Image courtesy of Statoil.

This January, my colleague Sean Mahoney and I met with representatives of Statoil – one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world – to discuss the company’s plan to develop a floating wind turbine project, known as Hywind, off the Maine Coast. Statoil was also considering a location off the coast of Scotland. Recently, the company decided to move ahead with the initial stages of evaluating the potential for the project in the Gulf of Maine. Specifically, Statoil will evaluate the economic and environmental feasibility of a4 turbine array roughly 12 nautical miles from Boothbay in 460 to 520 feet of water.

As an initial step forward on Hywind, Statoil will hold a series of public open houses regarding the project later this month.  (For a calendar of these meetings, click here.) The company told CLF it intends to determine whether the Hywind Maine project is feasible by year end 2012, make a final investment decision in 2014, and potentially be installing the floating turbines in 2016.

The schedule of Statoil’s public introductory meetings is:

June 25, 2012:
Boothbay – Boothbay Firehouse (4 – 7pm)
911 Wiscasset Road, Boothbay, Maine

June 26, 2012:
Rockland – Rockland Public Library (5:30-8pm)
80 Union Street, Rockland, Maine

June 27, 2012:
Portland – Gulf of Maine Research Institute (4 – 7pm)
350 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine 

All sessions will be in Open House format so individuals can speak to Statoil team members.

For more information, please contact:

Ivy Frignoca, CLF Maine
Sean Mahoney, VP & Director CLF ME

Image courtesy of USDA @ flickr.

Last week, CLF filed a lawsuit against the EPA and Curtis Spalding, EPA Regional Administrator, Region 1. (You can find a copy of the suit here, and copy of the press release here.) I want to take a moment to explain why this lawsuit is important.

The alewife is a critical “keystone” species in marine and fresh waters – it is an important source of food for many fish and marine mammals and for numerous birds.  The alewife is a native fish to many Maine rivers and is anadromous, meaning it starts its life in freshwater ponds and lakes, migrates down river to the ocean where it spends most of its life and then returns to its native waters to spawn.

As on many Maine rivers, alewives on the St. Croix River were all but extirpated due to pollution and the damming of the river. However, in the early 1980’s, the population of alewives in the St. Croix River was restored, reaching more than 2.5 million a year due to cleaner water and effective fish passage at the dams on the river.  But in 1995 the Maine legislature passed a bill specifically designed to block alewife passage at the Woodland Dam and Grand Falls Dam on the St. Croix River, based on what turned out to be unsubstantiated claims that alewives were causing a decline in the non-native smallmouth bass population in the St. Croix watershed. In 2008, even after those claims were found to be without merit, the Maine legislature amended the law to allow alewives passage only at Woodland Dam, restoring only 2% of the natural habitat previously available to alewives – effectively preventing them from accessing 98% of their natural habitat in the St Croix above the Grand Falls Dam.

As a result of this change, as I said in my letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, “the Maine Legislature intentionally and effectively changed the water quality standards for that section of the St. Croix [from Class A] to Class B.” As we allege in our suit, this action obligated the EPA to review and reject that change pursuant to its non-discretionary duties under the Clean Water Act (or CWA).

Under the Clean Water Act, any change to an existing water quality standard must be consistent with the state’s anti-degradation policy and must be submitted to the EPA for review. The de facto change to the water quality standards of the St. Croix was not submitted to the EPA for review, nor did EPA review the change for approval or disapproval, as required.

As a result, Maine was allowed to circumvent its responsibilities, and the EPA failed to fulfill its legal obligations.

As I said in the press release, “The law is fundamentally at odds with the legal requirement that the St. Croix River provide natural habitat unaffected by human activity for these fish and EPA has a continuing obligation to review and reject this change in that requirement.”

I was joined in my statement by Bill Townsend, a longstanding member of CLF and one of the deans of Maine’s environmental community, who noted that when he served as President of Maine Rivers, it obtained the funding and data to support studies that alewives are not detrimental to small-mouth bass populations, the original basis for the law. “The failure of the Maine Legislature to change the law in the face of that evidence and of the EPA to take every possible step to address that wrong is unacceptable.”

