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A Reunion at Laguna San Ignacio

2010-03-05T22:36:00Z

I just returned from an extraordinary trip to an even more extraordinary place. Laguna San Ignacio, on the west coast of the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico is a World Heritage Site, a biosphere reserve, a whale sanctuary, a migratory bird sanctuary, and the last place on Earth where gray whales can breed and calve undisturbed by human intrusion. Each year, hundreds of gray whales swim thousands of miles from the Arctic to mate, give birth and nurse their young in the warm waters of this near-pristine lagoon. There aren’t many places in the world with so many layers of formal protection, and there is no better wildlife experience anywhere. (Check out the prose, poetry, photos and paintings from our members and friends which were inspired by their visits to the lagoon.)

My colleagues Jacob Scherr, Ani Youatt, Adrianna Quintero and I travelled to the lagoon last weekend to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the cancellation of the Mitsubishi saltworks project, a proposed joint venture with the Mexican government that was abandoned in March 2000 under intense pressure from Mexican and international environmentalists. Following is a video NRDC produced documenting the 10th anniversary.

For three days we met with our partners in the battle to protect Laguna San Ignacio and to share our memories of what became one of the largest environmental campaigns in history The campaign was initiated by Mexican poet and environmentalist Homero Aridjis, his wife Betty, and El Grupo de los Cien, and joined by NRDC, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Jared Blumenfeld, formerly of IFAW and now EPA’s Administrator for Region 9, was with us at the lagoon), and many others, including former Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister Andres Rozental, Ambassador Alberto Szekely, Patricia and Laura Martinez of Pro Esteros, Serge Dedina of Wildcoast, Jean-Michel Cousteau of Ocean Futures Society, our colleague Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., renowned photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum, international law expert Mark Spalding, and film stars like Pierce Brosnan and Glenn Close. It was an amazing multi-year, multi-faceted, global campaign – one in which NRDC’s members and activists played a critical role. At one point, we had advocacy activities to save the lagoon underway in Mexico, the United States, Japan, Europe, and in the United Nations.

Our group included Ari Hershowitz, who played a key role for NRDC and the campaign in reaching out to the people living around the lagoon. Raul Lopez was there, along with other members of the local communities who showed real courage in standing up against the proposed saltworks. Their determination to protect the lagoon and their community made a critical difference in the fight.

But looking back was only a part of last week’s gathering, because the battle to protect the lagoon goes on. In 2005, the Laguna San Ignacio Conservation Alliance was formed with a goal of protecting permanently the lagoon and its surrounding lands. In the last five years, the Alliance has protected some 140,000 acres on the southern edge of the lagoon, and it has secured additional protection on 109,000 acres of federal land. It was great to have with us at the lagoon representatives of three groups that are playing a key role in our land preservation efforts: Miguel Angel Vargas of Pro Natura, Anne McEnany of the International Community Foundation and Peggy McNutt of the Resources Legacy Fund.

Over the next five years, we hope to conserve an additional 250,000 acres to prevent the return of the salt works project or any other major development project that could threaten the lagoon or the lands that surround it. As part of the reunion gathering last weekend, we convened a well-attended community symposium at the Kuyima camp to discuss recent and planned economic, conservation, and scientific activities around the lagoon. The following day, more than 80 children from communities around the lagoon piled into the small fishing boats called pangas for hours of whale-watching. For a number of the local kids, this was their first chance to get up close to the whales.

They say that “success has a thousand fathers… and mothers,” and credit for the victory at Laguna San Ignacio belongs to all of us who were fortunate to gather there last weekend and to many more who were not able to join us. The need to draw the line in the sand and save this special place was shared by hundreds of thousands worldwide. This victory demonstrated that it is possible for citizens to take successful action to protect and preserve nature. But the work never ends, and we look forward to more successes at Laguna San Ignacio.

Stepping Backward Is Not A "Way Forward" For Protecting Whales At The IWC

2010-02-22T19:43:43Z

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) today released a report by the Chair of a small subcommittee charged with negotiating a compromise on a “way forward” for the IWC. There is much discussion in the report about conservation, science, monitoring, governance, and yet-undetermined whale catch limits, and NRDC expects to respond in detail when a careful review has been done. While anyone familiar with the IWC can sympathize with the subcommittee’s goal, the report is, on first reading, a disappointment. The recommended way forward – if adopted by IWC member nations – would be a step backward toward legitimizing commercial whaling.

NRDC has long opposed commercial whaling. Whales are among the most magnificent and inspirational animals ever to inhabit the planet, and they play an invaluable role in maintaining the healthy ocean ecosystems essential to our survival. Sadly, as a result of commercial whaling in the 19th and early 20th centuries, many species of whales were pushed to the brink of extinction, prevented only by the efforts of generations of people around the world determined to “Save the Whales” before it was too late. One of the centennial moments of that movement was the adoption of an international moratorium on commercial whaling, which took effect a generation ago.

