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. 

Former MWRA Executive Director Paul Levy (who has worn a lot of really interesting hats in his career) provides, in CommonWealth Magazine, this really interesting take on the Boston Harbor cleanup and lessons learned from that experience can inform decisions about the slow motion implosion of the transit system of Greater Boston.  Very important reading that nicely complements the good words and insights of Peter Shelley on this blog about the Harbor cleanup.

Big questions that hang in the area include:

• Noting that the cleanup has massively improved the harbor – if we did it all over again, would we employ a “big pipe and big plant” solution to the sewage and stormwater problem in Boston or use more local and distributed methods?
• What lessons learned from these case studies can be applied to the electricity system?
• What role does the existence of the massive highway system that spans the nation (and if you want to read a fascinating description of the creation of that system check out “The Big Roads” by Earl Swift) have on our other infrastructure planning and decision making?

Any thoughts on these questions?  The comments section below awaits.

 It’s July 4^th – as you head out to your favorite swimming spot, consider this…

While New England is home to many clean, scenic beaches, the sad truth is that hundreds of beach closures occurred in 2010 across the New England states.  Check out NRDC’s new report, Testing the Waters to see where your state ranked, and how clean your favorite beach was last year. (Spoiler alert: if you’re in Maine, Massachusetts, or Rhode Island, there’s room for improvement).

Why are these problems so pervasive?  Polluted stormwater runoff and sewage overflows are the major culprits – making beach closures more likely after it rains.  In Massachusetts, 79% percent of ocean beach standards violations happened within 24 hours after a rainstorm, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.  

The solutions are not cheap – to tackle this set of problems problem will require a sustained commitment to fixing and improving underground sewer pipes, enlarging wastewater treatment plants, and installing green stormwater treatment to capture and clean runoff from roads and parking lots.  

The cost of doing nothing is also significant.  The US EPA estimated that in one year, 86,000 people lost a chance to swim because of beach closures in areas affected by stormwater pollution.

Clean water is essential to a thriving New England.  That is why CLF is applying legal leverage to improve management of sewage and stormwater runoff across the region.  We’re working toward a day when the pollution that causes beach closures will be a thing of the past, and swimmers will have their pick of beautiful New England beaches – whether or not it’s recently rained.

Peter Shelley, CLF senior counsel. Photo credit: Evgenia Eliseeva

Twenty-eight years ago, we at CLF said we were going to take Boston Harbor back from the state polluters for the benefit of the children at the beach, the economic opportunities around a clean harbor and the future of Massachusetts. No one at CLF even suspected that this was to be a $4.5 billion, generational effort, let alone that billions more would be needed to rebuild metropolitan Boston’s water distribution system. Last week, the final major capital project from the original litigation to create that cleaner harbor was completed, producing feelings of great satisfaction as well as nostalgia. It was the light at the end of the tunnel that CLF entered on behalf of our members so long ago. Our supporters have been patient beyond recognition.

It is safe to say that it was worth the wait and the investment. Today, Boston Harbor is swimmable and fishable. Boston now has a world-class water and sewer authority and a new National Park celebrating the Boston Harbor Islands. Billions of dollars were invested in real estate, producing thousands of jobs around the harbor in the process, and Boston Harbor now also has its own watchdog—Save The Harbor/Save The Bay, a group CLF helped form to carry our vigilance forward. While CLF was just the point of the spear that made all this happen, there is no question that we were the point of that spear.

So many of the people who made this a success story are now gone. At the top of that list would have to be Massachusetts Superior Court Justice Paul G. Garrity and Federal Judge A. David Mazzone, neither of whom lived to see the final realization of their judicial efforts. Judge Garrity singlehandedly faced down the Massachusetts Legislature and refused to budge until they released their control of the sewer and water system by creating the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA). In the process, he may have issued the only city-wide building ban in Boston history. Judge Mazzone was the harbor cleanup program. He loved this harbor and threw his keen intellect, his brilliant strategic skills and his wonderful sense of humor—not to mention a couple of unbelievably good law clerks—into the challenge that was thrown before his court. Also in that list has to be Sam Hoar, a long time friend of CLF’s who died in 2004. Sam selflessly volunteered himself and some of the best lawyers at Goodwin, Procter & Hoar to help CLF survive the relentless legal briefing of the early days.

