News

4/28/11

The Obama administration’s new guidelines for the Clean Water Act are an important first step in restoring vital legal safeguards to wetlands and streams threatened by development and pollution.

The guidelines are opposed by the usual suspects — real estate interests, homebuilders, farmers, the oil companies. They were welcomed, rightly so, by conservationists and others who have watched in despair as enforcement actions dropped and water pollution levels went up.

For nearly three decades, the 1972 act was broadly interpreted by the courts and federal regulators as shielding virtually all the waters of the United States from pollution and unregulated development — seasonal streams and small, remote wetlands, as well as lakes and large navigable waters. The basic idea was that small waters have some hydrological connection to larger watersheds and should be protected against pollution that would inevitably find its way downstream.

Then came two Supreme Court decisions that left uncertain which waterways were protected by the law. A 2001 decision suggested that the law applied only to large navigable waterways, while a 2006 ruling suggested that only waters with a “significant nexus” to navigable waterways could be protected. Those decisions — plus subsequent guidance from the George W. Bush administration — confused regulators and exposed millions of acres of wetlands and thousands of miles of streams to development.

The new guidelines now restore protections to small streams and wetlands that have a “physical, chemical or biological connection” to larger bodies of water downstream. That is good news with the clear caveat that they are administrative guidance, with no force in law, and subject to fairly easy reversal by another administration.

Legislation reaffirming the original scope of the law would be the best solution. But since that is not in the cards in this Congress, we urge the Environmental Protection Agency to turn the guidance into a formal rule that would, at least, be harder to undo.

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4/26/11

In a sign of California's cultural creep away from reliance on the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag, Santa Clara County supervisors passed a sweeping ban Tuesday without a single naysayer from the public.

Earlier hearings on the county's two-year effort toward banning plastic carryout bags drew heated opposition from chambers of commerce, merchants and even chemical and oil producers.

But Tuesday's vote had just one opponent, the newest board member and lone Republican, Mike Wasserman, who spoke out for affected wineries and golf courses in his South County district. Wasserman said plastic bags don't really contribute all that much to pollution.

"I question an ordinance that would apply to only a handful of businesses, add unnecessary regulation at unknown costs, and, at the end of the day, only address 1 percent of the trash problem," Wasserman said in an interview.

The ban passed Tuesday takes effect Jan. 1 and will apply to businesses in the county's unincorporated area -- 56 retailers that hand out an estimated 32,000 plastic bags annually. Those retailers will not be able to dispense the plastic shopping bags, although plastic film used for meat, produce and baked goods will still be allowed.

To discourage over-reliance on paper bags, under the new law those bags cannot be distributed for free and must be sold for a minimum of 15 cents each. Stores in violation will be fined up to $500.

Santa Clara County joins a growing number of California cities and counties that have passed similar bans, including San Jose, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Fairfax, Marin, Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Following the failure of a bill in September that would have banned plastic bags statewide, municipal momentum has since grown in the region, where the cities of Sunnyvale, Milpitas and Mountain View are now in the early stages of considering bag bans.

At Tuesday's hearing, five speakers from environmental groups testified in favor of the ban. No one from the public expressed opposition.

Christopher Chin, director of the nonprofit Center for Oceanic Awareness, Research and Education, told the board that plastic bags are "like other things that seemed like a good idea at the time -- colonialism, asbestos."

But, he added, "They don't make sense anymore. We've evolved, and it's time to move on."

But Wasserman, a Los Gatos resident who noted that he drives a hybrid and, together with his wife, feeds two recycling bins each week, said the ordinance ignores voluntary progress toward recycling and reusing. "If you look around you, you can see change is happening," he said.

In contrast, Supervisors Liz Kniss, Ken Yeager and Dave Cortese said the ban is long overdue, and human habits -- much like smoking and talking on cellphones while driving -- are slow to change.

From behind the dais, Kniss held up the latest in reusable bag options, relying on a rare use of props in the normally staid supervisors' chamber.

Displaying colorful varieties and the convenient way a reusable bag can be collapsed into a purse or briefcase, Kniss indicated she was aware that critics will accuse the county of "nannyism."

But she said the ordinance is needed because "the biggest challenge, literally, is changing our culture."

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4/22/11

Good news for Humboldt County -- the Humboldt Waste Management Authority has committed to work on a county-wide single-use plastic bag ordinance. The ordinance will not only help reduce trash along our beaches and in the ocean, but will be set-up “buffet style” so that Humboldt County's cities and towns can choose what type of single-use plastic bag bans or fees best work for their jurisdiction.

AB 1998, a bill to ban single-use plastic bags from grocery stores in California, did not pass last year, but since the bill failed, we have seen cities and counties across the state respond with their own single-use plastic bag bans. The HWMA ordinance will add Humboldt County to the growing number of California cities and counties to ban plastic bags.

Plastic is an important part of our everyday life, but single-use plastic like the check-out bags at grocery stores and single-use plastic water bottles are a threat to our environment. Californians use 19 billion plastic bags every year, which generate 147,000 tons of plastic pollution. Humboldt County collected 1,500 pounds of trash in just three hours during Coastal Clean-Up Day in 2009 and most of the litter collected was plastic and cigarette butts.

Our plastic footprint has taken detrimental turns in the ocean with some sea water samples in the Pacific Ocean showing plastic particles out numbering plankton 46:1. As plastic floats along the surface of the water it photodegrades, meaning it breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, but never goes away. That means the plastic bags you use at the check-out line will be around for your children's children's children and so on. Plastic particles in the ocean, called nurdles, resemble plankton and fish and other sea creatures mistake nurdles for food. When sea creatures eat plastic, their bodies don't get the nutrition they need and they starve to death. If they don't die, then they enter the food web filled with plastic -- big fish eats small fish and until it hits the end of the food chain -- us.

Plastic pollution is a monstrous environmental and human health issue -- so on this Earth Day take the minute to grab your re-usable bag and stay tuned for the plastic bag ordinance coming to your city and use your voice in support of the plastic bag ban!

Beth Werner is a coastal advocate for Humboldt Baykeeper. For more information on plastic bag pollution or the plastic bag ordinance in Humboldt County, contact Beth Werner at 268-8897 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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2/24/11

Scientists say the water situation in California is "bleak" and the state needs to act to bolster its entire aquatic ecosystem.

"Our assessment of the current water situation [in California] is bleak," says Ellen Hanak, a Public Policy Institute of California economist. "California has essentially run out of cheap, new water sources."

The institute has released its findings in a publication written by a team of scientists, engineers, economists and legal experts from three University of California campuses and Stanford University, AAA ScienceMag.org reported Thursday.

Their report says water quality is deteriorating, pollution from agricultural runoff is increasing, and efforts to manage water and species recovery are hampered by a fragmented system of hundreds of local and regional agencies responsible for water supply, water treatment, flood control and land-use decisions.

"Today's system of water management, developed in previous times for past conditions, is leading the state down a path of environmental and economic deterioration," Hanak says. "We're waiting for the next drought, flood or lawsuit to bring catastrophe."

To stave off such a catastrophe, the report says, California needs to reform the way it manages water.

However, the study's authors say numerous entrenched interests, such as farmers, utility companies and landowners, have already proven reluctant to make sweeping changes.

"It's not going to be easy," says Jay Lund, a study co-author and director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. "It's not going to be popular."

However, he says, the current system is failing. "This is an approach that is not working. We need to take a longer view of it."