Could a little paint and elbow grease fix this baby right up and get it ready for the coast of Florida?

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for the special do-it-yourselfer roughneck in your life? Here is a rare deal for you. Now that the Montara drilling platform in the remote Timor Sea is just a smoldering wreck its likely to be on the market soon at bargain prices. They say it couldn’t fail, but this low mileage, state-of-the-art, everything but fire-proof deep sea drill rig set the international oil cartels abuzz with its flamboyant four day blaze that rendered the quarter-billion dollar roman candle into an island of charred and twisted metal. In fact, everyone but the American media seemed to follow the story of the three month long oil spill that preceded the grand finale inferno. 

Actually, I don’t know what the future holds for the Montara rig (also referred to as “West Atlas” in some reports) but there has to be a few options that are better than spending more millions to put it back into the drilling business. How about using it as a movie set for the next dozen apocalyptic action thrillers? What about doing something useful such as recycling the rig into wind turbines? Or, is that too practical? Yeah, probably.

 Well, maybe it could be designated as a “Monument to Hubris and Stupidity” and at least pulled out of the water to rust away on shore.

When headlines in your local media regularly highlight mishaps at the old and infirm nuke plant in your neighborhood, you’d probably start to wonder whether it makes sense to keep feeding it fissile fuel for another twenty years.  That’s what we’re pondering here in Vermont, where Entergy Nuclear’s “Vermont Yankee” seems to be in the news–and lampooned in editorial cartoons–every other week.  Exhibit A:

Credit: Tim Newcomb http://www.newcombstudios.com/cartoons.html

Just two weeks ago, in a story headlined “Yankee Plant’s Reliability Questioned” Vermont Public Radio reported that Yankee’s owners failed to disclose the fact that the plant has storm drains that flow to the Connecticut River and have been contaminated with radioactive Cobalt-60.  Apparently, only “minute particles” of the raidoisotope have been found in the river sediments (thank goodness!) and the problem that led to the contamination was supposedly fixed years ago.  Nonetheless, Entergy Nuclear’s failure to tell the nuclear engineer hired by the Vermont Legislature to monitor Yankee’s operation about the problem doesn’t inspire great confidence.

Trying to keep up with all of Yankee’s well-publicized mishaps is no easy task.  Your friends at CLF have tried to make it easier for you with our new fact sheet “30 Big Mistakes (and counting): VERMONT YANKEE IS YANKING YOUR CHAIN.” You can get a copy by clicking here.

For those of you who’ve been keeping score already and who know that giving the operators of this plant another twenty years would be a big mistake on Vermont’s part, please take action!  You can tell the Vermont Public Service Board you don’t want another twenty years of having Vermont’s chain yanked by Yankee’s owners by clicking here or you can print out a copy of the “30 Big Mistakes” and send it to your Vermont state legislator.

You’re invited to Next Steps for Salem: Working Towards a Cleaner Future.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Reception: 5:30pm / Presentation: 6:15pm
Salem Visitor Center
2 New Liberty Street
Salem, MA

Salem Harbor Station is close to a tipping point. The owner, Dominion, now faces at least three major obstacles to continuing the plant’s operation:

1. ISO-NE, the system operator for the New England power grid, has recently determined that no more than two of the four units at the facility are still needed for reliability – and some key stakeholders question whether even those two units are needed.
2. The two decade-old permit required for the plant’s water cooling system is long overdue for renewal, and any new permit should require the plant to retrofit with cooling towers to minimize environmental impacts and meet the stringent demands of the Clean Water Act.
3. And this is something that you have all witnessed – the plant has continued to violate emissions standards and blanket your homes and cars and property with black soot.
4. This convergence of events offers an opportunity to move Salem and the surrounding areas beyond the era of coal by closing down this dinosaur of a plant.

You can help to push Salem Harbor Station past the tipping point and into retirement. Come hear about how the Conservation Law Foundation is working to shut down Salem Harbor Station at Next Steps for Salem: Working Towards a Cleaner Future.

With your vigilance, your voices, and your support, we can work together to provide a cleaner and safer Salem. This event is complimentary, but please RSVP to events@clf.org by October 30th.

Conservation Law Foundation invites you to follow us on Twitter. We’ll keep you updated with current events, breaking news, announcements, blog posts and action alerts. Click here to follow us!

Do you want to be an über-insider? You can also stay in the loop by joining our Facebook fan page, and by receiving e-mail updates from our blog.

