Environment Archives - Page 35 of 107

Cariboo Regional District declares state of emergency after Mount Polley mine tailings pond breach in B.C.

Gordon Hoekstra, Tara Carman, Postmedia News | August 6, 2014 11:25 AM ET

Contents from a tailings pond is pictured going down the Hazeltine Creek into Quesnel Lake near the town of Likely, B.C. Tuesday, August, 5, 2014. The pond which stores toxic waste from the Mount Polley Mine had its dam break on Monday spilling its contents into the Hazeltine Creek causing a wide water-use ban in the area.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardContents from a tailings pond is pictured going down the Hazeltine Creek into Quesnel Lake near the town of Likely, B.C. Tuesday, August, 5, 2014. The pond which stores toxic waste from the Mount Polley Mine had its dam break on Monday spilling its contents into the Hazeltine Creek causing a wide water-use ban in the area.

The millions of cubic metres of water that poured out of Mount Polley mine when the dam collapsed had failed provincial water quality guidelines for human and aquatic health in the past, according to the B.C. environment ministry and early Wednesday the Cariboo Regional District declared a state of local emergency.

Data sent to the ministry by Mount Polley as recently as Monday showed that selenium concentration exceeded drinking water guidelines by a factor of 2.8 times.

There have also been drinking water exceedances of sulphate over the last few years, according to information supplied to The Vancouver Sun by environment ministry spokesman Dave Crebo.

Aquatic water guidelines have also been exceeded in the past for nitrate, cadmium, copper and iron.

Al Richmond, of the Cariboo Regional District, said water tests were being expedited and results are expected by Thursday.

The Regional District declared a state of local emergency early Wednesday. The move will allow access to additional resources that may be needed to further protect the private property and government infrastructure in Likely.

The release of 10 million cubic metres of water — enough to fill B.C. Place more than four times — is also potentially contaminated with toxic metals such as arsenic and mercury, a concern for hundreds of area residents’ water supply and important salmon habitat.

According to 2013 data the company released to Environment Canada on disposal of chemicals, Mount Polley mine disposed of almost 84,000 kilograms of arsenic and its compounds through tailings last year, as well as about 1,000 kg of cadmium, 38,000 kg of lead and 562 kg of mercury.

Mount Polley, operated by Imperial Metals, is an open-pit copper and gold mine with a four-kilometre-wide tailings pond built with an earthen dam located in central B.C., west of Williams Lake and near the community of Likely.

Provincial officials are conducting tests of water samples from the area. Until results come back, the severity of the contamination remains unknown and a drinking water ban remains in effect for about 300 people in the immediate vicinity.

Imperial Metals president Bryan Kynoch apologized to Likely-area residents gathered at a community hall Tuesday afternoon, and said the company would do all it could to make right the effects of the dam collapse. “I know it’s going to take a long time to earn the community’s trust back,” he said. “This is a gut-wrenching experience, I know for you, but I can assure you it is for me.”

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan HaywardA aerial view shows the debris going into Quesnel Lake caused by a tailings pond breach near the town of Likely, B.C. Tuesday, August, 5, 2014. The pond which stores toxic waste from the Mount Polley Mine had its dam break on Monday spilling its contents into the Hazeltine Creek causing a wide water-use ban in the area.

Making it right includes reclaiming the environment, but also compensating in areas such as potential tourism business losses, he said.

More than 150 townspeople crowded into the hall to hear from Kynoch, provincial Mines Minister Bill Bennett and regional district officials.

Kynoch said he did not know why the dam collapsed, but acknowledged it is not supposed to happen.

He said he believed there was not likely to be danger to people, fish and animals.

Asked if he would drink the water, Kynoch shot back: “Yes, I’d drink the water.”

The company would soon have boats in the water to ensure that the debris did not reach the bridge in the community, Kynoch added.

He said he couldn’t say whether the mine would reopen, but noted that he would do all in his power to ensure it did.

