Speaking about his long-time friend and mentor, Robert Redford told a crowd in New York City that he learned a great deal from the late Paul Newman, especially generosity. “Back then it was really about actors playing roles. It wasn’t until later that it became more about actors’ personalities,” Redford told a packed theater at Lincoln Center.

The crowd enthusiastically hung on Redford’s words. This was no doubt because of the star power of the great actor, director and Sundance Institute creator (particularly because the audience skewed toward his generation), but perhaps even more so because the crowd was packed with committed environmentalists. This was a special, intimate conversation between Redford, a longtime green leader, and veteran radio journalist Bob Edwards (formerly of NPR and now of Sirius radio), hosted by the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council (Watch video of NRDC head Frances Beinecke accepting a 2009 Heart of Green Award).

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WASHINGTON, DC, February 24, 2009 (ENS) – The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to consider a Bush-era rule that would have allowed a cap-and-trade approach to mercury, a toxic heavy metal emitted by power plants that burn coal and oil. Power plants are the largest source of mercury in the nation.

The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case invalidates the U.S. EPA’s so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule, which would have allowed dangerous levels of mercury pollution to persist under a weak cap-and-trade program that would not have taken full effect until after 2020.

The Supreme Court in effect denied an appeal, filed last year by a coalition of utilities, seeking reversal of a federal court decision vacating the mercury rule.

The original lawsuit that resulted in the February 2008 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the states and environmental groups maintained that EPA illegally removed coal and oil-fired power plants from the list of regulated source categories under a section of the Clean Air Act that requires strict regulation of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury.

Left standing is the ruling by the appeals court that upheld the lower court ruling and rebuked the Bush-era EPA for attempting to create an illegal loophole for the power generating industry, rather than applying the Clean Air Act’s “maximum achievable control technology” standard for mercury emissions.

The Supreme Court also granted the Obama administration’s request, made two weeks ago, to drop the Bush administration appeal.

“Today’s good news is due in no small part to the leadership of the Obama administration, in renouncing the harmful Bush administration actions and embracing EPA’s responsibilities to protect the American people against mercury and other toxic pollution,” said John Walke, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The James H. Miller coal-fired power plant in Alabama emits more mercury than any other generating station in the United States. (Photo credit unknown)

Newly appointed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has pledged to move swiftly in developing tough new mercury standards for power plants.

Seventeen states and dozens of Native American tribes, public health and environmental groups, and organizations representing registered nurses and physicians, challenged EPA’s suite of rules in 2005.

The plaintiffs maintained that cap-and-trade contributed to “hot spots” for mercury, a neurotoxin linked to birth defects, learning disabilities and neurological problems.

New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said the Supreme Court’s denial of an appeal petition from the Utility Air Regulatory Group ends a long legal fight by New Jersey and other states to compel the federal government to issue tough new standards for mercury and other toxic air emissions from power plants.

“As of today, the protracted legal battle that has delayed proper regulation of mercury emissions from power plants is over, and the practice of allowing those plants to spew harmful quantities of a dangerous neurotoxin into our air in violation of federal law is at an end,” Milgram said.

“The Supreme Court has now confirmed that EPA must follow the law as it is written. We are looking forward to working on rules that reflect the most stringent controls achievable for this industry, as the Clean Air Act requires,” said Ann Weeks, attorney for Clean Air Task Force who represented U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Ohio Environmental Council, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Conservation Law Foundation in the case.

Some 1,100 coal-fired units at more than 450 existing power plants emit 48 tons of mercury into the air each year. Yet only 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury is needed to contaminate a 25-acre lake to the point where fish are unsafe to eat, the plaintiffs pointed out.

More than 40 states have warned their citizens to avoid consuming various fish species due to mercury contamination, with over half of those mercury advisories applying to all water bodies in the state.

“We’re relieved that the Supreme Court has put the final nail in the coffin of this ill-advised regulation, which left the Adirondacks and Catskills vulnerable to continued mercury contamination,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club. “Ninety-six percent of the lakes in the Adirondack region exceed the recommended EPA action level for methyl mercury in fish.”

“In the Catskills, health officials have advised children and women of childbearing age not to eat fish from six Catskill reservoirs, reservoirs that also provide New York City with its drinking water,” said Woodworth. “With this ruling, we can now move forward with sensible mercury controls that will help reverse these trends.”