Among those who have moved on to other things are Doug Foy, Paul Levy, Doug MacDonald and Dick Fox. Doug Foy is gone only in the sense that he is no longer CEO of CLF. He needs no special introduction to the CLF family. His vision never faltered when he had made up his mind that something had to happen with Boston Harbor. Paul Levy and Doug MacDonald both performed project management miracles to bring one of the biggest and most complicated public works projects in Massachusetts history online both on schedule and on budget.  They, of course, were just the tip of the iceberg of the extraordinary staff at the MWRA. As for Dick Fox, lead engineer for CDM, the project design and construction lead, I’ll never forget the moment in open court when Judge Mazzone leaned his long frame forward, fixed Dick Fox in his eyes and said: “I’m going to hold you to your promises here.” Dick not only didn’t flinch; he responded “I expect you to.” This may have been a court-supervised cleanup, but make no mistake—it was a cleanup that happened because of the personal integrity commitment of lots of folks like Dick Fox.

Great credit also has to be extended to Diane Dumanowski, one of the finest reporters ever at the Boston Globe and one of the best environmental reporters in the country. Her series in the Globe on the collapse of the Metropolitan District Commission sewerage system, backed up by strong editorials from Globe columnist Ian Menzies, was the spark that ignited Doug Foy into action. Finally, no story about the Boston Harbor cleanup would be complete without mentioning Bill Golden, then solicitor for the City of Quincy, whose fateful jog on the feces-strewn Wollaston Beach in 1982 made him mad as hell and got the whole ball rolling.

CLF is not done with Boston Harbor, however. All the tributaries coming into Boston Harbor still suffer from significant pollution discharges from multiple public and private sources. These discharges expose Massachusetts residents to disease, damage the environment, and frustrate new economic opportunities. With the same energy we brought to the battle for Boston Harbor, we are hard at work fighting those upstream pollution sources with a terrific coalition of community groups and partner conservation non-profits. We look forward to similar moments of great accomplishment and satisfaction in the future when we can finally say that this great harbor’s entire watershed has a clean bill of health.

The new storage tunnel will result in significantly cleaner water for beachgoers at Carson Beach in South Boston. Photo credit: bostonharborwalk.com

It’s been a busy day for South Boston on several fronts – but the dawning of a new era for a transformed Boston Harbor and the environmentalists, legislators and other officials who have been fighting for a clean harbor for nearly three decades. Today marks the opening of a massive sewage holding tank – called a CSO (combined sewer overflow) storage tunnel -  under South Boston that will store gallons of stormwater that would normally overwhelm the city’s sewer system and cause untreated sewage to be released into Boston Harbor. The change will make the beach “one of the cleanest in America” and bring the rate of beach closures down from eight per summer to one roughly every five years, according to this front page article in today’s Boston Globe.

It’s the gratifying ending to a story in which CLF has played a lead role since the beginning. Twenty-eight years ago, CLF filed one of the key lawsuits ordering that the harbor be cleaned up. Today, CLF’s Peter Shelley is one of the only original lawyers involved in the massive and long-running court case who has seen it through to fruition.  Key participants in this morning’s ribbon cutting ceremony for the new storage tunnel came on to the scene decades after the filing, in 1983, of the still-pending case that still bears the label Conservation Law Foundation vs. Metropolitan District Commission (the now-disbanded state agency that used to oversee the water and sewerage systems of Greater Boston).

The ceremony today reflected back on the long struggle to clean the harbor but, appropriately, also looked to the future.  Frederick Laskey, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA), the state authority created to execute on the massive harbor cleanup, spoke eloquently about the collaboration between governments, business the advocacy community and the neighborhoods that was needed to execute on a vision of a cleaner harbor and beaches. Laskey especially noted the courage of the representatives of the many municipalities in the Greater Boston region in accepting the regional nature of the project and the need to spread the cost of creating swimmable beaches and a clean harbor across the whole metropolitan area.

State Senator Jack Hart, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Richard Sullivan (who also serves as Chairman of the MWRA Board) and  Department of Conservation and Recreation Commissioner Edward Lambert echoed Laskey’s remarks, emphasizing the importance of community collaboration and the value of clean beaches.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns, who today presides over CLF v. MDC and the continuing harbor cleanup, discussed the hard work needed to get to this day and offered a tribute to the vision of Judge David Mazzone, who had previously handled the case. In 2004, during his final illness in 2004, Mazzone handed the case over to Judge Stearns, conveying his belief that a CSO tunnel was needed and “could be completed by May 2011” for the cost of less than $250 million (in this morning’s speech, Stearns noted that the project came in right on that schedule and in fact under the initial cost estimate).