Although whaling nations such as Japan, Iceland and Norway have continued to hunt whales for profit since the moratorium – killing over 32,000 whales either under the guise of “scientific research” or reservations and objections to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling – the whaling ban has been a pivotal step forward in the struggle both to save those species decimated by hunting and to recover whale populations throughout the world.

NRDC opposes any plan to weaken the moratorium. And we will urge the Obama Administration, at next week’s IWC Intersessional meetings in St. Petersburg, Florida, to continue this nation’s proud history of whale conservation by rejecting any proposal for the future of the IWC that would invite that result.

The Obama Administration’s commitment to our oceans and to the species that inhabit it is already well established. One of President Obama’s first appointments was that of Dr. Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency responsible for restoring our oceans. She promptly committed to developing a national ocean policy, long advocated by NRDC, to ensure the protection, maintenance, and restoration of our ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems. More recently, NOAA has undertaken a review of the U.S. Navy’s safeguards in training with high intensity military sonar and announced a process for improving those safeguards. (Those powerful sonar systems are known to injure and kill deep-diving whales and to cause widespread disruption in numerous whale, dolphin, and porpoise species – as shown here.)

As the IWC decides, in the coming months, whether it exists to protect whales or to regulate their slaughter, we strongly urge the Administration to stand firm in defending the moratorium.

The Cove Exposes Senseless Dolphin Slaughter in Japan

2009-07-23T18:27:34Z

Many people know about NRDC's on-going battle to save whales and dolphins from ear-splitting military sonar. After watching an extraordinary and award-winning new movie, The Cove, hopefully many more will learn about the current battle to save thousands of dolphins from senseless slaughter in Japan.

Directed by Louie Psihoyos and produced by the Oceanic Preservation Society, The Cove chronicles former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry's mission to stop the killing of over 2,000 dolphins every year in the Japanese coastal village of Taiji. Using hidden microphones and cameras, the film takes the audience on a daring journey into the heart of the once-secret Japanese dolphin hunt. The film tells the story not only of what goes on in this hidden cove but the lengths that O'Barry and his team had to go to expose it. It also uncovers the government's practice of unloading contaminated meat on unsuspecting Japanese consumers, including Japanese children, who were served mercury-ridden dolphin meat in mandatory school lunch programs.

With its Ocean's Eleven-style footage that you must absolutely see - and hear - to believe, The Cove could have depicted, but does not, a Dante's Inferno for dolphins. Instead, it places the Japanese fishery in a cultural and political context. Looming behind the film is the failure of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) to stop the killing. Although the IWC banned whaling in 1986, Japan still kills almost 1,000 great whales each year under the guise of "scientific research" as well as an additional 23,000 dolphins and porpoises every year. Unfortunately, the IWC provides no protection for small marine mammals like the dolphins slaughtered at Taiji.

NRDC is working to change this. We've urged the Obama Administration to restore our global leadership in the fight to protect whales. We've also asked the Administration to stop the closed-door negotiations with Japan - originally initiated by the Bush Administration - that would legitimize the commercial killing of whales after a 20-year moratorium, and to engage in broad diplomatic efforts, outside of the IWC, to encourage Japan to end its killing of whales and dolphins for commercial purposes.

NRDC is also continuing our sonar work. We are currently fighting to improve mitigation measures for sonar testing and training in the Navy's training ranges. If left unchecked, the Navy's training would result in more than 2 million "takes" - injury or harassment to marine mammals - every year. NRDC has urged the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is currently conducting a comprehensive review of the Navy's sonar mitigation measures, to adopt measures that would protect marine mammals, such as protecting high-value habitat from sonar training.

Although environmental work sometimes has the feel of Mission Impossible, the audience leaves The Cove convinced of both the urgency and the possibility of change. If The Cove inspires you, now is the time to act. The Cove opens July 31 in New York City and Los Angeles and the following week in cities across the country. It's a compelling film everyone who feels a connection to marine mammals should see. To watch a trailer, read reviews or find out when the film will be at a theatre near you, visit The Cove website.

Watching Whales Watching Us in California

2009-07-13T21:53:40Z

In yesterday's New York Times Magazine ("Watching Whales Watch Us"), author Charles Siebert lays out a compelling case for what many people have long suspected: that great whales are conscious, social, interactive animals with complex social structures and cultures. The article is beautifully written and full not just of anecdotes of remarkable whale-human interactions but interviews with leading scientists who have documented that whales teach, learn, cooperate, grieve, and even use tools in their quest for food.