For more, find copies of my letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson here, CLF’s filing here, and our press release here.

Stay tuned for more!

Until the last week or so, it’s been a dry spring here in Maine and so most of us have welcomed the recent spate of rain. But as I rode past the Back Cove and the East End Wastewater treatment plant in Portland this morning, it was hard not to think about the downside of all this rain–the runoff from streets, rooftops and other hard surfaces that overwhelms our sewer system and treatment facilities and washes untreated right into Back Cove and Casco Bay, carrying pollutants like oil, metals, waste and other accumulated debris along with it. It’s no surprise that these concerns might occur to me, given CLF’s long-standing involvement in tackling this issue, but it doesn’t take an advocate to see the need for action. For Chris Aceto, CLF’s landlord here at 47 Portland Street in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood, a recent article by Seth Koenig of the Bangor Daily News brought back some not so great memories of a dirtier Casco Bay and was a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do:

“I am 46. My mother used to take me to the East End Beach when I was 6 which would have been 1972. I can remember it so clearly because although I was 6, I thought, “This is not a beach!!” You could SEE the raw sewage like some kind of movie footage!  I think she wanted me to see the “beach” she went to when she was a little girl. My brother was the first lifeguard hired when that beach was opened up for swimming. It may have been 1979 or so. My cousins used to have a place at Peaks Island and NO ONE wanted to go there because the Ferry used to pull in to the docks on Commercial Street and you could not “see” water – it was brown, gross, stinky filth floating on top of the water.

Once the city showed some initiative to clean the water and build its first treatment plant, economically, Portland started to turn around. I am sure I am preaching here to the choir, but that article just brought back a ton of memories.” — Chris Aceto

Thanks to Chris for recounting that story that reminds us all about how important our continued vigilance is on finding short-term and long-term solutions to the problem of polluted runoff fouling our waterways, not just here in Portland, but around Maine and the country.

The City of Portland has made good progress in the past few years, but there remains a good deal of work to do.  CLF will continue to push for a solution that will allow us to stop sending untreated pollution and sewage to Casco Bay.

I received that message this week. It came in two parts. The first part was delivered by a polite and efficient Somerville, MA police officer, in the form of the below ticket. I had blown right through a red light.

The second part was the irony that hit me as his blue lights were flashing: Just last week I posted this blog post, about how far we’ve come in Boston toward a safe and respectful bike commuting environment, in part because cyclists tend to follow the rules far more regularly than they did in the past.

I am guilty. No question about it. It doesn’t matter that the move I made was safe – to me and others – and likely promoted efficiency because I got out of the way of traffic before the waiting cars started moving through the intersection. I violated the rules that we have developed to govern our competing demands on a shared resource: our roadways.

I am blowing the whistle on myself for a few reasons, but principally to make a simple argument: the rule of law is not only necessary, but immensely helpful. We should respect it. Now, to those reasons.

First, the experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on how subjective we all get when using the roads. I bike, and I drive. When biking, I am often amazed at how quickly I fall into the mindset that all drivers are the problem, and when driving how quick I am to note the bad moves of the cyclists on the road.  You may know what I mean.

Test yourself: are you, or is any one, really capable of innately respecting the rights of all users of a shared resource when we are users ourselves?

Which leads to the second point: this is why we have laws. They govern situations that humans are not entirely capable of governing in the absence of law. The rule of law is, in my view, one of the greatest human inventions yet. It is the fundamental underpinning of so much of a civil society, including the rational sharing of scarce, common resources subject to multiple demands, for the greater good of all.

Resources like clean water. Like marine fisheries. Like clean air for all who breathe. Like a healthy economy for the welfare of all. Like justice. And like safe streets and other public investments in transportation.

If we don’t like the rules we should not flaunt them, we should work to change them. Some innovations worth watching are now in the works.  France, for example, appears to be experimenting with new rules that would allow cyclists to go through red lights in some situations, where clearing the intersection of cyclists before cars start up might actually make for safer conditions.

I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. But I do know it was wrong for me to adopt that rule for myself. Civil society, operating under the rule of law, can’t work that way. Open respectful debate, and thoughtful engagement in our democracy and participation in the governing process – that’s how we develop the rules we use to promote the general good of the body politic.