Among the groups involved in last year’s successful court challenge was Earthjustice, who argued the case before the lower court on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club.

“While we applaud this ruling, mercury contamination from coal-fired utilities continues to grow as new plants are approved for construction,” said Jon Mueller, Chesapeake Bay Foundation director of litigation. “Every year in the Chesapeake Bay region additional fish consumption advisories are issued. EPA must take action quickly to curtail this threat to public health.”

The EPA rules generated controversy when they were proposed in 2004, after it was discovered that industry attorneys had drafted key language that EPA included verbatim in its rule.

EPA’s internal auditor in the Office of Inspector General later discovered that EPA’s senior political management had ordered staff to work backwards from a pre-determined political outcome, “instead of basing the standard on an unbiased determination of what the top performing [power plant] units were achieving in practice.”

The top 50 most-polluting coal-burning power plants in the United States emitted 20 tons of toxic mercury into the air in 2007, finds a November 2008 report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. Of the top 10 mercury emitting power plants, all but one reported an increase as compared to the previous year.

Once released into the atmosphere, mercury settles in lakes and rivers, where it moves up the food chain to humans who eat contaminated fish. The Centers for Disease Control has found that six percent of American women have mercury in their blood at levels that would put a fetus at risk of neurological damage.

Click here [www.earthjustice.org] for a guide to the mercury levels found in various species of fish and shellfish.

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WASHINGTON, DC, January 19, 2009 (ENS) – At least 110,000 acres of pristine Utah wilderness is temporarily protected from oil and gas companies due to a ruling Saturday night by a federal judge in a case brought by conservationists.

Judge Ricardo Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a temporary restraining order that prevents the Bureau of Land Management from moving forward with these leases.

A coalition of environmental groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society, and Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on December 17, 2008 to prevent the leasing of these public lands.

“This ruling is a huge victory in protecting our nation’s pristine wilderness from destruction due to oil and gas drilling,” said Sharon Buccino, senior attorney for NRDC. “We do not need to sacrifice our wild lands to achieve a secure energy future.”

In his ruling, Judge Urbina found that the conservation groups “have shown a likelihood of success on the merits” and that the “‘development of domestic energy resources’ … is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment.”

South Book Cliffs proposed wilderness in Utah is at risk of oil and gas drilling. (Photo by Tom Till courtesy Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance)

The merits of the case will be heard later in 2009. Until that time, the Bureau of Land Management is prohibited from cashing the checks issued for the contested acres of Utah wilderness.

“We’re thrilled with this decision,” said Stephen Bloch, conservation director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. “BLM’s attempt to sell these leases just before the Bush administration left office has been showcased for what it really is – a parting gift to the oil and gas industry. Judge Urbina’s decision firmly puts the brakes on these plans.”

The contested areas near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Dinosaur National Monument, and Nine Mile Canyon include lands that contain the nation’s greatest density of ancient rock art and other cultural resources.

These lands were recently made available to industry through six resource management plans covering three million acres of public lands.

“Under the Bush administration, the Bureau of Land Management pushed through Resource Management Plans that treated some of America’s most sensitive and spectacular public lands as the private playgrounds of the oil and gas companies,” said Bill Hedden, executive director of Grand Canyon Trust.

“Today’s heartening court decision gives these unique places a last second pardon from forever sacrificing their archaeological treasures, pristine air and remote wildness in order to sate only an hour or two of our national addiction to oil and gas,” he said.

“When we begin to allow oil drilling in the backdrop of an icon like Arches National Park, we know something needs to change,” said Sierra Club representative Myke Bybee.

“It’s time to stop handing over our natural treasures just so the oil industry can make more money,” Bybee said. “Instead, we could be investing in efficiency and the kind of clean energy that will benefit all of us and leave our best wild places intact.”

Click here [www.ens-newswire.com] to see previous ENS coverage of this lawsuit.

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Democracy is working. At least that’s the news for now from my friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has filed a lawsuit against last-minute Bush Administration plans to lease huge swaths of majestic wilderness in Utah for oil and gas extraction.

Late last night, NRDC and a coalition of environmental and preservation groups filed an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management that could save 100,000 acres of pristine land that are endangered. The deal temporarily prevents the Bureau from issuing leases on 80 contested parcels of Utah wilderness, including land adjacent to national parks, for 30 days (until January 19).