Al McMillan and Judy Siemens were skeptical about Kynoch’s assurances there was likely to be no serious effects from the tailings spill. They and their pets are suffering from the water ban, and are concerned the slurry spilled into Hazeltine Creek will pose a problem over time, as it could bleed into the lake during rains.

McMillan took his aluminum boat to view where the creek spilled debris into the lake, and said the water made a sizzling, fizzing sound similar to when a pop is opened, which he believes were substances in the water reacting to his boat.

“I’ve seen five or six fish float by my dock, and a family of otters were feeding on them. What’s going to be the effect on them?” he asked.

Anthony Mack of the Xatsull First Nation spoke up at the meeting, questioning Kynoch’s belief the tests would show the environment was not harmed. In an interview, he said they will be conducting their own tests. “We do not trust industry or government,” said Mack.

Imperial Metals said early water tests are encouraging, with no mercury detected and arsenic levels about one-fifth of drinking water quality.

Suspended in the water is another 4.5 million cubic metres of fine sand, which contains the heavy metals.

Of these, the most hazardous to human and environmental health are arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead and mercury, said John Werring, senior science and policy adviser at the David Suzuki Foundation.

These are materials that are deemed “priority pollutants” by Environment Canada because they are known to be toxic, cause cancer, birth defects or genetic mutations and accumulate up the food chain, he said. Mercury and lead affect the nervous system.

“Understand that this stuff is washing into a big lake and it will dilute, but as it’s closer to the source, depending on the concentration of those chemicals, they can be lethal. It would be less lethal but still harmful the farther away you go and the longer it is put into the environment, there’s a greater opportunity that over time, the food chain will absorb it.”

The same applies to highly toxic non-metallic chemicals present in tailings that are used to separate metals during the mining process, but companies are not required to report amounts of these substances to Environment Canada, Werring said.

“These chemicals are there and I highly doubt that even now with the kind of water quality testing that’s going to be undertaken … they’re not even going to look for those.”

This is a serious incident that should not have happened

The cause of the breach, which occurred at 3:45 a.m. Monday, remains unknown. Mine personnel and instruments detected no indication of an impending breach, according to a statement from Imperial Metals.

Officials from the provincial Ministry of Energy and Mines are investigating the site at Mount Polley, Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett said in a statement Tuesday.

“This is a serious incident that should not have happened,” Bennett said Tuesday. “We are devoting every appropriate resource working with local officials to clean up the site, mitigate any impacts to communities and the environment, and investigate the cause of the breach. We will determine the cause of the event and we are determined to prevent an incident like this from happening again.”

In an interview in Likely, where Bennett spoke to the community, he said the last dam inspection was in September 2013. They also took a look at the dam’s water levels in May when the water was high, but found no problems, he said. “They’ve been in compliance,” said Bennett.

He said he expected to get water samples back in a day or two, which would be shared with the public.

The comprehensive investigation of the collapse would take longer, noted Bennett.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Cariboo Regional DistrictThe tailings pond of the Mount Polley mine, southeast of Quesnel, was breached, discharging waste water into Hazeltine Creek (shown ) on Monday, Aug. 4, 2014.

There remains a complete ban on drinking, swimming and bathing in the waterways surrounding the mine, including Polley Lake, Quesnel Lake, Cariboo Creek, Hazeltine Creek and the entire Quesnel and Cariboo Rivers systems right to the Fraser River.

The ban does not apply to people in Williams Lake or other towns along the Fraser.

Residents have been told not to allow pets or livestock to drink the water.

Likely resident Doug Watt said Tuesday that he was just starting to see the first debris from the breach float by his home on Quesnel Lake, where he gets all his drinking water.

Watt, whose water supply was cut off while his son, daughter-in-law and two small grandchildren were visiting on the weekend, stockpiled water from the lake as soon as they heard about the breach, knowing it would take several hours before any contaminants reached their area.

“We just filled up all sorts of containers.”

Watt said he is frustrated by a lack of information about water quality and availability. The first formal notice he received from authorities was a paper notice from the Cariboo Regional District taped to his door Tuesday morning warning people not to drink the water and directing them to the district’s Facebook page for more information, “which is fine if you have Internet. Many people don’t,” he said, noting that his Internet is unreliable.

