Sundance Channel

Catching up with the “Crude” court case

Amy Reiter — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:26:14 +0000

When it premiered in January 2009 at the Sundance Film Festival, Joe Berlinger's documentary CRUDE opened many filmgoers' eyes to the plight of 30,000 people from five indigenous tribes in Ecuador. These residents of what had been a beautiful, biodiverse rain forest were suffering the effects of what has become known as the "Amazon Chernobyl," in which, they and others contend, 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste had been dumped in their rivers and on their land. The water they drank, bathed and played in had been poisoned, and their children, siblings and parents were sick and dying in alarming numbers.

H.2O: Discussing water with Maude Barlow of the United Nations, part one

Sundance Channel — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 21:45:49 +0000

Water nourishes every aspect of life on Earth. Most Americans take access to water for granted. The grim reality is that fresh water is getting harder to find. When communities cannot get clean water, people are often forced to choose between dying of thirst or drinking disease-ridden polluted water. This heartbreaking situation is playing itself [...]

World Water Day: California Students March for Water

Sundance Channel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:18:02 +0000

LOS ANGELES, California, March 19, 2009 (ENS) – In observance of World Water Day on March 22, hundreds of students from Los Angeles schools will join activists and concerned residents for a community March for Water to increase public awareness of the water crisis in California and around the world. The march begins at LA [...]

House Approves Funding for Clean Water Infrastructure Upgrades

Sundance Channel — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:19:39 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, March 19, 2009) – A bill that will help bridge the multi-billion dollar annual gap between wastewater infrastructure needs and available funding is working its way through Congress. The Water Quality Investment Act of 2009 (H.R. 1262), approved Friday by the House, renews the federal government’s commitment to clean water by authorizing $19.8 [...]

Environmental Judge Orders Vermont to Act on Stormwater

Sundance Channel — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:00:00 +0000

MONTPELIER, Vermont, February 23, 2009 (ENS) – For the second time in seven months, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources has been handed a court order to implement stormwater regulations that will protect water quality in five Chittenden County brooks. Environmental Court Judge Thomas Durkin last week reaffirmed his August 2008 order to the state [...]

Appeals Court Reverses Limits on Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

Sundance Channel — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:15:00 +0000

RICHMOND, Virginia, February 17, 2009 (ENS) – A federal appeals court Friday reversed a lower court ruling that limited the controversial coal mining practice called mountaintop removal. In mountaintop removal coal operations, the peaks of mountains are blasted away with explosives to expose coal seams and the waste materials are dumped into streams, causing what [...]

U.S. EPA Steps In to Set Florida Water Quality Standards

Sundance Channel — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, January 21, 2009 (ENS) – In one of the final acts of the Bush administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it will set “water quality standards for nutrients” for all Florida surface waters. The standards will apply to concentrations of the agricultural nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus in state waters. The [...]

Shell to Pay $1 Million for Water Pollution in Puerto Rico

Sundance Channel — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:45:00 +0000

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, January 15, 2009 (ENS) – For discharging pollutants into a creek that flows to the Caribbean Sea, a Shell petrochemical company in Puerto Rico has agreed to pay a $1,025,000 penalty and spend at least $273,800 enhancing its pollution controls and monitoring to remedy the Clean Water Act violations. The agreement [...]

Oklahoma Pipeline Company Fined $3.3M for Jet Fuel Spill

Sundance Channel — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 19:15:00 +0000

DALLAS, Texas, January 9, 2009 (ENS) – An Oklahoma pipeline company will pay the federal government $3.3 million for spilling a large amount of jet fuel into a Texas creek in 2007. The Explorer Pipeline Company of Tulsa has agreed to pay the civil penalty to resolve an alleged violation of the Clean Water Act [...]

Court Cancels EPA Clean Water Act Exemption for Pesticides

Sundance Channel — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:15:00 +0000

CINCINNATI, Ohio, January 7, 2009 (ENS) – Environmental groups today celebrated their victory as an appeals court vacated a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule that has allowed pesticides to be applied to U.S. waters without a Clean Water Act permit. On November 27, 2007, the EPA issued the final rule, which states that pesticides applied [...]