We at CLF are engaged in that sort of work in every one of our states, to promote what we and our members (and many more) believe is the general good of society, and we’re proud to do it. Especially in the election season that is now upon us, we invite all to join in the process on whatever issue excites you. It’s good for all of us, and necessary if we’re going to address the challenges we face effectively, and together. And that’s how it has to be done.

Passamaquoddy Bay. Courtesy of Jay Woodworth @ flickr. Creative Commons.

For some reason, the folks behind the last remaining proposed LNG import facility on the East Coast, Downeast LNG, are still pursuing their license from FERC to build a liquefied natural gas terminal on the shores of Passamaquoddy Bay here in Maine. And even more perplexing, FERC is still willing to spend time and resources on a project that the energy market is clearly saying makes no sense, or cents for that matter.

As our friends at Save Passamaquoddy Bay 3 Nation Alliance point out, Downeast LNG has “just become the sole remaining LNG import terminal on the entire continent.” In light of the already overbuilt capacity for importing LNG, the significant amount of domestic natural gas now flooding the market and bringing prices to an all-time low, and the number of import facilities that are now reversing course to become export facilities, the logic for continuing this quixotic adventure eludes us. For that very reason, FERC dismissed the application of the Calais LNG project, also slated for Passamaquoddy Bay and opposed by CLF in 2010. (Find CLF blog posts on Calais LNG here.) If anything, Maine should focus on more infrastructure to deliver gas to businesses and residents but new sources of natural gas supply are not needed now nor for the next foreseeable 50 years.

Perhaps it is time for FERC and Downeast Energy to face the music and realize that while a decade ago, LNG terminals  may have been a bridge to a better energy future that used less polluting energy sources, they are now a bridge to nowhere and should meet the same fate as that famous Alaskan boondoggle.

Image courtesy of epSos.de @ flickr.

New Englanders are driving and emitting more pollution every day. Emissions from New England’s transportation sector – the fastest growing emissions sector — produce about 40% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the region, more than half of which comes from passenger cars. This is a problem for New England’s people, environment and economy.

That is why CLF has been working hard with a coalition of environmental advocacy organizations to support the creation of a Clean Fuels Standard (CFS) in eleven Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. A successful CFS would achieve several mutually reinforcing goals:

• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector through the promotion of alternative fuels (such as electricity, advanced biofuels, and natural gas);
• Drive regional economic growth; and
• Ensure energy security and insulate residents of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states from rising oil prices.

This week, the CFS advocacy coalition – comprised of CLF, PennFuture, Environment Northeast, Environmental Entrepreneurs, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists, Environment America, and Ceres – welcomed good news regarding litigation in California over the CA Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). On Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a motion to stay sought by the State of California and its co-appellants (including CLF, who is a party to the CA litigation). This decision blocked the injunction granted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, which prevented CA from enforcing its LCFS regulations while the appeal was pending.

In real terms, as a result of the Ninth Circuit’s decision, the LCFS will be alive and well in CA while the Appeals Court considers the merits of the case – a significant victory for California, CLF, and the other appellants, and a positive step toward combating climate change in the transportation sector.

CLF and its partners also made important strides this week toward promoting a regional CFS by standing up against threats from the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), a trade association comprised of fossil fuel interests and affiliated with organizations like the American Petroleum Institute. CEA (along with the American Fuels and Petrochemical Manufacturers, American Trucking Associations, and the Center for North American Energy Security), is an opposing party in the California litigation described above.

Earlier this month, the CEA contacted Attorneys General in all of the states participating in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic CFS program, spreading misinformation about the California litigation and threatening to lodge a similar battle against a CFS program in our region. CLF and its allies responded strongly with a response letter to the Attorneys General, making clear that CEA severely mischaracterized the direction of the CA litigation and its implications for the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region. In fact, the CA litigation is not a predictor of the legality of fuel standards still under development in other locations, and resource-specific regional differences between the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region and California undercut CEA’s claims. The Massachusetts version of the letter to the Attorneys General is available here.