“There’s a lot of confusion and I think a lot of people are very scared. People that are working at the mine have mortgages and kids to feed. They’re wondering what’s going to happen now … we can’t drink the water, but they don’t have the money to go buy the water.”

Important fish and wildlife habitat alongside Hazeltine Creek has been destroyed by the spill and is unlikely to recover as the fine sediment settles into the ground, Werring said. The full environmental impact won’t be known for decades, as animals that graze on any vegetation that grows back in the contaminated area will also be affected and the effects of toxins such as mercury is amplified as it accumulates up the food chain over time, he pointed out.

“Over a lengthy period of time, we can see long-term metal contamination of fish and wildlife in that area.”

We can see long-term metal contamination of fish and wildlife in that area

Consultants hired by local First Nations and mine owner Imperial Metals raised flags about the capacity of the tailings ponds as far back as 2011.

“The tailings pond was filling out and they needed to get rid of the water,” said consultant Brian Olding of the dam, which he described as “earthen.” “The walls were getting too high and the water was getting too high.”

In 2009, the mine applied to the B.C. Environment Ministry for a permit to discharge effluent into Hazeltine Creek. An amended permit was approved in 2012.

Watt, who worked at the mine as a metallurgist and shift supervisor nine years ago, said there were problems with the tailings ponds overflowing as recently as last winter, but the overflow was contained in retaining pools.

Werring, who is familiar with the environmental assessment process for mines, said tailings can be more safely managed by dehydrating them to make bricks, and then stacking them in such a way that water flow can be managed through them.

“It’s more expensive and it’s typically always written off,” he said.

Canadian protesters set up camp — politely — along Line 9 pipeline

By: Heather Smith, Grist

This morning, a group of protesters drove through the farm country of Kitchener, Ontario. They pulled up at a dirt-and-gravel-paved job site occupied by a security guard.

The guard knew the drill. While he phoned everyone who normally reported to the job site to tell them not to come in to work that day, the protesters set up camp. They posted a statement on Tumblr, inviting any interested parties to come and join them, along with guidelines for the occupation:

Here are some things to keep in mind while visiting the Dam Line 9 Action:

– We are on stolen Indigenous land. Deshkaan Ziibing (Antler River, so-called Thames River), Anishinabek territory.

– Have fun, but also remember that this is a site of struggle.

All summer, protesters have been appearing at job sites along the path of Line 9 — a pipeline that had lived in obscurity until the regulatory limbo surrounding the approval of Keystone XL made it famous. Enbridge, the Canadian company that owns Line 9, announced plans to expand it and to reverse its flow. Normally the pipe carries crude from Africa and the Middle East into Canada’s heart; Enbridge would like it to move oil from the Alberta tar sands to Quebec, where it could be refined and exported.

Line 9 is 38 years old, and crosses the path of every river that drains into Lake Ontario. But because it was already in the ground, it didn’t require the same standards of approval that a new pipeline would. The reversal was approved by Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) last March, after several months of contentious public hearings, which adhered to a newly developed rule that required anyone who wanted to make a public comment to submit a 10-page application for approval first.

One of the protesters, Dan Kellar, was working on a PhD in environmental impact assessment and the application of environmental laws, so he was able to navigate the application process well enough to submit a comment, along with a group called Grand River Indigenous Solidarity. The NEB, unswayed, approve the pipeline anyway.

Then something unexpected happened. In June, the NEB ruled that the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation had not been adequately consulted on the portion of Line 9 that passed through their territory, which meant that they had the right to appeal the expansion. This was one of several rulings in the last few months that have greatly expanded First Nations power over what happens on Canadian soil.

Still, while the appeal works its way through the system, the NEB has allowed the retrofit to continue. That’s why the protests at various sites along the retrofit’s pathway have continued, too.

In this latest case, the work being stopped is a valve replacement, but most of the projects that the protesters have interrupted have been “integrity digs” — areas where Enbridge has dug up a section of the pipeline to check it for leaks.

