SEATTLE, Washington, February 16, 2009 (ENS) – The Washington State Pollution Control Hearings Board has found provisions in the state’s 2007 Phase II municipal stormwater general permit to be legally inadequate. The permit regulates stormwater controls in 85 cities and portions of several counties around Puget Sound.

In its February 3 ruling, the Board affirmed its August 2008 ruling that the largest Puget Sound cities and counties must take more aggressive steps to reduce stormwater runoff, including mandatory use of low impact development techniques.

While finding that the smaller Phase II cities and counties do not need to mandate the default use of low impact development immediately as the larger Phase I jurisdictions do, the Board concluded that the state Department of Ecology must do more to implement low impact development in these areas in the near future.

The ruling indicates that greater use of low impact development techniques such as reduced impervious areas, greater protection of native vegetation, and onsite stormwater management will be necessary.

“The Board effectively affirmed what we all know to be true – existing stormwater programs are not adequate to meet our shared goals of protecting and restoring the health of Puget Sound by 2020,” said Sue Joerger of Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. “It’s time to aggressively implement stronger controls before more damage is done.”

Stormwater runoff from roads and rooftops that is discharged to the lakes, rivers, streams that empty into Puget Sound has been cited as the number one threat to the health of the water body.

Beckoning Cistern, a stormwater sculpture by Buster Simpson at 81 Vine Street, Seattle, collects roof water flow and spills the water into an adjacent planter. (Photo courtesy City of Seattle)

Stormwater contains toxic metals, oil and grease, pesticides and herbicides, and bacteria and nutrients. Recent research of stormwater runoff from industrial areas and highways indicates that when it rains, toxic metals, particularly copper and zinc, are discharged in amounts that degrade water quality and kill marine life, said Joerger.

Stormwater volumes erode stream banks, deposit sediment, and widen channels enough to damage fish and wildlife habitat. Some studies show urban creeks in the Puget Sound area to be so degraded that adult salmon are killed within minutes of entering the stream.

“The Puget Sound Partnership, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. EPA, and countless other scientific bodies are telling us that we need to dramatically change the way we manage stormwater,” said Kathy Fletcher, executive director of the nonprofit People for Puget Sound. “The region should begin aggressively implementing the most effective practices immediately.”

Still, the Board decided not to require immediate use of low impact development as a default technique wherever feasible, opting instead for a suite of measures to phase in greater use of low impact development in these smaller jurisdictions during the remainder of the five year permit term.

The Board ordered the Department of Ecology to set forth “additional requirements with respect to broader use of low impact development during this permit term, and in anticipation of the next.”

Specifically, the Board directed the state agency to amend the permit to:

require the identification and elimination of barriers to implementing low impact development

require the identification of low impact development practices that can be implemented immediately

require the establishment of goals and metrics to “identify, promote, and measure” low impact development use, including schedules by which Phase II jurisdictions will require such techniques.

“The future of Puget Sound is at stake,” said Jan Hasselman, an attorney for Earthjustice who represented the nonprofit groups. “While the Board gave the Phase II jurisdictions more flexibility in the timing, there is no doubt that the region will have to transition to much greater reliance on low impact development and better land use planning. There’s no more excuse for delay.”

The Board ruled against the environmental appellants on several other challenges, including the permit’s coverage area, the regulatory thresholds, and the lack of monitoring. No decision has been made on appeals.

Click here [www.earthjustice.org] for a copy of the Washington State Pollution Control Hearings Board decision.

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

WASHINGTON, DC, January 7, 2008 (ENS) – Nearly 100 coal ash dumps across the United States pose similar or even greater potential dangers than the eastern Tennessee site that spilled a billion gallons of toxic sludge and contaminated water last month, finds a report released today by environmentalists.

The study warns that the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to the risks of coal ash ponds, bowing to industry wishes and leaving the sites free from federal regulation and largely unmonitored.

The December 22, 2008 disaster at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired power plant highlighted the “inexcusable lack of regulation of this kind of disposal,” said Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which produced the new study.