Using the 'friendly gray whales" at Laguna San Ignacio on the west coast of Baja California as the touchstone, Siebert covers a range of topics in making his case - from military sonar (calling NRDC's litigation to control it a "turning point" in the relationship between humans and whales) to commercial whaling to personal and historical anecdotes of interactions with these massive creatures in the wild. He suggests the remarkable proposition that these ancient creatures, once hunted virtually to extinction by humans, may somehow have learned now to forgive and even trust us, in spite of our centuries-old efforts to slaughter their ancestors for oil and other whale byproducts. Siebert argues that whale-human relations have long been characterized by a "stark dualism: manic swings between mythologizing and massacre; between sublime awe and assiduous annihilation, the testimonies of their slayers often permeated with a deep sense of both remorse and respect for the victims."

And nowhere is this more clearly the case than at Laguna San Ignacio.

At this extraordinary place - now a World Heritage Site, a biosphere reserve, and the last undisturbed breeding and calving lagoon of the California gray whale - this large baleen species that migrates each year along the west coast from Alaska was hunted by whalers like Charles Scammon, who would trap the calves in the shallow lagoon as a means of enticing the full-grown mothers within range for harpooning. After reaching near-extinction at levels below 1,000 whales, the species began to rebound when commercial whaling was outlawed in the mid to late 20th Century, with the eastern Pacific gray whale stock now reaching an estimated 18,000 gray whales at least - one of the most dramatic recoveries of any large whale species. It is in this lagoon today that whale-watchers come every winter to ride the protected waters to see and even touch 40-ton, 45-feet long wild animals and their babies in their natural habitat.

As but one example of the continuing, post-commercial whaling threats to these magnificent animals, it was in this lagoon that, in the 1990's, Mitsubishi Corporation and the government of Mexico proposed to build the world's largest industrial salt works - 116-square miles of industrial development, with 17 enormous diesel pumps sucking 6,000 gallons per second from the lagoon 24-hours a day; a million-ton stockpile of salt; a two-kilometer pier into the Bay of Whales where ocean-going tankers would dock to receive the salt for transport to Japan; and billions of gallons of toxic salt brine, stored in ponds adjacent to the lagoon and eventually dumped into coastal waters. Together with the largest environmental coalition ever formed in Mexico and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, NRDC mounted the largest public campaign in its history to challenge and, against tremendous odds, ultimately defeat the salt works project. Now, ten years after President Zedillo of Mexico announced that the project would be abandoned, NRDC and a coalition of international and Mexican non-profits have undertaken a conservation initiative to preserve in perpetuity one million acres around the lagoon through easements and land acquisition - to ensure that the whales will be protected from a return of the salt works project or any other major development.

This is a success story, but the international struggle to protect and restore whale populations around the globe will never end. Charles Siebert's article is a powerful statement of why that struggle, by NRDC and others, is essential.

Historic Tejon Ranch Conservation Agreement Celebrates One-Year Anniversary

2009-05-08T18:30:21Z

Most people have never seen a California condor. Last week, when I arrived at a meeting of the Tejon Ranch Conservancy at a cabin in the heart of the Tejon Ranch north of Los Angeles, a number of these majestic birds were sitting nearby in a tree, occasionally taking wing on the updraft that surrounded the cabin. It was an astonishing sight.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the announcement of the historic Tejon Ranch Conservation and Land Use Agreement, one of the largest land conservation deals in California history. NRDC and four other prominent environmental groups negotiated the agreement with the landowner, Tejon Ranch Company, and its partners to provide for permanent protection of 240,000 acres -- over 90% -- of the largest contiguous, private landholding in California. Tejon Ranch is the critical biological connection between four important ecosystems -- the Sierra Nevada, the San Joaquin Valley, the Mojave Desert, and the mountains of southern and coastal California -- and this agreement protects hundreds of thousands of acres of those critical lands and guarantees public access for generations to come. As I said a year ago, this is perhaps the greatest victory for conservation in California that many of us will see in our lifetimes.

The agreement also created and funded the independent, non-profit Tejon Ranch Conservancy, which has taken many important steps forward in the last year. First, the Conservancy's Board -- on which I sit as one of the founding members -- hired a terrific executive director, Thomas Maloney, who spent the last eight years with The Nature Conservancy, most recently serving as interim ecoregional director for the West Coast region. Under the direction of Dr. Michael White of the Conservation Biology Institute, and in collaboration with the University of California at Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, the Conservancy has also kicked off its science program by initiating pilot research projects to determine species baselines on the Ranch. Public access programs have also begun to ensure that the public has increasing opportunities to use and enjoy the Ranch. Finally, the Conservancy has held extensive discussions with various state and federal agencies regarding the acquisition of lands identified under the agreement for that purpose and about the future use of the conserved lands, including a potential 50,000-acre state park and a potential University of California reserve for scientific research.