Most of the occupations last for a few days, according to Rachel Avery, one of the protesters at the site. In this case, police told the protesters that they would be checking in on the site at 6 p.m., but gave no word as to whether they had plans to arrest anyone.

In the meantime, says Avery, there’s lots of stuff to do, like set up tents and shade structures, and install solar panels. There’s also plenty of time to educate curious passers-by about the hydrology of the local watershed.

That’s what the call-out to visit on Tumblr was about — kind of like a consciousness-raising group, but under threat of arrest. Why not turn your site occupation into an educational opportunity? It’s just another way, says Avery, “to build a stronger movement.”

As this report went to press, the protesters had settled in for a frisbee match.

Frackers are strip-mining the Midwest for sand

By: Brentin Mock, Grist

Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

There’s a new gold rush: sand. The golden-brown stuff has become the latest, hottest commodity on the market — actually, that’s inaccurate. It’s Northern White sand that’s all the rage now, according to The Wall Street Journal, because it can withstand intense heat and pressure underground. Why is that important? Because what’s driving the white sand demand is fracking.

The process of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas involves blasting a mixture of sand, water and chemicals into the underground shale rock. It can take millions of gallons of water for a fracking operation (which can result in poisoned groundwater). But dig the numbers on sand: It can take 4 million pounds of sand to frack a single well, according to WSJ’s Alison Sider.

Which is why sand prices and stock values are going up and mining activities for sand are expanding, notably in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

“Residents of those areas are less than happy — the hyperactive mining of sand has seen a massive public backlash about the truck traffic, dust, and breathing problems,” wrote Cassie Werber in the WSJ’s Energy Journal newsletter today.

It’s not just environmentally questionable practices like fracking that are contributing to the sand demand. Clean energy and tech enthusiasts are fueling the market as well. “Sand is a key ingredient in items from solar panels to smartphones,” Sider points out.

But the numbers for fracking are pretty staggering. Again from Sider:

Frackers are expected to use nearly 95 billion pounds of sand this year, up nearly 30 percent from 2013 and up 50 percent from forecasts made by energy-consulting firm PacWest Consulting Partners a year ago.

It can take four million pounds of sand to frack a single well, but several companies are experimenting with using more. Companies like Pioneer Natural Resources Inc., which recently received a ruling from the U.S. Commerce Department allowing it to export unrefined ultralight oil produced from shale formations, are finding that the output of wells is up to 30% higher when they’re blasted with more sand. About a fifth of onshore wells are now being fracked with extra sand, but the technique could expand to 80% of all shale wells, according to energy analysts at RBC Capital Markets.

The last time people went rushing for sand it was to cover our coasts for beach resorts — a regrettable decision in most coastal areas given it’s made them vulnerable to erosion, rising sea levels, and other climate change impacts. Hopefully, the goldrushers are thinking more long-term on these new prospects.

Lightning-Sparked Wildfire In Central Washington Grows

By Anna King, NW News Network

Firefighters are battling the lightning-strike Snag Canyon Fire that’s grown quite large just north of Ellensburg.

The Snag Canyon Fire is sending plumes of smoke mixing with storm clouds above tinder-dry hillsides just outside of Ellensburg, Washington.

Credit Anna King / Northwest News Network

It’s burned nearly 2,000 acres and is challenging firefighters who are trying to secure lines closest to town.

Sarah Foster, an information officer with Washington State Incident Management Team 1, said the Snag Canyon Fire grew quickly over the weekend and the erratic winds are making it very unpredictable.

“We’re hoping that resources are coming in from all across the state and around the region to help fight this fire,” Foster said. “But as everyone knows with all the fires we’ve got in all of Eastern Washington and now in Oregon and other states as well, finding the resources is becoming more of a challenge.”

She said they just don’t have enough firefighters. An emergency shelter for livestock and other animals has been set up at the Kittitas County Fairgrounds. There are a few horses and dogs there so far.

