Climate of Our Future

EarthJustice

Court decision will clarify whether mining companies may bury clean lakes, rivers and streams with mine tailings

June 27, 2008

Lower Slate Lake, AK
Photo by Irene Alexakos

Washington, DC — The United States Supreme Court announced today it plans to hear arguments in the case surrounding the Kensington Mine’s plan to destroy an Alaskan lake by using it as a dumping ground for chemically processed mine tailings. The plan, rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, would bury the existing lake and kill all its fish. The following statement is from Earthjustice attorney Tom Waldo:

“Modern mines have never been allowed to dump tailings into lakes. The federal Clean Water Act prohibits it, and for good reason. The Ninth Circuit’s decision confirms a rule of law that has been in place for over 30 years, and we are hopeful that the Supreme Court will come to the same conclusion.

“This is an opportunity for the courts to find once and for all that filling a pristine lake with 4.5 million tons of mining waste violates the Clean Water Act. This misguided plan by the Kensington Mine and the Army Corps of Engineers represents a dangerous assault on all of America’s lakes, rivers and streams. Since the Clean Water Act was passed over 35 years ago, no new mine has ever been allowed to dump its chemically processed mine tailings into a lake, and they should not be allowed to start now.”

Earthjustice represents the Sierra Club, the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, and Lynn Canal Conservation in the case.

EarthJustice

Fed up with years of inaction, residents will sue to clean up site of illegal toxic waste dumping

June 26, 2008

Staten Island, NY — Staten Island residents will sue the city of New York to force the cleanup of an abandoned toxic waste dump in the Great Kills section of the borough.

The public interest law firm Earthjustice filed preliminary legal papers today on behalf of the Northern Great Kills Civic Association. The association represents residents living near the 272-acre Brookfield landfill.

Between 1974 and 1980, tens of thousands of gallons of toxic industrial waste were dumped illegally at the landfill, intended only for municipal solid waste. It was one of five city landfills involved in a 1982 federal investigation into illegal dumping which sent a city Department of Sanitation official and a hauling operator to prison.

“Those convicted of dumping this toxic waste have long ago served their time. But 30 years later, their poisonous legacy remains,” said Earthjustice attorney Keri Powell. “We’re taking legal action to make sure this mess is cleaned up and the residents of Great Kills can reclaim their community from contamination.”

In 1990, the city announced it had set aside $600 million for the cleanup of the five city landfills involved in the 1982 scandal. While cleanup has concluded at the Pelham Bay landfill in the Bronx, the Edgemere landfill in Queens, and the Fountain Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue landfills in Brooklyn, work still has yet to begin on the Brookfield site in Staten Island.

“We have been patient, cooperating in good faith with officials who have offered us nothing but empty promises,” said John Felicetti, co-chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee for the Brookfield Remediation. “At first there was money but no cleanup plan. Now we have a plan, but no money. While the city and state agencies bicker about who should foot the cleanup bill, our community is suffering.”

At the time the scandal was uncovered, it was compared to the infamous incident at Love Canal which gave rise to the nation’s environmental health movement.

“We’ve watched as landfills in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens have been cleaned up. Decades have gone by and we’re still waiting for our community to be cleaned up,” said Geri Kelsch, president of the Northern Great Kills Civic Association. “I was still a child when this illegal dumping was uncovered. Now I have children of my own. We’re fighting so a third generation of Staten Islanders won’t have to live with poison in their backyard.”

Though far smaller than the borough’s infamous Fresh Kills landfill, the Brookfield site poses nearly as great a threat to the environment as its 3,000-acre counterpart, because of the toxic combination of cyanide, lead, arsenic, and other contaminants leaking from the landfill.

The federal investigation found that somewhere between 10,000 gallons a week to 50,000 gallons a day of hazardous waste were dumped illegally at the site during its last six years of operation. The oil, sludge, metal plating, lacquers and solvents, which came from manufacturers throughout the region, remain buried on the site and feed the 95,000 gallons of contaminated water which leak from the site each day into groundwater and the Richmond Creek.

There are nearly 10,000 people living within a quarter-mile of the landfill. In addition, four schools and one church — the Tanglewood Nursery School, P.S. 37, P.S. 32, St. Patrick’s School, and St. Patrick’s church — are within a quarter mile of the landfill.

Staten Island Borough President James P. Molinaro, who has long called for the landfill’s cleanup, expressed support for the litigation. In April, he sent a letter to Governor David Paterson expressing outrage and concern about the cleanup delay. In response to the Molinaro’s letter, residents sent over 500 letters of support to the borough president’s office, prompting the Northern Great Kills Civic Association to take legal action. Assemblyman Louis R. Tobacco and Councilman Vincent M. Ignizio have also pressed for action at the Brookfield site and spoke up in favor of today’s legal action.

Earthjustice filed a “notice of intent to sue” on behalf of the Northern Great Kills Civic Association today. Under federal environmental law, such notice must be filed at least 90 days before filing suit. The groups will be filing their lawsuit in federal district court under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which gives citizens the right to sue past or present operators of hazardous waste facilities that continue to pose a threat to public health or the environment. The city of New York operated the landfill from 1966 to 1980.

EarthJustice
EPA attempts to reverse federal court decision with new water transfer rule

June 27, 2008

Discharge into Lake Okeechobee

Tallahassee, FL — Earthjustice filed suit in U.S. Circuit Court in Atlanta today to challenge the Bush administration’s latest attempt to weaken the Clean Water Act.

On June 9, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a new rule that says polluters don’t need to comply with the Clean Water Act when they transfer dirty water — from canals contaminated by urban or agricultural pollution, for example — directly into public lakes and streams.

Representing Florida Wildlife Federation, Earthjustice contends in its lawsuit that such water transfers should be protected by the Clean Water Act.

“The Bush administration has no right to create exemptions in the Clean Water Act that endanger public drinking water supplies,” Guest said. “The public won’t stand for this last-ditch move to protect polluters.”

The Bush administration’s water transfer rule has been the subject of legal challenges since it was first proposed in 2005. The issue arose out of a court case at Lake Okeechobee in South Florida. That case challenged the practice of “backpumping” water from contaminated drainage canals into Lake Okeechobee. The drainage canals are laced with fertilizer and urban and agricultural wastes. The practice has had disastrous effects on the lake, a major drinking water supply.

Earthjustice and the Florida Wildlife Federation sued, and won. The federal court ruled that the polluted water, coupled with routine disinfection at public water plants, creates “toxic disinfection byproducts that can sicken humans.”

Transfers of contaminated water have already triggered numerous toxic algae blooms around the United States. The algae growths can make people sick and sometimes kill livestock or pets that drink the water. The drinking water supplies for millions of Americans across the country have been affected, including notable cases in Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire, and California. The dirty water is a health risk for pregnant women, and taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional treatment costs while polluters put more profits in their pockets.

“Instead of tightening protections and cleaning up the pollution, the EPA chose to legalize it,” said Manley Fuller, president of the Florida Wildlife Federation. “We had no choice but to file suit.”

ScienceDaily

ScienceDaily (June 24, 2008) — Biofuels can be a sustainable part of the world’s energy future, especially if bioenergy agriculture is developed on currently abandoned or degraded agricultural lands, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University. Using these lands for energy crops, instead of converting existing croplands or clearing new land, avoids competition with food production and preserves carbon-storing forests needed to mitigate climate change.

Sustainable bioenergy is likely to satisfy no more than 10% of the demand in the energy-intensive economies of North America, Europe, and Asia. But for some developing countries, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa, the potential exists to supply many times their current energy needs without compromising food supply or destroying forests.  Keep Reading…