Thank you for being an active participant in this exciting movement!

There is nothing more gratifying for CLF advocates than to be able to work with our members in translating big-picture policy goals down to the local level.  Over the last couple of years, I had that opportunity as a result of the City of Burlington’s efforts to adopt a stormwater pollution control ordinance to ensure that Vermont’s biggest city was doing its part to prevent pollution to Lake Champlain.  The idea was the brainchild of CLF member Scott Mapes, a lawyer and engineer who specializes in low impact development techniques to manage stormwater runoff.

As a member of the City’s Conservation Commission, a long-time lover of Lake Champlain, and a regulation-savvy lawyer, Scott was the City’s clean-water conscience and a driving force that overcame bureaucratic inertia to get the ball rolling on  this major project.  Scott’s principled persistence gradually led to enthusiastic buy-in at the highest levels of city government.  His multi-year effort to get the City to take stormwater more seriously was really something to watch.  As the process matured, CLF had a chance to weigh in by reviewing drafts of the ordinance, providing guidance and legal research assistance, and echoing Scott’s message that adoption of the ordinance was necessary for full compliance with the Clean Water Act.

After this experience working with Scott, it came as no surprise to read the headline in today’s Burlington Free Press announcing “Burlington man honored for stormwater efforts.”  In recognition of his work on the stormwater ordinance, Scott was named “Citizen Planner of the Year” by the Northern New England Chapter of the American Planning Association and he received a similar award today from the Vermont Planning Association.

Congratulations to Scott and to all CLF members who advance CLF’s mission through their support of the organization AND their leadership on the local level.

Last week, the Patrick Administration took a giant step backward in protecting our streams and rivers, all the while claiming that it had the environment’s best interests in mind. CLF and the three other environmental members of the state’s Water Resources Management Advisory Committee needed to act swiftly and boldly. To that end, CLF and the three other environmental members resigned from the committee.

CLF has sent a clear message of protest – and now we need you to do the same.

What happened?

During its announcement of its new “integrated water initiative,” the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEEA) and Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) announced that the state was unilaterally revoking its earlier definition of “safe yield” that included environmental protections for rivers. EOEEA and MassDEP are now using a definition that would allow withdrawals of all water from rivers and steams.

CLF’s Peter Shelley stated:

In place of a legal requirement that protected some stream flow for fish and other life in our rivers and streams, MassDEP has adopted a new threshold that offers no environmental protection. In its place, EOEEA proposes a ‘task force’ to come up with a strategy for balancing all the other public interests in our waters. This move makes a mockery of sustainable water management.

You can read the details in our press release or in this Boston Globe article.

What does it mean?

Simply put, our rivers and streams are no longer protected. Our rivers could be drained entirely, resulting in massive fish kills and environmental damage. We already have rivers and streams that are being drawn dry and we are steadily losing trout streams and other cold water fisheries. We can and must do better than this.

What can you do about it?

CLF needs you to stand up with us. Momentum is on our side, but we need you to build on it.

1. If you live in Massachusetts, send a pre-written letter to Governor Deval Patrick, the EOEEA and MassDEP by clicking here.
2. Whether or not you live in Massachusetts, share this blog post to everyone you know that does. There is strength in our numbers.

Massachusetts has abundant natural water supplies that require smart stewardship, not more bureaucratic process. The state is in the process right now of issuing new long-term permits for many of the water systems that are already overdrawing our rivers and streams. We need you to act now.

CLF staff writing on this blog, smart commentators and allied climate advocates have taken issue with Verizon Wireless appearing on the sponsor list for a Labor Day rally and concert that includes gathering of signatures for petitions against, and statements opposing, climate legislation.

A telephone conversation with Verizon Wireless Vice President Corporate Communications Jim Gerace led to him sending the following email giving his side of the story:

I appreciate you taking the time to reach out to me.  You can use any of this email for your site if you’d like.

As we discussed, our involvement in the Labor Day event was initiated by some local sales people to do what we pay them to do — sell wireless phones.  When they were presented with the opportunity to spend $1,000 to have access to 50,000 (the estimate at the time) members of the community they sell in, they jumped at the chance.  The underlying purpose of the event was not made obvious to them.  They saw it as a Labor Day concert.  Our involvement is not a statement of our policy on these issues.  Many media and interested people have chosen to not believe that, but they need only look at our record to see how serious we are about protecting the environment we live and work in.  We didn’t wake up one day last week and change our minds.  The following link will bring you to some of our key initiatives in this area: http://aboutus.vzw.com/Green_Initiative/overview.html .  The first one called Hopeline is a program I created way back in 1995 and continue to direct today.  Our commitment to the environment is unwavering, that some want to believe otherwise is disappointing.