Although the Bureau will go forward with the auction today, based on the agreement it will not issue the contested leases. The delay will give a federal court time to hear the case.
As I’ve written previously, words alone cannot do justice to the beauty of these places, but they do capture the absurdity of the Bush plan. Oil and gas drilling in Desolation Canyon? Industrial development along the meandering Green River? The thought makes one wince.

Utah’s Red Rock country is one of America’s few remaining wilderness treasures . It’s our land, it’s our legacy, but will it still be here for our children and grandchildren?
The Bureau’s agreement has delayed the potential destruction. We will now get our day in court and I know that NRDC, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) and their partners will continue to do all they can to protect Utah’s unspoiled landscapes

If you’d like to take action, check out this site and maybe you can help save the Redrocks [bit.ly]

- Robert Redford

You can’t put a price on silence or solitude. You can’t quantify the beauty of wilderness. And yet that’s not going to stop the Bush administration from trying to sell off what should be the birthright of future generations.

In three days, this Friday, 110,000 acres of majestic Utah wild lands go on the auction block, to be sold to the highest bidders in the oil and gas industry. It’s a last-ditch effort by a corrupt administration to further enrich its friends in the dirty fuels business. If they succeed, they’ll leave a wasteland behind them.

Never mind that we the People of the United States just rejected the failed energy policy of “drill, baby, drill!” Never mind that once industrialized, these precious lands will be marred for centuries. Ravaging these places will put cash in the pockets of greedy speculators, even if it won’t solve our energy problems.

The miraculous thing about America though, is that we the People have options. And one of those options is to take a corrupt and foolish administration to court.

This morning I stood with my friends at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Cong. Brian Baird (D-WA) to announce an emergency lawsuit aimed at stopping this wanton destruction of Utah wilderness. Sharon Buccino, the head of NRDC’s lands program, has been fighting the Bush administration for eight years, holding the line against an industrial juggernaut. She says it’s illegal under federal law for the Bureau of Land Management to just snap its fingers and sell off national treasures. In its rush, BLM just ignored the rules.

Sharon’s case will be among the last lawsuits NRDC ever files against the Bush administration. Most of those lawsuits have been successful. I don’t know the odds on this one, but my fingers are crossed. It could be our last chance to protect these irreplaceable lands.

Bush may be a lame duck president, but he can still quack.

- Robert Redford

WASHINGTON, DC, October 15, 2008 (ENS) – A bill introduced by Senator Barack Obama that will help protect Americans and people around the world from mercury poisoning by banning the export of elemental mercury from the United States, was signed into law last night by President George W. Bush.

Senator Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, said, “The president’s approval of this bipartisan bill is an important victory for millions of the world’s most vulnerable citizens who are exposed to the harmful effects of mercury every day.”

“Exposure to mercury leads to serious developmental problems in children as well as problems affecting vision, motor skills, blood pressure, and fertility in adults,” said Obama. “Despite our country’s improved efforts to contain and collect mercury over the years, we remain one of the world’s leading exporters of this dangerous product, so I am proud this bill will finally ban mercury exports.”

S. 906, the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008, prohibits the transfer of elemental mercury by federal agencies, bans U.S. export of elemental mercury by 2013, and requires the Department of Energy to designate and manage an elemental mercury long-term disposal facility.

The Mercury Export Ban Act won support from a wide spectrum of interests, from environmentalists to the American Chemistry Council.

“Today we have won a momentous victory for public health that will save lives both here and abroad,” said Susan Keane, a scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Banning the export of mercury will substantially reduce mercury contamination in fish, prevent the contamination of our water, and shield our children from a dangerous chemical.”

Don’t try this at home. Exposure to elemental
mercury is dangerous. (Photo credit unknown)

“Those involved overcame a difficult political climate to enact bipartisan legislation that will benefit millions of people around the globe,” said Keane. “This is no small feat, and I commend them for their hard work.”

American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley said, “What makes this legislation unique is that it not only reflects support of both Democrats and Republicans, it also reflects what is possible when a broad-based coalition of stakeholder interests comes together. The American Chemistry Council, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Council of the States, the Chlorine Institute, Inc., and the National Mining Association successfully worked together for many months to help enact this legislation to ban exports of elemental mercury from the United States by January 1, 2013.”

