Protest at Salem Harbor Power Plant. Courtesy of Robert Visser / Greenpeace.

This week the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and HealthLink secured an Order from the US District Court in Massachusetts requiring Salem Harbor power plant owner Dominion to shut down all four units at the 60-year-old coal-fired power plant by 2014. In bringing a clear end to the prolonged decline of Salem Harbor Station, this settlement ushers in a new era of clean air, clean water and clean energy for the community of Salem, MA, and for New England as a whole.

The court’s order is based on a settlement with Dominion to avoid CLF’s 2010 lawsuit alleging violations of the Clean Air Act from going to trial. The terms of the settlement, which can be found here, ensure that:

• Units 1 and 2 at the plant must retire (indeed are retired) by December 31, 2011; Unit 3 by June 2014;
• Dominion may not repower the retired coal-burning units, even if a buyer for the power was to come forward;
• Neither Dominion, nor any successor, may use coal as fuel for generating electricity on that site in the future;
• Dominion must fund projects of at least $275,000 to reduce air pollution in Salem and surrounding municipalities that have been impacted by the plant’s emissions.

The settlement, and the legal actions which led to it, provide a template to force plant shutdowns as changing market conditions, public health concerns and cleaner energy alternatives push the nation’s fleet of old, polluting dinosaurs to the brink. What makes this outcome unique is that, as part of its advocacy strategy, CLF filed a successful protest at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington DC which effectively prevented Dominion from collecting above market costs for operating this aging and inefficient power plant. This first-ever ruling by FERC is in stark contrast to coal power plant retirements in other areas of the country which were brought about by agreements to pay (i.e., compensate) plant owners for shutting down their plants. In the case of Salem Harbor Station, retirement resulted from legal action to deny the plant’s owner compensation and cost-recovery by ratepayers.

A little background: Most of the nation’s coal-burning fleet, were designed, constructed and began operation in the 1950’s and 60’s. More than 60% of them have been operating for 40 years or more, meaning that they are now beyond their useful design lives. This is the case for all of New England’s remaining plants, which generally were built more than 50 years ago. In addition to the excess pollution and inordinate adverse impact these plants impose to public health and the environment, they are finding it difficult to compete with newer, cleaner and more efficient power producing technology. In the market, the day of reckoning has arrived. New England’s coal-fired power plants are losing their shirts. They are rarely asked to run by ISO-New England, the operator of our regional electricity system, because their power is more costly (i.e., out-of-market) than the region’s cleaner and more efficient power generating fleet.

So why don’t they all retire? Unfortunately, there are several factors that can, in many instances, complicate matters. For Salem Harbor Station: system reliability (i.e., keeping the lights on). Because these plants were built so long ago, and unfortunately in close proximity to population centers where demand for power is greatest, the system was designed assuming that electricity is being generated at these locations. Thus, removing electricity generation from these sites can create reliability risks at times of peak electricity consumption. This was the case for Salem Harbor. Try as we might (including NStar’s recent $400 million transmission upgrade in the North Shore), when ISO-NE modeled worst case conditions, it still found that Salem Harbor was needed for reliability and consequently required ratepayers to pay to maintain Salem Harbor, even though its power was far more expensive to produce than more modern plants. To break this logjam, CLF filed a protest at FERC claiming that ratepayers were getting bilked (in legalese: paying rates that were unjust and unreasonable) and that a small investment to develop a reliability alternative for the plant would save the ratepayers money and would safeguard public health.

FERC agreed — at least with the money part (as FERC is a financial, not environmental regulatory agency). Its December 2010 order granting CLF’s protest compelled ISO-NE and the region’s electricity market participants to expedite the process for developing reliability alternatives for Salem Harbor’s expensive power (in utility parlance, to replace its “reliability function”). Shortly thereafter, ISO-NE crafted a new plan that will keep the lights on at reasonable cost to customers, while also creating a more flexible, reliable grid.