CLF believes that a regional CFS is a crucial means of significantly reducing the region’s dependence on oil, transportation costs, and greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time providing consumers more choices. CLF will continue to work with allies to ensure that the CFS program progresses in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.

CLF President John Kassel in front of the MA State House on his commute from work.

Every year, environmentalists and the public alike celebrate Earth Day in late April. It is a day with a long, proud history – a day when, for a brief moment, we share our environmental concern with a broader public. But let’s be clear: one day is not enough.

This year marks more than 40 years since the first Earth Day, 50 years since Silent Spring, and 20 years since the Rio Earth Summit. The mounting environmental threats we face as a region, and as a nation, cannot be dealt with in a day. They require sustained effort towards a sustainable future. They require every one of us to do our part, every day.

That may sound daunting, but here’s one solution that’s as easy as walking or riding a bike: one of the best things you can do for the environment is to bike more, to walk more, or to take public transportation. This Earth Day, give your car a rest.

There’s no question that driving is a strain on our environment, our economy and our health. Transportation is the largest US consumer of petroleum, accounting for twenty percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. High prices aren’t slowing us down, either: last year Americans spent $481 billion on gas, a record high. That’s in part because the number of “extreme commuters”— those who travel ninety minutes or more each way—have been the fastest-growing category.

For all the money (and time) spent, it’s not making us happy. Drawing on a body of research, David Brooks wrote in the NY Times that “The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting.” Nor is it making us healthy. Commuting by car raises people’s risk of obesity, increases their exposure to pollution, reduces air quality through hazardous air pollution, and reduces sleep and exercise. Across the US, vehicle exhaust accounts for 55% of nitrogen oxides, and 60% of carbon monoxide emissions. For those driving, and the 25 million Americans living with asthma, this is a bad thing. These reasons and many more, CLF is proud to be affiliated with the Environmental Insurance Agency (EIA) that offers discounted insurance rates for those who drive less.

The portrait is clear: driving is one of the most polluting things we do nearly every day – and we don’t even think about it. If you want to celebrate Earth Day, drive less.

I’ve been a bike commuter my entire adult life. I rode to work in Boston in the mid-1980’s, and now, 25 years later, I’m doing it again. I can tell you that the over those years, the biking culture here in Boston has changed dramatically. When I first began riding, it was very common for me to stop at an intersection and be the only bike commuter. Now, I’m almost always part of a large pack.

A MassBike fact sheet claims that “in 2000, 0.52% of Massachusetts workers 16 and older (15,980 people total) used a bicycle to get to work.” Meanwhile, the League of American Cyclists claims that between 2000 and 2009 bike ridership in Boston increased by 118%. This rise makes sense, given the efforts by Boston’s bike-supporting Mayor Menino and his bike Czar Nicole Freedman, under whose tenure the city of Boston has installed more than 50 miles of bike lanes. Boston’s great bike sharing program, Hubway, also undoubtedly helps. After having been named one of the country’s worst biking cities by Bicycling magazine, last year they named us one of the country’s 26 best.

There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way. Back when I began riding to work in Boston, there was a fend-for-yourself, cowboy sort of attitude. That’s all changed, and for the better. Cyclists follow the rules far more frequently now. This makes for safer travel for all, and gains respect among drivers and the general public for this alternative form of transportation. Biking shares the road, and also reduces the need for public expenditures on roads. By encouraging biking, we make the most of our shared investment in transportation.

We need the same increase in respect for other forms of transit, like buses, subways and trains, which also help us get the most out of our transportation dollars. Instead of continuing to build infrastructure that funnels everyone onto roads across New England, in their cars, we need to share our transportation resources, for our benefit, and the planet’s.

We also need to optimize our transit system for walking, for biking, for trains and for buses. And we need to treat all forms of transportation equally. As CLF’s former President Doug Foy once said at UVA’s Miller Center, “It’s always amazed me that we refer to driving, roads and bridges and then everything else an alternative form of transportation.” Indeed. Isn’t walking the primary form, for all of us? The one we first learned to use? All of these “alternatives” should be equal forms of transportation, with equal access for all.

