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Keep the Clean Water Act Strong

11/28/11

Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, a milestone for a series of landmark environmental laws that began with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. Those actions set our nation on a course to restore our damaged natural resources, but today, because of political pressures and court rulings, the extent and durability of some of those key protections are at risk.

Since its enactment in 1972, the Clean Water Act has encountered resistance from powerful business interests that have tried to fill wetlands, drain marshes, develop shorelines and allow pollution to flow off their property. One approach these developers have used to weaken the law has been to try to limit its jurisdiction, to say it shouldn’t apply to this or that water body. The rationale has always been to argue that the water on the particular property in dispute didn’t connect with interstate bodies of water and therefore should be exempt from federal regulation.

When the act became law, two-thirds of our nation’s lakes, rivers and coastal waters were unsafe for fishing or swimming, and untreated sewage and industrial waste was routinely dumped into our waters. The law was partly a response to the shock the nation experienced when the filthy Cuyahoga River in Cleveland erupted in flames. Since then, industrial pollution has declined significantly. Fish have returned to countless water bodies that were once all but lifeless. Progress has come in fits and starts — despite more litigation filed than the law’s proponents expected or wanted — but it is real and evident.

Still, there are reasons for concern.

One is the ambiguity introduced by two Supreme Court decisions — Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers in 2001 and Rapanos v. United States in 2006 — over which American waters fall under the law. The law was intended to protect “all the waters of the United States.” But the decisions can be taken to suggest that the law does not protect certain waterways — those that are within one state or that sometimes run dry, for example, and lakes unconnected to larger water systems. As a result, fewer waters are protected, and those who wish to build on land that requires dredging and the depositing of the fill elsewhere face confusion, uncertainty and delay as federal regulators try to determine which water bodies fall under the law.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that about a third of the nation’s waters are still unhealthy. About 117 million Americans — more than a third of the population — get some or all of their drinking water from sources now lacking protection. Given the deep antipathy to regulation on Capitol Hill — the House actually approved a measure in July to strip the E.P.A. of some of its authority to enforce the Clean Water Act — Congress has been unable or unwilling to clarify the law so that progress can continue in restoring and protecting these waters.

That has left it to the E.P.A. and the United States Army Corps of Engineers to draft new rules to make clear which waterways are protected. This guidance would keep safe the streams and wetlands that affect the quality of the water used for drinking, swimming, fishing, farming, manufacturing, tourism and other activities. The new rules would also bring clarity to the issue. Routine agricultural, ranching and forestry practices will not require permits under the Clean Water Act. Formal rulemaking will follow, though that will take time and will most likely be contentious.

The American economy has performed well over the past four decades: real per capita income has doubled since 1970 and pollution is down even with 50 percent more people. The choice between a healthy environment and a healthy economy is a false one. They stand, or fall, together. We’ve been blessed in the United States with abundant water resources. But we also face daunting challenges that are putting new demands on those resources — continuing growth; the need for water for food, energy production and manufacturing; the push for biofuel crops; the threat of new contaminants; climate change and just maintaining and restoring our natural systems.

If we narrow our vision of the Clean Water Act, if we buy into the misguided notion that reducing protection of our waters will somehow ignite the economy, we will shortchange our health, environment and economy.

William K. Reilly was the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 1989 to 1993 and was the co-chairman of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

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Top 10 Water-Related Things to Be Thankful for This Thanksgiving

11/22/11

Family. A job. Good health. Freedom. All these things are certainly worthy of appreciation any time of year. But this Thanksgiving I'm thinking about all the amazing ways in which water makes life better -- ways that are perhaps so fundamental to our everyday existence that many people might rarely give them a second thought. With our clean water laws under assault in Congress, perhaps there is no better time to think about the importance of water to all of us.

Here's my Top 10...

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Evidence of Ancient Lake in California's Eel River Emerges

11/14/11

A catastrophic landslide 22,500 years ago dammed the upper reaches of northern California's Eel River, forming a 30-mile-long lake, which has since disappeared, and leaving a living legacy found today in the genes of the region's steelhead trout, report scientists at two West Coast universities.

Using remote-sensing technology known as airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and hand-held global-positioning-systems (GPS) units, a three-member research team found evidence for a late Pleistocene, landslide-dammed lake along the river, about 60 miles southeast of Eureka.

The river today is 200 miles long, carved into the ground from high in the California Coast Ranges to its mouth in the Pacific Ocean in Humboldt County.

The evidence for the ancient landslide, which, scientists say, blocked the river with a 400-foot wall of loose rock and debris, is detailed this week in a paper appearing online ahead of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Science Foundation-funded study provides a rare glimpse into the geological history of this rapidly evolving mountainous region.

It helps to explain emerging evidence from other studies that show a dramatic decrease in the amount of sediment deposited from the river in the ocean just off shore at about the same time period, says lead author Benjamin H. Mackey, who began the research while pursuing a doctorate earned in 2009 from the University of Oregon. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology.

"Perhaps of most interest, the presence of this landslide dam also provides an explanation for the results of previous research on the genetics of steelhead trout in the Eel River," Mackey said, referring to a 1999 study by U.S. Forest Service researchers J.L. Nielson and M.C. Fountain. In their study, published in the journal Ecology of Freshwater Fish, they found a striking relationship in two types of ocean-going steelhead in the river -- a genetic similarity not seen among summer-run and winter-run steelhead in other nearby rivers.