EPA Regional Administrator Curt Spalding spoke about the difficulty of executing on a project of this magnitude and the importance of core environmental laws like the Clean Water Act, which he proudly noted was championed by another Rhode Islander, Senator John Chafee, that provided clear direction regarding our national policy and the need to create clean and swimmable waters.

Thanks to the tenacity of CLF and others, today’s parents don’t have to worry that a day at the beach could make their children sick, and a new generation of kids won’t have beach closings put a damper on their summer days. But our work is nowhere near complete.  Yes, we need to continue to ensure that the right infrastructure, like this CSO structure in South Boston, is in place to treat our stormwater appropriately. But even more importantly we need to build and manage our buildings, our land and our roads in a way that recaptures as much rain water as possible.  We need to treat rain and snow as the precious resources that they are, moving away from a view that these gifts from above are a waste product that needs to be treated and shunted off into the sea. With those notions in mind, Massachusetts will continue to set an example for the region and the nation of the right way to restore a precious community resource and iconic piece of New England’s history.

East End Beach. Photo credit: bvohra, flickr

Last night, the Portland City Council took a big step forward in addressing one of the city’s dirtiest little secrets – the discharge of literally hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater into Casco Bay every year.

This discharge is a result of stormwater overwhelming the city’s sewer system. In order to relieve that pressure, the city had a system of combined sewer overflows, or CSOs, that would bypass the normal treatment facility in the East End and discharge sewage and stormwater directly into Casco Bay. That toxic brew has closed shellfish harvesting areas in Casco Bay and kept the East End beach closed on many a day.

Since 1993, the city has been obligated by an administrative consent agreement with the Department of Environmental Protection to remove the CSOs, but for many years has dragged its feet. However, in recent years, with a mix of state and federal funding, the city has made significant progress, and has changed the focus from removing the CSOs to providing greater storage for the first flush of the stormwater/sewage brew so that it can be treated after the storm event and capacity opens back up at the East End treatment facility.

To achieve that goal will be expensive – current estimates are that the remaining work on CSOs will exceed $125 million and other related work could bring the price tag up to $170 million. City staff had recommended that work be spread out over 25 years; however, after testimony by CLF and others, including the Casco Baykeeper and Friends of Casco Bay, City Council rejected that notion and adopted the 15-year schedule that CLF had recommended. And that is a good result for the health of Casco Bay.

Welcome to Omaha? This is the first year that the College World Series will be played at the new TD Ameritrade Park. Business owners are concerned that the event will be remembered instead by the smell of sewage. (Photo credit: Stadium Journey)

On Monday, June 20, the Portland City Council will vote on a proposal for the Tier III projects of its Combined Sewer Overflow Abatement Plan. Pursuant to this vote, the city will decide how long it wants to continue discharging sewage and other pollutants from industrial wastewater and stormwater runoff into Portland’s waterways through its combined sewer overflows (CSOs).

Portland’s CSO abatement project originated in 1991 when the city entered into a Consent Decree with the Board of Environmental Protection to resolve the city’s ongoing violations of state and federal law through its unpermitted discharges into waterways. Under the city’s initial Master Plan, it agreed to abate discharges from 33 of its CSOs by 2008. Although 2008 has come and gone, the city is still years away from completing its CSO abatement project. More specifically, the city is debating whether Tier III of its abatement plan should be completed in 15 years or in 25 years. The project is going to cost ratepayers under either time frame, but the sooner the city abates these discharges, the sooner water quality in Portland improves and the businesses that depend upon good water quality benefit.

While it may be easy to overlook water pollution since it can be difficult to see, it is not easy to ignore the unpleasant and unmistakable stench of untreated sewage. Just ask the residents and business owners in Omaha, Nebraska, as well as the thousands of people descending upon Omaha for the college world series, which Omaha is hosting for the first time—in a brand new stadium.

Like Portland, Omaha still has a CSO system in place.  And right now, Omaha is discharging sewage into the Missouri River because the Missouri’s flooding has overwhelmed Omaha’s wastewater treatment system, just in time for “record crowds” which must reluctantly tolerate the stench.  Some business owners have expressed concern over the affect that the smell of sewage will have, but as the stadium’s marketing manager pointed out, there is not much that can be done other than “deal[ing] with it” and hoping that visitors’ lasting impression of Omaha is one of great baseball rather than the foul smell of sewage.

Fortunately for Portland, it has been spared such unfortunate circumstances—for now. But instead of just tolerating the problems caused by continued use of its CSO system, Portland should, as urged by CLF, “deal with it” by abating CSO discharges sooner rather than later, a task that the Public Works Department, through its work in recent years, has shown it is more than capable of handling.  Twenty-five years is too long to sit around holding our breath and hoping that what is happening in Omaha does not happen in Portland.