The new plan calls for simple and relatively inexpensive electric transmission line upgrades that will meet the area’s reliability needs without Salem Harbor Station and allow for the deployment of newer and cleaner energy resources like energy efficiency, conservation and renewables such as wind and solar. As soon as the plan was approved in May of 2011, the die was cast and Salem Harbor’s retirement became imminent. To its credit, the very next day Dominion announced that the plant would be shut down. As we all know, corporation’s make decisions based primarily on economics; once FERC denied them the above-market rates they had been collecting for years to maintain the plant, Dominion was compelled to retire the plant. Couple that with the prospect of major expenditures for pollution upgrades that would result from CLF and Healthlink’s lawsuit, there was only one rational outcome. Good-bye Salem Harbor station. Next up (or should I say, down): Mt. Tom, Brayton Point, both of which are uneconomic and facing the end of the road.

As I said in a joint press statement with Healthlink (found here), “This outcome sends a signal to coal plant operators everywhere that they cannot avoid costs through noncompliance with the Clean Air Act. These obsolete plants that either have decided not to invest in technology upgrades or are retrofitting at ratepayers’ expense are doomed: they are staring down the barrel of cheaper and cleaner alternatives to their dirty power and public and regulatory pressure to safeguard human health. When these plants can no longer get away with breaking the law as a way to stave off economic collapse, I predict we will see a wave of shutdowns across the country.”

The history of Salem Harbor Station is both long and tortured (recall then-Governor Romney standing at the gates of the plant in 2003 and saying that the plant was killing people). Despite its bleak financials and unjustifiable damage to public health and the environment, Salem Harbor Station continued to operate and pollute for a decade or more beyond when it should have succumbed to age and obsolescence.

Shanna Cleveland, staff attorney at CLF said, “The Court’s Order coupled with our successful FERC protest have finally put an end to a half century of toxic and lethal air pollution from Salem Harbor Station. The very factors that have been propping the power plant up for years beyond its useful life – cheap coal, lax environmental oversight, and overdue reliability planning – have been pulled out from under it.”

For more, including quotations from said Jane Bright of HealthLink and Massachusetts State Representative Lori A. Ehrlich, as well as more background on CLF’s Salem Harbor Station Advocacy, read the press release here.

Me on a recent beautiful day on the Great Bay estuary.

I’m thrilled to be launching an important and much needed effort to restore and protect the health of our treasured Great Bay estuary: CLF’s new Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper program.

As the Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper, I’ll be devoting all my time and effort to protecting this remarkable water resource – a resource that is threatened by pollution and deserves all the attention it can get. It’s a place I’ve come to know well through 20 years of managing the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, and by living in nearby Newmarket. The threats to the Bay have never been clearer, the opportunity to fix them never greater.

The objective of the Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper program is to work for and protect the health of the waters making up the Great Bay estuary – our major bays (Great Bay and Little Bay), our tidal rivers (the Piscataqua, Salmon Falls, Cocheco, Bellamy, Oyster, Lamprey, Squamscott and Winnicut Rivers), and our wonderful harbors and creeks (Portsmouth and Little Harbor; Spinney, Spruce and Sagamore Creeks). Each of these water bodies, on their own, is an important natural resource. Together, they comprise a remarkable and rich ecosystem that is under threat..

Population growth, sprawl, and outdated water infrastructure are all contributing to the decline of the Great Bay estuary. Pollution levels have increased, leading to the loss of critical habitat within the estuary. Reversing these trends will require a multi-pronged approach including: the ineed to invest in improved  infrastructure, such as sewage treatment plants; innovative approaches to reducing existing stormwater pollution; and better planning to prevent future sprawl development and the water pollution it causes.

My work as the Great Bay-Piscataqua Waterkeeper will include:

• advocating for needed policies and compliance with environmental laws such as the Clean Water Act,
• working with scientists and the many stakeholders involved in efforts related to the Great Bay estuary, and
• keeping a watchful eye on waters within the estuary.

Most importantly, I look forward to building a much stronger public voice for the estuary. Just as there are many people and organizations that care about the health and future of the Great Bay estuary, there are many more people who will care, and lend their voices to protecting this amazing water resource, once they learn more about the threats it’s facing. It’s my goal to grow the chorus of concerned citizens about our Great Bay.