We've accomplished a lot in the last year, but much remains to be done. NRDC will continue working to implement this groundbreaking agreement to ensure that its conservation purpose is fully realized.

The Fate of a Toll Road Through San Onofre State Beach

2009-03-11T01:18:16Z

Today, the Los Angeles Times ran an op-ed I co-authored with Bobby Shriver on the fate of a disastrous toll road proposed by the Transportation Corridor Agencies in Southern California. I encourage you to discuss the article:

O.C.'s road test

Rejection of the Foothill South toll road is a chance for a new path.

By Bobby Shriver and Joel Reynolds

It was a bad idea that deserved to die: the six-lane Foothill South toll road through a popular Orange County/San Diego County state park. It violated the principle that parkland is permanently protected. The California State Park and Recreation Commission and the California Coastal Commission rejected the toll road through San Onofre State Beach -- no surprise there. But when the Bush administration also said no, the project's fate was all but sealed.

Now what?

There are real traffic problems in Orange County that the Foothill South toll road was meant to solve. But there are other ways to cure the congestion, alternatives that won't destroy our quality of life or our natural resources.

There is also a roadblock to those alternatives: the Orange County Transportation Corridor Agencies, which dreamed up Foothill South and hasn't yet publicly abandoned it.

Chartered by the state in 1986, the TCA exists to build roads and link freeways without, in theory, costing taxpayer dollars. It issues bonds, and its revenues come from toll roads. It is also virtually independent of oversight: It can propose, design, permit and operate the road projects it dreams up.

Not surprisingly, for decades the TCA has had only one response to Orange County's traffic congestion: Build big toll roads. In getting its three projects up and running -- the San Joaquin Hills, Eastern and Foothill North toll roads -- the TCA ignored the environmental consequences. Ecological reserves, the last remaining open space in the region and even lands set aside for protection as mitigation for other development -- all were targeted for toll-funded asphalt.

And yet the projected ridership never materialized. To cover costs, including millions spent on public relations and lobbying, the agency has raised tolls relentlessly, but to no avail. Its toll roads have been mired for years in financial difficulty. Just last year, the TCA applied for a $1.1-billion federal loan bailout from taxpayers to refinance its existing debt.

Meanwhile, traffic congestion has only increased.

With the demise of the toll road through San Onofre State Beach, we have an opportunity for change in Orange County.

What we need is a serious examination of alternatives beyond toll roads, especially options other than new roads through open space and parkland. Possibilities include rapid transit or carpool toll lanes, added to existing roadways, with congestion-sensitive pricing or similar strategies that take demand into consideration.

During the debates over the Foothill South, "Fix the 5 First" became a public rallying cry for widening the existing interstate. This alternative was never taken seriously by the TCA, which identified a 5 Freeway expansion alternative and then dismissed it because it said too many homes and businesses would have to be moved or destroyed. In fact, the TCA displacement estimates were grossly exaggerated, driven by its inexplicable use of sprawling, outdated interchange and ramp designs.

The truth is that the TCA will never decide to fix the 5, because the agency denies it has the legal or financial capacity for such a project. The TCA perceives its single purpose as building toll roads. Until that is changed, Orange County won't get open-minded traffic planning that looks forward instead of backward.

The Legislature chartered the TCA; now it must fix it. The TCA's unequivocal mandate must be addressing traffic congestion, not just building toll roads, and it must answer to a comprehensive state transportation agency, in consultation with affected regional agencies

We need mobility, and we need parkland. And we can have both if only we refuse to settle for less.

Running a toll road through San Onofre State Beach was a bad idea from a fundamentally flawed agency. Stopping it was a victory for the region. But what happens next will determine whether that victory has lasting significance.

Bobby Shriver is a member of the Santa Monica City Council and former chairman of the California State Park and Recreation Commission. Joel Reynolds is a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and directs its urban program.

Fighting for the Lives of Marine Mammals in “The Cove”

2009-02-03T01:36:19Z

Every once in a while there is a movie so good it's astonishing, and this morning I saw one. It's called The Cove, and it has just been screened at the Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and standing ovations. The film, directed by Louie Psihoyos and produced by the Oceanic Preservation Society, chronicles former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry's heroic campaign to stop the killing of 2,000 dolphins every year in the Japanese coastal village of Taiji. In the 1960s, O'Barry trained the animals that collectively became known as Flipper to TV viewers - an experience that he has spent decades trying to undo because of the role the television show played in creating the captive dolphin industry in the United States and around the world. He came to believe that dolphins should never be captive, and he has tirelessly campaigned to end the inhumane treatment of these undeniably intelligent, self-aware creatures.

