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Tapped: Put down the bottled water

2010-03-11T22:30:38Z

When I began the year with the resolution to reduce my global warming pollution, I was hit with the glaring reality that it was going to be a lot more work than I thought. The produce in my fridge is grown all over the U.S. and transported to me by fossil fuel-burning trucks, I forget my reusable bags at home, and yes, I confess, I turn on the furnace to heat my apartment in the winter (it’s cold in San Francisco!). Still, being environmentally conscious is not an all-or-nothing proposition and I know I’m making progress.

Too often people are intimidated by the prospect of completely changing their lives to reduce their energy use and curb climate change, making them shy away from taking the first steps. Even my parents still scoff at me for suggesting that they scale back the inferno of lights in their living room. Others still buy into the belief that their efforts just won’t mean enough to matter.

While It’s no secret that we need large-scale changes to help us transition to a clean energy economy and curb climate change, every little effort makes a difference not only for the planet, but also for our health, our economy, and future generations. And the results of each of our actions can and do quickly add up.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the issue of bottled water. So, in the spirit of small changes, how about reducing your pollution by putting down the bottle?

With World Water Day right around the corner, it’s about time that we confronted our bad habit of drinking bottled water. Americans buy 29 billion bottles of water per year – bottles that are made from petroleum, travel thousands of miles thanks to the burning of fossil fuels, and eventually end up in landfills or our oceans. A new documentary, Tapped, made by the producers of Who Killed the Electric Car and featuring NRDC’s Adrianna Quintero, gives some pretty startling statistics that might make you put down the bottle for good:

18 million barrels of oil are used to transport water every year. (That’s oil that keeps us dependent on petro-dictators around the world).
There is virtually no testing for bottled water. One person (that’s right – one) is responsible for overseeing all of the regulation of bottled water in the U.S.
Only 20% of bottles actually get recycled. Un-recycled bottles often end up in the oceans, adding to a dead zone of plastic that is already twice the size of Texas and growing.

Our tap water, on the other hand, is well monitored, isn’t shipped thousands of miles to your local grocery store, and can save you money. To learn more about how your bottled water could be affecting your health, take a look at NRDC’s report Pure Drink or Pure Hype. You might be surprised by what bottled water companies get away with while convincing us that their water comes from the purest of mountain springs.

I hope that you’ll join me in making the easy choice to reduce your pollution. Pledge here to reduce (or end!) your bottled water use. Tap into your environmental side.

Pricey L.A. Sushi Bar Busted for Selling Whale Meat

2010-03-10T20:07:54Z

Film director Louie Psihoyos called me last week to cancel a meeting we had scheduled for later that day. He explained, apologetically, that he was working on an undercover investigation with law enforcement officers and preparations were taking longer than expected. I laughed, told him that was a pretty good reason to miss our meeting, and wished him good luck.

Well, Louie has had quite a week since then. On Sunday, his feature documentary, The Cove, won the Oscar. On Tuesday, news spread around the world that the sting operation he was working on secretly video-taped the illegal sale of whale meat at one of southern California’s most prominent sushi restaurants, The Hump.

Killing marine mammals is a federal crime, as is importation of marine mammal products. Violators face fines and prison time. Yesterday, my colleague Joel Reynolds, director of NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project, wrote a letter to the Santa Monica City Council urging them to “take immediate action to investigate and, if the allegations are confirmed, take whatever actions are necessary to ensure that this activity will cease, including revoking the business license for this and any other restaurant that is serving or has served whale meat.”

I can’t imagine why anyone would want to eat these intelligent and majestic creatures. Perhaps it’s safe to assume that the big spenders willing to throw down $600 for an “exotic” sushi dinner aren’t that concerned about the ethical use of animals. But morals aside, there’s another reason marine mammals are a peculiar choice for dinner: their meat is toxic.

That’s right: whales and dolphins are at the top of the ocean food chain, where the toxins we blithely pump into the ocean become most highly concentrated. So whales have insanely high concentrations of mercury, PCBs, DDT and other harmful toxins. Poison on a plate.

I guess Hollywood’s cool patrol hasn’t read that memo yet. Maybe Louie Psihoyos’ latest piece of daring journalism will wake them up. Go Louie.

Google Bikes There!