I first learned about Great Bay 40 years ago as an undergraduate at the University of New Hampshire. I quickly fell in love with its beauty and richness and worked with others to reject the proposal by Aristotle Onassis to build the world’s largest oil refinery on the shores of Great Bay. These efforts led to the creation of the Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve – a Reserve I had the privilege to manage for more than 20 years, from its inception in 1990 to 2011.They were rich, wonderful years that provided me the opportunity to work with a wide diversity of dedicated individuals committed to saving this very special place.

Having worked on Great Bay matters for more than two decades, I am deeply concerned about the declining health of the estuary. Just as its threats are many, so too are multiple solutions are needed. We’re all in this together; only through greater public action can we protect the valuable ecological, recreational and cultural benefits of this remarkable resource. It’s a major challenge, but it’s one I welcome working on with you.

Please contact me with questions or concerns about the Great Bay estuary (603.498.3545, or pwellenberger@clf.org), and stay informed about my work by visiting www.clf.org/great-bay-waterkeeper.

At a time when our governors and our President were preparing to address their constituents, CLF was (and is) making news – news that raises a series of enduring questions: In our country, where is the line between federal and state authority? How clear is it? Who gets to draw it? Why would you draw it in one place instead of another?

These questions are so challenging because they are so fundamental; Americans have wrestled with these same questions for over 200 years. You’ll recall that our first national government, under the Articles of Confederation, was too weak to do the job. The Constitution granted greater power to the national government, but had to be balanced by the Bill of Rights, securing the rights of individuals and of states. The rest of our efforts to get the federal/state balance right has been marked by long periods of contentious negotiation and flashbulb moments of fractious history –national banking, secession and the Civil War, the busting of industrial trusts, the New Deal, and civil rights for all.

Protecting our health and our environment has been a part of the national and regional negotiations for decades. Recent events have provoked further discussion.

By the 1960’s and ‘70’s, when Congress began to address environmental protection and energy in a serious way, its constitutional authority to do so was relatively clear. It exercised that authority boldly, for the great benefit of generations of people and other species. However, as in much of our federalist system, there’s still a sharing of power between national and state governments, both by design and by default. The zone between federal and state authority is sometimes gray. It’s in that messy, gray area that many of our most controversial environmental issues are being debated.

These debates continue to this day. Take two of CLF’s hot issues recently in the news: Vermont Yankee and Cape Cod nitrogen pollution.

Vermont Yankee

The first is the adverse federal court decision CLF (and the State of Vermont) received on Vermont Yankee, the aging nuclear power plant in Vernon, VT. The decision affirmed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s broad authority over safety issues relating to nukes. It  preempted a role for states and handed a major victory to Entergy Corporation.

However, as Anthony Iarrapino points out in this blog post, the fight is far from over. There is a clear role for states in shaping our energy future; in the absence of federal action, states are leading the effort in promoting a clean energy future. Furthermore, as Anthony pointed out in his post, the court said:

“This Court’s decision is based solely upon the relevant admissible facts and the governing law in this case, and it does not purport to resolve or pass judgment on the debate regarding the advantages or disadvantages of nuclear power generation, or its location in this state. Nor does it purport to define or restrict the State’s ability to decline to renew a certificate of public good on any ground not preempted or not violative of federal law, to dictate how a state should choose to allocate its power among the branches of its government, or pass judgment on its choices. The Court has avoided addressing questions of state law and the scope of a state’s regulatory authority that are unnecessary to the resolution of the federal claims presented here.”

Even in the highly “federalized” area of nuclear power there is an undeniable role for states.

Cape Cod

The second is a settlement in principle of our litigation to clean up pollution from sewage on Cape Cod. This is a great step forward – one that  has attracted the focused attention of anti-environmentalists in Congress, as this article attests.

They preposterously allege collusion between environmentalists and the EPA in cases like this to expand federal jurisdiction beyond what Congress authorized in the Clean Water Act, thereby trumping state authority.  However, the federal/state line under the Clean Water Act is about as blurry as they come, in part because the facts relating to pollution and its impacts are extremely complex. As in all cases, the facts matter. Careful, dispassionate assessment of the scientific facts about discharges and pollution, and how the law applies to those facts – not political grandstanding by Members of Congress – is what’s necessary to achieve the visionary goal Congress as a whole committed to decades ago: the elimination of polluting discharges to United States waters, by 1985! It’s time we lived up to that commitment.

