The environment in the news

Last lap today

One unaddressed issue that looms larger in the Senate is the $6 billion in estimated annual ethanol supports that nearly three-quarters of the chamber voted to repeal in a landmark June vote. With the issue left out of the debt deal, industry supporters and critics alike are bearish on the fate of a Senate agreement to end those subsidies early, using the profits to cut the deficit and create smaller new biofuel benefits (E&ENews PM, July 26).

Brian Jennings, vice president of the industry trade group American Coalition for Ethanol, called the omission of that Senate ethanol pact "a missed opportunity" and vowed "to help resurrect this reform effort, which returns a billion dollars to the Treasury for deficit reduction, helps fund infrastructure and supports the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol."

Greenwire: Plastic bag decision sets CEQA precedent

2 August 2011

The California Supreme Court last month ruled that private citizens and corporations alike can bring suit under the California Environmental Quality Act, addressing the standard for invoking the law in the most comprehensive manner since its inception.

The July 14 decision upheld a 2008 proposal to ban single-use plastic bags in Manhattan Beach, in Los Angeles County, but more broadly, it addressed the "standing issue," or which groups and people are allowed to use the state's pre-eminent environmental law.

The Save the Plastic Bag Coalition, made up of about a dozen plastic bag manufacturers, distributors and retailers, had argued that the town's ban would degrade the environment by forcing people to switch to paper bags, which they claim take more energy to produce than plastic bags.

In her opinion, Justice Carol Corrigan quickly dismissed the group's arguments, finding that Manhattan Beach's population of 34,000 is too small to require an analysis of the environmental effects of switching from plastic to paper, regardless of which material is more damaging.

But she also reversed previous policy on CEQA standing, rejecting a 2000 decision requiring corporations to routinely meet a higher standard than citizens. "Absent compelling policy reasons to the contrary, it would seem that corporate entities should be as free as natural persons to litigate in the public interest," she wrote. "Corporate purposes are not necessarily antithetical to the public interest."

Some groups had hoped the decision would be narrower, said Rick Frank, director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center at the University of California, Davis.

"It basically said they would keep the courthouse door open to one and all," Frank said. "Environmentalists and some business interests were hoping [the court] might construe it to be more limited."

CEQA, which took effect in 1970, is broader than the federal National Environmental Policy Act, which passed in 1969. Under California law, any project that requires state or local approval must have an "environmental impact report" that analyzes effects and proposes alternatives or ways to mitigate the damage. NEPA applies only to projects that need federal agency approval or use federal funding.

The California law's utility crosses political borders: While developers often decry environmentalists' bringing suit under CEQA to block proposed projects for their impact on plants or animals, businesses or labor unions can also wield it to enforce environmental laws against their competitors.

Until now, the most prominent case that determined who could bring suit under CEQA was Waste Management of Alameda County Inc. v. County of Alameda, which the state Court of Appeal decided in 2000. It ruled that Waste Management did not have standing to invoke CEQA against a competitor because it had argued from a commercial rather than an environmental standpoint. The decision set out a "zone of interests" that a plaintiff must fall into to bring suit.

Under last month's decision, anyone can sue using CEQA -- plaintiffs do not have to be directly affected by a project's environmental consequences.

Implications for other bag bans

"[Environmental impact reports] bring in the science and say, 'Right, do we have evidence of this claim?'" he said. "That's all we want, informed decisionmaking."

"We are ecstatic," Manhattan Beach Mayor Richard Montgomery said in a statement. The ban is set to go into effect in January 2012, following consultations with local businesses, City Manager David Carmany said.

Environmental groups are interpreting the ruling to mean that local governments, at least, can move forward with bans unimpeded. Corrigan wrote that a larger jurisdiction might trigger a different decision, saying that "the movement to ban plastic bags is a broad one, active at levels of government where an appropriately comprehensive environmental review will be required."

In addition to Manhattan Beach, bans are pending in Monterey, Oakland, Sunnyvale and a half-dozen other cities, according to the group Californians Against Waste (CAW). Long Beach just imposed its ban in large food stores yesterday (E&ENews PM, Aug. 1).

Given Corrigan's nuanced decision, larger governments with pending bans like Alameda County and Santa Cruz County might be well-advised to carry out an environmental impact report to forestall lawsuits, said Mark Murray, CAW's executive director.

