth the cost. They say removing raw sewage from our waters (a job that still remains unfinished) is all that the Clean Water Act demanded.  This cannot be the case. It cannot be that the Charles will suffer a fate overrun with toxic metals, raw sewage, and toxic blue green algae blooms. I am confident that with all of you, with CRWA, and CLF working together our waters will not be left degraded. Thank you to CRWA’s supporters, please continue your support. Our work is more important now than ever.