Honolulu Must Spend Over $1 Billion on Wastewater Treatment

Sundance Channel — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:45:00 +0000

HONOLULU, Hawaii, January 6, 2009 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued final decisions to not renew the City and County of Honolulu’s variances exempting the Sand Island and Honouliuli Wastewater Treatment plants from full secondary treatment requirements. The decision forces the city to upgrade both plants to bring them into compliance with [...]

Chesapeake Bay Foundation Sues EPA to Force Cleanup

Sundance Channel — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:30:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, January 5, 2008 (ENS) – The Chesapeake Bay Foundation today filed a lawsuit to require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce pollution of all kinds enough to remove the nation’s largest estuary from the federal impaired waters list. Calling it “the most significant lawsuit in the history of Bay restoration,” with “unprecedented [...]

Rapanos Will Pay for Clean Water Act Violations

Sundance Channel — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:00:00 +0000

DETROIT, Michigan, December 30, 2008 (ENS) – In long-running case that affects the scope of federal jurisdiction over wetlands and other waters, developer John Rapanos and related defendants agreed Monday to resolve violations of the Clean Water Act at three sites in Midland and Bay counties, Michigan. Rapanos has agreed to pay a $150,000 civil [...]

Commercial Ship Discharges Now Need Clean Water Permit

Sundance Channel — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 15:15:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, December 19, 2008 (ENS) – A new general permit will reduce releases of 26 types of discharges from vessels operating in U.S. waters, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Beginning today, some 61,000 domestically flagged commercial vessels and 8,000 foreign flagged vessels will need to comply with the discharge permit. As a [...]

Bush Administration Covered Up 500+ Blocked Water Pollution Cases

Sundance Channel — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, December 16, 2008 (ENS) – The results of a Congressional investigation released today detail the collapse of the Clean Water Act enforcement program in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that clouded the question of whether rivers, streams and wetlands remain protected from pollution and development. The report reveals more than 500 [...]

Stormwater Violations Costly for Massachusetts Developer

Sundance Channel — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:30:00 +0000

BOSTON, Massachusetts, December 11, 2008 (ENS) – A Massachusetts construction company building a public high school on 35 acres next to the Aberjona River will pay a $135,000 penalty for discharging polluted stormwater from its Reading, Massachusetts construction site and four other sites in Massachusetts. The federal agency could have penalized the developer up to [...]

Portland Malls, Hotels Now Need Permits for Stormwater Discharge

Sundance Channel — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:15:00 +0000

PORTLAND, Maine, December 8, 2008 (ENS) – Properties with more than one acre of impervious area, such as parking lots and large roofs, must from now on apply for a Clean Water Act permit for stormwater discharges to Long Creek, which drains a watershed in the Portland metropolitan area. Long Creek does not meet required [...]

Highest U.S. Court Ponders Power Plants and Fish Protection

Sundance Channel — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:45:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, December 4, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Supreme Court is wrestling with the difficulty of valuing fish and aquatic organisms with little or no commercial worth, hearing arguments in a legal dispute over what steps older power plants should take to limit water use and minimize environmental harm. In oral arguements Tuesday, the [...]

Charles River Property Owners Must Now Control Stormwater

Sundance Channel — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:00:00 +0000

BOSTON, Massachusetts, December 1, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. EPA and the state of Massachusetts are about to impose stormwater permit controls on industrial, commercial and high-density residential facilities in the Charles River watershed. Stormwater containing high levels of phosphorus is blamed for neon blue-green algae blooms of toxic cyanobacteria that have taken over the [...]

New York Proposes Cleanup for Onondaga Lake Tributaries

Sundance Channel — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:30:00 +0000

ALBANY, New York, November 28, 2008 (ENS) – The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will unveil proposals to clean up contaminated soils in two Onondaga Lake tributaries at a public meeting on December 10. The meeting will be held to present the plans, to elaborate on the reasons for recommending the preferred remedies, [...]