Pollution From Columbia River Dams Must Be Disclosed

By: Associated Press; Source: OPB

The Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River. A legal settlement requires the Army Corps of Engineers to disclose the pollution that its dams put into the river. | credit: Amelia Templeton

For the first time in its history, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will have to disclose the amount of pollutants its dams are sending into waterways in a groundbreaking legal settlement that could have broad implications for the Corps’ hundreds of dams nationwide.

The Corps announced in a settlement on Monday that it will immediately notify the conservation group that filed the lawsuit of any oil spills among its eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Oregon and Washington.

The Corps will also apply to the Environmental Protection Agency for pollution permits, something the Corps has never done for the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

The settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon, ends the year-old consolidated lawsuit by the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper, which said the Corps violated the Clean Water Act by unmonitored, unpermitted oil discharges from the eight hydroelectric dams.

The settlement reflects the recent tack of the EPA regulating the environmental impacts of energy. The agency has recently come up with regulations of mountaintop removal for coal and fracking for oil and gas.

As part of the settlement, the Corps admits no wrongdoing, but will pay $143,000 and the consolidated cases were dismissed.

When contacted by The Associated Press, the Corps’ Northwest and national offices requested questions via email Monday and did not immediately comment on the settlement.

The settlement will allow oversight of the dams by the EPA. The agency had the authority to regulate the dams’ pollution before the settlement, but it could not compel the corps to file for a pollution permit. The Corps will also be forced to switch to a biodegradable lubricant for its dam machinery if an internal study finds that it’s financially feasible.

The Corps isn’t just a polluter, however. It’s also a regulator of pollution under the Clean Water Act. The act grants the Corps the authority to issue permits for the discharge of materials excavated from or put into U.S. waterways.

“Under the letter of the law, they have been engaged in unpermitted discharge for years,” said Melissa Powers, an environmental law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. “They should have long ago said, ‘This is how much we’re discharging. Here are the environmental impacts.’ “

Monday’s settlement will force the Corps’ hand. To discharge pollutants into waterways, the polluters must obtain permission from state and federal governments. Before the settlement, the EPA knew about the unpermitted discharges from the dams, but the Corps said in letters to state agencies that it is not accountable to the EPA.

The Corps argued in the same letters that disclosing the mechanical workings of the dam as part of an oil-discharge summary could compromise the dams’ security.

In July 2013, Columbia Riverkeeper sued and demanded to know what the Corps was sending into the water and how much of it was going in.

“When you’re not regulated under a permit, you don’t have to say what the impact (of pollution) on water was,” Powers said.

Nationally, the settlement could force all unpermitted dams to obtain National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits from the EPA.

Daniel Estrin, an environmental law professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, New York, said the settlement will make it impossible for the Corps to say that all of its pollutant-discharging dams don’t require discharge permits.

“The Corps’ acknowledgement of the need for permits in this settlement will make it difficult for other owners to successfully deny that permits are required in the face of citizen suits like the one brought (here),” Estrin said.

The eight dams affected by the settlement are the Bonneville, the John Day, The Dalles and McNary in Oregon and the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite in Washington state.

Environmentalists will be closely watching the type of permit issued by the EPA, Powers said. A “site-specific” permit would likely include limits that the Corps would have to meet on the amount of oil discharged.

If the EPA instead issues a general permit, environmentalists would be less sanguine about its prospects, Powers said. General permits are less effective in compelling change because they are issued without specific metrics that must be met, she said.

In 2009, the EPA found a host of toxins in fish on the Columbia River, including polychlorinated biphenyl, a potentially carcinogenic synthetic that was banned for production in the U.S. in 1979.

The eight dams use turbines that have shafts and hubs filled with oil or other lubricants. The oil leaks to the surface, along with oil from drainage sumps, transformers and wickets that control water flow.

Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late

Note: Being Frank is the monthly opinion column that was written for many years by the late Billy Frank Jr., NWIFC Chairman. To honor him, the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington will continue to share their perspectives on natural resources management through this column. This month’s writer is Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and an NWIFC commissioner.