The Mercury Export Ban Act puts an end to a vicious cycle of poison, Keane explained. While this dangerous neurotoxin is being phased out by industry and the government here in the United States, surplus mercury is shipped overseas to developing countries, where it is released from highly polluting industries, she said.

“Not only is the air and water in those importing countries contaminated with concentrations of mercury that would not be tolerated in the United States, the mercury can also travel for thousands of miles and can settle right back here in the United States, poisoning Americans mainly through consumption of contaminated fish,” Keane said.

The law, signed by President Bush and passed by the House and Senate with overwhelming majorities, now requires that all mercury in the United States remain here, where it can be managed according to U.S. laws.

It prohibits the departments of Defense and Energy from exporting their huge accumulated stockpiles of mercury.

The bill also directs the Department of Energy to begin operating a long-term storage and management facility for excess mercury.

“I am pleased that President Bush has signed this important legislation which will slow needless mercury emissions, especially in the developing world,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican. who joined Obama in introducing the bill.

“Given our expanding knowledge about the health impacts of elemental mercury when it enters the atmosphere, it only makes sense to take reasonable steps now to safeguard the environment from the release of mercury that can affect fish and potentially those who eat fish,” she said.

“Mercury is a potent neurotoxin hazardous to human health, especially for infants, children, and women who are pregnant or nursing,” said Congressman Tom Allen, a Maine Democrat, who introduced the bill in the House of Representatives.

“Maine people should be able to eat the fish they purchase in the supermarkets,” he said. “We still have much to do to end mercury pollution, and I will continue to fight for passage of my legislation to establish a nationwide mercury pollution monitoring system and the legislation I support requiring utilities to reduce their mercury emissions.”

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WASHINGTON, DC, October 8, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Supreme Court today waded into a dispute between the U.S. military and environmentalists and appeared closely divided over whether a federal judge had the authority to force the Navy to restrict sonar training exercises off the coast of California in order to minimize harm to whales and dolphins.

The closely watched case touches on controversial issues of presidential power and the military’s obligation to follow key environmental laws that require federal agencies to consider and mitigate the environmental impacts of their activities.

The dispute emerged from the Navy’s plan to conduct a series of 14 submarine hunting exercises using its mid-frequency active sonar off the coast of California, beginning in January 2007.

The sonar has been found to injure whales and dolphins, interfering with their ability to communicate and navigate and potentially causing fatal strandings.

U.S. Navy sonar technicians aboard the guided
missile destroyer USS Momsen off the coast
of Southern California participate in a Joint
Task Force Exercise. (Photo courtesy
U.S. Navy)

The Natural Resources Defense Council and five other environmental groups filed suit in March 2007, alleging the Navy had failed to properly assess the potential impact to marine mammals in violation of federal environmental laws.

In a California courtroom, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper agreed with many of the groups’ claims. She issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the Navy to restrict the power and location of its sonar testing to protect marine mammals.

The Bush administration then moved to exempt the Navy from the relevant environmental laws by declaring the sonar training exercises essential to national security.

But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the district court ruling, prompting the Bush administration’s appeal to the Supreme Court.

U.S. Solicitor General Gregory Garre urged the court to vacate the lower court ruling, calling the sonar testing “critical to the nation’s own security.”

But Garre faced a barrage of questions from the court’s four liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts about the Navy’s decision not to prepare an environmental impact statement, EIS, before it began the training exercises.

Garre explained that the Navy’s environmental assessment of the training exercises indicated little harm to whales and dolphins and so precluded the completion of an EIS.

The Navy has been using mid-frequency active sonar off the coast of California “for more than 40 years and no one can point to any harm to marine mammals,” Garre said.

That failed to appease Justice John Paul Stevens, who said it made sense for courts to block or restrict the training exercises in the absence of an EIS, a document that outlines alternatives and strategies to mitigate environmental impacts.

“The very fact you need an EIS is because you don’t know what environmental consequences may ensue,” said Justice Stevens. “That’s the purpose.”

Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter, right,
and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral
Gary Roughead leave the U.S. Supreme
court today. (Photo courtesy U.S. Navy)

But Garre faced more questions on why the Navy now is completing an EIS for the training exercises as part of the “alternative arrangement” for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act laid out by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, when the Bush administration declared the exercises essential to national security.

Both liberal and conservative justices found this course of events confusing.