EIP analyzed industry data submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the presence of six heavy metals – arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel, selenium and thallium – in coal ash ponds similar to the one that ruptured at the Kingston site.

Heavy equipment is dwarfed by the coal ash spill from TVA’s Kingston Fossil power plant. January 4, 2009 (Photo courtesy TVA)

Analysts found nearly 100 sites, including the one in Kingston, where more than a total of 124 million pounds of coal ash containing the six metals have been disposed between 2000 and 2006.

Nearby communities are not just at risk from huge spills like the one in Tennessee, Schaeffer said, but are at perhaps even greater risk from the steady, long-term leaching of toxic metals into drinking water supplies.

The report finds that a total of 13 states have at least three coal ash dumps on the 50-worst toxic chemical lists.

Indiana tops the list with 11 sites, followed by Ohio with eight. Kentucky and Alabama have seven sites, Georgia and North Carolina have six each, while West Virginia and Tennessee have four. Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wyoming each have three sites.

It found the TVA’s Kingston site was in the top 50 for all of the heavy metals except for thallium.

“Our analysis confirms that this problem is truly national in scope and that Tennessee may end up only being a warning sign of much more trouble to come,” Schaeffer said.

EIP’s report recommends the phaseout of all wet storage of toxic coal ash, immediate inspection and monitoring of existing sites and federal regulation of all coal ash storage and disposal by the end of 2009.

“This open pit disposal of toxic waste has got to end,” said Christopher Irwin, a staff attorney with United Mountain Defense, an environmental group located in Knoxville, Tennessee

The report comes as the Tennessee community of Harriman is struggling to come to terms with the devastation left by the spill, which occurred after the retaining wall of a 40-acre coal ash pond ruptured at the Kingston site.

The spill dumped some 5.4 million cubic yards of ashy sludge and contaminated water across 400 acres at the confluence of the Emory and Clinch Rivers, burying 12 homes and other buildings in more than four feet of sludge.

Federal and private analyses have found elevated levels of an array of heavy metals, including arsenic levels of more than 149 times the maximum allowable levels.

A barge-mounted vacuum is used to remove coal ash from the Emory River (Photo courtesy TVA)

TVA officials have suggested that cold weather and heavy rains are to blame for the spill, but there is evidence they knew of structural problems for several years and failed to act.

A coalition of local residents and environmental groups sent notice to TVA on Tuesday that they intend to sue the federal government utility for negligence and will ask a federal court to oversee the cleanup and remediation of the contaminated area.

“This catastrophic spill was a colossal tragedy, and the Tennessee Valley Authority could have avoided this disaster had it taken its responsibilities seriously,” said Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club, which announced the lawsuit.

“This massive spill reminds us that coal is not clean, and coal is not cheap,” he said.

But cost is a major factor driving decisions on how to store coal ash, as utilities have been largely free to choose how they discard or store the waste. Federal regulators have been considering the issue of coal ash disposal for nearly three decades, but have failed to take serious action or impose regulations on industry.

Although some of the residues of coal ash are used to make industrial products such as cement and wallboard, most of it is disposed of in landfills or mixed with water and stored in ponds or surface impoundments.

Wet storage of coal ash is attractive to industry as it is relatively cheap and often eliminates the need to transport the waste off-site. But the method is far from secure and many of these sites are not lined to protect toxic metals from leaching into water supplies.

“These sites leak all the time,” Schaeffer told reporters on a telephone press briefing.

There is also “no effort to go out and inspect” these sites, said Linda Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm.

Driven by such concerns, environmentalists and public health advocates have pressed for the federal government to require coal ash be treated as hazardous waste and deposited into properly lined landfills.

In 2000, the EPA indicated it was ready to follow that advice and warned that many wet storage sites posed serious risks to public health and the environment.

But industry protested loudly, raising concerns about cost and suggesting that defining coal ash as hazardous waste could undermine efforts to recycle more of the material for industrial uses.

The EPA subsequently abandoned the effort and left regulation to the states.