2010-03-10T16:56:43Z

Biking is one of the most efficient ways to get around. It's cheap, it's clean, and it's good exercise. Which is probably why Americans are biking more than ever.

photo from BikePortland.org

Unfortunately, cycling isn't always the easiest way to travel. Have you ever tried to bike across town, only to find yourself on a road with lots of traffic, no bike lanes, sidewalks, or even a shoulder to speak of (aka an Incomplete Street)? Or maybe faced with an imposing intersection, or other similar obstacles? For many riders, unfriendly streets can be a big obstacle to cycling more often, whether for running errands, commuting, or recreation.

Fortunately, more areas around America are working to build Complete Streets by incorporating features into their transportation network to accommodate cyclists. As progress is made and more people are cycling, it is important for them to have information about the best and safest routes to ride. Sure, many local governments or bike groups provide both paper and online maps of bike facilities. But that's not always practical or convenient, especially on the fly. And with the rise of smartphones and GPS, something better is needed.

Corresponding with the kickoff of the National Bike Summit today, information giant Google launched a new feature in its Maps application that displays bike lanes, paths, and trails. It also offers travel directions by bike, in addition to car, by foot, and on public transportation.

What's really cool is that Google pulled out all the stops in designing the application. They included bike lanes and bike-friendly streets in 150 cities across the country, as well as 12,000 miles of bike trails (thanks to a partnership with NRDC's clean transportation ally Rails-to-Trails Conservancy). Dark green lines are dedicated bike-only trails. Light green shows a dedicated bike lane in the road. And dashed green lines represent routes that are safer and more convenient (avoid hills, narrow shoulders, etc.) for bicycling. To calculate the best travel route by bike, Google Maps takes all these factors into account. That means safer, easier, and hopefully more, cycling in the US.

Public demand for this feature has been intense, channeled through a dedicated website and Facebook pages. So we're expecting lots of riders to start testing these tools this spring! And since Bike Maps is still in its beta version, you can help Google improve it with your feedback.

Port of NY/NJ to Dump the Dirtiest Diesels: Truck Replacement Program Released Today

2010-03-10T15:00:00Z

Today, I’m joining Chris Ward, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Judith Enck and others to announce a new truck replacement program that is an important first step towards improving air quality at the port’s marine terminals. Equally important, it’s an important first step toward reducing the pollution impacts of heavy truck traffic in the neighboring communities of Newark, Elizabeth and New York that have borne the brunt of port truck pollution for decades. The plan was referenced in this recent front page Business section story in The New York Times that focused on a similar initiative out of Los Angeles.

Over the past year, I co-chaired the Port Authority’s Truck Work Group with my good friend, Bill Nurthen of the Port Authority. Together, we worked with staff from all of the key stakeholders on this issue – federal, state and city governments, community and environmental justice groups, labor, and industry. The plan that emerged is an important step that will mean cleaner air for drivers and communities neighboring the port next year. It deserves our hearty applause.

The truck replacement program will have three main components:

All pre-1994 trucks will be replaced with cleaner vehicles at the port’s marine terminals, starting on New Year’s Day 2011. Nobody drives a 30-year-old truck because they like the dirty exhaust – they drive them because they cannot afford to buy a newer truck. These are the oldest, dirtiest diesels used at the port. By next year, they will all replaced by models that are model year 2004 or newer and pollute much less. Those who buy 2004-2006 engines will cut their soot pollution by roughly 2/3 and will drop their smog-forming nitrogen oxides by more than half. Those who buy the newer, post-2007 trucks will see soot reductions of 95 percent and NOx reductions of at least 75 percent.
Financing to help truck owners make the switch. 636 truck owners will get the financing incentives they need to enable them to upgrade from their old, dirty diesel vehicles to the newer, cleaner, and more reliable trucks. Specifically, the program will provide $28 million in financial assistance from EPA stimulus funds and the Port Authority to help drivers switch from their pre-1994 trucks to the cleaner, more efficient vehicles. Truck drivers will be eligible for a 25 percent grant toward the total purchase price of a replacement truck and low-interest financing (5.25 percent over five years) for up to 75 percent of the total purchase price.
By 2017, all pre-2007 trucks servicing the port will be replaced with newer, cleaner vehicles. In the long run, we need to clean up all of the trucks – not just the oldest and dirtiest. That’s why under this new program, only trucks equipped with 2007 or newer engines will carry containers and goods to and from the port in 2017. These engines are certified to the most protective soot standards in the world.