The Cove is a riveting tale, told with skill, substance, and relentless drama. The place that gives rise to the film's name is a secretive cove in Taiji, Japan, and the film tells the story not only of what goes on in this hidden place but the lengths that O'Barry and his team had to go to expose it. The Cove is promoted as "an intelligent/action/adventure/Ocean's Eleven-like horror film wrapped around a tale of redemption and ultimate revenge - oh, and it's a documentary." It justly deserves, and was recently awarded, the Audience Award at Sundance.

This could have been, but is not, a punishing series of images of relentless cruelty. Instead, it places the Japanese fishery in a cultural, historical, and political context, tying it, for example, to the captive dolphin industry and to the failure of the International Whaling Commission, the only international forum devoted exclusively to the regulation of whaling but which, inexplicably, excludes any jurisdiction over, and therefore protection for, dolphins, porpoises, and other small whales. Claiming that the dolphins are "pests," depleting the world's fish stocks, the small group of fishermen who make their living in the cove do everything they can to prevent the outside world from learning what they're up to. Nothing seems to matter, including the health of their own children. Because dolphin meat is toxic, containing levels of mercury that vastly exceed safe levels, the fishermen have no where to go with the dolphin meat they produce but to serve it to children in mandatory school lunch programs or to market it to Japanese consumers as falsely labeled whale meat.

An international coalition has been working to stop the fishery that is the focus of The Cove and to protect the thousands of dolphins that are driven to their death there each year. SaveJapanDolphins.org has information on steps we all can take, including sending letters to the Japanese Embassy and to President Obama. This movie is a remarkable achievement, and everyone should see it. I hope they'll get the chance.

While Bush May No Longer Be President, His Legacy Endures

2009-01-23T21:15:50Z

Former President Bush may have left DC, but his legacy to degrade national environmental laws and allow the military to circumvent marine mammal protection laws continues. I was disappointed today to see the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issue final rules on the Navy's use of sonar off the East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The rules allow the Navy to expose millions of marine mammals to harm from naval training with high-intensity sonar. Today's action is a culmination of the Bush Administration's policy on sonar use and its lethal effects on whales and dolphins. Over the last few weeks, NMFS issued final rules covering sonar use in the Navy's Hawaii Range Complex, Southern California Range Complex, and now off the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The rule covers the use of sonar over millions of square nautical miles of ocean, authorizing over 10 million marine mammal "takes" incidental to Navy sonar training during the next five years. Each "take" is an instance of harm caused by high-intensity sonar that can range from disorientation, to hearing loss, stranding and death.

For years the Navy has pushed the NMFS to accept its flawed environmental analysis, underestimating the harm sonar can cause whales and dolphins and discounting the long-term effect of repeated sonar use on marine mammal populations. NMFS, under the prior administration, continually refused to accept its responsibility to proscribe rules for the least possible harm to marine mammals. For example, while allowing the Navy to train with sonar throughout millions of miles of ocean, NMFS failed to set aside even one square inch of important habitat. With this final rule, completed in the waning weeks of the Bush Administration, NMFS once again turns away from scientific evidence and sound policy.

Under the new administration, NRDC will urge NMFS to reopen these last-minute rules so that entire populations of whales and dolphins can be protected from this harmful technology. To do so, NRDC must also counter the one-sided information perpetrated to the media. For example, today's Associated Press story on NMFS' action fails to report that nearly two million "takes" of marine mammals per year - 10 million over the course of the rule - was approved by NMFS for the Atlantic coast and Gulf of Mexico final rule. The AP story unfortunately parrots Navy talking points on the adequacy of NMFS' protective requirements, neglecting to note that NMFS requires essentially nothing more from the Navy than what the Navy has traditionally been doing to protect marine mammals - measures that a court has already found "woefully inadequate."

Our work at NRDC is cut out for us. Not only will we urge NMFS to meet its obligations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act by reissuing these flawed rules - preventing the harm the previous administration leaves us with - but we will also remind people of the real harm sonar causes marine mammals, despite what they read in the paper.

Major Turning Point in Our Fight to Save Whales

2008-12-30T21:52:03Z

Last week, NRDC settled a significant case with the Navy. In 2005, we challenged mid-frequency active sonar training exercises that were being carried out around the world without the adequate environmental review required by federal law.

Despite mounting evidence that such sonar can kill and seriously injure marine mammals, the Navy refused to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act before using this dangerous technology.

Since our lawsuit was filed, and as a result of other cases that we have pursued since 2002, the Navy has now begun to prepare and issue Environmental Impact Statements ("EISs") for their major exercises and proposed sonar ranges, thereby addressing one of the major legal issues in the case.