There is opportunity in messy, gray areas like the shifting federal/state interface: we can go forward or backward. That is, we can develop sensible allocations of authority between federal and state governments to achieve the public goals behind all of these public initiatives – a healthy environment and a healthy economy, or we can descend into politically motivated mudslinging that obscures the real issues and thwarts real progress.

At CLF we are committed to rational, fact-based discussion of the issues, and prudent forward motion that yields a thriving New England, for generations to come and for all. We know this terrain well. You can count on us to keep working it.

Breaking News: In response to today’s decision by the U.S. District Court that Vermont Yankee may continue operation beyond March 2012, Sandra Levine, a senior attorney in CLF’s Vermont office said, “This is a setback for Vermont and a setback for clean energy.  This decision forces Vermont to prop up an old, polluting nuclear reactor, and its untrustworthy owners. This matter will likely go back to the Vermont Public Service Board.  We hope they will confirm that Vermont Yankee has outlived its useful life and is ready to retire.  It is time to end Entergy’s legacy of broken promises and lackluster oversight.  Vermont is ready to join New England’s move away from obsolete, dirty, power plants and lead the region in its transition to clean, renewable energy. We hope the State will appeal the Court’s decision and seek to affirm its right to determine its energy future.”

A little background on a long-running case: By the terms of a Vermont law passed in 2006, as well as the 2002 approval of the sale of Vermont Yankee, and a 2002 express agreement with Entergy, approval by Vermont is needed for the plant to continue to operate after 2012. In 2002, the Vermont Public Service Board approved the sale of the Vermont Yankee facility to Entergy.  The sale included an agreement by Entergy not to operate the plant after 2012, when its license expires, without obtaining regulatory approval from the Vermont Public Service Board. Concerned about whether it would be good for Vermont if Vermont Yankee to operated past 2012, the Vermont Legislature passed a law in 2006 requiring approval of the Legislature before the Public Service Board could issue a new license. In 2008 and 2009 proceedings were underway at the Public Service Board to consider a license extension.  In an historic vote in 2010 the Vermont Senate declined approval.  In April 2011, Entergy filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court challenging Vermont’s authority to regulate and license the power generation facilities operating in the state. Conservation Law Foundation and Vermont Public Interest Group (VPIRG) later intervened on Vermont’s side in the lawsuit. For a complete timeline of the activities leading up to today’s decision on Vermont Yankee, click here.

There is a saying that as goes Maine, so goes the nation. That is proving to be true, with one slight twist: As goes New England, so goes the nation’s environmental policy.

If you look at a wind map of the United States you’ll see that all prevailing winds east of the Mississippi eventually converge right here, in New England. That helps make New England the place so many of us love – warm summers, stunning falls, and cold, snowy winters – but it also makes New England the tailpipe of the nation.

Beginning in the mid-20^th century, researchers began documenting evidence of the effect of acid rain on Camel’s Hump in Vermont’s Green Mountains. They documented dramatic decreases in biomass, forest reproduction, seed germination, and other damaging effects among such species as red spruce, mountain maple, sugar maple, and beech – some of the trees whose brilliant fall colors draw millions of tourists to New England each fall. The cause? Acid rain.

Today, the problem continues, though in different ways. Antiquated coal plants built before 1970 have long enjoyed loopholes in the Clean Air Act that allowed them to emit toxic pollutants without modern controls. They have spewed a mix of mercury, arsenic, lead, and soot that harms all Americans by degrading our air and water quality, as well as our public health by increasing the rates of lung disease and causing asthma attacks, among other ailments. Even though many New England states have imposed modern controls on their plants, winds continue to carry pollution from the rest of the country that harms New England’s environment and its people.

That’s why today’s ruling from the EPA on the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) is so laudable. As my colleague Jonathan Peress said in a press statement, these standards “amount to one of the most significant public health and environmental measures in years.” They are also similar to standards we adopted here in New England years ago.