“Most states have fallen down miserably on the job,” Evans told reporters.

After touring the TVA spill site last week, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen said state inspectors would visit all coal-fired facilities in the state.

Environmentalists say the costs of safer storage pale in comparison to costs of cleanup and see the argument that stricter regulation would impede reuse of the material as a red herring.

Schaeffer said, “We can no longer afford to ignore this problem and we certainly can’t be content to just sit around and wait for the next Tennessee-style disaster to happen.”

The EIP report can be found here [www.environmentalintegrity.org].

By J.R. Pegg

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

OLYMPIA, Washington, November 10, 2008 (ENS) – Each year, 52 million pounds of toxic chemicals – nearly 150,000 pounds per day – inundate Puget Sound with contaminated runoff. This amounts to a toxic spill the size of Exxon Valdez every two years, according to the Puget Sound Partnership, a community effort of governments, tribes, scientists and businesses working together to restore and protect the Sound.

The toxic chemicals include oil and petroleum products, lead, and phthalates – and one million pounds of toxic metals such as zinc and copper. These metals, despite being released in lower concentrations than oil and petroleum, can harm threatened salmon species.

“These disturbing numbers are putting more than 40 species in Puget Sound at risk, including the Sound’s orca population, where we just saw a decline of nearly 10 percent in the past several months,” said the Partnership’s Executive Director David Dicks.

The Puget Sound Partnership Thursday released a draft Action Agenda for protecting, restoring and cleaning up Puget Sound, which encompasses the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area, home to about five million people.

Puget Sound as seen from the Seattle
Space Needle (Photo credit unknown)

The draft Action Agenda recommends using “a comprehensive and integrated approach to managing urban stormwater and rural surface water runoff.”

“By protecting the last remaining intact places, problems can be prevented before they occur, which is the best and most cost-effective approach to restoring ecosystem health,” the draft agenda states.

Among other measures, it would establish and maintain locally coordinated, effective on-site sewage system management to reduce pollutant loading to vulnerable surface waters.

It would prevent pollutants from being introduced into Puget Sound ecosystems in the first place, and to deal with contaminants already in the Sound it would prioritize and implement projects to clean up toxic contamination in water and upland areas.

If the draft agenda is adopted, it would protect and conserve stream flows for natural system and human uses and focus growth away from ecologically important and sensitive areas by encouraging dense, compact cities and vital rural communities.

“Human activities have vastly altered the ecosystem during the past 150 years,” the draft agenda states. “Restoration efforts need to bring large portions of river, wetland and marine systems back to life.”

Under the plan, the Partnership would implement and maintain priority ecosystem restoration projects for marine, nearshore, estuary, freshwater riparian and uplands.

It would revitalize waterfront communities while enhancing marine and freshwater shoreline environments and increase private landowners’ ability to undertake restoration projects.

New analysis supporting the draft Action Agenda identifies some “alarming” facts and trends related to the health of Puget Sound, said Dicks.

Two pollution reports, “Pollutant Loadings for Surface Runoff and Roadways” and “Improved Estimates of Loadings from Dischargers of Municipal and Industrial Wastewater,” confirm the state’s previous findings that surface runoff is the main pathway of the toxic chemicals getting into the Sound.

The primary sources of toxics to Puget Sound are the day-to-day activities of people, as the population grows and land gets more and more developed.

The estimates are based on current knowledge about toxic pollutants from surface runoff, air deposition, wastewater from discharge pipes, direct spills into the water and combined sewer/stormwater overflows only.

The reports, and a summary document, can be found online at www.ecy.wa.gov

The draft Action Agenda is subject to a public comment period that ends on November 20.

For convenience, an online “open house” has been added to the Partnership’s website for collecting comments: www.psp.wa.gov.

In addition, two public meetings, both beginning at 9 am, will be held this month to solicit feedback:

* Nov. 11: Embassy Suites Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Triple Crown Ballroom, 15920 W. Valley Highway, Seattle
* Nov. 21: Edmonds Conference Center

The Partnership’s Leadership Council will adopt the final Action Agenda on December 1 at a Sound-wide celebration event in Seattle.