“Being Frank”

Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late

By: Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

More delay is about the only thing that any of us who live here in Washington can count on when it comes to a badly needed update of state water quality standards to protect our health.

After decades of foot-dragging by previous governors, Gov. Jay Inslee recently unveiled his plan to revise our state’s ridiculously outdated water quality standards. While the plan offers a small increase in protection from 70 percent of the toxic chemicals regulated by the federal Clean Water Act, it maintains the inadequate status quo for the other 30 percent.

At best Inslee’s plan offers minimal progress in reducing contamination; at worst it provides a tenfold increase in our cancer risk rate.

Water quality standards are based in large part on how much fish and shellfish we eat. The more we eat, the cleaner the water needs to be. Two numbers drive our water quality standards: our fish consumption rate and our cancer risk rate from pollution in our waters.

Inslee’s plan rightly increases our fish consumption rate from the current 6.5 grams per day (about one serving of fish or shellfish per month) to 175 grams per day (at least one meal of fish or shellfish per day).

Support for that amount is a huge concession by tribes. Most tribal members, as well as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders eat far more than 175 grams of fish and shellfish per day. Current studies show daily consumption rates of 236 to 800 grams. Even those numbers represent suppressed rates. If more fish and shellfish were available for harvest, more would be eaten.

While giving a little with one hand, Inslee takes away a lot with the other, increasing our “acceptable” cancer risk rate tenfold, from one in a million to one in 100,000. Do you think anyone who gets cancer from the pollution in our fish and shellfish would find that risk rate acceptable? Would you?

That one in a million rate has protected all of us for the past 20 years. By increasing the cancer risk rate Inslee effectively cancels out most of the health benefits and improved water quality provided by the increased fish consumption rate.

The fish consumption and cancer risk rates are supposed to protect those who need it the most: children, women of childbearing age, Indians, Asian and Pacific Islanders, sport fishermen and anyone who likes to eat local fish and shellfish. When the most vulnerable among us is protected, so is everyone else.

To make up for the loss of protection under the cancer risk rate, Inslee proposes a statewide toxics reduction effort that would require legislative approval and funding. While the idea of a large toxics reduction program is a good one, it is not a substitute for an updated state water quality standards rule that carries the force of law.

No one knows what the Legislature might do, but two things are certain. There will be more delay and more opposition to Inslee’s proposal. Boeing and other opponents to improved water quality rules will likely engage in full-strength lobbying during the session to block any meaningful change, claiming that it will increase their cost of doing business.

The state has a clear duty to protect the environment to ensure that our treaty foods such as fish and shellfish are safe to eat. If not, those rights are meaningless. We will not put our hard-won treaty rights or the health of our children in the hands of the governor or state Legislature.

Our treaty rights already are at risk because most salmon populations continue to decline. The reason is that we are losing salmon habitat faster than it can be restored. What good is restored habitat if it does not include clean water?

Washington could have joined Oregon as a leader in protecting human health and natural resources. Oregon two years ago increased its fish consumption rate to 175 grams per day and kept the one-in-a-million cancer risk rate. Now Oregon has the highest standards of protection in the United States.

Meanwhile, the Oregon economy hasn’t suffered and not one company has gone out of business as a result. Don’t we all deserve the same level of protection as Oregonians?

Any kind of justice that is delayed is justice denied. That includes both social and environmental justice. Further delays and weak water quality standards only worsen the suffering of many. Inslee’s plan is too little, too late.

3 West Coast governors oppose offshore drilling

By: Associated Press

The governors of California, Oregon and Washington sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewel on Thursday to stress that they don’t want the possibility of drilling off of the West Coast.

The Interior Department is developing an updated plan for its Outer Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program, and the governors formally stated their opposition to the inclusion of any oil or gas lease sales off the coast as part of any new plan.

Govs. Jay Inslee, of Washington, Jerry Brown, of California, and John Kitzhaber, of Oregon, wrote that their three states “represent the fifth-largest economy in the world” and their ocean-dependent industries contribute billions of dollars to the region each year.