In all, the five-part settlement that the Navy agreed to late last week includes:

A specific schedule for preparation of EISs for sonar exercises and ranges around the world.
Public disclosure of previously classified information on sonar use.
$14.75 million dollars in funding for new marine mammal research that was specifically identified by the environmental plaintiffs.
A 120-day process for negotiation with the Navy when future sonar proposals are finalized and disagreements arise.
$1.1 million dollars in attorneys' fees for time spent on this case and a 2006 sonar case in Hawaii.

The agreement does not require the Navy to institute any specific measures that it has utilized in the past to protect whales, because those are matters of continuing disagreement among the parties. But the agreement reflects both progress over the past five years by the Navy in its attention to environmental compliance requirements and the mutual interest of all parties in transparency, more thorough environmental review, and focused research.

And while it establishes a formal process for negotiation with the Navy that may avoid future litigation, it does not foreclose litigation as an option where necessary.

With this and other cases, NRDC is forcing the Navy to comply with our environmental laws, and we've reached a major turning point in our fight to protect our ocean's majestic mammals.

Supreme Court to Examine the Navy's Use of Sonar

2008-10-02T19:17:39Z

Next Wednesday, in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in Winter v NRDC, our case challenging the Navy's illegal use of sonar off the southern California coast.

As I wrote about previously, NRDC challenged the Navy's refusal to comply with federal environmental laws when using mid-frequency active sonar during fourteen long-planned exercises in southern California. There is no question that sonar injures and kills whales and dolphins. The Navy admitted as much in its official "Environmental Assessment" of the exercises, estimating that the exercises would significantly disturb or injure an estimated 170,000 marine mammals, including causing permanent injury to more than 450 whales and temporary hearing impairment in at least 8,000 whales.

Nonetheless, in planning its exercises, the Navy refused to adopt common-sense measures to protect marine mammals from the effects of its dangerous sonar technology. The Navy's failures led both the district court and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to conclude that the Navy had violated federal environmental laws. To remedy the Navy's violations, while still allowing the Navy to effectively train, the district court required the Navy to adopt additional safeguards protecting whales and other marine mammals.

The case took a dramatic turn when, following issuance of the injunction, the Navy turned to the White House in an unprecedented effort to avoid its obligations under federal law. The White House then issued two "waivers," purportedly excusing the Navy from complying with the district court's order. The Navy then sought to use the waivers to evade its responsibilities under federal law, but the district court, affirmed by the Ninth Circuit, rejected the Navy's claim, held that the waivers were unlawful, and maintained its injunction order. Unhappy with the lower courts' rulings in NRDC's favor, the Navy sought Supreme Court review, which was granted this summer.

Extensive briefing by the parties and a wide range of amici curiae was completed this week, and we are now preparing for next week's hearing. The Justices will be considering essentially two questions: (1) whether the White House can act as a court of errors, examining and rejecting the district court's finding that the Navy can effectively train under the court's order, and on that basis waive the requirements of federal law; and (2) whether, if the Navy is found to have violated the law, the district court was required to defer to the Navy's claims of military necessity, even in the face of conceded environmental harm and of the Navy's own contradictory evidence about its own past mitigation practices.

This case presents to the Supreme Court a classic confrontation between the power of the Executive Branch and the power of the Judicial Branch - a test of the Separation of Powers doctrine under our Constitution. It is a dispute whose importance extends far beyond the discipline of environmental law.

We have been working for over a decade to secure protections for marine mammals from the harsh and unnecessary harm associated with the Navy's use of high intensity sonar. This latest chapter, a trip to the U.S. Supreme Court, started as a straight-forward environmental case and evolved into a constitutional battle of the highest order. If the Supreme Court follows its precedent, we expect to prevail. But whatever the outcome, we will continue our efforts, both here in the United States and around the world, to protect these magnificent marine animals from the needless infliction of harm in the oceans.

Thousands of State Park Supporters Turn Out At Commerce Hearing

2008-09-25T02:02:56Z

Californians made their voices heard loud and clear in support of the state park at San Onofre at a public hearing before the U.S. Department of Commerce in Del Mar, California.

The Los Angeles Times reported that over 6,000 people attended Monday's hearing, at which Commerce heard testimony about the massive and destructive toll road that is set to run through the popular state park. Supporters of the park vastly outnumbered those supporting the toll road, simply confirming the results of a recent poll finding that Orange County residents overwhelmingly oppose the road and support the California Coastal Commission's February decision to protect the park.

The day started with a rousing rally headlined by several elected officials who support San Onofre, including Santa Monica City Councilmember and former State Park and Recreation Commissioner Bobby Shriver, State Senator Christine Kehoe, and State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, just to name a few.