Rum Maker Bacardi Settles Polluted Water Case

Sundance Channel — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:00:00 +0000

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, November 6, 2008 (ENS) – The Bacardi corporation and the U.S. EPA have reached an agreement that spells out the resolution of Clean Water Act violations at Bacardi’s rum manufacturing facility in Cataño, Puerto Rico. Under the agreement, a consent decree approved by the U.S. District Court for Puerto Rico, Bacardi [...]

New Rule: Clean Water Permits Voluntary for Factory Farms

Sundance Channel — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, November 3, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration finalized a rule Friday that allows more than 15,000 factory farms across the country to avoid certain requirements of the Clean Water Act if they claim they do not discharge animal wastes into lakes, rivers and streams. Federal officials said the rule will help protect [...]

Desperate Chesapeake Bay Watermen Threaten to Sue EPA

Sundance Channel — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:00:00 +0000

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland, October 29, 2008 (ENS) – Watermen in two states, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and five other parties today notified the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that they intend to go to federal court to force the agency to require pollution reduction in the waters of Chesapeake Bay, the national largest estuary. Today’s notice of [...]

Expert Report: EPA Stormwater Program Needs “Radical Changes”

Sundance Channel — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, October 15, 2008 (ENS) – Increased water volume and pollutants from stormwater have degraded water quality and habitats in virtually every urban stream system in the United States, says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee of experts that wrote the report says, “Radical changes to the U.S. Environmental Protection [...]

Arizona Developer Fined $1M for Altering Santa Cruz River

Sundance Channel — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:00:00 +0000

PHOENIX, Arizona, October 13, 2008 (ENS) – An Arizona land developer and a contractor have agreed to pay one of the largest fines in the history of the U.S. EPA to settle alleged violations of the Clean Water Act for bulldozing, filling, and diverting five miles of the Santa Cruz River, a major waterway in [...]

Who Owns The Water?

Sundance Channel — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:30:00 +0000

The Secret Water Crisis By Thomas M. Kostigen Mr. Kostigen strives to educate people about environmental issues through his numerous books. He has kindly focused his environmental enthusiasm around a political issue important to all human beings. We hope you enjoy and please make sure to check out the links at the bottom of this [...]

Missouri Left 135 Impaired Water Bodies Off Official List

Sundance Channel — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:45:00 +0000

KANSAS CITY, Kansas, September 25, 2008 (ENS) – Missouri’s most recent list of impaired waters left out 135 water bodies that contain pollutants above the levels permitted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act, according to a proposed decision announced Wednesday by the federal agency. The EPA did approve Missouri’s listing [...]

CITGO Fined $13M for Polluting Louisiana Rivers

Sundance Channel — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:00:00 +0000

LAKE CHARLES, Louisiana, September 18, 2008 (ENS) – CITGO, a Delaware corporation, pleaded guilty Wednesday and was sentenced to pay a $13 million fine for the negligent discharge of pollutants into two rivers in Louisiana in violation of the Clean Water Act. Justice Department officials said the fine is the largest ever for a criminal [...]

Filling Wetlands Costly for Vermont Dairy Farmers

Sundance Channel — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:45:00 +0000

BOSTON, Massachusetts, September 8, 2008 (ENS) – Converting 41 acres of wetlands to corn and hay production areas on their Richford, Vermont dairy farm without a permit has cost Mark and Amanda St. Pierre more than $100,000. Under the terms of a legal settlement with the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice, the [...]

Bay Area Waste Company Liable for Over 100 Stormwater Violations

Sundance Channel — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:00:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, California, September 4, 2008 (ENS) – One of the largest providers of waste management services in the San Francisco Bay area is facing hefty financial penalties from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, after being found liable for over 100 stormwater violations of the Clean Water Act. EPA inspectors found evidence that California Waste [...]