“I am not getting it,” said Justice David Souter, who questioned the White House move to intervene in the matter.

“If there is an emergency, it’s one that the Navy created simply by failing to start an EIS preparation in a timely way,” he said.

Chief Justice Roberts noted that the Council on Environmental Quality is “an odd entity” to be dictating how the Navy should comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also questioned the merits of completing an EIS in January 2009 given that the training exercises will be finished by December 2008. “What good is it?” she asked.

Garre responded that the EIS would pertain to future training exercises.

Justice Antonin Scalia came to Garre’s defense, saying he’d been “whipsawed” and in effect prevented from arguing an EIS is unnecessary because the Navy agreed to complete one under the arrangement orchestrated by the Council on Environmental Quality.

Garre should not be prevented from arguing that the Navy believed the environmental assessment was a “good faith completion” of its responsibilities, Scalia explained.

“We agree with that,” said Garre, who added that the Navy “has never conceded that it was required to do an EIS at the outset.”

Scalia, Roberts and the other members of the court’s conservative majority appeared sympathetic to Garre’s view that the Navy’s sonar testing should not be subjected to the limits imposed by the district court judge.

Justice Samuel Alito called Judge Cooper’s decision to restrict the sonar testing “incredibly odd.”

Robert Kendall, the attorney representing the Natural Resources Defense Council, replied that Judge Cooper was “extraordinarily deferential” to the Navy and only imposed restrictions that were based in fact. The Navy has completed eight of the 14 training missions since the restrictions were put in place, he added.

A Blainsville beaked whale is studied
for reactions to sonar. (Photo by Ari
Friedlaender courtesy Duke University)

“The reason there is no emergency is because the Navy is perfectly able to train under these circumstances,” he said.

The Navy had agreed to some of the restrictions in a similar case in Hawaii, Kendall added, but Cooper had reason to extend these limits.

“The problem that the judge had is that the Navy cannot be the judge of its own cause,” he said. “Deference does have its limits.”

Kendall said the Navy has downplayed the impact of mid-frequency active sonar on marine mammals even though it found concerns when it completed its environmental assessment.

That assessment predicted the sonar training exercises would disturb or injure an estimated 170,000 marine mammals, including permanent injury to more than 500 rare beaked whales.

“The evidence is overwhelming that beaked whales are being stranded by sonar and killed,” Kendall said. “Autopsies show they are hemorrhaging and dying.”

But Justice Stephen Breyer voiced concern that the Navy’s training needs may have been compromised.

“The Navy is saying, ‘If we can’t train personnel using these levels of sonar, we can’t train people to find submarines where they hide,’ Breyer said. “This makes me very nervous.”

Breyer, one of the court’s liberal justices, expressed his frustration with the dispute, questioning why environmentalists and the Navy had failed to reach a compromise.

“They are willing to give you quite a lot of conditions, and you say, well, we have got to have more conditions,” Breyer told Kendall. “And you are asking us who know nothing about whales and less about the military to start reading all these documents to try to figure out who’s right in the case where the other side says the other side is totally unreasonable.”

“And the issue at law seems to be something that is going to last for two months,” said Breyer, asking, “what is the important thing here?”

The important thing, Kendall replied, “is that the Navy is focused on having it its way or no way.”

But the Chief Justice Roberts called that remark “very unfair.”

“There were six conditions imposed by the district court. The Navy didn’t even appeal four of them – they gave up on four out of the six issues,” Roberts said. “That’s not insisting on having it their way.”

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the case early next year.

By J.R. Pegg

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PASADENA, California, September 21, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must set standards to control stormwater pollution from the construction of strip malls, subdivisions and other new developments, according to a decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The EPA and the National Association of Homebuilders had appealed a district court injunction requiring the standards in a case brought by conservation groups.

In its ruling Thursday, the appeals court upheld the injunction granted in the 2006 case brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance. The states of New York and Connecticut supported the conservation groups.

The conservationists said the decision will help to ensure that runoff from construction sites will not cause beach closings, waterborne disease, flooding, fish kills and contaminated drinking water supplies.

“This decision will go along way towards protecting America’s streams and rivers from the construction and development industry,” said Melanie Shepherdson, staff attorney at NRDC. “The court made it very clear that EPA can’t just shirk its responsibilities to rein in pollution from this industry.”

