It has been apparent for some time that anyone who lives, works or is generally attached to a coastal community should be very concerned about the effects of sea level rise flowing from global warming.

A comprehensive new scientific paper and data tool, that builds on prior analysis, like the “Climate’s Long Term Impact on Boston” from 2005, is getting broad and deep press interest.

What is particularly striking is the ability to use this tool to look at the likely and predictable effects of sea level rise on particular places.  For example, applying the tool to the Boston waterfront confirms that epicenter of new development in the city is right in the bulls eye of sea level rise and if current trends continue the only way to enjoy the new restaurants in that area will involve swimming.

This realization should drive us both to plan in a way that acknowledges this very real threat but also to be even more serious and focused in our efforts to sharply reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are the underlying cause of the damage that is being done to our climate.

From left: Barbara Kates-Garnick, Carl Horstmann, Tommy Beaudreau, and Sue Reid. Credit: Meg Colclough.

Earlier today my colleague Sue Reid, VP & Director of CLF Massachusetts, joined state and federal officials to announce the latest milestone for obtaining plentiful and clean renewable wind energy from the Outer Continental Shelf offshore of Massachusetts. Specifically, they initiated the process for developers to begin leasing and site assessment, and for data gathering and public input, to facilitate off shore wind deployment in an area approximately 12 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard and 13 nautical miles southwest of Nantucket. (The federal press release can be found here.) The “Call Area” as it is termed, was identified following consultation with ocean users, such as fishermen and other stakeholders, through an intergovernmental renewable energy task force led by Massachusetts officials.

Today’s announcement follows President Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he expressed the compelling need to develop alternative sources of energy. CLF agrees: the environmental imperative and ongoing energy transformation replacing obsolete uneconomic fossil fuel power plants requires deployment of the full range of available renewable energy resources. Because offshore wind is strong and persistent, it is among our most robust emissions-free renewable energy sources. We also support the laudable efforts of the Commonwealth and federal government, who share jurisdiction over marine resources, to join initiatives to expand our clean energy resources with efforts to engage in thoughtful ocean planning, both of which have been major themes in Massachusetts. Massachusetts has been a leader in both coastal marine spatial planning and in offshore wind deployment. Those experiences are now being replicated by other states and the federal government – something CLF welcomes.

In speaking alongside Tommy P. Beaudreau, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director, and Barbara Kates-Garnick, Massachusetts Under Secretary of Energy, on the steps of the Wind Technology Testing Center, Sue said:

“One might think it’s unusual for environmental advocates to be championing efforts to develop energy resources; after all, CLF led the charge successfully fighting off all oil and gas drilling in New England waters. That’s because we recognize that, while we need to pursue a portfolio of clean energy alternatives, there is NO other resource that has the sheer magnitude of clean energy potential as offshore wind. Offshore wind holds promise for displacing many gigawatts of fossil fuel-fired generation, keeping the lights on and homes and businesses thriving while we shut down old, dirty, inefficient coal and oil-fired plants.”

She also underscored how important this work is. She said:

“While most local eyes are trained on a different Tommy, out in Indianapolis for a certain small-stakes football game, we’re thrilled that this Tommy, the new quarterback of the Obama Administration’s offshore renewable energy team, is in Massachusetts, focused on moving the clean energy ball rapidly down the field here, in concert with the Patrick Administration and a host of other stakeholders. This is a battle that we must win. Success is our only option.”

Sue is right – milestones like this help us to realize the potential for a new clean energy future—one that is being fostered in Massachusetts through some of the strongest state renewable energy policies in the nation. Our challenge is to advance from salutary policies to new renewable energy deployment that benefits Massachusetts with jobs, economic activity, cleaner air and a healthier environment. Today’s development was one step on a path just begun.

Courtesy of bradlee9119@flickr. Creative Commons.

The triple bottom line has become both a catch phrase and, increasingly, a realistic goal for everyone from investors to activists and urban developers. But in Massachusetts, aging MBTA trains and infrastructure coupled with proposed fare hikes and service cuts stand in the way of achieving the triple-bottom-line promise of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).

TOD projects are generally comprised of mixed-use or mixed-income developments that are situated within a half-mile of a mass transit station. They provide residents with easy access to the places they want to go (jobs, doctors, movie theaters, etc.) and place businesses within reach of employees and consumers along the mass transit system.

