Last Friday, Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), together with the Buzzards Bay Coalition (BBC), announced they had reached an agreement in principle with EPA to settle two lawsuits regarding nitrogen pollution on Cape Cod. In making the announcement, we released a statement, which can be found here.

In that statement, CLF’s Chris Killian responded to attacks by a group of Congressional Republicans seeking to limit EPA’s authority and advance their anti-environment agenda. You can read the full statement here. In it, Chris said:

“It is our experience that EPA has been a formidable opponent in clean water cases, and to imply that the agency is colluding with environmental organizations to expand its own authority is preposterous,” said Christopher Kilian, director of Conservation Law Foundation’s Clean Water and Healthy Forests program. “These are complicated cases, made more so by developing science and changing environmental stressors, and it is never an easy road to reach a resolution. The real issue is whether the parties are acting in the best interest of those who rely on the resource for their health and well-being. These Congressional leaders seem to suggest that EPA should take a hard line against the interests of citizens and the environment and protect the rights of polluters.”

We at CLF have been involved in the litigation and related issues on an ongoing basis. To help you find CLF’s resources, we’ve included a few curated links below.

Blog posts:

CLF Cleaning up the Cape’s Algae Problem
Clean Water: It’s Your Call or Click

Statements:

Joint Statement Between CLF and Buzzards Bay
CLF and Buzzards Bay Coalition Press EPA for Action in Cape Clean Up

News coverage:

The Cost of Doing Nothing: Toxic Algae Bloom Hurts Tourism, Changes Senator Inhofe’s Tune

Court Filings:

CLF, Inc., et al., v. Lisa P. Jackson, et al. (Complaint, September 19, 2011)

August 25, 2010: CLF, Inc., et al., v. Lisa P. Jackson, et al. (Complaint, August 25, 2010)

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to be in touch!

Rotten eggs and black mayonnaise – sights and smells that, to the dread of many, are becoming increasingly common across Cape Cod. Over the 30 years, increased development and insufficient wastewater treatment systems have degraded the quality of Cape Cod’s waters. CLF, in association with Buzzards Bay Coalition, are working to clean up the Cape – work that was recently covered by David Abel in The Boston Globe.

The eggs and mayonnaise (a description David used to open his piece) are but two signs of a growing body of evidence, both visible and disturbing, of degraded water quality. While visitors and residents depend upon Cape Cod’s pristine waterways – suitable for swimming, conducive to ocean life – instead they find ponds and bays that, in warm months, can be covered in a film of algae, while the water itself turns an opaque copper color.

This degradation is the consequence of too much nitrogen, the result of improperly treated  wastewater, primarily from the Cape’s preponderance of septic tanks. In the Cape’s loose, sandy soils, wastewater moves quickly through the ground, and iscarried into the bays and estuaries before it can be adequately filtered. The region’s economy, ecology, recreation and beauty have all suffered as a consequence – and will suffer more if stakeholders continue to delay action on a clean up plan.

In September, our staff at CLF, together with Buzzards Bay Coalition, filed a federal lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency. Our claim: that the EPA failed to fulfill its responsibilities to oversee a regional water quality plan as required by the Clean Water Act. This lawsuit was CLF’s second showing EPA’s failure to address the Cape’s nitrogen pollution problem. The first, concerning point sources, was filed in August, 2010, and can be found here.

Why is this so important? The regional plan under question has not been updated since 1978, despite predictions at the time about the environmental risks of unchecked nitrogen pollution. Today, the consequences of decades of inaction are clear: badly degraded waterways, with mounting costs for solutions and little time left to ponder them while the region’s ecology and economy hang in the balance..

The answer, CLF argues, is a legally enforceable, coordinated blueprint to clean up the Cape. “It’s our firm belief that a coordinated regional approach is necessary – not individual towns trying to solve the problems on their own,” says Christopher Kilian, a senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation as quoted in The Boston Globe article.

The approach EPA will ultimately take is the subject of ongoing negotiations between CLF and the Buzzards Bay Coalition, EPA and Barnstable County officials. A report to the Court is due December 6th. Stay tuned.

For more on CLF’s efforts on cleaning up the Cape, read our release on our recent lawsuit, filed with the Buzzards Bay Coalition.

You can also find out more at the website of the Buzzards Bay Coalition.