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 >

Somerset residents gather in front of the plant. (Photo credit: Shanna Cleveland, CLF)

Massachusetts moved one step closer to a coal-free future this week as NRG, owner the Somerset Station power plant located in Somerset, MA, announced that it will shut the plant down permanently, effective immediately. The 85-year-old plant shut down initially in January 2010, after CLF and Somerset residents brought an appeal with regard to NRG’s plans to repower the plant using an experimental technology known as plasma gasification. Earlier this month, NRG asked the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MA DEP) to withdraw approvals for those plans, saying the company had decided not to pursue its plasma gasification project that would have used fuels including coal, construction and demolition debris and woody biomass. MA DEP granted the request on February 18. More >

Learn more about CLF’s Coal-free New England Campaign >

CLF submitted its proposal today to the Vermont Public Service Board recommending strong action in response to the ongoing leaks and contamination at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power facility.

“Entergy VY’s actions in response to the leaks have been and continue to be irresponsible and inadequate. ”
- CLF Proposal for Decision

CLF’s filing highlights the lackluster response of Vermont Yankee’s owners to the leaks.  With new contamination revealed only two weeks ago, it is long past time for Vermont regulators to take action.

Read CLF Recommendation

Read Entergy update – 2-11-2011

The Massachusetts’ Water Resource Authority’s decision to release 15 million gallons of untreated sewage into Boston Harbor’s Quincy Bay during last weekend’s storm felt to many like a giant step backward in the decades-long fight to clean up Boston Harbor. The good news is that there are actions that can be taken today that could have kept MWRA officials from having to make that decision in the future—implementing green stormwater infrastructure to reduce the burden on our sewer pipes, reduce flooding and make communities more resilient to climate change.

Many of our state’s aging sewer systems become overwhelmed with a mix of rainwater and sewage during large storms. That’s why MWRA officials were stuck between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between quietly releasing 15 million gallons of untreated sewage into Quincy Bay or letting the water flood the station and release that sewage into basements, but sparing the Harbor. The problem runs deeper than this one incident—during last week’s storm, there were equally damaging releases of raw sewage into neighborhoods and into the Mystic and Charles Rivers as well. (See video footage here).

Massachusetts can stop these incidents by investing in green stormwater management techniques to enable communities to better prevent sewer overflows and save money over the long term. Some of these techniques include the use of permeable pavement, green roofs, rain barrels, even gravel—anything that will absorb stormwater and diminish runoff from hard surfaces. These actions can be taken by homeowners in and around their homes, at the city scale by greening streets, parking lots, and alleys, and at the state level, by greening state highways and universities.  Massachusetts residents can urge their towns to adopt bylaws requiring green stormwater and green building techniques to be used in all new construction or infrastructure projects. Cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York are already rolling out these techniques and finding that they are both cost-effective and environmentally sustainable.

Fortunately, we have a chance RIGHT NOW to tell the state of Massachusetts how important it is to us to keep stormwater in check. The U.S. EPA is currently working on a stormwater permit that will govern the stormwater management of communities across Massachusetts for the next five years.

Help Massachusetts prepare for the next storm before it happens. Tell our government that we need a stronger stormwater permit to govern Massachusetts waterways and keep our communities pollution-free.

Yesterday’s Boston Globe editorial in response to Monday’s New York Times article on the Clean Water Act makes the point that Massachusetts is in a unique position because the state’s waterways are regulated under a more flexible state water act enforced by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). However, that’s not a panacea. Massachusetts must still support and enforce the terms of the federal Clean Water Act to keep pollution at bay.

While the DEP may enforce discharge permits in Massachusetts, it’s the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that has primary responsibility for issuing them. Two US Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 have undermined the authority of the EPA by calling into question what defines a waterway eligible for protection under the Clean Water Act.  The confusion over which of these waterways are legally protected has left 52% of Massachusetts’ waterways at risk for increased pollution, because EPA is no longer asserting its jurisdiction to regulate pollution flowing into them.

Congress needs to act quickly convey that the Clean Water Act applies to all waterways and must be enforced broadly and effectively.

The Clean Water Restoration Act, first introduced in Congress in April 2009, would amend the Clean Water Act to clarify that the Act applies to all US waterways as it did prior to the Supreme Court decisions. Passing the CWRA will send a message to polluters that all waterways merit equal protection under the law, and that the EPA will continue to enforce the terms of the CWA to prevent further environmental damage.

If we want clean waterways, not just for Massachusetts but throughout New England, here’s our chance to make sure that the EPA has full authority to do its job right, by passing the Clean Water Restoration Act.

Support the Clean Water Restoration Act