Then the hearing began. The convention hall was soon packed with hordes of concerned citizens - including environmentalists, surfers, beachgoers, and parks enthusiasts - most in favor of saving San Onofre.

Advocates for the road comprised a much smaller group, but they cheered and booed enthusiastically and stood out in the crowd in their bright orange T-shirts. At the afternoon break, parks supporters gladly left the sweltering convention hall and rallied outside in the cool coastal breeze.

Soon it was back to the hearing. Despite the burdensome restrictions imposed by Commerce, which I wrote about on Monday, the eventual turnout was huge - a testament to how much Californians care about this special park.

After a long day, organizers held a brief post-hearing rally to thank everyone for taking a day off of work to show their support for our state parks.

Commerce will make its decision in the next few months. For us, the decision is clear. The law is on our side. The facts are on our side. And this unprecedented outpouring of passionate support by thousands of concerned Californians simply confirms the obvious. Commerce has no choice but to uphold the California Coastal Commission's decision to block construction of this toll road and save San Onofre.

Californians to Speak Out to Save Our State Parks

2008-09-22T20:26:27Z

Today in Del Mar, California, the Bush Administration is finally holding a public hearing on the fate of the state park at San Onofre.

As I wrote about previously, the California Coastal Commission voted overwhelmingly to block a massive toll road from destroying San Onofre, the fifth-most visited park in the state park system. Over 3,500 people - most of whom oppose the toll road - attended the public hearing before the Coastal Commission in February this year, the largest number in the history of the Commission. Californians undeniably care and are passionate about this park.

The toll road agency appealed the Coastal Commission's landmark decision to the U.S. Department of Commerce, which has override authority, but does so rarely and only under extraordinary circumstances.

Understandably, the toll road agency didn't want a hearing. Not after witnessing the extraordinary outpouring of support for our state parks at the Commission hearing. Fortunately, after receiving thousands of requests, Commerce granted one anyway.

But then they cancelled it, citing concerns over the possibility that - by some estimates - over 10,000 people might show up. But wouldn't that be a good thing? As we and our allies pointed out to Commerce, the unprecedented level of public interest in this critically important matter simply confirms the need to hold this hearing.

After a public outcry, Commerce rescheduled the hearing for today. But there's a catch. Commerce required people who wanted to testify to submit their request in writing a full ten days before the hearing. Requests were then "randomly" selected and assigned to time slots that weren't announced until late Thursday - just days before the hearing. Finally, to add insult to injury, members of the public will be the last ones to testify - after elected officials, organizations, and tribes - and only if there is time remaining. Members of the media, too, are being required to pre-register.

These restrictions by the Bush Administration clearly burden the fundamental right of public participation, rather than encourage it. The primary purpose of a public hearing is to hear from the public. We protested against these strict limitations - to no avail. But we will be there on Monday - and we hope you will too - to support our cherished state parks, and we will continue to do everything in our power to defeat this toll road and save the state park at San Onofre.

Save the Park. Stop the Toll Road.

Editorial Fiction at the Wall Street Journal

2008-06-20T22:25:33Z

If the Supreme Court decides to review the case of high intensity Navy sonar, as the Wall Street Journal yesterday urged, it will do well to ignore the Journal’s error-riddled editorial (“Judge Ahab and the Whales,” June 19). There is nothing “speculative” about the serious harm caused by sonar, as the Navy itself concedes. Though the harm that can be reduced by training with common sense safeguards, the Navy has refused, even in the face of overwhelming evidence linking mass whale mortalities to sonar exposure – a link characterized as “completely convincing” by the Navy’s own consultants.

Nor is there anything “activist” in the decisions of every federal court that has considered the Navy’s sonar training practices, concluding without exception that the Navy is not above the law and that, when it tests and trains with sonar, it can and must do so in an environmentally responsible manner. In the case up for review, the trial and appellate courts found that the Navy has repeatedly violated the law, that its own limited mitigation is “woefully inadequate,” and that the Navy can do a better job of protecting the health of our oceans without in any way compromising the Navy’s sonar training.

There is no question that sonar can injure and kill whales and dolphins. In fact, according to the Navy’s own conservative estimate, sonar exercises now underway in Southern California waters will significantly disturb or injure an estimated 170,000 marine mammals, including causing permanent injury to more than 450 whales and temporary hearing impairment in at least 8,000 whales – an injury that increases the risks of attack by predators. Again, those aren’t wild accusations by sandal-clad environmentalists – those are the estimates of the U.S. Navy in its official “Environmental Assessment” of the exercise.