EPA Kills Controversial Yazoo Pumps Flood Control Project

Sundance Channel — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:00:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC September 3, 2008 (ENS) – The Yazoo Pumps Project, proposed to drain wetlands in the Mississippi Delta for flood control, will not be built. On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced its final decision under the Clean Water Act to prohibit construction of the project first proposed by the U.S. Army Corps [...]

LA Runoff Must Meet Clean Water Standards During Review

Sundance Channel — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:45:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES, California, September 1, 2008 (ENS) – A coalition of 21 cities in Los Angeles County and the Building Industry Legal Defense Foundation has lost its legal bid to prevent the California state and LA regional water boards from applying clean water quality standards to stormwater. Ruling on a post-trial motion by three environmental [...]

Puerto Rico Will Create Task Force to Improve Wetlands

Sundance Channel — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, August 11, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Puerto Rico Land Authority have reached a settlement that requires the creation of a task force to identify, monitor and protect wetlands in Puerto Rico in order to resolve a 2007 EPA complaint over Clean Water Act violations. According [...]

Reading High School Builder Hit With $157,500 Fine

Sundance Channel — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:00:00 +0000

BOSTON, Massachusetts, August 3, 2008 (ENS) – TLT Construction Corp. faces an administrative penalty of up to $157,500 for violating requirements of the federal Clean Water Act at a construction site in Reading, Massachusetts. In May 2004, TLT began construction of the town’s new high school – Reading Memorial High School located at 62 Oakland [...]

Conservationists Seek Firm Limits on Gulf Dead Zone Pollution

Sundance Channel — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:00:00 +0000

ST. PAUL, Minnesota, July 30, 2008 (ENS) – Conservation groups from nine states along the Mississippi River and two national groups petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today to set and enforce numeric standards to limit nutrient pollution in the river basin because it contributes to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. The [...]

Court Ruling Ends Unpermitted Ballast Water Discharge

Sundance Channel — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:00:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 29, 2008 (ENS) – Three environmental groups and six states have won a court ruling that requires oceangoing freighters to get a permit from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before they can discharge polluted ballast water in U.S. waters. The decision will affect all U.S. coastal waters, including those of the [...]

Misapplied Herbicides Enter Klamath River Tributary

Sundance Channel — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:00:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, California, July 20, 2008 (ENS) – Trees, Inc., one of the nation’s largest tree service companies, has been hit with a federal fine of $12,300 for causing two herbicides to enter a tributary of the Klamath River after employees failed to follow instructions on the product labels. Trees, Inc., a 55 year old [...]

Federal Lawsuit Filed to Halt Florida’s Toxic Algae Blooms

Sundance Channel — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 19:00:00 +0000

TALLAHASSEE, Florida, July 18, 2008 (ENS) – Today, five environmental groups filed a lawsuit to compel the federal government and the state of Florida to set numeric limits on the excess nutrients which trigger harmful blooms of blue-green algae. Algae blooms are fouling Florida’s beaches, lakes, rivers, and springs, threatening public health, and closing swimming [...]

Fujicolor Employee Admits False Wastewater Reporting

Sundance Channel — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

DALLAS, Texas, June 20, 2008 (ENS) – A former employee of Fujicolor’s film developing facility in Terrell, Texas pleaded guilty Wednesday to willfully concealing and covering up a material fact in wastewater discharge reports that must be filed under the federal Clean Water Act. Gerald Lakota admitted to reporting only wastewater samples that were within [...]

Careless Damage to Pipeline Costs Oklahoma Company Millions

Sundance Channel — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 21:00:00 +0000

KANSAS CITY, Kansas, June 16, 2008 (ENS) – Eight years of gasoline and fuel oil spills from pipelines in Illinois, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota and Arkansas into nearby waterways has cost a publicly traded Oklahoma pipeline company more than $5 million. Magellan Midstream Partners today agreed to pay a $5.3 million civil penalty for these alleged [...]