This program is the latest step on the road towards a sustainable goods movement system. Back in 2004, NRDC released “Harboring Pollution” – the first environmental report on the health impacts of our nation’s large ports, complete with a set of recommendations on how to make our ports more sustainable.

Cleaning up trucks was at the top of the list of recommendations. Here’s why:

Every day, thousands of dirty diesel trucks carry containers of goods from large ships to warehouses, distribution centers and other facilities, en route to stores and homes around the nation. These trucks (so-called “drayage trucks”) tend to be older and dirtier than the typical truck driven on the interstates. They travel through mostly low-income neighborhoods and communities of color bordering our ports, spewing high levels of particulate soot that triggers asthma emergencies, bronchitis, cancer, heart disease and premature deaths.

Fortunately – as we’re seeing today and as I’ve written over and over, diesel pollution is a solvable problem. Today’s new trucks are more than 90 percent cleaner than the trucks they replace.

But the drayage trucks aren’t the super-clean new trucks being sold today. They are typically trucks that started out in large, well-maintained fleets that travelled long distances, and that trickled down to smaller and smaller fleets on their way to drayage service, a place that my colleague, David Pettit, has called the place “where old trucks go to die.”

In the months and years to come, we need to build on today’s announcement to ensure that goods movement throughout our region is as clean, competitive and sustainable as possible – for the communities that breathe the air, and for the drivers and businesses who will be investing in the cleaner trucks.

Protecting Tennessee From Mountaintop Coal Mining

2010-03-10T13:30:44Z

As we study the universe, sending telescopes into other solar systems and far off galaxies, one thing has become abundantly clear: perhaps the rarest phenomenon in the universe is organic life.

To date, despite all our intergalactic travel and research, we have established that living organisms exist only in the biosphere surrounding just one planet, our Earth. The biosphere, the very narrow band that contains all the known life in the universe, is tiny, stretching from about three miles up, to the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, to about two miles down, to the depths of the oceans. Yup, that’s it: the biosphere, three miles up, two miles down. That is the only location we know of in the universe where life exists. If we were to find a life form, even one as tiny as bacteria or a virus, on another planet or moon, it would be front page news. Life is indeed a rare thing.

Our daunting task in the 21st century is the preservation of the functional integrity of the biosphere, on which all life depends. And yet, to date, humanity’s chief interest in the biosphere has been to maximize the plunder of its great store of natural resources. Humanity has instigated unprecedented rates of ecological damage at a global scale. And although humanity adds up to a small share of the Earth’s total living matter, we have been responsible for all the damaging changes to all forms of life within the biosphere.

Yesterday, that fact, the extraordinary rarity of life, the urgency to protect every remaining creature that lives within our biosphere, kept running through my chattering mind over and over while I attended two hearings in the Tennessee state legislature.

Both hearings, one in the Tennessee Senate and one in the House, addressed bills designed to limit mountaintop removal coal mining (MTR) in the state, and both hearings brought into sharp relief how hard it is to tackle this ecological and cultural calamity.

The legislation being considered by the Tennessee legislature is simple and modest in scope: Each bill would merely prohibit surface mining on mountain ridgelines in Tennessee above 2,000 feet high. Not all of the mountains in Tennessee at risk of being blown apart for mountaintop removal coal mining (or a linguistic variation of it known as “cross ridge mining”) are higher than 2,000 feet, so the legislation would not entirely end the threat of MTR in Tennessee. But the bills would provide meaningful ecological and public health value, limiting MTR to lower elevations, fewer steep slopes and heights less subject to landslides.

And the bills would protect the Cumberland Plateau from MTR. The Cumberland Plateau is one of the world’s great biological treasures and an NRDC BioGem.

Some of the most important and rare forms of life found in Tennessee’s biologically diverse forests enjoy the higher elevations of the Plateau. For example, the Cerulean Warbler likes those higher elevations on the Northern Plateau. (It munches on insects found on the underside of hardwood leaves, keeping trees healthy.) So does Swainson’s Warbler, the Louisiana Waterthrush, the Worm-Eating Warbler, the Wood Thrush, the Acadian Flycatcher and the Kentucky Warbler.