One of the advantages of TOD projects is their potential to achieve triple-bottom-line returns, providing economic, environmental, and community benefits simultaneously. By encouraging people to use mass transit and rely less on automobiles, TOD projects help to reduce both noxious auto emissions and climate-altering greenhouse gases. In fact, people in highly walkable neighborhoods drive nearly 40% fewer miles than their counterparts in the least walkable neighborhoods, which can reduce traffic-related emissions by as much as 2,000 grams of CO₂ per person per day. Furthermore, the increased walking (at least 10 minutes daily on average) reduces the risk of obesity, regardless of age, income, or gender.

So TOD opens up new opportunities for growth without requiring the costly, carbon-intensive infrastructure needed for cars, and contributes to healthful, walkable neighborhoods that attract both businesses and residents. Sounds great, right?

Unfortunately, there’s a hitch. TOD projects rely on the assumption that the transit system is capable of supporting them. Here in Massachusetts, proposed MBTA fare increases and service cuts, as well as our aging transportation infrastructure, may prevent TOD projects from delivering on their promise. This is a bad thing for Massachusetts residents, for our economy, and for our environment.

The MBTA is old. After putting off badly needed maintenance on the Red Line for several years, an entire section has been shut down on weekends for emergency repairs, cutting off access for parts of Cambridge, Somerville, and beyond. And faced with a $161 million budget deficit, the T is now considering drastic fare increases and draconian service cuts, including potential elimination of over 100 bus routes as well as weekend service on the commuter rail and some subway lines.

The MBTA’s proposed fare increases and service cuts are unacceptable for MBTA riders and could prove disastrous for TOD projects, past, present, and future. Discouraging people from taking public transportation—either by eliminating MBTA service or making that service prohibitively expensive for riders—undermines the triple-bottom line goals of TOD. It may sound obvious, but TOD requires a healthy, functioning, financially accessible transit system to realize its full potential.

CLF is asking the state legislature and the governor to find a comprehensive solution to the MBTA’s funding problems, not just a band-aid for the coming year’s operating budget. And CLF Ventures is committed to finding triple-bottom-line solutions, like TOD, where profitable developments can also yield environmental and community benefits. Without continued investments in our transportation infrastructure in Massachusetts and a comprehensive solution to the T’s funding problems, TOD could become a triple-bottom loss for the economy, the environment, and for MBTA riders.

An incisive and clear essay by Peter Rothstein, President of the New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC), published on the Commonwealth Magazine website makes powerful and accurate points about the benefits of clean energy to the regional economy.  His analysis and arguments are deeply consistent with the points that CLF’s Jonathan Peress made in a recent entry on this blog outlining the benefits of the investments generated by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) documented in a study by the Analysis Group.

Unlike the attacks on the clean energy programs that he is responding to, Rothstein backs his assertions up with facts and figures. Here is a long quotation from his essay:

Clean energy investments have many positive benefits, making our energy infrastructure more efficient and sustainable and while growing the regional economy. Though you might not know it from the headlines, the clean energy sector is one of the few bright spots in the economy, growing steadily throughout the recession – 6.7 percent from July 2010 to July 2011 alone. Massachusetts is now home to more than 4,900 clean energy businesses and 64,000 clean energy workers – 1.5 percent of the Commonwealth’s workforce. This job growth is not a transfer of jobs from other industries – it’s a net increase that results from the Massachusetts innovation economy creating new value for national and international markets, not just local.

 Clean energy is starting to grow in much the same way as the IT and biotech sectors, which took decades to become powerhouses of our innovation economy. Massachusetts clean energy companies have brought significant new capital from around the world into Massachusetts, earning the largest per capita concentration of US Department of Energy innovation awards. Massachusetts companies have also brought in the second largest concentration of private venture capital in cleantech, a sector which grew 10-fold over the last decade.

 Consumers, businesses, and the Massachusetts economy all win if we stick with policies that drive clean energy investments. The combination of efficiency and renewables prescribed by the Green Communities Act is a positive force to control costs and make bills more predictable for consumers. While the prices of natural gas and oil are anything but predictable, the impact of investing in renewables is clear and positive as these technologies continue to get cheaper. Solar costs have come down nearly 60 percent since 2008 while wind turbine prices have dropped 18 percent.

It is indeed good news that new technologies not only confront the brutal logic of climate change but also boost our economy by virtue of being sound investments.  At such times as these, we should treasure every bit of good news we find.

Image courtesy of dsearls @ flickr. Creative Commons.

While the job of cleaning up New England’s power plants is not complete, we have made a good amount of progress: we have reduced emissions from the plants that are still running and are moving towards closure of some of the oldest, dirtiest and most obsolete plants, like the Salem Harbor Power Plant.