Yet when they talk to the press, Navy officials still try to obscure the issue, casting doubt on whether sonar actually harms marine mammals. Take this recent statement by Capt. Scott Gureck, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet: “There’s no scientific proof that sonar by itself has ever directly killed or injured whales or other marine mammals.”

That’s right: water and ships also were involved, and the direct cause of death was internal bleeding.

Any hope that we could put aside the tortured semantics and focus on a solution went out the window in January when the Navy ran to President Bush for help. As many know by now, the Bush Administration issued two “emergency” waivers, one signed by the President himself, purporting to exempt the Navy from basic environmental laws in the interests of national security.

The irony is that if any emergency exists, it was created by the Navy itself, which month after month stubbornly failed to comply with environmental laws as it planned the sonar training exercises in question. Since when does failure to comply a law excuse one from complying with the law? That just doesn’t make sense. Nor does the President’s attempt to cast this controversy as an issue of national security.

Does the Navy need to train with sonar? We have never argued otherwise because the Navy has determined that mid-frequency active sonar is a critical tool for defending our ships, sailors and marines from underwater threats.

That doesn’t mean national security is jeopardized when a court orders the Navy to train in an environmentally responsible manner. The Army doesn’t train riflemen on crowded city streets, and the Air Force doesn’t practice bombing sorties over national parks. Why shouldn’t the Navy take common sense precautions when training with sonar in rich marine mammal habitat?

To be fair, the Navy has in the past adopted a number of procedures (albeit under legal pressure from conservationists) to reduce harm to whales. But the Navy has inexplicably abandoned those procedures for its southern California training exercises. After being ordered by a federal court to do more, the Navy asked the White House to excuse it from those common sense requirements -- for example, the requirement that it avoid areas where large numbers of marine mammal are known to be, and temporarily shut down active sonar when marine mammals are detected within 2000 meters of a sonar source.

The alternative, of course, is to knowingly assault these sound-sensitive creatures at close range with ear-splitting, hemorrhage-inducing noise. Whales shouldn’t have to suffer and die for the sake of convenience, and when it comes down to it, that’s really what we’re talking about.

Is reducing sonar harm to whales and dolphins an inconvenience? Perhaps. But the courts have repeatedly ruled that environmental planning to reduce the avoidable infliction of harm to marine life is required by our most basic environmental laws – laws that reflect our collective moral sense that the natural world warrants our respect and stewardship.

It is, after all, our world, too.

California’s State Parks under Attack

2008-03-27T23:07:36Z

Last week, conservationists in California lost two of their strongest allies for our state parks. Gov. Schwarzenegger removed Clint Eastwood and Bobby Shriver from their leadership posts on the California State Park and Recreation Commission after their vocal and effective opposition to a proposal to use the state park at San Onofre as right-of-way for a massive toll road – a proposal supported by the Governor. It is pretty easy to read these dismissals as a warning shot by the Governor to all his appointees who have refused to support that terrible project.

The proposed toll road would pave a six-lane highway through the park from top to bottom, requiring, according to California State Parks, that up to 60 percent of the park be closed. This isn’t really a road through a state park; it’s a road instead of a state park. And it wouldn’t even solve the traffic problem it is designed to address. The Governor claims “the road has to go somewhere” and this is “progress,” but the truth is, this isn’t progress, and it doesn’t have to go through a state park, and that’s precisely what Shriver and Eastwood said.

The toll road project has been rejected overwhelmingly by the California Coastal Commission as illegal, but the road builders have appealed that rejection to the Bush Administration and asked that it be overturned. We’re fighting that appeal and are committed, whichever way it comes out, to continue doing whatever is necessary to defeat this toll road and save San Onofre. This is necessary not only to prevent the devastation of a state park visited by 2.5 million visitors each year, but because its destruction would create a terrible precedent state-wide, at a time when our parks system is under attack by budget cuts, park closures, and no less than 113 proposals for development across 73 of our state parks. If this road can be built through San Onofre, similar projects are inevitable in state parks all across California.

Under Schwarzenegger’s administration, California has become the proving ground for the clean energy economy. He’s been willing to go to bat against the EPA to win California’s right to enact the strictest emission standards across the country, setting the bar for 17 other states to follow. Many of his state initiatives serve as models for other states when it comes to renewable energy use and pollution reduction. As a native Californian, I’m proud of that progress, but that doesn’t give him a free pass to run highways through our cherished parks.

Unfortunately, we can’t get Shriver or Eastwood their well deserved jobs back as chair and vice chair of the parks commission, respectively. Instead, we’re trying to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. We’ve asked the state senate to hold oversight hearings concerning the range of threats to our state park system, including the dismissal of Shriver and Eastwood.

Schwarzenegger’s environmental record will speak for itself when his term has ended, but in the meantime, we need to ensure our state parks still have a voice to be heard.