As if New Orleans hasn’t suffered enough, Yahoo News and the Times Picayune are now reporting that the Crescent City’s residents are being assaulted by the odor emanating from the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Apparently strong winds are blowing fuel-scented fumes into the city from the massive oil slick that is now just a few miles from the Louisiana coast.  Yahoo News quotes one resident as saying that “it smells like it’d smell if a bus was in front of you blowing out exhaust fumes right in your face.”

It’s pretty hard to chant “Drill, baby, drill” when you are gagging on the fumes from a nasty oil spill.  I hope Louisiana’s Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu, a longtime apologist for the oil industry and agitator for more off-shore oil exploitation will spend some time with her constituents being forced to breathe in the noxious stench that her petroleum patrons have unleashed through their carelessness.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ announcement that he will retire from the United States Supreme Court will bring some much needed attention to the larger issue of judicial nominations under the Obama Administration. 

These days, it is hard to  find a good word to say about the ultraconservative majority of the United States Supreme Court that Justice Stevens has tried, with limited success, to counterbalance.  That’s especially true for those who care about clean water (query: because clean water is fundamental to human survival and prosperity, shouldn’t we all care about clean water?)  In a few short years, the Roberts’ Court’s rulings have managed to seriously undermine and restrict one of America’s most important and successful laws–the Clean Water Act. 

For example, the NewYork Times recently reported on the chaos one of the Court’s rulings has created:

Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.   As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them.  And pollution rates are rising.

A majority of these Justices seems intent on handing down a death sentence to the Clean Water Act

In another example from 2009, Coeur Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Corps., the Court badly misinterpreted the CLEAN WATER ACT to reach the conclusion that a gold mining operation was entitled to a permit allowing it to discharge “210,000 gallons per day of mining waste into Lower Slate Lake, a 23-acre subalpine lake in Tongass National Forest,” even though the ” ‘tailings slurry’ ” would “contain concentrations of aluminum, copper, lead, and mercury” and would “kill all of the lake’s fish and nearly all of its other aquatic life.” 

President Obama has an important opportunity, actually I would argue it’s a responsibility, to rebalance the federal judiciary after years of ultraconservative domination and transformation.  (If you want to understand how the judiciary was so effectively radicalized by the right, read Jeffrey Toobin’s book “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.”).  The administration’s slow pace and cautious character in nominating people to fill court vacancies has been drawing criticism since November of last year as evidenced by this New York Times editorial.  Unfortunately, recent reporting in the L.A. Times indicates that President Obama still hasn’t made much progress due to a combination of White House inattention and timidity and Republican obstructionism in the Senate.

Terrible judicial decisions, like those discussed above, are turning this country’s essential environmental protection laws on their heads and at the same time putting the public health and environmental sustainability of this country at great risk.  America has some excellent environmental laws.  To be sure, we need to make them stronger to deal more effectively with newly-understood challenges like global climate chaos.  But when we have judges who are ideologically unwilling to affirm the pollution-controlling principles set forth in the laws, we have no hope of achieving the level of environmental protection essential for our continued national prosperity.  

If we want to ensure that our environmental laws work to keep us healthy and happy, we must urge President Obama to follow the lead of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in appointing judges like the late Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. 

Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas understood the purpose of our environmental laws and the values that motivated their enactment by bi-partisan majorities of Congress

Justice Douglas truly understood the values that informed Congress’ adoption of such successful laws as the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Wilderness Act.  In his 1961 memoir “My Wilderness; East to Katahdin,” Douglas expounded on the value of rivers as public resources:

“Rivers are choice national assests reserved for all the people.  Industry that pours its refuse into rivers and the other commercial interests that use these water highways do not have monopoly rights.  People have broader interests than moneymaking. Recreation, health, and enjoyment of aesthetic values are part of man’s liberty.  Rivers play an important role in keeping this idea of liberty alive.”

For this and all the other ideas of liberty that are threatened by a judiciary dominated by radical conservatives, we must take action.  Call or email the White House and ask president Obama to find us the men and women who will follow in the tradition of Justice Douglas, and help the president fight to get them appointed to the federal courts.

Our hearts go out to New Englanders dealing with the flood disaster caused by record-setting rainfall over the last couple days.  The director of CLF’s Rhode Island Director, Tricia Jedele, has circulated some extraordinary pictures of the deluge that really bring home the scope of the devastation.