But as Ken Kimmell, the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, noted in this radio story, his department still has to advise people not to eat fish caught in streams and lakes: “The mercury levels in the fish are still too high for it to be safe to eat and that’s because we’re still receiving an awful lot of mercury from upwind power plants,” Kimmell says.  The Commissioner is making the essential point here – we are making progress here at home but if we want to truly end the threat of neurotoxic mercury in fish (and the other health effects of power plant pollution) we need to look towards national efforts.

The path forward is clear.  We need to maintain pressure on the sources of pollution here in our region, like the the Mount Tom power plant on the Connecticut River in Massachusetts, while making a strong, affirmative move towards clean energy resources like energy efficiency, wind power, solar, and smart electric storage.

Meanwhile we need for the federal government to stand firm and implement long overdue rules to reduce pollution from the power plants to our west.  The Mercury and Air Toxic Rules that EPA is releasing will prevent hundreds of thousands of illnesses (like asthma attacks) and up to 17,000 deaths each year.  The effect of these regulations will be overwhelmingly positive. For instance, every dollar spent on power plant emissions reductions yields $5 to $13 in health benefits.

We all deserve to breathe easier, our children deserve to be free from the dangerous neurotoxic effects of mercury in our air, and our communities deserve the reduced health care costs and increased job opportunities that will flow as we build a new clean energy economy.

Image courtesy of eutrophication&hypoxia @ flickr. Creative Commons

Massachusetts lacks money and needs clean water. This bind – one in which the state found itself following a June report – has forced a discussion policies that are raising the hackles of Massachusetts residents.

According to a report by the Massachusetts Water Infrastructure Finance Commission released in June, Massachusetts has a statewide “funding gap” of $21 billion to pay for its drinking water and wastewater systems over the next twenty years.  The report found that cities and towns across the state are dealing with aging water and sewer systems – some from the 1800s. The cost of mere maintenance is substantial – let alone expansions of infrastructure to keep up with residential and commercial growth.

The Commission considered a variety of strategies to raise revenue, including new taxes on fertilizers or pesticides, a new bottle bill, and a statewide water surcharge. A surcharge would likely be 1 mil per gallon, or about $23 per year for the average individual. Naturally, the surcharge proposal has run into the loudest opposition.

In response, petitions are circulating for a 2012 ballot initiative which would cap water and sewer rate increases at 2.5% per year. Before rejecting rate increases, Massachusetts citizens should consider the true costs and benefits of water management systems.

Most municipal water systems combine stormwater and sewage, meaning that storms are causing sewer overflows because older systems aren’t equipped to handle large volumes. Nutrient pollution from inadequate sewage treatment creates toxic algae blooms, shuts down beaches, and disrupts ecosystems and tourism. The solutions to these problems may not be cheap, but they’re desperately needed. Until we manage wastewater and stormwater effectively, we aren’t paying the true costs of the infrastructure that delivers clean water to our homes and businesses.

Recognizing this need for massive investment in our nation’s infrastructure, the Obama administration proposed a “national infrastructure bank” over the past few months. The proposal would help local governments finance infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, and sewer systems. The bill passed the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support, but does not appear to have the same level of support in the House of Representatives. So states like Massachusetts may need to act on their own to ensure that municipalities have the resources they need to protect the public from sewer overflows and antiquated wastewater treatment systems.

Unless we want to face an uncertain future, our cities need the capability to repair, maintain, and enlarge their water and sewer systems when necessary. They also need capital to invest in green infrastructure projects like permeable pavement, rain gardens, and green roofs, which absorb and filter rainwater and decrease the amount of water pouring into sewer systems.  Green infrastructure projects ultimately save cities money in the long run by reducing sewer inputs and thereby reducing the need for old-fashioned (“grey”) infrastructure like underground tanks and tunnels. Meanwhile, communities enjoy the benefits of new green space, carbon-mitigating wetlands, and Cities like Philadelphia and New York are already investing extensively in green stormwater management techniques, and anticipating millions in savings.  (The Philadelphia Water Department has estimated that its new stormwater policies have diverted a quarter billion gallons of water from the sewer system, saving the city $170 million.)

Let’s stay tuned for the Commission’s final recommendations for Massachusetts, and consider all the options for financing our infrastructure needs in an equitable and manageable way.

photo credit: flickr/OpenThreads

The Northern Pass transmission project is being pitched by its developers as a clean energy proposal for New Hampshire. As I’ve pointed out before, Northern Pass is a regional proposal with dubious benefits in the Granite State. Unfortunately, the developers’ hollow promises have found an audience further south, in Massachusetts.