“While new technology reduces the risk of a catastrophic event such as the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, a sizeable spill anywhere along our shared coast would have a devastating impact on our population, recreation, natural resources, and our ocean and coastal dependent economies,” they wrote.

The governors, all Democrats, also stressed a commitment to develop a strategy to combat climate change.

“Oil and gas leasing may be appropriate for regions where there is state support for such development and the impacts can be mitigated,” they wrote. “However, along the West Coast, our states stand ready to work with the Obama Administration to help craft a comprehensive and science-based national energy policy that aligns with the actions we are taking to invest in energy efficiency, Oil and Gas Leasing Program alternative renewable energy sources, and pricing carbon.”

Inslee spokesman David Postman said that while there aren’t any current plans for West Coast leases, the governors want to ensure there aren’t any in the new plan.

Tribes hold vigils for Columbia River salmon

By: Associated Press, August 4, 2014

HOOD RIVER, Ore. (AP) — Native American tribes in the U.S. and Canada are holding vigils along the Columbia River to pray for the return of salmon migration as the two countries prepare to renegotiate a treaty concerning the river.

The treaty, signed in 1964, governs operations of dams and reservoirs that have caused salmon run declines.

Tribes are pushing to include salmon restoration to the upper Columbia, above Grand Coulee Dam in northern Washington State, in the treaty.

In recommendations for potential negotiations, the U.S. says the two countries should study the possibility of restoring fish passage over that dam. But Canada says restoring fish migration and habitat is not a treaty issue.

Seventeen vigils will be held along the length of the river, in Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia.

Jamestown S’Klallam Gathering Steelhead DNA for Database

By: Northwest Indian Fisheries Commissions

The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe wants to know which age class of steelhead is surviving best within the Dungeness River watershed.

While checking smolt traps and conducting spawning ground surveys this spring, the tribe took tail and scale samples from 500 juvenile steelhead in five creeks between Sequim and Port Angeles: Seibert, McDonald, Matriotti, Bell and Jimmycomelately.

“We’re already counting the adults and juveniles every spring and fall, so why not take DNA samples and develop an age database for steelhead?” said natural resources technician Chris Burns.

Steelhead scales are taken to be analyzed for DNA.

Analyzing the scales will tell biologists how long a steelhead has been in fresh water before out-migrating and how long it spent at sea. The DNA also will show whether the steelhead migrated back out to sea after spawning in fresh water.

Steelhead returns are harder to forecast because of their complex life history. Juvenile steelhead leave fresh water between the first and fourth years of life, but return from salt water in one to five years. Steelhead also are repeat spawners, returning to salt water before coming back to fresh water to spawn again during their lifespan, which can be as long as seven to nine years.

The genetics information would be shared with the state to help develop a larger database.

“By zoning in on steelhead ages, it will help the tribe with fisheries management, resulting in more accurate returns and harvest management decisions,” Burns said.

Puget Sound steelhead were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in 2007. The primary causes of the decline of the steelhead population include degraded habitat, fish-blocking culverts and unfavorable ocean conditions.

At this year’s big climate rally, most of the people won’t be pale, male, and stale

People’s Climate March

By Ben Adler, Grist

More than 500 organizations are planning a historic event for Sept. 21 in New York City, what they say will be the largest rally for climate action ever. Organizers and ralliers will be calling on world leaders to craft a new international climate treaty, two days before those leaders will convene at a Climate Summit at the United Nations headquarters. Jamie Henn, spokesperson for 350.org, the main convener of the event, declined to offer a precise target for turnout, but the current holder of the largest-climate-rally title, a February 2012 march on the White House, drew around 50,000 people, so organizers are expecting more than that — possibly significantly more.

