10/15/12

In a decisive display of bipartisanship, Congress passed the U.S. Clean Water Act into law on October 18, 1972, overriding President Nixon's veto. The Act faced significant hurdles; for example, my own, pre-Clean Water Act childhood in Massachusetts included sewage-choked beaches radiating illness toward those brave enough to approach beckoning waves, and industrial waste discharges that poisoned my favorite fishing runs.

The Act responded to such highly visible insults with clear goals: achieve fishable and swimmable waters by 1983, eliminate the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985, and prohibit the discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts. Fueled with funding for essential treatment infrastructure, and catalyzed by citizen lawsuits against major polluters, the Act steadily picked off much of the low-hanging pollution fruit.

Over the last 40 years, progress has undeniably been made -- but it has also undeniably stalled. Over half of monitored rivers and streams nationwide, and almost 70 percent of lakes, reservoirs and ponds, still cannot meet one or more established beneficial uses such as swimming, fishing or habitat.

Water flows are also increasingly compromised, with fish and even whales disappearing as water diversions increase. Climate change also is threatening waterways; in the recent opening days of the 67th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for urgent action on climate change to ensure water and food security world-wide.

The 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act calls for reflection on next steps. While the Act's vision was laudable, it has in effect legalized pollution and extraction, with slowed but ongoing degradation. Our other environmental laws similarly have fallen short in protecting people and planet, their limitations evident from growing, global problems such as spreading species extinctions and accelerating climate change impacts.

One of the key reasons our environmental laws are falling short is that they accept without question the overarching assumption that the natural world can and should be manipulated and degraded for short-term financial profit. Our laws fail to reflect the fact that we are inextricably intertwined with the natural world, and that what we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves. We must modernize our laws to correct this fundamental misunderstanding and guide us on a better path.

We can begin to course-correct our imbalanced relationship with the environment by examining the nature of rights, and the rights of nature. We accept as our birthright the fundamental human rights to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Just as we have fundamental rights that arise from our existence on Earth, so too does the natural world. Our failure to recognize the inherent rights of nature has resulted in lifestyles dangerously out of balance with the Earth's systems. Only by recognizing the inherent rights of the natural world to exist, thrive and evolve may we begin to rectify this imbalance and ensure the well-being of both people and planet.

Water is essential to implementing our collective right to life. We applaud California Governor Brown's recent signature on a bill recognizing the human right to water, one for which human rights groups around the globe have been fighting with growing success. With expanding water shortages, however, pressure is increasing from those attempting to commodify this essential element of life for profit.

Natural systems cannot withstand this pressure indefinitely. We, the people, need to recognize clearly in our laws both the human right to water needed for life, and the inherent rights of the life-giving waterways themselves. We also must acknowledge in law our responsibility to enforce those rights in the face of profit-motivated and otherwise unsustainable claims to dwindling waterways and other natural systems.

A movement to advance the rights of waterways is happening now around the world, with advocates calling for water rights for waterways to parallel and support our own human right to water. Most recently, New Zealand recognized the Whanganui River and its tributaries as a legal entity with rights to exist and flourish as an "integrated, living whole." Guardians will be appointed to oversee the rights of the River pursuant to this new legal recognition.

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Industry struggles with logistics as use of ash in agricultural soil questioned

10/14/12
Concerns over what contaminants may be associated with Humboldt County's biomass industry -- and Eel River Power's plans to shutter its Scotia facility, citing reasons including regulatory uncertainty -- highlight just two sides of the challenge of tapping the region's largest source of renewable energy.

”Biomass has played a significant role in Humboldt County,” Schatz Energy Research Center senior research engineer Jim Zoellick said, adding that it currently provides about 30 percent of the North Coast's energy.

The center recently completed a draft study for the Redwood Coast Energy Authority that said North Coast biomass energy production could potentially double by 2030.

Only Los Angeles County produces more biomass -- in its case, garbage -- according to a study from University of California, Davis. On the North Coast, biomass plants traditionally burn scraps and residue from sawmills in order to generate power.