Excessive sediment, which is often the result of construction activity, is one of the leading causes of impairment of U.S. waters. Construction runoff threatens rivers, pollutes clean water sources and leads to excessive plant growth in water bodies.

“For too long EPA has turned away from the real work of protecting our waters. This decision forcefully reminds them of their duty to the American people and our waters,” said Jeffrey Odefey, staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance, a nonprofit organization with member groups throughout the United States and around the world.

“It’s time that EPA and the building industry demonstrate real leadership and took the necessary steps to prevent the destruction of our lakes, rivers and streams.”

Muddy runoff from a construction site in Monroe
County, Pennsylvania. (Photo courtesy
Monroe County)

The district court decided in favor of the plaintiff groups on the basis that the EPA failed to comply with the Clean Water Act by not performing its “non-discretionary duty” to promulgate new source performance standards and effluent limitation guidelines, or ELGs, for the construction industry.

The district court issued a permanent injunction requiring the EPA to issue these guidelines and standards for the construction industry no later than December 1, 2009. The appeals court upheld that ruling and the EPA must now abide by the injunction.

On bahalf of the three judge appellate panel, Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. wrote, “The EPA explained its decision ‘not to promulgate [ELGs] and standards’ by stating that it believed that construction site storm water discharges were already ‘being adequately addressed’ because the ‘existing NPDES’ regulations require permits for the vast majority of construction sites nationwide, and that the cost was “simply too high and … disproportionately large” given the reductions that would be attributable to the proposed ELGs.”

The EPA told the court that the annual cost of the proposed ELGs would be more than half a billion dollars and would result in the displacement of a number of jobs while the existing permit programs were capable of controlling 80-90 percent of sediment runoff from construction sites and the proposed rule would only remove an additional one percent more.

The EPA also decided not to promulgate new source performance standards because it said that discharges associated with construction activity generally are “not appropriately characterized as new sources,” and the definition of new source should be read to exclude construction sites.

So, the EPA removed the construction industry from effluent plans it published.

Although the EPA had identified stormwater discharges from the construction industry as a new category in its 2000 and 2002 effluent guidelines program plans, the agency did not identify the construction industry in its 2004 and 2006 plans based on the idea that discharges from this activity consist mostly of conventional pollutants, in this case, total suspended solids.

In its 2004 plan, the EPA stated that analysis under the Clean Water Act applies only to industrial categories of sources that are discharging non-trivial amounts of toxic or nonconventional pollutants to waters of the United States.

The EPA said it did not consider industrial activities where conventional pollutants, rather than toxic or non-conventional pollutants, to merit regulation under the 2004 and 2006 plans.

To read the appeals court’s decision, click here [docs.nrdc.org].

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LOS ANGELES, California, September 10, 2008 (ENS) – The Clean Truck Program for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach has survived a legal challenge by the American Trucking Associations. This federation of motor carriers, state trucking associations, and national trucking conferences had challenged a provision of the program that provides the ports with greater oversight over the trucks coming onto their property.

The ports, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Coalition for Clean Air argued that truckers need to sign contracts with the ports agreeing to proper and timely maintenance of trucks entering port property.

In a ruling issued late Tuesday U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder agreed. The decision was based on a hearing Monday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Calling the ruling an important clean air victory, David Pettit, NRDC senior attorney, said, “It is not enough to replace old dirty trucks with new dirty trucks, but that’s what will happen if the new trucks aren’t maintained adequately. We need to ensure that the clean air gains from the ports’ clean trucks programs remain over the long haul.”

“The judge’s ruling supports properly maintained, well-managed goods movement at the ports, which is good for business and good for the health of people living in ports communities,” Pettit said.

But the American Trucking Associations said today it will seek immediate review of Judge Snyder’s denial of ATA’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to halt implementation of their concession agreements.

Trucks entering the Port of Los Angeles
(Photo courtesy Port of Los Angeles)

ATA attorney Robert Digges Jr. told the court that ATA opposes the concession agreements but supports the Ports Clean Truck Programs, including the phased retirement of older trucks from the port operations and their replacement with newer, cleaner vehicles.

The port concession agreements that ATA opposes are not needed to meet the ports’ environmental goals, Digges argued.

Digges says the judge acknowledged that the ATA would likely succeed on the argument that the Ports’ Clean Truck Programs are preempted by federal law.