The growth of urban biking is due in large part, in recent years, to the power of numbers. And the improvement in bikers’ attitudes also continues to help: if you give respect, you get respect. But there’s also something else going on here: You can’t keep a good idea down. Let’s consider a few stats:

• A short, four-mile round trip by bicycle keeps about 15 pounds of pollutants out of the air we breathe. Source: MassBike.
• A 15-minute bike ride to and from work five times a week burns off the equivalent of 11 pounds of fat in a year. Source: MassBike.
• Individuals who switch from driving to taking public transit can save, on average $10,120 this year, and up to $844 a month. Source: American Public Transportation Association APTA

Who wouldn’t want to save money, improve their health, and save the earth? A newspaper put it well when they ran a headline that said, “Commuting to work is ‘bad for your health’ (unless you cycle or go by foot…).”

This Earth Day, ditch the car and pick up your bike. Or go for a walk. And then, when it comes time to go back to work, keep on riding. I’ll see you on the road.

On March 30, I testified before Maine’s Legislative Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources in opposition to LD 1853: An Act to Improve Environmental Oversight and Streamline Permitting for Mining in Maine.

In my testimony (which you can read below, or as a .pdf here) I outlined the reasoning for our opposition, including:

1) Open pit mining has a track record in Maine and elsewhere of causing significant harm to Maine’s waters and natural resources, and should be subject to the review of other models, new technologies, risks and benefits.

2) The bill in its original form was poorly drafted and overreaching in many respects. CLF has made numerous recommendations that if made in their entirety would significantly improve the bill.

3) Open pit mines have left unfunded environmental liabilities all over the world and as close as the Callahan mine on the Blue Hill peninsula.  Should open pit mining take place in Maine, every possible protection should be taken to prevent Maine taxpayers from footing the bill.

4) Because Maine has very limited experience with open pit mining and mineral mining in general, it is critical that the relevant agencies have adequate resources, frameworks and enforcement capacity, while the responsibility for the cleanup and closure of any mining operations falls squarely on the owner and operator of the mine.

To read my testimony in full, see below. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

–

Testimony of Sean Mahoney

Conservation Law Foundation

In Opposition to LD 1853

An Act to Improve Environmental Oversight and Streamline Permitting for Mining in Maine

Before the Legislative Joint Standing Committee on Environment and Natural Resources

March 30, 2012

Senator Saviello, Representative Hamper and Members of the Environment and Natural Resources Committee:

My name is Sean Mahoney and I am the director of the Conservation Law Foundation here in Maine. Prior to joining CLF in 2007, I represented a mining company that was involved with the copper and zinc mine in Blue Hill Maine under Second Pond.  Based on that experience, I have significant concerns with LD 1853.

The lawyers who drafted this proposed legislation for the Irving Corporation have stated that it is in part modeled on legislation recently passed in Michigan.  Unfortunately they have adopted only the end product and not the process used in Michigan.  In Michigan, that process took more than a year to review other models, new technologies, risks and benefits and ended up with legislation supported by mining companies, fisherman, guides, environmental groups and county and municipal officials.  That legislation was adopted unanimously by the Michigan Legislature followed by regulations developed by the analog to our DEP and also unanimously approved a year later.  I know how hard this Committee has worked to gather information and understand the ramifications of the proposed testimony.  But open pit mining is more than just a potential economic development – it has a track record in Maine and elsewhere of causing significant harm to Maine’s waters and natural resources – and before new setting statutory requirements are set, a process like that in Michigan should be followed.

LD 1853 itself in its original form was poorly drafted and overreaching in many respects.  I recognize that the version before you now is an improvement and appreciate and commend the work that you and Committee staff have done in that regard.  CLF remains opposed to the bill nonetheless for a number of reasons.  Working with other organizations who share our concerns, we have provided specific changes that if made in their entirety would significantly improve the bill.   I attach those comments again for ease of reference and would be happy discuss them in detail should you like.  I would like to focus on three areas in particular.