According the greatest authority on Cerulean Warblers, Melinda Welton, that bird is perhaps the single most threatened songbird in North America. Its population throughout the United States has dropped by 82 percent in the last forty years, 88 percent in Tennessee during that same period. Habitat degradation from deforestation and fragmentation are the principle causes of its decline. Still, the Northern Cumberland Plateau region in Tennessee continues to host the single largest concentration of Cerulean Warblers reported from anywhere within its range. (see http://www.welovebirds.org/)

Unfortunately for the Cerulean Warbler, the region it most depends on for survival is the region in Tennessee most coveted by coal mining companies for mountaintop removal coal mining. The Tennessee Valley Authority alone owns 55,000 acres in the Northern Cumberland Plateau area, on which it could mine coal. MTR coal mining is a prime cause of deforestation and forest fragmentation in Appalachia, precisely the type of threats that are wiping out the Cerulean Warbler and other forms of life in the southeast United States. But perhaps there is room for hope: Some of the Northern Cumberland Plateau area is above 2,000 feet in elevation, and there are two bills in the Tennessee legislature that would prohibit MTR coal mining at those elevations.

Perhaps my thoughts about the uniqueness of life kept wafting through my mind because of a meeting I had earlier yesterday with the Reverend Ryan Bennett. Rev. Bennett, an elder in the United Methodist Church and pastor of the Bethlehem United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tennessee, was also attending the hearings because he belongs to a coalition of religious groups that support the bills to limit MTR in order to do what they can to protect God’s creation.

The Southern Baptist Church, the Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church have all taken official positions against mountaintop removal coal mining, the most destructive form of coal mining on Earth. Rev. Bennett was at the hearings yesterday with numerous other members of the Lindquist Environmental Appalachian Fellowship, (LEAF) a religious coalition committed to protecting “The Earth…and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” (Psalm 24:1) LEAF is the prime backer of the legislation to stop MTR in Tennessee. LEAF’s Legislative Director, a charming church lady named Dawn Coppock, is the person most responsible for the progress of the MTR-limiting legislation in Tennessee.

The work of LEAF resonates strongly in me because my religion teaches that Nature reveals God. According to the Talmud, creation is not merely an act in the past. The processes of Nature represent the unceasing and ongoing creative power of the Divine. “Every hour He makes provision for all who come into the world according to their need. In His Grace He satisfies all creatures.” Every hour. Provision for all creatures. (Everyman’s Talmud, at P. 3.)

And the work of LEAF resonates in me as well because it is rational as well as spiritual, based on scientific fact as well as ethics.

Science is not just another opinion, and science tells us that there is no way to undertake MTR coal mining without causing irreparable harm and even death to many life forms, homo sapiens included.

So, along with church ladies and Reverends, also in attendance at the MTR hearings in Tennessee yesterday were scientists. Dr. Dennis Lemly, one of the world’s great authorities on selenium, testified powerfully about the effects that MTR has in causing selenium pollution: “Selenium from mountaintop removal mining poisons fish. Selenium threatens wildlife as well as fish. It bioaccumulates and threatens the entire food chain. The impacts are pervasive and irreversible.”

Selenium is a naturally occurring element in coal. It leaches from coal, from mining spoils and from valley fills. It leaches through waste rock. According to Dr. Lemly, “There is no way you can do MTR without selenium contamination. Selenium pollution will increase if MTR increases. Tennessee is facing a very serious situation with regard to water pollution and dead fish due to selenium poisoning.”

Last year, Tennessee enacted a law that would keep mines 100 feet from water bodies. According to Dr. Lemly, that was a “token effort” not likely to offer meaningful protection. “Fish are being poisoned from MTR sites as far as 13 miles away from the mine site. MTR sites in Tennessee are ticking time bombs and four have been allowed to explode.”