From the public discussion as well as the developers’ PR blitz, you might think that the Northern Pass – a high voltage transmission line that would extend 180 miles from the New Hampshire-Canada border, through the White Mountains, to Deerfield, New Hampshire – is just a New Hampshire issue. It’s not: the ramifications of this project extend well beyond New Hampshire.  The implications are both regional and enduring, as they will shape the energy future of New England for decades to come.

Given this context, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) should be leading a pro-active, regional assessment of the options for additional imports of hydroelectric power from Canada. So far, DOE has squandered its opportunity to lead such an assessment while the Northern Pass permitting process remains on indefinite hold. Since April of this year, CLF has been urging the DOE to use this delay to deliver a fair, big picture review of the Northern Pass. It’s what New England deserves, and what DOE owes the public.

Although you wouldn’t know it from the media or the developers’ “MyNewHampshire” advertising campaign, Northern Pass also is a Massachusetts issue. Why? As if hidden in plain view, it’s at the center of Massachusetts’s plan to combat climate change. You might say it’s the elephant in the room.

Massachusetts’s 2010 “Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020” (the Plan) seeks to reduce Massachusetts’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. CLF has applauded the Plan as an aggressive, nation-leading effort. However, we long have been dubious of the Plan’s reliance on potential imports of Canadian hydropower.

Regrettably, the final Plan (at pp. 45-46) uncritically bought the Northern Pass developers’ line that Northern Pass will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.1 million metric tons annually by 2020. Where does the Plan get that figure? The figure was never publicly vetted or discussed during the public planning process in which CLF was an active participant. The only citations are to the developers’ website and to a 2010 report by an energy consulting firm hired by the developers. That’s it. Massachusetts is taking the developers’ sales pitch at face value.

The Plan goes on to claim that Massachusetts can take credit for the entire reduction, even though the current Northern Pass proposal, by design, does not guarantee that Massachusetts customers will purchase any hydropower from Hydro-Québec through Northern Pass or otherwise. So, just how much of Massachusetts’s ambitious GHG reduction goal does Northern Pass’s supposed 5 million tons represent? More than 70% of the Plan’s reduction goal for the electric sector and more than 20% of the Plan’s goal overall. Of the Plan’s “portfolio” of initiatives, the Plan credits Northern Pass with achieving the single highest amount of emissions reductions.

Northern Pass is a highly questionable element of the Plan for a number of reasons. First, it’s not clear how much power Massachusetts will actually get from Northern Pass. Second, the project faces myriad permitting hurdles and isn’t anywhere close to a done deal. Third, Massachusetts has no direct role in the project’s development.

But it’s worse than that. The report by the developers’ consultant – and its 5.1 million ton estimate of Northern Pass’s reductions of GHG emissions – is simply wrong. The report’s error is a contagion that directly undermines the Plan’s ambitious GHG reduction goal.

To make a long story short, the report assumes that Canadian hydropower results in no GHG emissions. That assumption is contradicted by Hydro-Québec’s own field research on the GHG emissions from the recently constructed Eastmain reservoir – the very reservoir where, according to testimony by a developer executive, Northern Pass’s power will be generated.  Together with other scientific literature, the research demonstrates that reservoirs have long-term, non-zero net GHG emissions (in part because they permanently eliminate important carbon “sinks” that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, such as boreal forests). That makes the  5 million tons, at a minimum, blatantly inflated.

But even more importantly for Northern Pass and Massachusetts’s GHG reduction goal, the same research suggests that Northern Pass may not reduce GHG emissions at all before 2020, if ever. According to Hydro-Québec, a newly inundated reservoir has GHG emissions comparable to a modern natural gas power plant in the decade following flooding.  This chart from a Hydro-Québec paper, which itself likely underestimates reservoir emissions over time, tells the tale:

Natural gas plant and reservoir (Eastmain 1) emissions are similar in first decade of reservoir operation

And according to the developers’ projections, Northern Pass would overwhelmingly displace natural gas-fired generation (itself a missed opportunity to displace the output of coal-fired power plants).  If Northern Pass relies on new hydroelectric facilities in Canada for its power (as the developers and their consultant are assuming), Northern Pass as proposed will have no net effect on emissions in its early years and may never result in meaningful reductions, let alone 5 million tons per year.

Without the claimed reductions from Northern Pass, the Plan cannot come close to achieving the bold 25% reduction in GHG emissions that made headlines, even if every element of the Plan is implemented. In other words, there is a 5 million ton hole in the Plan that Massachusetts needs to fill with real and verifiable reductions.