”The mill source is very dependent on the timber industry in Humboldt County -- which has been in decline in recent years,” Zoellick said.

On top of that, some timber cut in Humboldt County is shipped overseas to be milled.

Unlike sawmill residue, Humboldt County's substantial forest biomass, created at logging sites or ecological forest thinnings, is not easily accessible.

”You can only transport it so far and have it be economically viable,” Zoellick said.

Now researchers are looking at ways to process fuel materials close to the site of recovery with satellite processors in towns like Hoopa, Willow Creek and Weaverville.

”There's not a real easy and clear path to make that stuff economically viable,” Zoellick said.

Looking toward expansion can be difficult considering the challenges facing existing North Coast biomass plants.

The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board recently sent letters to four biomass plants in Northern California, including Blue Lake Power, Eel River Power, and DG Fairhaven Power in Samoa.

In the letters, the board expressed concerns about the management of wood ash, a byproduct of biomass energy plants that has typically been sold or given to farmers who use the ash as soil amendment, mixing it with earth in hopes of improving various properties.

Concerns about dioxins and other contaminants in ash waste led the water board to request extensive testing, due Monday. The board will review results of the testing at its December meeting.
David Leland of the water board said that dioxins can cause cancer and be transferred through food into humans.

”It magnifies up the food chain -- or has the potential to do that at least,” Leland said.

Heavy metals and changes to pH balance are additional concerns to the area's surface water and groundwater.

Humboldt Waste Management Authority interim Executive Director Patrick Owen said that if the board determines there are too many toxins in the ash waste, power plants might be forced to send the ash to landfills instead, which would dramatically drive up costs.

”That could really affect the viability of these regional plants,” Owen said.

The problem doesn't end there. Added landfill waste could jeopardize county compliance with state-mandated waste diversion. If the plants fail, biomass would be reintroduced to the waste stream.

Water Board senior engineer Mona Dougherty said regulation of the ash lapsed in recent years. It came to the board's attention again recently when citizens expressed concerns about heavy dumping of ash and contaminants.

”We decided it was time to start taking a look and see if there were any water quality issues associated with it,” Dougherty said.

Landfilling the ash is not the only option, Dougherty said. Water board staff is researching ways to reduce contaminants during the burning process.

”We might find that there's not a problem,” Dougherty said. “It's difficult to know until we see what we've got.”

California Coastal Commission planner Melissa Kraemer said her commission had been contacted by a citizen concerned about the use of the ash in agricultural lands.

She said a lot of seasonal grazing lands around Humboldt Bay are wetlands, and the coastal commission determined that some heavy spreading of the ash constituted development, requiring a permit.

”I don't think our commission is really regulating the disposal of material as a soil amendment,” Kraemer said, but added that it was interested in the results of the water board's inquiries.

”Disposal can be a challenge,” Kraemer said. “Certainly if it has elevated levels of dioxin, we don't want that going into our waters and contaminating our oysters and dairylands.”

Attitudes about biomass appear cautiously hopeful. Matt Ross, speaking for Eel River Power, said local and state officials are working with the plant in hopes to reopen next year.

Management at the Blue Lake and Fairhaven plants did not respond to calls by press deadline.

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On Friday, Oct 12th from 1-5 pm, Humboldt State University will host a panel discussion on the Environmental Challenges of Marijuana Agriculture in the Age of Prohibition. 

This two-part symposium will gather grassroots environmental activists, community members, and policy makers to discuss efforts to address the environmental impacts of marijuana cultivation. Panelists will review the impacts of marijuana agriculture and offer insights into the opportunities and challenges involved in addressing these problems. 

1. The Problem and Responses:  Environmental Impacts and the Politics of Cannabis Agriculture

This panel of grassroots environmental organizers and policy makers will discuss environmental impacts associated with industrial marijuana agriculture, how current policy affects those impacts, and challenges involved in addressing environmental impacts associated with marijuana production.