I remember my first visit to the Zeb Mountain MTR site in northern Tennessee. It was many years ago, when the mine had just begun. First I flew over it, and then visited it by car. Within ten minutes of my arrival at the gate to the mine, where I thought I was alone with my local guide, a local sheriff arrived who made it clear that he didn’t appreciate my effort to view the site. The waters running off the mine were acidic, nothing seemed alive in them. The rocks in the streams were orange and red, with ferrous and other elements leaching out due to the acidic quality of the water. According to Dr. Lemly, “A time bomb has exploded on Zeb Mountain. Selenium pollution has started and it will not stop. Things are in bad shape on Zeb Mountain. There are extremely high levels of selenium pollution that will lead to reproductive failure in fish populations, the situation is grim. Groundwater is also at risk and will affect human health.”

Photo of Zeb Mountain, United Mountain Defense

Other pollutants besides selenium that are released because of MTR coal mining include mercury, lead, arsenic, nickel, copper, and zinc.

The good news for Tennessee is that information from mining in other states provides a useful toxicological data base that can be used to protect against repeating the same mistakes in Tennessee. Says Dr. Lemly, “The information about mining in other areas is there. Look at West Virginia, at Kentucky. Don’t ignore that. The poisoning from MTR is inevitable and inescapable. Water quality will be gone and it will not come back. Out west selenium is still discharging from closed mines that were started 100 years ago. It doesn’t stop. I don’t know how we can ignore the science.”

According to Dr. Lemly, the selenium levels at Zeb Mountain are 40 times higher than the tolerable toxicity threshold in fish. “And I don’t mean fish no one cares about, I’m talking about the major fish species, largemouth bass, blue gills, the kind you and I like to fish for.” Selenium pollution of water resources near Zeb Mountain are 20 times higher than the level at which we expect to see reproductive failure, and 8 times higher than the toxicity level at which we would expect to see the collapse of the entire fish population. According to Dr. Lemly: “I think there is a high probability that the homes around Zeb Mountain have water quality problems.”

Another professor, Dr. Orie Louks, testified at the hearings about the effects of MTR on forest productivity. According to Dr. Louks, “Forest productivity collapses post-MTR. It is very difficult to reestablish trees post MTR. Trying to do so, to restore the land, would put coal operators out of business.” Scientists estimate that post MTR forests will not recover for 10,000 years.

Sometimes, enacting environmental regulations can challenge an industry. But in this case putting MTR coal operators out of business would be a good thing for the economy. According to Dr. Louks: “MTR takes away forest-based jobs and takes away underground mining jobs.” In Tennessee, there are less than 400 jobs in the surface mining industry. By contrast, tourism produces $14 billion worth of economic activity in the state and tens of thousands of jobs.

As I sat in the Tennessee Legislature’s hearing room, I thought of the diverse interests aligned that day against MTR: evangelical and other religious groups, scientists, and those interested in protecting the much more lucrative—and clean--tourism industry from the ravages of MTR coal mining. Religious groups, scientists, business interests, all aligned against MTR.

And yet, as I met after the hearings with a senior Tennessee government official, I was told there was probably no way that the bills under consideration to limit MTR coal mining in Tennessee would pass. “The coal companies own them. They finance their campaigns.” was what I was told, in reference to the Tennessee state legislators unmoved by the compelling ethics, the peer-reviewed science and the community economics aligned against MTR coal mining.

One might reasonably think that a pro-business coalition of religious groups and scientists might prevail in limiting MTR in Tennessee to “only” those mountains lower than 2,000 feet. And yet, I’m told the odds are slim for passage. We’ll see. The story isn’t over, not yet. After all, only God should move mountains, and sometimes, He does.

California Restores Its Energy Efficiency Leadership

2010-03-08T19:54:08Z

A new paper released by NRDC today describes how California restored its energy efficiency leadership by enacting smart policies over the last decade. These energy efficiency programs provide enormous economic and environmental benefits to the state.

We released the paper at the U.C. Davis Energy Efficiency Center’s Symposium honoring Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld, recently retired member of the California Energy Commission. NRDC’s paper is dedicated to Dr. Rosenfeld, “whose visionary leadership in the field of energy efficiency has inspired new generations to follow in his footsteps.” If energy efficiency could carry a flag, it would look like the aptly named “Rosenfeld Curve:”

Per Capita Electricity Consumption

In the 1970s, California embarked on an uncharted path to pursue energy efficiency, and it has yielded impressive results. The idea that consumers can get the same level of service – light, heat, and other modern day necessities – while using less energy, once a new and untested concept, is now a proven tool to deliver huge benefits for consumers. A short list of benefits from energy efficiency includes: it saves customers money on their utility bills, creates net growth in jobs, helps drive the wheels of innovation, and it cleans the air and helps curb global warming to boot.