The tragic events playing out on the ground in Rhode Island–flooding and subsequent failure of public health infrastructure like sewage treatment plants–have been eerily predicted as likely outcomes of human-caused climate change.  But when you see the destruction occurring in Rhode Island and elsewhere in southern New England, you realize that terms like ”climate change” or even “global warming” are grossly inadequate descriptions of what is really going on: total climate chaos.  

CLF's Rhode Island Director Tricia Jedele documented the awesome, destructive power of the Pawtuxet River swollen by intense rains.

Here are just some of those eery predictions taken from a 2008 EPA National Water Program strategy document titled “Response to Climate Change” at p. 11 (note that this document was created during the Bush Administration so it probably underplays the science a bit).  The report cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) conclusion that “annual mean precipitation is very likely to increase in Canada and the northeast United States” as a result of climate chaos.  It concludes that the climate chaos we are causing with our greenhouse gas pollution will “alter the hydrological cycle, especially characteristics of precipitation (amount, frequency, intensity, duration, type) and extremes” p. 10 The report also concludes that: 

• increased frequency and intensity of rainfall in some areas will produce more pollution and erosion and sedimentation due to runoff (EPA 2007h);
• “[w]ater-borne diseases and degraded water quality are very likely to increase with more heavy precipitation” (IPCC 2008, p. 103);
• potential increases in heavy precipitation, with expanding impervious surfaces, could increase urban flood risks and create additional design challenges and costs for stormwater management” (Field et al. 2007, p. 633);
• flooding can affect water quality, as large volumes of water can transport contaminants into waterbodies and also overload storm and wastewater systems (EPA 2007h)

Tens of thousands of homeowners in Warwick and West Warwick are learning firsthand how flooding can shut down wastewater systems, badly contaminating the rivers and backing raw sewage up into people’s homes.  Yesterday’s Providence Journal reports that it may take days or even weeks to get the plants in those communities up and running again.  

The serious water pollution is not limited to raw sewage.  Today’s Burlington Free Press carries a stunning AP photo of a massive oil slick running through a flooded industrial area near the Pawtuxet River under the headline “Worst Flooding in 200 years.”  The story goes on to recount the serious damage to bridges, highways, dams, and personal property caused by the floodwaters throughout New England.  Incidentally, right next to the headline about flooding, the Free Press reports that “Vermont headed for record heat” this weekend. 

Sadly, above the stories on record-breaking flooding and record-breaking heat in the Burlington Free Press , the top headline reads “Obama expands drilling.” 

We must learn the hard lessons from this hard rain: Climate chaos is happening and it is already costing our society billions in hidden costs associated with climate disasters like the recent flooding.  The longer we wait to take serious actions to stem our emissions of greenhouse gases, the higher the price we will have to pay.  This week, the price is being measured in destroyed infrastructure, lost productivity from businesses that must stay closed during flood disasters, badly-contaminated-disease-bearing water, displacement of people whose homes are destoryed, and the list goes on.  

The message that Tricia Jedele sent along with her pictures brings home another point about the environmental justice aspects of this most-pressing human problem. ”There is a connection here to how our failure to respond appropriately to climate change and address adaptation will disproportionately impact the poorer communities.  The small mom and pop, main street types of businesses will be hardest hit.”

These costs MUST be part of the cost-benefit analysis that is driving debates over issues like expanding offshore drilling for more fossil fuels to burn in America’s cars.  When your car is under water and the bridges and roads you need to drive on are too, are you really all that excited that we sacrificed our oceans and increased our reliance on the fuel sources causing climate chaos, all so we could save 3 or 4 pennies per gallon at the pump?

The next time you enjoy the serene beauty of Cape Cod’s National Seashore or the untrammelled mountain Wilderness areas of the Green and White Mountain National Forests, pause at a particularly pristine spot and utter a quiet thank you to Stewart Udall.  Obviously the former Secretary of the Interior under presidents Kennedy and Johnson didn’t make these places so intrinsically beautiful and ecologically significant.  Instead, he dedicated his life in public service to ensuring that they, along with so many other of America’s natural treasures, remained that way for future generations to enjoy.

The wildlife-rich 40 miles of sandy beaches, marshes, and wildlife cranberry bogs along the Cape Cod National Seashore were forever protected thanks to the tireless leadership of former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall

Udall, who passed away on Saturday, was a great champion of protecting wild places through common ownership and management by our national government.  He was a leading proponent of the Wilderness Act of 1964–one of our nation’s wisest and most successful conservation laws.  And his  legacy lives on in the numerous national parks–like the Cape Cod National Seashore–national monuments, and wildlife refuges across the country that were added to the government’s public land holdings on his watch and through his efforts.