"I think it's basically full steam ahead for local governments," he said. Larger jurisdictions have been considering charging 5 to 25 cents on other single-use bags to discourage wholesale switching to paper bags and their attendant environmental issues, he said.

"It's probably fair to characterize the decision as implying that the plastic-vs.-paper debate is somewhat closer than some anti-plastic folks have previously argued," Frank said, "close enough that a full EIR might be required to address the issue in detail if a more populous jurisdiction were to adopt a plastic bag ban in the future."

2 August 2011

An environmental advocacy group representing Charles Monnett, a federal wildlife biologist who has been suspended from his job, says that he will undergo a second interview next Tuesday with the Interior Department’s inspector general’s office, this time about his role in promoting and designing a five-year research project on polar bear populations.

Dr. Monnett was placed on administrative leave two weeks ago by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement and was informed that his integrity was in question.

A missive that he received from the Interior Department says that he may still face questions about a peer-reviewed paper he published in 2006 after a sighting of four dead polar bears in open waters of the Beaufort Sea. Agents now want to pose questions about the the design of a long-term contract to study the bears’ movements and behaviors and how it was awarded.

Dr. Monnett (pronounced Moe-NEIGH) played an important role in setting priorities for $50 million worth of research studies at the Alaska regional office of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Shortly before his suspension on July 18, he was told he could have nothing more to do with this continuing study on polar bears because of doubts about his impartiality.

In 2006, the journal Polar Biology published a peer-reviewed article by Dr. Monnett and another federal biologist, Jeffrey Gleason, in which they reported having sighted dead polar bears during a survey of bowhead whale populations in 2004. The article and associated discussions at scientific conferences helped to make the polar bear a charismatic symbol of climate change and its impact.

When Dr. Monnett was suspended, the bureau halted the study. Asked about that study on Monday, Melissa Schwartz, a bureau spokeswoman, confirmed that the decision to halt it had been reversed and “the study is continuing to move forward.”

The study is led by Dr. Andrew Derocher of the University of Alberta, an institution that has led much of the Canadian research on polar bear populations. The stop-work order could have left the impression that the integrity of Dr. Derocher’s team was also in doubt; its withdrawal suggests that Dr. Monnett remains the focus of the case.

Dr. Monnett’s original paper, published in the journal Polar Biology, was what scientists call a “note,” or brief discussion of observations with limited analysis, all couched in the language of possibility. It suggested that the retreat of polar ice required the bears to swim longer distances. It hypothesized that the energy expended in these swims left the bears ill-prepared for a storm that brought high winds and waves.

It was not long before skeptics on the subject of human-caused climate change began to question Dr. Monnett’s findings, asking why no floating dead bears had been seen since.

A portion of an interview with Dr. Gleason by the inspector general’s agents in February goes into minute detail over whether the impact of a storm was given enough prominence and the retreating ice too much prominence. Dr. Gleason repeatedly responded in the fashion of other scientists whose findings have gone viral: I am responsible for the observations, not the spin.

The partial transcript was released by the group defending him, the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

The investigators also told Dr. Gleason that Dr. Monnett had made a “big mistake” in calculations that put the bear mortality rate after the storm at 75 percent. When Dr. Gleason asked what the investigation was about, he was told that it concerned “the validity of the paper.” In a later interview with Dr. Monnett, investigators said they were looking into “scientific misconduct.”

(One of the more lively moments in this transcript is the back-and-forth between the investigators and an increasingly exasperated Dr. Monnett over how to structure the mathematical calculations representing polar-bear mortality. He indicated, with consistent acidic references to “fifth grade” equations on percentages, that the investigators or their informants needed remedial work on their mathematics.)

Dr. Monnett confirmed for the investigators that after he observed the dead bears, he contacted Dr. Derocher and others about what to do about his observations, since they were polar bear experts and he was not. They encouraged him to publish them, he said.

Going forward, will such communications with these scientists be brought forth as evidence of bias? And what will Dr. Monnett be asked about the particulars of the awarding of the contract for or the design of the polar-bear study? Should his communications with other scientists be at issue, it will be interesting to compare how this issue is parsed in this case by comparison with other deconstructions of scientists’ communications.