Energy efficiency programs help customers lower their energy bills by providing information and rebates on more efficient products. (Find out what programs you can take advantage of by calling your local utility or Flex Your Power.)

In the early 1990s, California became a leader on energy efficiency, only to let its programs fall by the wayside as the state rushed into its now infamous deregulation experiment. In the aftermath of California’s electricity crisis, the state began reassembling the policies necessary to support energy efficiency. Smart policies enacted over the last decade have restored the state’s leadership, and the energy efficiency programs’ achievements are remarkable:

California’s programs increased net benefits (that is, the benefits after deducting all the costs) to consumers nearly five-fold over the last decade, totaling nearly $5 billion.
California increased its energy savings almost six-fold in the last decade, reaching more than 3,400 GWh of annual savings in 2008. (Translation: in 2008, the state saved the same amount of energy it takes to power all the households in San Francisco and San Mateo counties combined.)
The efficiency costs less than half of what the baseload power that it replaces costs, coming in at 3 c/kWh instead of 8 c/kWh.
California's economic productivity for every kWh of electricity consumed has improved over 50% in real dollars since 1980. (In contrast, the rest of the US has improved only 15%.)
In 2008, the pollution savings from efficiency programs (which have accumulated since the state first began programs in earnest in the mid-1970s) totaled nearly 1,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen-oxides and provided global warming pollution savings equivalent to the emissions from approximately 3 million cars.

California has shown once again that it’s faster, cheaper, and cleaner to save energy than to produce it. And the state is far from exhausting the potential savings from efficiency. California regulators recently approved utility efficiency programs for the next three years that are expected to further increase savings and create 15,000 jobs.

Over the past decade, California re-established itself as a leader in energy efficiency, but with Congress poised to enact a nationwide limit on global warming pollution and consumers feeling the pinch of high utility bills, states around the country are now vying to take the lead on energy efficiency. For example, Massachusetts recently set its sights on surpassing California . California, the clean energy race is a competition in which everyone wins. We have pioneered energy efficiency before; we are the architects of innovative policy; and we already know how to harness the jobs and dollars that flow from energy efficiency. There is nothing holding us back now.

Crude Awakening: Audubon Magazine Tells the Tale of Tar Sands and Bird Habitat

2010-03-08T14:48:54Z

Last summer, Audubon Magazine reporter Barry Yeoman travelled north to the open pit mines in Alberta, Canada where a dense form of oil is dug from the earth like coal. He saw the devastation caused by these tar sands mines first hand and has written about them and the surrounding Boreal forests and wetlands in a well-crafted article just published this month. The story includes striking photographs by Jon Lowenstein. The article tells the story of the high price of an oil addiction that leads oil companies to go after ever more costly and destructive forms of fuel for our cars and trucks. The Peace-Athabasca Delta, downstream from the tar sands mines, is critical bird habitat and nesting area for many of America’s migrating birds. Water use and water and air pollution from the tar sands are helping to kill it – not to mention the fears that local communities have for their health.

Barry describes the Delta aptly in this way:

The boat glides between banks lined with cattails and bulrushes that bow as we pass. The only houses along some stretches were built by beavers. A dozen kingfishers keep pace with us, and we spot pelicans and pileated woodpeckers. Marcel points to a distant flash of movement: a bald eagle. This avian display, he says, is nothing. “Some days in the springtime, when the birds are migrating north—oh, man! For days on end there are flocks in the thousands.” The delta, part of North America’s 1.5-billion-acre boreal forest, serves as the convergence point for all four major North American flyways. Some 215 species—including the endangered whooping crane and neotropical migrants like the olive-sided flycatcher and the American wigeon—use its freshwater wetlands for breeding, nesting, or stopping over.

I travelled with Barry to the tar sands and the Peace-Athabasca Delta last summer and I saw and felt the truth that his words describe. Read his story and you’ll have a good sense of the beauty and the danger in this remote part of Canada that is so closely connected to us through the birds that we love. Go to NRDC’s BioGems action page for the Peace-Athabasca Delta and you’ll be able to send a letter to the Environment Minister of Canada asking for tar sands oil expansion to stop so that the birds of the Peace-Athabasca Delta can be protected.