2. Environmental, Cultural, and Economic Futures: Sustainability and Marijuana Agriculture

This panel of grassroots environmental organizers, community members, and policy makers offer perspectives on paths to environmental, cultural and economic sustainability.

10/1/12

Heading toward his fifth hour of filleting, his thick rubber boots squeaking on the wet concrete floor, Glen Libby, a fisherman by trade, looks more like a beleaguered line cook than the hero of a seafood revolution.

Five years ago this month in this unspoiled fishing port immortalized by three generations of Wyeths, Mr. Libby and a half-dozen cohorts banded together to try to rescue their depleted fish stock and their profession.

The result (“after trial and error with a lot of error” in Mr. Libby’s words) was Port Clyde Fresh Catch, the country’s first community-supported fishery, now part of a burgeoning movement that tries to do for small-scale local fishermen what community-supported agriculture has done for farmers.

In the kitchen, community-supported fisheries require cooks to agree in advance to buy whatever fish or shellfish local fishermen catch. Fishermen are asked to embrace plentiful species like skate or redfish, once routinely tossed overboard. With about 80 percent of the seafood on the American plate imported and “traceability” the mandate du jour, community-supported fisheries of varying sizes and ambition are springing up around the country, from Cape Ann in Massachusetts to Santa Barbara in California. There are about 30 nationwide, including two in New York.

Port Clyde Fresh Catch was born in crisis. Fishing is woven into the warp and woof of daily life here, a place where the water seems more dominant than the land. The village’s working waterfront still resembles a Wyeth, alive with aging trawlers, lobster traps and weatherworn shacks dwarfed by evergreens.

But looks can be deceiving: Until recently, the picturesque occupation beloved by “people from away,” as summer residents are called, was on the verge of collapse. Of Maine’s 5,300 miles of coast, only 20 miles are working waterfront, with tiny Port Clyde, originally named Herring Gut, home of the last surviving ground-fishing fleet between Portland and the Canadian border.

At the time Mr. Libby and colleagues joined forces, they faced the decimation of signature New England species like cod and flounder, largely because of overfishing and nets that damaged the seabeds, including those from an increasing number of “big box” industrial trawlers that can catch up to a million pounds of herring a day.

Overfishing continues to be a major issue; the allowable catch for cod is projected to be cut up to 70 percent for next year, said Peter Baker, the director of Northeast Fisheries programs for the Pew Environment Group. The steady decline of fish resulted in increased federal regulations, including limits on the number of days at sea.

Overfishing was one factor limiting fishermen’s profits. Another was the traditional way they sold their catch: through auction houses, which set wholesale prices. “You never knew what the price was going to be,” said Mr. Libby, who caught the fishing bug digging for soft-shell clams as a child. “My best season, I made $1 an hour.”

He and his colleagues had a choice: They could “give up and work at McDonald’s,” he said, or get together and try something radical.

Joining forces was hardly an easy sell. “Fishermen are independent,” Mr. Libby said, juggling a cellphone in one hand and a pick for plucking 30 pounds of redfish from an iced bin in the other. “Maybe you don’t like people, so you want to sit out in a boat by yourself. But the whole ‘I want to be the Lone Ranger’ stuff doesn’t work when things get tight, when people are in a lot of financial pain. Then you either have to look for alternatives, or you quit.”

They eliminated the middleman, processing their fish and shellfish themselves and then selling or shipping directly to consumers. The idea came about after Mr. Libby and his family heard a farmer give a talk about community-supported agriculture. The group started with orders for sweet winter Maine shrimp from members of the Unitarian church in nearby Rockland. That eventually led to tailgate filleting demonstrations on the back of the Libbys’ pickup truck. “Nobody got rich,” said Kim Libby, Mr. Libby’s sister-in-law. “But it was a good shot in the arm for paying the fuel bill that week.”

The Port Clyde group was environmentally proactive, redesigninging their nets to allow more juvenile fish to escape. Instead of catching a high volume of a single species, the group sought a more diverse catch and received a price closer to the cost of production. That in turn allowed them to fish at a smaller scale.

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