What do folks think?  They are saying this is an innocent mistake by a company that is generally trying to do the right thing. Do you buy it?  Comment below . . .

Personally, I am waiting to see Verizon and/or Verizon Wireless step forward and take affirmative steps to show leadership as some of the true leaders in all sectors of American business have already done. Perhaps they will.

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about where your garbage goes once it gets picked up from your curb. What’s that? You don’t wonder about the final resting place or you trash and recyclables? Well you should, and now, thanks to the MIT SENSEable City lab, you don’t have to wonder at all; you can know.

Trash Track  is a process in which a tiny tracking chip is placed on a specific piece of regular waste. The MIT system can then track the location of the chip as it navigates the waste management system. You can see if that scrap of pressure-treated wood ends up in the landfill on the other side of the state or a barge to South Carolina; you can see if your old battery actually makes it to the proper disposal location; you can see if that yogurt container actually gets sent to the recycling facility. How awesome is that?! Surely I’m not the only person excited by this…

Waste management in the US is “out of sight, out of mind” for most people. But if we continue to generate as much waste as we do now, it is going to become less and less out of sight for more and more people, with myriad social justice implications as well as environmental and human health impacts.

Hopefully Trash Track is just the start of better public information about our waste system; information that will allow all of us to better understand the impact of our “consume and dispose” lifestyle. And like anyone with a background in philosophy and faith in humanity I know that this new knowledge will result in meaningful change…right?

Suppose knowledge is not sufficient to elicit change; what can we do? I’ll share some thoughts in my next post. Feel free to share thoughts of your own in the comments below.

In the ongoing debate about allowing recreational ATV use on Vermont state wildlife management areas, forests, and parks it seems that hikers and rare, threatened, and endangered forest plants and animals aren’t the only ones who need to worry about getting run over.  The Sunday front-page article titled “State Biologists Worry About Wider ATV Use” written by Burlington Free Press reporter Candace Page details how Agency Secretary Jonathan Wood put the pedal to the metal on his proposal to open state lands to ATVs even as scientists and field experts from his own agency staff raised serious concerns about the negative environmental impact ATVs are already having in Vermont.  Here’s one representative comment from an email written by a Fish and Wildlife Department Ecologist regarding the first proposal to open legal ATV trails on state lands:

“I am concerned that development of this piece of state land for ATV travel will open the door to more trails on other wildlife management areas, state park and state forests…Illegal ATV trails are now a pervasive feature on public lands and I have had the opportunity to walk many of them.  In a majority of cases, ATV riding has a clearly negative impact on the natural resources we steward.”

ATV "mudding" causes water pollution and degrades sensitive wetland habitats

The article was based in large part on internal agency communications obtained by Conservation Law Foundation through the freedom of information process and that were shared with the Free Press as well as other members of the media and legislative leaders who will have to vote later this summer on whether to approve the Agency’s proposal to allow construction of ATV trails on state lands.  You can see more excerpts from these public records by reading our comments on the proposed rule.

In addition to ANR scientists, CLF and its coalition partners have been joined by hundreds of Vermonters who also filed comments opposing this environmentally irresponsible proposal, outnumbering supporters of the proposal by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.

A recent 3-part investigative report from the Minnesota Star Tribune titled “Renegade Riders” demonstrates that the scientists and other field experts in Vermont are justified in their concern over the decision of political appointees at the agency to open state lands to ATV trails.  Minnesota state officials opened public land in that state to legal ATV trail riding several years ago.  Ever since, the Minnesota agency has been struggling to get a handle on the environmental destruction and out-of-control illegal off-trail riding that exists despite the ample opportunities ATVers have on legally designated trails.  If you want to see what these powerful machines can do to sensitive forest habitat, spend a few minutes watching the hidden camera video shot by the reporters for the Star Tribune.

Later this summer, 8 members of the Vermont legislature “joint committee on administrative rules” have a chance to stop this scientifically unsound policy in its tracks.  Please contact CLF if you’d like to help make sure that happens.