I am referring, of course, to investigations of climate-change researchers at the University of East Anglia after their e-mails were stolen and climate change skeptics charged that the communications were evidence of ethical missteps. (The scientists were cleared of wrongdoing.) Or the ongoing investigation of the climate researcher Michael Mann by Virginia’s attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, should he win his court battle appeal

1 August 2011

Climate scientists have long called for steps to limit the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and they are growing more and more worried about the slow pace of action. Yet their sense of urgency has not permeated society at large, and it certainly does not seem to be influencing the course of events in Washington, where climate legislation stalled last year.

A recent report from the ClimateWorks Foundation in San Francisco does the best job I have seen of explaining, in layman’s terms, why scientists keep pressing the issue. In essence, society has put off the task of reducing carbon dioxide and other emissions for so long that it is on the verge of running out of time, the report argues. The document, written by Hal Harvey and Sonia Aggarwal, calculates that stabilizing the gases at a level low enough to avert severe damage to the planet will require that emissions peak by 2020 and then begin falling briskly — and no set of policies in place today is likely to cause that to happen.

At only 19 pages, the ClimateWorks report is an accessible summary of the inexorable mathematics at the root of the climate-change problem.

AOL Travel: State Parks Become Victim of Budget Slashing

2 August 2011

Several states struggling to fight budget shortfalls are announcing plans to shutter parks, recreation areas and reserves in an effort to save a little money.

California alone plans to close 70 parks, ranging from the obscure (Zmudowski State Beach) to the fairly popular (Tomales Bay State Park - pictured).

Other states hanging out the "Closed for Business" sign include Arizona, Georgia, Oklahoma and Rhode Island. TreeHugger reports that Utah and Texas have also severely cut their parks' budgets, though avoided closures, while Florida has taken far more drastic measures.

Sunshine State legislators are looking into the possibility of privatizing more than 50 state parks, allowing corporations to run camping areas and add RV sites. Honeymoon Island, a beautiful castaway spot just off the coast, could become a major campsite.

Meanwhile, even states that are keeping their parks open are putting off the sort of repairs that would have been a priority in the past. Niagara Falls State Park in New York is in notably bad shape, and it seems unlikely a contractor will be arriving any time soon.

The silver lining to this particular cloud is that even after the closures there will be more than 6,000 operational parks in the U.S. Hopefully there will be some safety in numbers.

Only one specimen of the low-growing shrub exists anywhere in the wild; until recently, it was believed to be extinct, having fallen victim generations ago in this city's battle between nature and development.

Today, the manzanita occupies a 7-square-foot patch of hillside in a 1,500-acre national park known as the Presidio of San Francisco. There is no sign attesting to its presence. It is not marked on any map. Coast live oak trees guard the weedy lot where California icons, serpentine rock and bright orange poppies, keep the modest bush company.

Park officials speak proudly of the manzanita, its ecological import, its improbable, now-you-see-it-now-you-don't story. Do not, however, ask them where it grows in their outpost at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. They will not tell you. Secrecy, and a nursery rich with seeds and rooted cuttings, are cornerstones of the Presidio's plan to reintroduce the rare plant.

But some environmentalists here worry that federal park rules are not enough to protect a species that already disappeared on them once. The Wild Equity Institute is pushing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Franciscan manzanita as an endangered species; in June the group sued to get the agency to act.

Because, as executive director Brent Plater likes to say, "it's hard to get more endangered than only one left in the wild."

The manzanita's scientific name is Arctostaphylos franciscana; aficionados of the plant, with its narrow, pointed leaves and bell-shaped flowers, call themselves arctophiles. In the first half of the 20th century, their ranks included some of the most famous botanists in California — women and men whose efforts to protect their passion were brazen, although ultimately unsuccessful.

Botanists believe manzanitas have been evolving for 15 million years. But by the 1920s, the habitat of the Arctostaphylos franciscana had shrunk to just three patches of rapidly developing San Francisco: Mount Davidson and two aging cemeteries.

Laurel Hill Cemetery, the final resting place of Gold Rush pioneers, was the last place the Franciscan manzanita grew in any abundance. In her 1939 classic "Flowering Shrubs of California," horticulturist Lester Rowntree rued the fact that the cemetery was "being regarded impatiently by the folk to whom any land is just so many building lots."

"If they can they will eradicate it as a cemetery and that will be the last of an old San Francisco record," she wrote, "and certainly the last of Arctostaphylos franciscana."

Rowntree was one of many botanists who dug up manzanita specimens and spirited them away. If the plant was doomed in the wild, these renegades figured, they could at least be kept alive in botanical gardens. One night Rowntree sneaked into the cemetery, ripped the plant out and drove it off to her home in Carmel. As she would tell a friend later, "I garnered it ghoulishly in a gunnysack."