“The Action Agenda is the best chance we have to repair the damage to Puget Sound and ensure we leave a legacy of a clean and healthy Puget Sound for our children and grandchildren,” Dicks said. “Success truly depends on all of us coming together and being a part of the solution.”

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

SILVER SPRING, Maryland, May 12, 2008 (ENS) – U.S. environmental laws enacted in the 1970s are reducing overall contaminant levels in coastal waters of the United States, finds a 20 year study released today by scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA. But the study shows continuing elevated levels of toxic metals and oils near urban and industrial areas of the coast.

Oil related compounds from motor vehicles and shipping activities continue to flow into coastal waters daily, NOAA reports. These compounds, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, have been monitored by NOAA scientists for decades so baseline data exist to help define the extent of environmental degradation.

For example, PAH levels following the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay showed concentrations at the monitoring site near the spill were the highest ever recorded.

The Department of Health and Human Services has determined that some PAHs “may reasonably be expected to be carcinogens.”

Gunnar Lauenstein is manager of the NOAA
Mussel Watch program. (Photo
courtesy NOAA)

“What is of concern is that there are contaminants that continue to be problematic, including oil-related compounds from motor vehicles and shipping activities,” said Gunnar Lauenstein, manager of the NOAA Mussel Watch program, which produced the report.

The longest continuous national contaminant-monitoring program in U.S. coastal waters, the Mussel Watch program analyzes chemical and biological contaminant trends in sediment and bivalve tissue collected at over 280 coastal sites from 1986 to present.

“The Mussel Watch Program 20-year assessment is a concise and informative review of contaminant monitoring in the nation’s coastal waters,” said Jack Schwartz with Massachusetts Marine Fisheries. “This report should well serve readers who may not necessarily be conversant with scientific literature on contaminant monitoring and fate and effects.”

The NOAA Mussel Watch scientists have monitored and analyzed 140 different chemicals in U.S. coastal and estuarine areas, including the Great Lakes.

“It’s interesting to note that pesticides, such as DDT, and industrial chemicals, such as PCBs, show significant decreasing trends around the nation, but similar trends were not found for trace metals,” said Lauenstein.

Scientist in the field packages oysters for
shipment back to the laboratory
where they are analyzed for
contaminants. (Photo
courtesy NOAA)

The report, “NOAA National Status and Trends Mussel Watch Program: An Assessment of Two Decades of Contaminant Monitoring in the Nation’s Coastal Zone from 1986-2005,” is the first that presents national, regional, and local findings in a quick reference format, suitable for use by policymakers, scientists, resource managers and the public.

“We need to ensure the safety of our coastal waters for the rich resources they provide,” said John Dunnigan, NOAA assistant administrator of the National Ocean Service. “This program shows that although our coasts are under tremendous pressure, policymakers and the public are able to work together to produce positive results.”

The report shows decreasing trends nationally of the pesticide DDT, although a majority of the sites monitored are along the Southern California coast.

Decreasing trends also were found for the industrial chemicals polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The Hudson-Raritan Estuary in New York and New Jersey, one area of the country where some of the highest concentrations of these chemicals were found, now shows 80 percent of monitored sites with decreasing trends for this pollutant.

Tributyl-tin, a biocide used as a compound to reduce or restrict the growth of marine organisms on boat hulls, was found to have greater than anticipated consequences as it affected not only the targeted organisms, but also other marine and freshwater life as well. First regulated in the 1980s, this compound is now decreasing nationally.

Flame retardants known as PBDEs are a new class of contaminants currently being evaluated by the Mussel Watch Program to determine whether they are increasing in coastal waters and what effects they may have on both marine and human health.

The program keeps collected tissue samples frozen so that overlooked or newly emerging contaminants can be retroactively analyzed, as is currently being done with flame retardants.

NOAA plans to issue a report on flame retardants in coastal waters later this year.

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.