According to EPA estimates, these standards will prevent 11,000 heart attacks and 130,000 asthma attacks annually among Americans by 2016. The standards will also save at least $59 billion measured as a reduction in premature deaths, lower health care costs, and fewer absences from work or school. That is undoubtedly a good thing. It is also undoubtedly long overdue.

The affected coal plants are toxic dinosaurs. According to an AP survey, the average age of the plants is 51 years – some of them were even built when Harry S Truman was president. EPA’s new standards will finally allow the public health protections, signed into law by George H.W. Bush as a part of the Clean Air Act of 1990, to do their job. As Ilan Levin, associate director of Environmental Integrity Project, said in a piece on Climate Progress, “The only thing more shocking than the large amounts of toxic chemicals released into the air each year … is the fact that these emissions have been allowed for so many years.”

Here in New England, we have long understood the importance of controlling harmful pollution. CLF together with a close coalition pushed for strict state air pollution standards to clean up the dirtiest plants in Massachusetts. In 2001, the Department of Environmental Protection adopted regulations known as “The Filthy Five” that went beyond the Federal Clean Air Act of 1970, and tackled the issues of mercury and carbon dioxide. From our experience with stringent state standards in Massachusetts and Connecticut, we know the substantial benefits to public health and the environment that will result from these rules.

Concern that these standards will directly shut down plants is misguided. According to an AP survey, “not a single plant operator said the EPA rules were solely to blame for a closure.” Instead, a confluence of factors have already initiated a broad technology shift we’re already seeing here in New England: coal prices are rising and natural gas prices are declining against a background of strict state clean air rules. Given this, many (but not all) of New England’s plants have either already installed modern pollution controls, or are actively planning for retirement, in ways that will keep the lights on.

I applaud the EPA, and Administrator Jackson, for their good work on these standards. We will continue to support them, and they’ll need our help.

And in any event, how long are people to suffer while clean air requirements on the books go unenforced? 21 years (since 1990) is too long. The time has come. Finally.

There are some things that you cannot capture adequately in words alone. The impact of nutrient pollution on fresh water bodies like Lake Champlain is one.

A nutrient overload fuels a toxic algae bloom on the surface of Mississquoi Bay making the water unsafe for swimming and unpleasant to be around.

Photo by Lake Champlain Lakekeeper Louis Porter

That is why the Emmy-award winning film “Bloom: The Plight of Lake Champlain” was such an important development in the effort to raise awareness of the Lake’s problems and the urgent need for action. Christopher Kilian, Director of CLF’s Vermont office and its regional Clean Waters and Healthy Forest program, was featured in that documentary, which was narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Chris Cooper. You can watch a clip with Chris Kilian from the first Bloom here.

Tonight marks the premiere of the Bloom sequels–a series of three related short programs also narrated by Chris Cooper under the title “The Emergence of Ecological Design.” Each film focuses on one of the major causes of pollution to the Lake—agricultural discharges, urban runoff (aka stormwater), and sewage treatment—and highlights emerging solutions for each.  Because CLF’s Clean Water and Healthy Forest program is driving solutions to all of those problems, CLF clean water advocate Anthony Iarrapino (that’s me) appears in all three.

Tonight’s premiere screening is free and open to the public starting at 7:00 p.m. at the Palace 9 Theaters in South Burlington.  If you can’t make the show on the big screen, look for Bloom: The Emergence of Ecological Design on Vermont Public Television over the coming months.  You can also buy DVDs from the producers at BrightBlue Media at their website www.bloomthemovie.org where you will find clips of the new films.

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.

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.

Today, the EPA announced the first national standard for emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants. This rule will protect public health, preserve our environment and boost our economy, particularly for New England, which absorbs the downwind effects of air pollutants generated in other regions of the country. Jonathan Peress, CLF’s director of clean energy and climate change, responds.

“Right now, coal-fired power plants are allowed to poison the air we breathe with toxic pollutants like mercury, arsenic and lead. The EPA’s proposed ‘Air Toxics Rule’ will provide critical protection from major health impacts, including cancer, brain damage and birth defects, associated with this deadly brew of as yet unregulated pollutants.” More >