Home Builders Settle Stormwater Violations for $4.3 Million

Sundance Channel — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:15:00 +0000

WASHINGTON, DC, June 12, 2008 (ENS) – Four of the country’s largest home builders have agreed to pay civil penalties totaling $4.3 million to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, the Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today. The four separate settlements resolve alleged violations of stormwater runoff regulations at construction [...]

Dirty Runoff From Massachusetts Roads Violates Federal Law

Sundance Channel — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:00:00 +0000

BOSTON, Massachusetts, June 2, 2008 (ENS) – In a precedent-setting decision, a federal court judge ruled Friday that the Massachusetts Highway Department violated federal clean water law by failing to develop an adequate stormwater cleanup plan for its 2,500 miles of urban roads and bridges. The decision, by Judge William Young, stems from a lawsuit [...]

Texas Asks Public Help to Clear Bacteria from Oyster Waters

Sundance Channel — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas, May 29, 2008 (ENS) – Concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria in six Houston-Galveston area bays have risen to the point that some areas are closed to the harvesting of shellfish for direct marketing, according to the Texas agency in charge of environment. “Microorganisms from human and animal waste may contaminate oysters and other [...]

Suffolk Downs Must Reduce Bacterial Waste in Stormwater

Sundance Channel — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:30:00 +0000

BOSTON, Massachusetts, May 19, 2008 (ENS) – The Suffolk Downs, New England’s preeminent thoroughbred racing venue in East Boston, has been ordered to take immediate action to reduce pollutants being discharged to Sales Creek, a tributary to Boston Harbor. According to the U.S. EPA, Suffolk Downs is violating the federal Clean Water Act due to [...]

Railroad Sued for Water Pollution in South Carolina Wreck

Sundance Channel — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:00:00 +0000

COLUMBIA, South Carolina, April 25, 2008 (ENS) – The federal government filed a lawsuit against the Norfolk Southern railroad company Thursday over pollution that settled in a creek after a deadly 2005 train crash in the mill town of Graniteville, South Carolina. Nine men died and 250 people were injured after a 42 car Norfolk [...]

Governor Richardson Seeks to Safeguard New Mexico Headwaters

Sundance Channel — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:00:00 +0000

SANTA FE, New Mexico, April 22, 2008 (ENS) – Governor Bill Richardson marked Earth Day by moving to protect all surface waters within national forest wilderness and inventoried roadless areas in New Mexico – amounting to more than 5,300 miles of headwaters streams that flow from mountain forests. Designation of these waters as Outstanding National [...]

Refinery Water Pollution Costs ConocoPhillips $1.2 Million

Sundance Channel — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:45:00 +0000

HOUSTON, Texas, April 7, 2008 (ENS) – ConocoPhillips, an international energy company headquartered in Houston, has agreed to pay a $1.2 million civil penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act at a petroleum refinery it operates in the city of Borger, located in the Texas panhandle. The U.S. Justice Department and Environmental [...]

Montana’s New Wetlands Strategic Plan

Sundance Channel — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:00:00 +0000

HELENA, Montana, March 21, 2008 (ENS) – Montana has lost about 27 percent of naturally occurring wetlands since settlement, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality. The federal Clean Water Act requires mitigation for some wetland filling and dredging, however, wetlands continue to be impacted and lost as roads are expanded, land is developed [...]

Ship Pilot Charged in San Francisco Bay Oil Spill

Sundance Channel — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:00:00 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO, California, March 18, 2008 (ENS) – The pilot of the container ship that collided with the San Francisco Bay Bridge last November resulting in a 58,000 gallon oil spill, was charged Monday with violating two federal laws, the Clean Water Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. According to the criminal charges filed [...]

Los Angeles, Malibu Sued Over Polluted Runoff

Sundance Channel — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES, California, March 7, 2008 (ENS) – Two environmental groups filed two separate lawsuits in federal court Monday to compel the County of Los Angeles and the City of Malibu to stop allowing urban stormwater runoff carrying bacteria and toxins to flow into coastal waters. Urban runoff is known to be the top source [...]