Among the many wonderful tributes written since his passing, the Associated Press obituary includes a passage from one Udall’s 1963 book “A Quiet Crisis”:

“If in our haste to ‘progress,’ the economics of ecology are disregarded by citizens and poliymakers alike, the result will be an ugly America…We cannot afford an America where expeidience tramples upon esthetics and development decisions are made with an eye toward the present only.”

Over the years, CLF has worked hard to expand and defend the legacy of Udall and other courageous government officials who understood that the economics of ecology are central to our nation’s continued prosperity.  In the 1980s, CLF’s efforts led to a significant reduction in the use of dune buggies and other off-road vehicles that were degrading habitat and disturbing the Cape Cod National Seashore’s natural tranquility (echoes of that effort are evident in CLF’s ongoing campaign to protect Vermont state lands from being chewed up by ATVs).  More recently, CLF was a leading member of the coalition that drove passage of the New England Wilderness Act of 2006, which protected more than 80,000 acres of wild forests in the Green and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire. 

A great man has died.  But in his memory the work of protecting  America’s wild places continues on.

America is waking up to the fact that the unfathomable amounts of animal dung generated by our industrial agricultural system is poisoning our water and our air.  Those who live by waters polluted by the excesses of industrial agriculturae have long understood the grim connection between our cheap-food system and the slow death of rivers, lakes, streams, estuaries, and other coastal waters.  Now the mainstream media is bringing wider attention to this looming environmental disaster.

Exhibit A:  The Washington Post recently ran a prominent environmental expose under the headline “Manure becomes pollutant as volume grows” This excerpt explains the problem well:

Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem,….The country simply has more dung than it can handle: Crowded together at a new breed of megafarms, livestock produce three times as much waste as people, more than can be recycled as fertilizer for nearby fields.   That excess manure gives off air pollutants, and it is the country’s fastest-growing large source of methane, a greenhouse gas. And it washes down with the rain, helping to cause the 230 oxygen-deprived “dead zones”

"Dead zones" are areas within waterbodies where oxygen becomes severely depleted when massive algae colonies--fed by nutrient-rich manure and other agricultural waste--die off. The oxygen-depleting algae decomposition process has disastrous results for fish and other aquatic life. This fishkill occured on the Neuse River in North Carolina an area of intensive factory farming.

Exhibit B: Popular talk radio host and TV personality Don Imus featured an unusually-sobering interview with investigative author David Kirby about his new book “Animal Factory.”  In vivid detail, the author explained the inhumane conditions in which thousands of hogs, cows, and chickens are often confined at these industrial meat and dairy operations that are much more akin to factories than “farms.”  Citing many gasp-inducing horror stories from the book, Kirby underscored the public health and environmental risks created by the oceans of excrement these operations release into the environment when they saturate spray fields with levels of liquid manure that runs off into nearby rivers, streams, and lakes.

Exhibit C: Through the international success of documentary film “Food, Inc.,” which is nominated for a “Best Documentary Feature” Academy Award millions of moviegoers were exposed to moving pictures of the environmental and social repercussions of industrial agriculture.

Defenders of industrial agriculture will tell you that spraying liquid manure on to pastures and cropland helps to fertilize that land to grow crops to feed the animals.  In reality, spraying massive amounts of liquid manure on the land is a cheap way for these industrial farms to dump their wastes.  The rest of us bear the true costs in the form of water that is unsafe for drinking, swimming, and fishing among other public health risks and other pollution problems.

Liquid manure is spread to saturation levels on a farm on the shores of Lake Champlain's St. Albans Bay, a part of the lake that has long suffered from algae blooms. Though blooms have yet to cause fishkills on the scale pictured above, scientists have documented a growing "dead zone" in the Lake's Northeast Arm--an area where manure from thousands of dairy cows is spread on riverside and lakeside cropland during much of the year.

This problem is coming to a head in Vermont, where lax regulation and poor management of industrial-scale dairy operations contributes pollution that feeds annual outbreaks of blue-green algae and nuisance weeds in Lake Champlain and is also responsible for bacteria contamination in the Lake and many other rivers and streams.  We would never allow unchecked pollution like this from any other industry, but the powerful agribusiness lobby has largely prevented the type of legislative and law-enforcement responses that this problem demands.  To learn more about CLF’s actions to document and force clean up and prevent a worsening of this dung disaster, read our report ”Failing Our Waters, Failing our Farms,” and the legal petition sent to EPA seeking stronger action under the Clean Water Act.   And check back here for a future post on other ways to get our society out of this dung dilemma.