The judge also determined that the ports’ argument that they are sovereign tidelands was without support. However, the judge sided with the ports based on the security aspects of the ports’ plans.

In June, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed into law the Clean Truck Program, requiring all 16,000 diesel trucks at the ports to meet some of the toughest environmental standards in the nation.

The law is designed to reduce the numbers of premature deaths caused by inhaling the air pollution from port activities. Every year 2,400 premature deaths statewide and 1,200 in the South Coast Basin are caused by port-related pollution, according to the California Air Resources Board.

ATA said in a statement today that it is in full support of the ports’ environmental and security goals and supports the October 1, 2008 implementation of the elements of the Clean Truck Program necessary to address those goals, including the ban of pre-1989 trucks and the clean truck fee.

But the ATA said the ports are not prepared to put in place the systems needed to collect the ports’ clean truck fee and administer the ban on pre-1989 trucks by the October 1 program startup date.

In a detailed letter to the ports, the secretary of the Marine Terminal Operators noted that the ports’ have failed to develop and populate the Drayage Truck Registry, which will provide the individual truck data necessary to administer the program.

The Terminal Operators warned the ports that attempting to implement the program “without adequate preparation, testing and outreach could result in long truck lines at terminal gates, decreased productivity, and dissatisfaction among truckers, ocean carriers, and the shipping public.”

To avoid these problems the Marine Terminal Operators suggested that collection of the clean truck fee be postponed until January 1, 2009, and that the ban of pre-1989 trucks be delayed until at least November 1, 2009, and begun then only if the Drayage Truck Registry is in place.

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WASHINGTON, DC, August 19, 2008 (ENS) – The nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court in Washington DC to force the federal government to disclose studies on the effect of a new pesticide on honey bees.

Studies on the pesticide, clothianidin, were ordered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from the pesticide’s manufacturer, Bayer CropScience, in 2003 when the federal agency granted the company a registration for the chemical.

An NRDC bee researcher and the organization’s attorneys believe that the EPA has evidence of connections between pesticides and the mysterious honey bee die-offs reported across the country called “colony collapse disorder,” or CCD, that it has not made public.

The connection is important because commercial honey bees pollinate about 90 of the country’s crops, valued at $15 billion. Apples, peaches, pears, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, cherries, berries, peppers, squash, soybeans, almonds, cashews, and sunflowers all require or benefit from honey bee pollination.

The EPA has failed to respond to the NRDC’s Freedom of Information Act request for agency records concerning the toxicity of pesticides to bees, prompting Monday’s legal action.

“Recently approved pesticides have been implicated in massive bee die-offs and are the focus of increasing scientific scrutiny,” said NRDC attorney Aaron Colangelo. “EPA should be evaluating the risks to bees before approving new pesticides, but now refuses to tell the public what it knows.”

“Pesticide restrictions might be at the heart of the solution to this growing crisis, so why hide the information they should be using to make those decisions?” Calangelo asked.

At an apiary by the Susquehanna River
in Pennsylvania, bees fill the air as
beekeepers examine hives for disease.
(Photo courtesy Penn State)

The EPA has issued a fact sheet on clothianidin, one of a relatively new class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids that impact the central nervous system of insects.

Maryann Frazier, who works with Pennsylvania State University as an extension associate in entomology, says in a paper on neonicotinoids and bees that, “There is conflicting information about the affects of neonicotinoids on honey bees, and different chemicals in this class are known to vary in their toxicity to bees, however the EPA identifies both imidacloprid and clothianidin as highly toxic to honey bees.”

The use of clothianidin and other insecticides of this class has “increased dramatically” over the past few years and they are now the most widely used group of insecticides in the United States, Frazier says.

“Their uses include: seed treatments for corn, cotton, canola and sunflowers; foliar sprays of fruit, nut and coffee crops; granular, and liquid drench applications in turf, ornamentals, fruit crops and in forests,” she explains.

The EPA fact sheet says of clothianidin, “It has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other non-target pollinators through the translocation of clothianidin resides in nectar and pollen. In honey bees, the affects of this toxic chronic exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal effects in the larvae and reproductive effects on the queen.”

In addition, says Frazier, “there is concern about the practice of combining certain insecticides and fungicides.” She cites a North Carolina University study found that some neonicotinoids in combination with certain fungicides, synergized to increase the toxicity of the neonicotinoid to honey bees over 1,000 fold in lab studies.

