If you look around the Seacoast, you will discover some remarkable volunteers helping to protect the Great Bay estuary. Recognizing that stormwater is a major source of nitrogen pollution, these volunteers are leading the way to cleaner water by simply lending a hand. Durham is one Great Bay community implementing innovative solutions to reduce stormwater pollution. In collaboration with the UNH Stormwater Center and EPA, the town in 2010 installed a bioretention system (rain gardens) at the Pettee Brook Lane parking lot – the town’s largest municipal lot. The system was designed to optimize the removal of phosphorus and nitrogen. The system was in dire need of maintenance in order to keep functioning properly. To meet the challenge, a large group of Oyster River Middle School students and teachers removed all the read more…

President Obama has always talked a good game on climate. But simply stating that “for the sake of our children and our future we must do more to combat climate change” is not a substitute for action. Today, the President proposed a package to step up the actions of the federal government to confront and attack this fundamental threat to our communities, economy, families and environment. CLF applauds the President’s actions to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are changing our climate – emissions that damage the public health as well as our environment; harming our kids and our climate. However, we feel obliged to point out that these are simply overdue steps in the implementation of the Clean Air Act. In the landmark case of Massachusetts v. EPA the read more…

CLF welcomes its brand new group of 2013 summer interns. CLF’s summer internship program gives undergraduate and graduate students a unique real-world experience in the world of environmental law, as well as communications, development and other aspects of daily operations here at CLF. Some have already even started posting to the CLF Scoop! Find out who they are below and get to know the interns in your state. Maine Liana James, Cavers Legal Intern, University of Maine School of Law Eric Mortensen-Nemore, Cavers Legal Intern, Vermont Law School Massachusetts Keren Bitan, Communications Intern, Cornell University Janna Cohen-Rosenthal, Ventures Agricultural Program Intern, Brandeis University Evan Coleman, Healthy Communities and Environmental Justice/Clean Energy and Climate Change Intern, University of Connecticut School of Law Megan Hopper-Rebegea, Clean Energy and Climate Change Intern, Pace University School of Law Stefan Kohli, Development read more…

“If the government’s action to address global warming were a basketball game, they are playing like it’s the first quarter when in reality there are only a few seconds left on the clock.” A well put simile stated by Eshe Sherley in her video that started the KIDS vs. Global Warming Petition public hearing at Mass DEP last week. On Thursday June 13, young students from the Boston Latin School who are members of Youth Climate Action Network spoke to Massachusetts DEP and asked the agency to do more. These students along with two Boston College Law students demonstrated that they are concerned for our futures by creating a petition asking DEP to do what it is supposed to do. “Connect the dots” is what one student from Boston Latin read more…

For a question as big, complicated and important as what role new imports of Canadian hydropower should play in New England’s energy future, it takes more than two lines in a press release to answer it. Indeed, we at CLF have been working on this issue for years. So, it’s worth explaining in a little more depth how a new initiative announced this week could help the region come up with a sound answer that serves the public interest. The “could” is crucial, because the initiative follows in the wake of a series of poorly conceived transmission (Northern Pass) and subsidy (Connecticut and Rhode Island energy legislation) proposals that ignored key questions and advanced narrow interests. What we know: the major Canadian utilities want to sell more power into our read more…

Since I last checked in, the comment period for Article 89 in Boston began and is now well underway. Article 89 is a proposed new section of the Boston zoning code that encourages and creates opportunities for commercial urban agriculture citywide. This is an important first step to expanding urban agriculture, and CLF is excited about the possibilities for our local food system. There are some aspects of Article 89, however, that we would like to see changed before implementation of the final version.  We’ll be at the neighborhood meeting in Jamaica Plain tonight to express these views, and hope to see you there! If you are interested in urban agriculture in Boston, this is your moment to get involved. The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) is holding a series of public meetings read more…

This week on Talking Fish, CLF's Sean Mahoney and the State of Maine celebrate the return of alewives to the St. Croix River; Gloucester Daily Times reporter Richard Gaines has died; 20 years after New England's cod stocks collapsed, the sense of deja vu is unshakeable; in Fish Talk in the News, the first great white of the season is spotted off Cape Cod and Connecticut scales back its salmon restocking efforts. read more..

Expanding natural gas in Vermont moves us in the wrong direction to address climate change. The expansion increases greenhouse gas emissions, compounding Vermont’s contribution to climate change. In detailed testimony filed with the Vermont Public Service Board, Conservation Law Foundation explained that the simplistic evaluation by Vermont Gas that the expansion will reduce emissions is simply wrong. Testimony from Dr. Elizabeth Stanton shows on pages 18-19 that expanding natural gas increases emissions more than three million tons over 100 years and brings environmental costs of an additional $76,000,000. This project is not a good deal for Vermont. Dr. Elizabeth Stanton shows that the emissions from the full life-cycle of the project result in significant increases in global warming pollution. This project will be around for a long time as will read more…

The NH Department of Environmental Services recently released its long-awaited draft Great Bay Non-Point Source Nitrogen Study, providing a breakdown of the sources of nitrogen pollution in the estuary, and additional insights on how to improve and protect water quality. According to the draft study, the Great Bay estuary receives, on average, a total load of 1,225 tons per year of nitrogen pollution.  Of that total load, 390 tons (32 percent) come from sewage treatment plants. The remainder – approximately 900 tons per year – comes from a variety of so-called “non-point” sources: sources of pollution that are less discrete and less concentrated than what many of us may think of as a pipe discharging pollution from a facility. The draft study looked at four major “non-point” inputs of nitrogen read more…

The entire ocean seemed to be falling from the sky Tuesday night as people dashed through the rain from the parking lot of the Seacoast Science Center into the warm, dry lobby. We were waiting for them with hot coffee, cookies, and lots of information about ocean planning. The film Ocean Frontiers is “an inspiring voyage to seaports and watersheds across the country where we meet industrial shippers and whale biologists, pig farmers and wetland ecologists, commercial and sport fishermen, and reef snorkelers—all of them embarking on a new course of cooperation to sustain our oceans and the economies that rely on them.” About 60 people joined us to watch the film, and stayed for a conversation about ocean planning in New England. Among the many concerns people had about read more…