1. Stop the Leaks

The continuing leaks of radiation at Vermont Yankee must stop. It is outrageous that our regulators are refusing to act.  Nearly a month ago, CLF called on the Public Service Board to shut down Yankee until the leaks stop. It only makes sense. You can read our filings here.

2. Shut down now

Any other business spewing dangerous radioactive waste into our water and ground would be shut down in a minute. The Health Department and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are refusing to act. It seems regulators would rather see New England have another superfund site than close down the leaky, rust-bucket that is Vermont Yankee.

3. Regulatory Collapse

Our financial markets collapsed because regulators were asleep at the switch and refused to act. Let’s not make the same mistake with our nuclear industry where the consequences of poor oversight are far more dire.

4. New Nuke Plants Unwise

New nuclear plants are expensive, dirty and unwise. Without responsible regulation in place, how can we even think about building new plants? We don’t have anywhere to store the waste that will be dangerous for thousands of years. Taxpayers shouldn’t be footing the bill for more dirty and expensive power – especially when the plants we have are leaving a dirty and expensive legacy for our children.

Join CLF in calling for responsible regulation of nuclear power. No more leaks. No more lies. No more lax oversight.

Be sure to read CLF’s article Vermont Yankee, The Costs of Nuclear, in the Summer 2009 edition of Conservation Matters.  To get involved or receive more information please contact the author of this post–Sandra Levine, CLF Senior Attorney at slevine@clf.org.

If you’ve ever tried to calculate your “carbon footprint“–the measure of the greenhouse gas emissions you create directly or indirectly as you live your life–then you know that your footprint grows larger and larger with each trip you take on an airplane.  Like the cars we drive, the planes we fly in burn lots of fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases as a result. 

Scientists say jet airplanes also contribute to global climate change through the “contrails” they leave in their wake and the effect this has on how the sun’s earth-warming radiation is trapped in our atmosphere.

This photo from NASA shows how the particles and condensation--contrails--left in the wake of jet airplanes effect cloud formations that attract and trap the sun's radiation thereby contributing to harmful climate change.

 According to a forthcoming study from Standford engineering professor Mark Jacobson, “commercial aircraft flights have contributed between four to eight percent of global surface warming since air temperature records began in 1850.”  You can read more about the complex scientific interactions that cause this warming here.  In the meantime, let’s focus on the ways in which the professor thinks the airline industry and the flying public it serves can start to fix the problem.

First, we can reduce the amount of fossil fuels we need to burn per flight by reducing the weight of airplanes and the cargo they carry.  The lighter the plane, the less greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuel it needs to burn.

Second, airlines must switch to hydrogen-based fuels that result in emissions that don’t create the same contrail problems caused by carbon-based fuels in use today.  Hydrogen-based jet fuels are already being used for the space shuttle, but it will cost lots of $ and take some time before they can be safely developed and widely deployed in the world’s commercial airline fleet.

(Of course the third option is that we all fly a lot less, but that’s a topic for another post).

So what does this have to do with baggage fees?

My hope is that fees for extra bags help us rethink how much we take along on trips.  If we travel lighter to avoid paying the fees, then the plane doesn’t need to burn as much fuel to get us there.  Those extra outfits, pairs of shoes, etc. come with an environmental cost.  Confronting that cost in dollars and sense is one way to get us to start changing our habits and expectations surrounding airline travel

Airlines are thinking “green” with these new fees, but not necessarily in the environmental sense.  To them it is all about the $$$.  Nonetheless, if we are going to get serious about slowing global warming and all its disastrous effects, then airlines must be able to seize on new more efficient technology that will reduce the negative climate imapcts of air travel.  Let’s make a deal with the airlines: We’ll live with the higher fees, if they are willing to up investment in new cleaner technology.

News flash:  The Vermont legislative committee reviewing the Douglas Administration’s 11th-hour proposal to open state parks, forests, and wildlife management and natural areas to ATV use voted unanimously to object to the rule.  The bi-partisan vote 7-0 signals major legislative concern about the policy change the agency is proposing–currently state lands are closed to ATVs except to enable handicap access in limited circumstances–and the manner in which the agency tried to make this change.