An interbreeding of the two fish, in a process known as genetic introgression, may have occurred among the fish brought together while the river was dammed, Mackey said. "The dam likely would have been impassable to the fish migrating upstream, meaning both ecotypes would have been forced to spawn and inadvertently breed downstream of the dam. This period of gene flow between the two types of steelhead can explain the genetic similarity observed today."

Once the dam burst, the fish would have reoccupied their preferred spawning grounds and resumed different genetic trajectories, he added.

"The damming of the river was a dramatic, punctuated affair that greatly altered the landscape," said co-author Joshua J. Roering, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Oregon. "Although current physical evidence for the landslide dam and paleo-lake is subtle, its effects are recorded in the Pacific Ocean and persist in the genetic make-up of today's Eel River steelhead. It's rare for scientists to be able to connect the dots between such diverse and widely-felt phenomena."

The lake's surface formed by the landslide, researchers theorize, covered about 12 square miles. After the damn was breached, the flow of water would have generated one of North America's largest landslide-dam outburst floods. Landslide activity and erosion have erased much of the evidence for the now-gone lake. Without the acquisition of LiDAR mapping, the lake's existence may have never been discovered, researchers say.

The area affected by the landslide-caused dam accounts for about 58 percent of the modern Eel River watershed. Based on today's general erosion rates, researchers theorize the lake could have been filled in with sediment within about 600 years.

California sues bottled water company over greenwashing

10/31/11

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris filed a first-of-its-kind “greenwashing” lawsuit Oct. 26 against three companies that allegedly made false and misleading claims by marketing plastic water bottles as 100 percent biodegradable and recyclable.

Under California law, it is illegal to label a plastic food or beverage container as biodegradable. Plastic takes thousands of years to biodegrade and may never do so in a landfill. The lawsuit is the first government action to enforce the state’s landmark environmental marketing law.

“These companies’ actions violate state law and mislead consumers,” Attorney General Harris said. “Californians are committed to recycling and protecting the environment, but these efforts are undermined by the false and misleading claims these companies make when they wrongly advertise their products as biodegradable.”

Balance and AquaMantra sell their products in plastic water bottles marketed by ENSO Plastics LLC. According to the label, ENSO claims that a microbial additive created the first truly biodegradable and recyclable plastic bottle. The bottles’ labeling states that the bottles will break down in less than five years in a typical landfill or compost environment, but that claim is false because the additive does not speed up the centuries-long process required to break down plastic.

The claim of recycling is also deceptive. The microbial additive put into the bottle is considered by the Association of Post Consumer Plastic Recyclers to be a destructive contaminant that can compromise the strength of the products they make.

Consumers may buy these defendants’ bottles and either dispose of them incorrectly, on the assumption that they will biodegrade quickly, when in fact they will simply take up space in landfills, or they will try to recycle them, creating problems and costs for recyclers.

A recent Gallup poll found that 76 percent of Americans buy products specifically because of their perception the product is better for the environment.

In 2008, the California Legislature banned the use of words like “biodegradable,” “degradable,” or “decomposable” in the labeling of plastic food or beverage containers. Senate Bill 567, signed into law by the governor this year, will expand that law to all plastic products beginning in 2013.

EPA to assess contaminated sites for renewable energy potential

11/4/11

Determining the potential of former landfills, brownfields and Superfund sites around the country to host solar panels and other renewable energy projects is the focus of a new assessment federal researchers announced Friday.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado plan to spend the next year to 18 months assessing 26 sites. The sites range from a massive open-pit copper mine in southwestern New Mexico to a former lead smelter in Montana and landfills in Arizona, Louisiana and New Jersey.

"There's huge potential for this to really make some inroads toward using contaminated lands as opposed to developing green spaces," said Gail Mosey, a senior energy analyst at NREL.

The EPA is spending about $1 million on the assessment. Aside from sparing green space and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the development of more renewable energy, the goals include re-energizing communities.

Mathy Stanislaus, an assistant EPA administrator, said the studies are the first step toward transforming "these sites from eyesores today to community assets tomorrow."

The so-called RE-Powering America's Land Initiative began about four years ago with the first round of assessments. Since then, Mosey said the idea of reusing contaminated sites for energy development has been gaining momentum.

The latest round of studies will look at the potential development of wind, solar, biomass or geothermal at the 26 sites. The analysis will determine the best renewable energy technology for the site, the potential energy generating capacity, the return on the investment and the economic feasibility of the renewable energy projects.

The EPA said there have already been more than 20 renewable energy projects built on contaminated sites, and more are under construction. The agency pointed to a 6-megawatt solar array that was built last year on the Aerojet General Corp. Superfund site in California's Sacramento County. The array is being used to power the cleanup.

The 10-megawatt Exelon City Solar installation was built last year on a brownfield site in Chicago, and in April, a subsidiary of oil giant Chevron Corp. completed one of the largest concentrating photovoltaic solar power plants in the nation at a tailings site in northern New Mexico.

The feasibility studies, once completed, will help in fast-tracking those sites where developers are interested in moving forward with renewable projects. Some of the considerations when choosing the sites involved their proximity to transmission lines, community and utility support, electric rates and government incentives.

Click HERE for a list of the 26 assessment sites