Photo by Jon Lowenstein, Noor Images

Visit NRDC and Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s new social networking site: www.welovebirds.org

'Dirty Pretty Things': Coal Ash Exposed

2010-03-06T22:15:45Z

Clean coal, eh? No such thing. The stuff is dirty from the cradle to the grave. Just consider coal ash. Over 130 million tons of this so-called coal combustion waste -- containing nearly 100,000 tons of toxic metals -- is produced every year, as a byproduct of burning coal to generate electricity at hundreds of U.S. power plants.

And yet the storage of coal ash isn't regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency because it's considered a non-toxic substance. NRDC and other patners are pushing to get EPA to finally fulfill its long-delayed promise to issue federal standards requiring the treatment of coal ash as the "hazardous" waste it so obviously is.

NRDC's friend -- and phenomenal photographer -- J. Henry Fair is all about exposing the dangers of coal ash as part of his work specializing in capturing on film the large scale scars created by industrial waste. Henry's remarkable new series of aerial photos document coal ash containment areas that EPA acknowledges would pose a high hazard potential should there be an impoundment failure -- as happened in December 2008 at the Kingston TVA plant in Tennessee.

His photos are up on GQ's website as a slideshow entitled Dirty Pretty Things.

GQ describes Henry's post-industrial wasteland style of photography as "bizarrely gorgeous" and calls his coal ash images "simultaneously grotesque and beautiful", all of which is definitely true. As Henry said to GQ:

"If you don't know what the images are they still look sinister. We've seen too many photos of deforested hillsides. It doesn't work any more. The coal ash images have to be beautiful or else they would cause your eyes to glaze over. I want to illustrate the two menaces of coal ash—the potential menace to people living nearby and the menace to the water supply. Fifty percent of our electricity is generated by coal energy. Maybe these pictures will get people to turn off their damn lights!"

You can view more of Henry's most recent photos here. His stunning aerial shots were made possibly by the volunteer conservation pilots at Southwings.

Groups Call on EPA, New York & New Jersey to Reduce Sewage Pollution and Clean Up Waterways for Recreation

2010-03-04T19:54:19Z

Nearly every time it rains, New York City’s aging sewer system diverts raw, untreated sewage directly into local waters. This untreated wastewater and storm runoff contains dangerous bacteria, pathogens, heavy metals and toxic chemicals, making kayaking or swimming in city waters an unhealthy – and rather icky – activity.

When it rains in New York and in many parts of New Jersey, runoff from rooftops and streets flows into the same pipes that carry waste water away from your home. When the combined flow is more than municipal sewage treatment facilities can handle, it’s released—without being treated—into local waterways. Excess raw sewage mixed with polluted runoff gets discharged, entirely untreated, into our waterway from nearly 500 locations in all 5 boroughs of New York City and from dozens of cities and towns in New Jersey. It’s called a combined sewer overflow (CSO) and it’s the primary source of fecal coliform bacteria in the waters in and around the New York/New Jersey Harbor.

And it doesn’t take much rain to overwhelm our water treatment facilities -- rainfall events of as little as one-tenth of an inch of rain will routinely cause CSOs.

NRDC today joined over 25 other New York and New Jersey-based organizations to call for reductions in sewage pollution that will allow for safe recreational use of region’s rivers and bays – to finally fulfill the vision of the Clean Water Act, passed by Congress in 1972, that all our nation’s waters be “fishable and swimmable”.

The organizations – including the Storm Water Infrastructure Matters (S.W.I.M.) Coalition, NY/NJ Baykeeper, and Riverkeeper – sent a letter to EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck, calling on the agency to ensure that the total maximum daily load (TMDL) under development for discharges of pathogens to the harbor protects public health and the environment.