Though this vote presents a major potential obstacle to the Agency’s plan to open state lands to this high-risk, high-impact activity, I’ve written before on this blog about how the Agency could still choose to move forward despite the objection.  For the full story read my “Riding Roughshod Part 2” post or check out the press clips collected on CLF’s web site.

For now, the legislature has done the right thing by erecting a roadblock.  But Republican Governor Jim Douglas isn’t running for re-election.  ATVers have been a loyal constituency for this governor and he’ll stop at nothing to repay that loyalty, the rule of law and public opinion be-damned.  Whether the Douglas Administration and the leaders at ANR decide to ride roughshod over the Committee objection remains to be seen. 

CLF is working hard to protect Vermont's sensitive public lands from this kind of abuse

For those of us concerned about negative impacts of ATV use in Vermont including but not limited to:

•  increased air, noise, and water pollution
•  threats to wildlife (both game species and rare, threatened and endangered species) and wildlife habitat
• the spread of invasive plants as the forest is disturbed to cut new trails
• added public safety risks
• conflicts between motorized and nonmotorized users
• rampant and destructive illegal off-trail riding
• overburdening of a state agency that has been devastated by budget cuts and cannot fulfill all of its basic land management dutie even without the added responsibility of montioring construction, maintenance, and enforcement around a new motorized trail network

now is the time to ask the full legislature to make a stand on this important issue.  For more information on how you can help, please contact CLF’s Vermont office!

Much like a joy-riding ATVer testing the power of his off-road machine, the leadership of Vermont’s Natural Resources agency seems hell-bent on riding roughshod over any obstacle in the way of its proposal to open state-owned forests, parks, and wildlife areas to recreational ATV trails.

As I wrote earlier on this blog, the agency leadership revved its engines and ran right over opposition from concerned members of the public who commented on the rule–by the agency’s own estimate, commenters opposed the proposal by a ratio of 4-to-1.  The professional objections of its own scientists, game wardens, and on-the-ground land managers didn’t slow agency leaders down either.  In public documents obtained by CLF and reported in the press, career Agency employees expressed concerns about the damage to public and private property caused by illegal ATV use that ANR already struggles to control with existing resources.  They also worried about the strain that managing the numerous public safety and environmental impacts surrounding ATV trails would place on an understaffed agency reeling from more job cuts.  

Vermont’s legislative process and the rule of law is the last obstacle in the way of ANR’s ATV proposal.  With your help, this could be the obstacle that stops this irresponsible proposal in its tracks.

Prior to a hearing of the legislative committee that serves as an important check against arbitrary and illegal power-grabs by the political appointees who run state agencies, news reports indicated that a bi-partisan majority of the committee’s legislators are prepared to formally object to the Agency’s proposal.  At the hearing, legislators listened politely as the agency’s top lawyer and its Secretary essentially claimed that the Secretary has inherent authority to allow state lands to be used however he sees fit and further that a single ambiguous sentence in a 1983 motor vehicle law specifically grants the Secretary unfettered discretion to write rules opening state lands to ATVs.  But the legislators had done their homework and had an answer for the agency’s questionable legal analysis. 

Representative Richard Marek (D-Newfane) proposed that the committee adopt a written objection to the rule that debunks the Agency’s claims demonstrating how it is contrary to the legislature’s intent and beyond the authority the legislature has granted to the agency.  You can read the committee’s proposed objection on CLF’s web site.  In keeping with the narrow focus of the committee, the proposed objection articulates reasons why the rule is an affront to good government process and the rule of law.  It doesn’t mention the many policy reasons why the ATV proposal is deeply flawed because those questions are best left to the full legislature.  It’s pretty clear that is where this issue may be headed come January.  A defiant agency leadership seems poised to adopt the rule even if the committee formally votes to object at its next meeting on December 15.

This sets the agency and the full legislature on a potential collision course and may also land the agency in court.  Though ANR can adopt the rule over the objection of the rules committee, the legislature could completely repeal the rule by passing a new law.  State law also makes it much easier for groups like CLF to challenge illegal rules when an agency moves forward in spite of a legislative objection. 

Here are three ways you can help protect Vermont forests, parks, and wildlife areas from being transformed into motorized theme parks by ANR:

1. Call your legislator and voice your opposition.  This is especially important if your legislator is on the administrative rules committee scheduled to vote on December 15.
2. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper expressing your opposition.
3. Make a donation to CLF so that we can continue our efforts to protect state lands in the legislature and, if need be, in court.