Colony collapse disorder has claimed more than one-third of honey bees in the United States since it was first identified in 2006. A survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America published in May found that losses of honey bees nationwide topped 36 percent of managed hives between September 2007 and March 2008, compared to a 31 percent loss during the same period a year earlier.

The chemical is sold under the brand name “Poncho” by Bayer AG in Germany, where it was banned in May after an unauthorized release that Bayer blames on an “extremely rare” “application error.” In fact, Germany banned the entire class of neonicotinoids.

Another Bayer neonicotinoid, imidacloprid, has been blamed in France and South Dakota for colony collapse disorder. In South Dakota, farmers are suing, and the French government has banned the chemical for use on sunflower seeds.

Scientists have not yet pinned down the cause of colony collapse disorder but they believe it is linked in part to pesticides.

Penn State research has documented more than 70 pesticides in pollen and bees, information that was presented Monday at a national American Chemical Society meeting in Philadelphia.

“We do not know that these chemicals have anything to do with Colony Collapse Disorder, but they are definitely stressors in the home and in the food sources,” says the Penn State scientist who conducted this research, Dr. James Frazier. “Pesticides alone have not shown they are the cause of CCD. We believe that it is a combination of a variety of factors, possibly including mites, viruses and pesticides.”

“This is a real mystery right now,” said Dr. Gabriela Chavarria, director of NRDC’s Science Center. “EPA needs to help shed some light so that researchers can get to work on this problem. This isn’t just an issue for farmers – this is an issue that concerns us all.”

In documents to be filed next month, NRDC attorneys will ask for a court order directing the EPA to disclose its information about pesticides and bee toxicity.

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LOS ANGELES, California, August 11, 2008 (ENS) – The association representing most of the country’s municipal sewerage agencies says it is satisfied with an settlement reached Friday that ensures its members will be represented as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency develops new criteria for beach water quality.

The head of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies said today he is pleased with the agreement the association reached Friday with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Los Angeles County in litigation over new recreational water quality criteria.

“The number one goal of NACWA member agencies is to provide strong protections for public health and the environment,” said Ken Kirk, NACWA executive director.

“This agreement will help ensure that the best scientific data available is used in developing recreational water quality criteria so that we can continue to responsibly provide those protections,” said Kirk. “We welcome the opportunity to work with EPA and other key stakeholders in this important process.”

The new clean beach water criteria are required by Congress under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act, commonly called the BEACH Act.

Beach at Santa Cruz, California
(Photo by Carlos Martinez)

The settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, resulted from a lawsuit filed in September 2006 by the Natural Resources Defense Council after the EPA did not meet its 2005 deadline under the BEACH Act for publishing new criteria for recreational water quality.

The settlement requires the EPA to complete the necessary scientific studies to develop new recreational water quality criteria by December 2010 and will publish the criteria in the Federal Register no later than October 2012 – seven years after the original deadline.

EPA has committed to carry out a study that will determine indicators for the new water quality criteria that will be protective of public health and based on sound science.

Under the settlement, the EPA has agreed to conduct studies in a variety of different geographic regions across the country as well as beaches impaired by different forms of water contamination.

The federal agency also has committed to following many of the recommendations and suggested studies outlined in the agency’s Critical Path Science Plan, drafted in August 2007 by a panel of international water quality experts, outlining the key studies necessary to develop new or revised water quality criteria.

The agreement also commits the EPA to validate and publish a rapid test method for the new criteria by October 2012. The rapid test method will be based on indicators selected by the agency during the research period and will be validated through an inter-laboratory study.

Stakeholders will be able to have input during the scientific study period and criteria development process.

The agreement requires EPA to convene at least one stakeholder workshop a year during 2009, 2010, and 2011 to provide an opportunity for people to receive an update on EPA’s efforts and offer input.

Additionally, the agency will convene an experts scientific workshop no later than December 2011 involving both EPA and external scientists to review the data collected during the scientific study period and determine if there are additional studies and data required to develop scientifically valid recreational water criteria.

Kirk says this experts workshop will provide “an important off-ramp” during the criteria development process to ensure that the necessary scientific data needed for meaningful criteria development has been obtained and was a key priority raised by NACWA during the settlement negotiations.

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