CLF has been making this case during Massachusetts regulators’ review of the proposed merger of Northeast Utilities and NSTAR – the same companies behind Northern Pass – that week approval to form the largest electric utility in New England. Piggybacking on the Plan, Northern Pass’s developers are citing the emissions reductions from the project as the premier “climate” benefit that Massachusetts will supposedly get from the merger. That benefit appears right now to be a zero; particularly in light of the merger’s negative impacts, Massachusetts deserves a lot more to satisfy the “net benefit” standard that the merger must achieve to gain approval.

In the months ahead, we also will be pushing back against Hydro-Québec and its corporate allies in Massachusetts, who are now urging radical changes to Massachusetts’s clean energy laws that would subsidize large-scale hydropower imports, at the expense of local renewable energy projects that provide jobs and economic benefits in Massachusetts and throughout New England. The Plan itself explains the reason this is a bad idea – large hydro is a mature technology that is economic and cost-competitive without any additional public support; large hydro also has caused dramatic environmental damage and major disruptions to native communities in Canada. If imports secure little or no reduction in GHG emissions, the case for new subsidies disappears altogether.

Some may be hoping that no one is looking seriously at what Northern Pass would mean for the climate and that the Northern Pass debate will remain within New Hampshire’s borders. CLF, however, is committed to securing real scrutiny of Northern Pass’s misleading claims, ridding Massachusetts’s climate plan of its faulty reliance on Northern Pass, and advancing clean energy solutions that will, in fact, meaningfully reduce our region’s carbon footprint while enabling Massachusetts to achieve its full 25% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020.

The Congress creates our federal laws. The Administrative branch creates regulations. The National Ocean Policy has yet to change either. Of course, you wouldn’t have learned this if you had sat through the House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee oversight hearing on the National Ocean Policy this morning. The rhetoric from Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA) and the Republican members – who tried really hard to follow the current GOP playbook by depicting any effort by the Obama Administration as a “job-killing regulation” – claimed that the National Ocean Policy is “…ocean zoning (which) could place huge sections of the ocean off limits to activities not ‘zoned’ as government-approved.” The argument was less than convincing.

Massachusetts’ Representative Ed Markey (D-Malden) knows what many of us have learned from the value of the Massachusetts Ocean Plan: “Just like other plans, comprehensive ocean planning would allow everyone with an interest in our coasts and oceans to participate in a transparent, decision-making process to determine how to best utilize an increasingly busy, productive and important national resource.  This would increase predictability and certainty for existing and new users of these areas and improve ocean health. Opposing ocean planning is like opposing air traffic control. You can do it but it will cause a mess or lead to dire consequences.”

Well said, Ed. John Bullard, former mayor of New Bedford and someone with real experience in ocean planning, also did an excellent job making the case for rational thought and comprehensive ocean planning.

Still, the overall lesson from today’s hearing is that smart ocean planning has yet to inflame Congressional passions. We’re still hoping that the seductive merits of interagency coordination, collaboration and cooperation between ocean users, a productive and inclusive approach to public involvement and an increased ability to make science-based policy decisions will catch the eye of elected officials in Congress, the states and in communities across the nation. We are forced to admit, however, that the solid work of working together is bland stuff compared to the sex appeal of outlandish claims that the federal government is going to take away your fishing pole.

The Mass Ocean Plan is already showing the promise of good planning and cooperation. Rhode Island’s Ocean SAMP will be integral to creating a new industry of clean renewable energy. The National Ocean Policy can do the same for communities across the country. We need the Congress to stay calm and move it forward.

This morning at 9 a.m. at the State House in Boston, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation will hold a field hearing on the first year of implementation of Amendment 16 to the Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishery Management Plan.

Amendment 16, as readers of the CLF Scoop may know, has been in effect since May 2010. While some predicted dire revenue losses under the new sector system implemented by Amendment 16, the National Marine Fisheries Service recently reported that all-species gross revenues for the groundfish fleet in the 2010 fishing year–$297.7 million–were $26.6 million more than gross revenues in the 2009 fishing year. Groundfish permit sales, an important indicator of consolidation at an organization level, were extremely low.

In a statement issued today, Peter Shelley, CLF Senior Counsel, said the following: “These outcomes show a healthy, adaptive fleet that has diversified to target multiple species beyond groundfish, and that has begun to take advantage of the added flexibility that the sector system in New England provides even in the challenging start-up year. Amendment 16 is an important step in the right direction for New England and New England’s fishermen. It should be supported in Washington, D.C., and efforts to improve the system should be spearheaded in New England as intended by Congress.”

To read the full CLF statement, click here.