Postcard depicting the Great Northern paper mill in East Millinocket (top) and the Mt. Katahdin skyline (bottom).

With the close of this legislative session looming, the LePage administration and proponents in the Legislature are continuing their push for passage of L.D. 1567—“Resolve, To Authorize the State To Acquire a Landfill in the Town of East Millinocket.”  Pursuant to this resolve, the State Planning Office (SPO) would have the authority to acquire ownership (either by purchase or donation) of a leaking landfill that has limited remaining capacity, annual operating costs of $250,000, contamination issues, and closure costs estimated at $17 million and rising.

The administration apparently considers granting the State the ability to acquire the Dolby landfill absolutely essential to finding a buyer for two currently shut down pulp and paper mills in East Millinocket and Millinocket.  Brookfield Asset Management, LLC, through its subsidiary Katahdin Paper Company, owns the mills and the Dolby landfill, which has been accepting waste from those mill operations for over thirty years.  Brookfield claims it cannot find a buyer for the mills because no prospective buyer wants anything to do with the landfill.  Not surprising considering that any new owner would acquire the $17 million liability associated with the Dolby landfill.  Including the state.

Although that liability has effectively deterred private buyers, it has not given the state nearly enough pause, especially considering that, as currently configured, L.D. 1567 works a violation of the state Constitution.  Article 9, section 14 of the Maine Constitution limits the State’s ability to create a debt or liability in excess of $2 million by requiring that two-thirds of the House and Senate and a majority of the electorate approve the bond issuance needed to fund the liability.

Accordingly, my op-ed in the Portland Press Herald highlighted both the amount of the liability attached to the Dolby landfill and the corresponding Constitutional issue.  That op-ed was succeeded by my written request to the Attorney General’s office for an opinion on the constitutionality of L.D. 1567.  Those efforts prompted further discussion in Senate debate and ultimately resulted in Senators Dill and Schneider formally requesting that the Attorney General render an opinion on the constitutionality of L.D. 1567.

While these efforts and continuing press coverage have succeeded in creating additional debate, the bill’s proponents recently amended the text of L.D. 1567 to classify it as emergency legislation in attempt to speed up its prospective implementation.  Such textual changes do not nullify the Constitutional issues presented by L.D. 1567.  Accordingly, we encourage people to contact their Senators to ensure that L.D. 1567 does not take affect until it has undergone the process mandated by the Constitution.  A proposal that enables Brookfield to dump its liability for the Dolby landfill, allows a new owner to purchase the mills for one dollar without acquiring any liability associated with the Dolby Landfill, and authorizes the SPO to accept on behalf of the State of Maine Brookfield’s generous donation of a leaking landfill and all the liability that accompanies its ownership most certainly deserves the additional consideration and process that the Constitution imposes.   Additional process that the LePage administration called for back in February.

Mount Hope Bay (photo credit: John McDaid)

After nearly a decade, Weaver’s Cove Energy (WCE) finally abandoned its liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) terminal project that initially had been proposed for Fall River, MA and, more recently, for the middle of Mt. Hope Bay just off the shores of Somerset, MA. This puts to an end a project that would have required massive LNG tankers to pass through dozens of miles of waters adjacent to some of New England’s most densely populated coastlines, and would have included a four-mile-long cryogenically cooled LNG pipeline through critical winter flounder spawning habitat in Mt. Hope Bay and up the mouth of a federally designated Wild & Scenic River.

Despite significant litigation, extensive public opposition, and questionable economics, WCE LNG persisted for years in its ultimately fruitless pursuit of state and federal approvals for the project. For a number of those years, CLF took a leadership role in pressing for comprehensive environmental review, calling for a regional analysis of LNG terminal siting in New England, and insisting that federal authorities take a hard look at clean energy alternatives.

CLF is proud to share this victory with the many stakeholders who worked tirelessly to protect Mount Hope Bay, Narragansett Bay, and the Taunton River –from dedicated local activist Joe Carvalho to the talented attorneys representing the City of Fall River and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, and from tenacious members of Massachusetts’ Congressional delegation to former Fall River Mayor Ed Lambert who vowed “death by a thousand paper cuts” to WCE’s ill-conceived project.  Now, all of the people and natural resources that depend on these important waters no longer need to sing the “LNG Blues”!

Listen to “LNG Blues,” written and performed by local activists in Somerset, MA:

LNG Blues by conservationlawfoundation