However many people show up, though, this march will likely be historic for another reason: its diversity and its focus on climate justice. More than 20 labor unions are among the organizations leading in the planning and turnout efforts. On Wednesday morning, representatives of a handful of them gathered in the Midtown Manhattan office of 1199, the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), for a press conference, and then they were joined in Times Square by more unions for a small pep rally to promote the September event. Other groups present included locals from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York (TWU), and local social- and environmental-justice organizations such as UPROSE and the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance.

woman with sign — People’s Climate March

These locals are larger than they sound. 1199 and 32BJ, another union also affiliated with SEIU, cover multiple large East Coast states including New York, Massachusetts, and Florida. 1199 alone has more than 400,000 members. And they are diverse — 1199 represents health care workers such as nurses, and 32BJ represents custodial workers. These are not like the overwhelmingly white male unions in the construction trades. They are predominantly non-white and largely made up of women. This includes their top leadership, and their representatives at Wednesday’s event.

Speakers at the press conference and the rally focused on the ways low- and middle-income New Yorkers like their members are affected by climate change. Hurricane Sandy loomed large. In the storm’s aftermath, hospital and transportation workers were tasked with trying to save lives and get the city running amid flooded infrastructure and prolonged blackouts. For people who care about being able to provide reliable transportation and health care, the threat of more frequent superstorms, heat waves, and floods is alarming. And the flooding of waterfront industrial districts like the South Bronx and Brooklyn’s Sunset Park caused major disruption for private sector blue-collar workers and nearby working class neighborhoods.

Many of the union members live in public housing, which is often located in waterfront neighborhoods like the Lower East Side, Red Hook, and Far Rockaway. Those low-lying projects were among the worst-hit areas during Sandy. “Twenty percent of public housing in New York City was affected by Sandy,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. “It’s about community health, it’s about jobs, and it’s about justice.”

The unions also see moving to a sustainable clean energy economy, instead of one based on extracting fossil fuels, as a matter of economic self-interest. 1199, unlike some construction unions, opposes approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline because, says spokesperson Chelsea-Lyn Rudder, “We want long-term jobs, not the short-term jobs that Keystone might create.” Cutting down on auto emissions and oil consumption by expanding mass transit, instead of building an oil pipeline, would create permanent jobs driving buses and trains. “Mass transit is green jobs,” noted LaTonya Crisp-Sauray, an official from the TWU.

The concerns for these communities go beyond extreme weather events like Sandy. A custodian from the Bronx who gave her name only as Mary, and was there on behalf of 32BJ, pointed out that asthma could be worsened by climate change, and it is already an epidemic in heavily polluted, lower-income communities like the Bronx. “The Bronx has a 20 percent childhood asthma rate, one of the highest rates in the nation,” she said. “[Combatting climate change] is about saving lives.”

At the little pep rally in Times Square, the group of about 100 was filled with union members sporting their locals’ T-shirts and waving their banners. Even the United Auto Workers had a few members present. And the social-justice groups brought out everyone from older women to teenagers.

The result was a remarkable sight. Here was a rally for addressing climate change — an issue so often dismissed by conservatives as of interest only to out-of-touch affluent elites like Hollywood actors and former vice presidents — where both the speakers and the crowd were mostly black and Latino. These were members of the most affected communities — including Roberto Borrero from the International Indian Treaty Council, which works for indigenous rights throughout the Americas — talking about how the issue affects them.

The environmental movement is often criticized for being mostly white, male, wealthy, and college-educated. As Grist’s Brentin Mock just noted, it is the leaders of environmental organizations who come from that demographic, even though the neighborhoods with the worst pollution are disproportionately low-income and non-white. Sure enough, some of the only white male speakers at Wednesday’s event were the ones from environmental organizations. But at least they recognize the importance of communities of color and blue-collar workers in the movement, and they have successfully partnered with civil-rights, social-justice, and labor organizations.

The images from the march on Sept. 21 probably won’t conform to the snarky stereotypes about Vermont liberals wearing Birkenstocks and driving Volvos. Of course, inconvenient truths have never stopped conservatives from casting unfair aspersions. But even if those conservatives won’t admit it, the movement is diversifying.

Ben Adler covers environmental policy and politics for Grist, with a focus on climate change, energy, and cities. When he isn’t contemplating the world’s end, he also writes about architecture and media. You can follow him on Twitter.

Category: Environment