Financial Assurance – The current regulations require that financial assurance be accomplished through a trust instrument.  As I noted in testimony during a work session, a trust provides the most protection against the State being left with an abandoned mine site that is contaminating land and water resources.  There has been no testimony to the contrary that I am aware of.  Open pit mines have left unfunded environmental liabilities all over the world and as close as the Callahan mine on the Blue Hill peninsula.  Should open pit mining take place in Maine, every possible protection should be taken to prevent Maine taxpayers from footing the bill.

Public Notice/Participation – As with any development, notice of a proposed mining operation should be provided not just to municipalities or counties but also to abutting landowners, existing users of the resource and other interested parties.  That includes notice not just of the initial application but also any significant modifications to the scope or nature of mining operations, changes in ownership and suspension of operations.

DEP/LURC resources – Because Maine has very limited experience with open pit mining and mineral mining in general, it is critical that the agencies tasked with governing and regulating the location, development, operation, reclamation and closure of mine operations have adequate resources to develop the necessary regulatory framework, implement and enforce the relevant statutory and regulatory requirements and to ensure that responsibility for the cleanup and closure of any mining operations falls squarely on the owner and operator of the mine.

Open pit mining is an inherently risky activity regardless of technological advances.  We do and should use our natural resources to provide economic opportunity for our communities but we must do so in a way that doesn’t sacrifice those natural resources over the long term.  In its current form, LD 1853 fails to achieve that balance.

Photo courtesy of Putneypics @ flickr. Creative Commons.

A couple of weeks ago I met a young farmer near Rutland, VT who was stunned to be out plowing his fields in the month of March. At that time the fields are usually knee-deep muddy, if not still covered in snow, ice or the slow-melting crust of the long winter. He was stunned:  if he plows and plants now, what’s going to happen next? How will his crops respond? Should he wait, for something more like a “normal” planting season to return?

These are questions that thousands of us gardeners across New England have been struggling with lately, in the wake of an unseasonably warm spell, and a winter that broke records first for early snowfall, and then low overall snowfall and high temperatures. Looking out our windows when the weather warms, we are drawn to one place: the soil – we long to get our hands in the dirt, and smell the wonderful scents of spring. For the farmer I mentioned above, the decision wasn’t just recreational or therapeutic; the crops for the CSA he recently founded with his partner were at risk. He had to plan carefully, not knowing what lies ahead.

In Vermont, where my wife and I have tended our garden for years, you start your seeds on Town Meeting Day and plant on Memorial Day. But this year, that timeline is way off.

Recently, for the first time in 22 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released an updated version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map. The map charts average winter minimum temperatures, or cold intensity. What this map confirmed in VT is what we have observed anecdotally across New England and the United States: that our world is warming, as this map by the Arbor Day Foundation shows vividly. For the first time in VT, for instance, zone 5b has crept into the southern edges of our state. And the south coast of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts includes zone 7a, which is also found in Northern Alabama. The commentary on the new map carefully avoids concluding the shifts are the results of climate change; most gardeners will draw their own conclusions.

For me, the question of whether or not to plant returned me to a question about my greenhouse. Previous owners of our house built a small, traditional greenhouse that helped with the slow and wet transition from winter to spring, with consistency and in the same place for 15 years. It succumbed to the elements recently, and we decided to try smaller, portable hoop houses over our raised beds. They’re more suitable to highly variable temperatures. Where once a rigid structure suited our weather and our needs, that’s no longer the case. We need to be more flexible. More adaptable.

This winter ranks as the 4th warmest nationally since the late 1880s, when climatologists began keeping records. People still consider Memorial Day as a safe time to plant, but the average last frost day is 10 days prior, as Vern Grubinger, University of Vermont Extension vegetable and berry specialist, said in this Brattelboro Reformer article.

What happens when you plan according to tradition, but the seasonal calendar is out of kilter? What happens when convention no longer suits our contemporary reality? These are questions of adaptation, and they apply to backyard gardens – and also flood zone mapping, transportation, and almost everything we do in the natural world. We have to start building differently, for a different world.

And so I wanted to ask you – CLF members, and members of the public alike – how are you adapting? What have you done with your garden this spring?  Are you anticipating odd weather in the months ahead? How will you respond? Please share your comments here and share your photos with us on our Facebook page.

I look forward to hearing from you. And happy planting.