Combined sewer overflows release billions of gallons of untreated sewage to the areas waterways every year and are the main source of pathogens (e.g., bacteria) that make local waters unfit for recreation – such as kayaking and swimming -- following rainfall events of as little as one-tenth of an inch. When sewer systems in New York and New Jersey cannot handle the combined volume of sewage from our homes and businesses and storm runoff from our roadways and rooftops, the

A TMDL defines the maximum amount of a pollutant that can be discharged while achieving compliance with health-based and ecologically-based water quality standards. The environmental agencies of both New York and New Jersey are now supporting the use of a “seasonal average” (May 15 - September 15) bacteria level to measure compliance with water quality standards for the TMDL. In other words, the TMDL would be set at a level that allows the discharge of billions of gallons of bacteria-laden untreated waste, so long as an average of harbor water quality samples taken across a four month period does not exceed the state standard.

As explained in today’s letter, the states’ proposed approach is entirely incompatible with the Clean Water Act goal of attaining fishable and swimmable waters. Quite simply, no one swims, paddles, or fishes in “average” water – they come into contact with water in whatever condition they find it at the particular time they’re recreating in or on our waterways. In New York City, at least, we sometimes forget that most of us live on islands(!), and we need to protect and restore the waters around them to take full advantage of the amazing recreational (and economic) opportunities our local marine environment has to offer. The states and EPA should step up and make sure that the Pathogens TMDL for the NY/NJ Harbor area ensures we’ll all be able to safely enjoy those opportunities, on both the NY and the NJ sides of the harbor.

Tar sands oil trial underway – Charge: the death of 1,600 ducks

2010-03-02T19:44:45Z

Yesterday in Canada, one of the tar sands oil giants went to court to defend itself. The charge: killing 1,600 ducks. The oil company: the aptly named Syncrude a joint venture whose owners include ConcoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Murphy Oil. Their defense: not guilty, they claim. The birds did die in the waste lagoon, but we are above the law. Trial: throughout March and April.

I reported on the start of this case a year ago here. As shown in NRDC’s report on the impact of tar sands on migratory birds, tailings ponds may cause the deaths of 8,000 to 100,000 birds every year, most of which go unreported. The glittering waters of tar sands open waste dams already span 50 square miles of what used to be Alberta’s Boreal forest and wetlands.

These ducks were flying to nesting grounds in spring 2008 when they landed and died in Syncrude’s tar sands waste dam. I flew over the tar sands most recently last summer. The Syncrude tailings ponds stretch out for miles in the sun. I can imagine for a duck, it would be like the siren’s call: attractive, but deadly. Each spring more than half of America’s birds flock to the Canadian Boreal forest to nest. The Boreal forests and wetlands provide safe nesting habitat for songbirds and waterfowl. Yet almost all the biggest oil companies strip-mine these critical forests and wetlands . They are literally scraping away the trees and gouging out the wetlands to reach a tarry substance called bitumen. With a high cost in water and natural gas, bitumen can be turned into synthetic crude oil and from there into gasoline and diesel. Athabasca River water is heated and used to separate the bitumen from the sand after it is dug up and the water waste – now contaminated with bitumen and other contaminants sits for years behind open dams of waste.

Bird watchers in the United States say no to tar sands oil, when they learn that the United States is on the brink of helping expansion of the tar sands mines and operations that destroy and fragment bird nesting habitat. Oil companies try to make tar sands sound attractive, clean and safe. But it is impossible to make the abrupt death of 1,600 ducks sound like anything but what it is: the sign of an industry whose destructiveness is not worth it.

If convicted, Syncrude faces fines of nearly $800,000. Oil industry profits mean that companies can likely pay a fine of this level without pain. Since the 1,600 ducks died nearly two years ago, new requirements for industry to deal with its wastewater are in place. Yet, most companies are not taking even these new and weak requirements seriously. Syncrude has accumulated more liquid tailings than the whole of the industry put together – about 132 billion gallons of the total 221 billion gallons in 2010. And yet, true to form, Syncrude has submitted tailings management plans that will not comply with these new requirements, and has some of the weakest plans of any tar sands oil operator.

Clearly, we need more. Oil companies need to clean up the tailings waste ponds. They need to be held accountable for their pollution so that it does not harm bird habitat, forests, wetlands, rivers, and the public health of downstream communities.

Tar sands expansion will continue along its destructive path until its main market – the United States – says no to more bird deaths, no to new pipelines, no to expansion of refineries, and yes to clean energy solutions for our transportation needs.

For more on the duck trial, see the blog from our colleagues at the Pembina Institute.