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!

A truly gorgeous summer day sailing around Block Island at hull speed is one of my fondest ocean memories. So is battling with a monster striper around midnight on the rocks of Cuttyhunk Island. (Landed and released.) I’ve also been lucky to enjoy any number of days on Buzzard’s Bay either cranking off the miles in a kayak, watching my small daughter catch her first porgie or diving off the fish dock deep into the cool, clean, green water.

I can’t think for a minute what deep shock and dread I’d feel if we had a truly disastrous oil spill such as happened with BP’s Deepwater Horizon. The 2003 spill from a barge collision in Buzzard’s Bay released at least 98,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil and those impacts were astonishing. Imagine the damage from a months long oil geyser such as happened with the Montara blowout that started on August 21 2009 and flowed for 72 days. Or, maybe you haven’t heard about the spill off the coast of Nigeria this week that is likely to extend over 900 square kilometers? Imagine that one hovering along Cape Cod National Seashore and washing up week after week. This spill was caused when oil was simply being pumped from the supposedly safer platform of a large storage tanker to a transfer vessel.

As happened with BP’s disaster, oil field catastrophes often cost human lives. You may not have been able to pick up one of the scarce stories in the US media about the sinking of a drilling rig off of Russia’s Sakahlin Island barely a week ago that has killed at least 50 workers. The rough waves, strong winds and icy waters are similar to the challenges of oil drilling in America’s Arctic sea — and should raise the same concerns. (How many workers are we going to be putting immediately at risk in the Arctic with a potential oil spill when the closest US Coast Guard station is 1000 miles away?) Even the source of last month’s oil spill hundreds of miles off of the coast of Brazil took eight days to locate and they don’t have to deal with icebergs. The list of oil spill disasters is growing so quickly that disasters are now seemingly routine. Yet, the ability to “clean up” hasn’t generally improved since the 1960s. The only real way to prevent a spill is to not drill in the first place.

So, I am giving thanks this weekend for a healthy, oil-free ocean and for my CLF colleagues and our allies who work hard to keep it that way. Like winter itself, the political storms will come and go and it is heartening to know there are dedicated, smart people willing to take on the challenge. The best way to keep our beaches and waters healthy, vibrant and clean is to keep supporting the people and organizations who work for a better future. Thank you all and Happy Holidays.

Just over a year ago, CLF and the Buzzards Bay Coalition sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in order to expedite the clean up of a nitrogen pollution scourge  on Cape Cod that was threatening the Cape’s bays and the local economy that depends on them. Today, CLF and the Bay Coalition filed a second lawsuit against EPA that focuses on the Agency’s failure to regularly approve and update a critical wastewater management plan that, if implemented, might have averted the crisis. CLF and the Bay Coalition’s actions seek to move the clean-up forward before it is too late.

In a press release, Chris Kilian, CLF’s director of Clean Water and Healthy Forests, said, “Cape Cod is on brink of ecological disaster. We need enforceable regulatory commitments to ensure that the clean-up happens before it is too late. The discussions of what solutions will work and how to pay for them are critical and must continue, but they can’t go on forever. We intend to hold EPA accountable for its obligations to review, update and enforce a working, time-bound plan to stop the flow of nitrogen-laden wastewater and stormwater into the Cape’s bays. It is the keystone of this clean-up effort.”

The parties will commence a mediation process known as Alternative Dispute Resolution on Wednesday, September 21 at EPA’s offices in Boston. The deadline for a resolution is December 6, 2011.

Read the full press release.

May 17th was a good day for fish and Massachusetts fishermen. In a harsh but eloquent opinion issued on Tuesday, the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals told the U.S. Coast Guard in no uncertain terms that it had failed to meet its responsibilities to fully evaluate the potential environmental impacts of its decision to overrule protections that Massachusetts put in place to protect Cape Cod, Buzzards Bay and the islands from further oil spills from coastal oil transport.

At issue was a new set of state rules, adopted by the Massachusetts legislature after the disastrous Bouchard oil barge spill in 2003 on a rock outcropping in Buzzards Bay. The state rules imposed mandatory tug escorts for oil barges, barge manning, and crew task requirements that were stricter than existing federal rules. The Coast Guard didn’t like being second-guessed on safety issues and issued rules that overruled the Massachusetts effort with more lax and oil transport-friendly requirements. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and Coalition for Buzzards Bay challenged that action in federal district court and Conservation Law Foundation also briefed the case.

On appeal from an unfavorable lower court opinion, the federal Court of Appeals agreed with Massachusetts, chastising the lower court that it had misread legal precedent. The Court of Appeals held that the Coast Guard had done no environmental review at all despite the “tidal wave” of public concern about the consequences of the weaker rules and increased risks of more oil spills. Instead of a “hard look” at those risks, the Court found that the Coast Guard had, at best, given them a “brief glance.” In trying to avoid confronting the safety issues, the Appeals Court said, the Coast Guard “rip[ped] out the heart” of its own rules.

A bird covered in oil as a result of the Bouchard oil barge spill (Photo: MA EOEEA)

Unfortunately, the fight to protect Cape Cod, Buzzards Bay, and the Islands is not over, and further vigilance will be critical. The case will now be sent back to the Coast Guard to complete the necessary environmental review. We can only hope that they will be more responsive this time around. Coastal oil transport is no doubt critical to our regional economy but it must be done with maximum protections. Oil economic interests should not trump coastal safety issues. The future of our fisheries depends on clean coastal waters as does the health of all marine life, from fish to fowl to mammals.

A great debt is owed to the Massachusetts legislature for acting so forcefully on this issue and to the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and the Coalition for Buzzards Bay for their intelligent and passionate defense of these state interests. May 17, 2011 was a good day for our oceans.