Others, like Alice Eastwood, who was the first to describe the species, stood in front of bulldozers in a last-ditch effort to keep development at bay. Today, the old cemetery has been covered over with tony boutiques, pricey houses and tennis courts.

"It's a very special plant, only seen in San Francisco," said Peter Ehrlich, unofficial arctophile and official forester with the Presidio Trust. "That's what led to the emotional outbursts. Finding it. Losing it. It almost takes on mythical status."

2 August 2011

The U.S. government should start using the $25 billion it has collected for dealing with nuclear waste for its intended use rather than hoarding it to reduce the deficit, a bipartisan panel said on Friday.

The Nuclear Waste Fund is currently used to "reduce the apparent deficit," the report said. It acknowledged that freeing up the money would be politically difficult.

President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders face an August 2 deadline to reach an agreement to raise the U.S. borrowing limit and cut spending.

But the government has a "fundamental ethical obligation" to deal with the 65,000 tonnes of toxic nuclear waste piling up alongside reactors around the country, said the presidential "Blue Ribbon Commission" on waste, comprised of 15 experts.

"The overall record of the U.S. nuclear waste program has been one of broken promises and unmet commitments," the panel appointed by the White House said in a 154-page report.

The report, with seven recommendations on waste, is a step toward solving the issue, key to the future of nuclear power, a spokesman for the Energy Department said in a statement.

It will be open for comment until October 31, and the panel will give its final report to the Energy Secretary by January 29.

POLITICAL TUG-OF-WAR ON YUCCA MTN

Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March brought renewed focus on the problem of where to bury toxic waste, an issue that has been around since the United States first began developing nuclear weapons in the 1940s.

Congress had mandated that spent fuel from power plants be buried deep inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain. But the Obama administration canceled that plan, which was opposed by many in the state, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The White House appointed the panel to study the issue for more than a year. It was told not to touch the Yucca Mountain issue, nor to look for specific sites to house waste.

The panel said it is futile to try to "force a top-down, federally mandated solution" to waste and said communities need to be encouraged to volunteer to "host" it.

"There is no short cut," the report said.

It's unlikely the issue will move forward before the 2012 election, said Ed Batts, a partner with law firm DLA Piper, citing the "political tug-of-war" in Washington.

"You've got (Senate Minority Leader) Mitch McConnell on one side saying, basically, 'Yucca Mountain or bust,' and you've got Harry Reid diametrically opposed, saying, 'Not in my backyard," Batts said.

A group of prominent House Republicans said on Friday that taxpayers have already spent almost $15 billion on Yucca Mountain and the plan should go ahead.

"It is time to stop playing politics with America's nuclear waste management policy and move forward with the Yucca Mountain project," said Ralph Hall, chairman of the House science committee.

INTERIM STORAGE, PERMANENT DUMPS

The Blue Ribbon panel recommended a network of interim storage sites for waste and one or more permanent geologic dumps -- ideas it discussed at a public meeting in May.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the industry, said it supported the panel's main recommendations.

But a group critical of nuclear energy said interim sites would take decades, and suggested the government require plants to move waste out of pools and into hardened "dry cask" storage buildings on-site.

The alternative would be "something that can be done relatively quickly and more safely than moving waste willy-nilly around the country in an effort to make it look like there is a solution," Physicians for Social Responsibility said in a statement.

LEGACY OF BROKEN PROMISES

The report urged a new government organization to negotiate with communities and build and manage the sites, taking a fresh approach after decades of false starts and mistrust.

Such an organization would need access to the Nuclear Waste Fund, which grows by $750 million per year -- money utilities collect from electricity customers.

Utilities could be given permission under existing laws to put the money into a trust account at a third-party bank while the administration and Congress work out how to free the fund for its intended purpose, the panel said.

The government was supposed to begin accepting spent nuclear fuel in 1998, part of the deal with utilities that collect the money.

"We are hopeful, though not entirely optimistic, that this bipartisan report will not fall on deaf ears," said Tony Clark, president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, in a statement.

More than 70 lawsuits have been filed over the government's failure to keep its end of the deal, and taxpayers have so far paid $956 million in settlements as well as $168 million in legal costs, the report said.

Damages could total more than $16 billion by 2020 if the government can't handle the waste by then, the panel said.