EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO CLEAN WATER WATERKEEPER WATERKEEPER® Fran Drescher Cancer Schmancer Merle Haggard Goes Solar Volume 4, Number Volume 1 Terry Tamminen Lives Per Gallon Summer Summer 2007 Summer 2007 $5.95 WATERKEEPER Volume 4 Number 1, Summer 2007 14 6 Letter from the President: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. 10 Who Is Waterkeeper Alliance? 12 Splashback 14 Ripples 20 22 Fran Drescher, Cancer Schmancer 24 Merle Haggard Goes Solar 26 Oil & Water, Hazard & Cure 28 How to Beat Our Oil Addiction Before It Beats Us, by Terry Tamminen 30 Ecological Warfare 32 Oil, Katrina and Rita 33 Black Tide 1969 34 Out of Control 35 Lingering Harm: Oil’s Toxic Legacy 37 Big Oil in the Last Frontier 40 Oil Spill Preparedness Yields to Homeland Security 35 41 The North Cape 43 Irresponsible Parties 45 In the Heart of Brooklyn 46 Refineries 48 Oil & Stormwater 48 Illegal Flow 38 50 When it Rains, It Pours 51 Separation of Oil and State, by Stephen Kretzmann 55 The Way Forward 56 Silver Buckshot, by Daniel Emmett 58 Waterkeeper Yearbook 48 62 Waterkeeper’s Wake: King’s Court 63 Farr on Film: Heat Wave 64 On the Water with Joe Cook 66 All Hands on Deck 57 4 Waterkeeper Magazine Summer 2007 www.waterkeeper.org Letter from the President Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Energy, Oil and Independence n September 2004 economist Amory vestments in conservation and alternative we made national investments in liquid Lovins and the Rocky Mountain In- fuels, inspired by the 1976 oil crisis, raised hydrogen fuels, which have more than Istitute published a study for the Sec- automobile fuel economy from 18 miles double the efficiency of hydrocarbons, retary of Defense and the Chief of Naval per gallon to 27.5 miles per gallon. Oil America could be exporting energy from Research detailing how the United States use shrank 17 percent during those eight the Great Plains — the “Saudi Arabia of can be completely off oil by 2040. The years and the economy grew 27 percent. wind.” The Dakotas alone have sufficient report, Winning the Oil End Game: Inno- We cut oil imports in half. Imports from wind to make all the hydrogen necessary vations for Profits, Jobs and Security, has the Persian Gulf fell by 87 percent. Had we to run every highway vehicle in America, withstood intense peer review and has stayed the course, we would not have had at nearly triple the efficiency of gasoline. been aggressively updated since. to import a single drop of Persian Gulf oil Since we are on a war footing, gov- Lovins’ transition from oil occurs in after 1986. ernment ought to do everything in its two parts. First, America can save half Then Ronald Reagan came in and or- power to accelerate adoption of existing the oil we use by redoubling efficiency. dered Jimmy Carter’s solar panels torn off energy technologies and development We’ve already doubled our efficiency the White House roof. He rolled back au- of new ones. Government can achieve since 1975, but we can double productiv- tomobile efficiency standards and killed this best not by command and control ity again at an average cost of only $12 per incentives for wind and a $130 million schemes but by opening up congested saved barrel. solar power research program. These and market arteries to stimulate the atmo- We can replace the remaining half of other Reagan favors to the oil barons and sphere of innovation. oil demand with a combination of natural Detroit doubled our oil imports in 1987 The fossil fuel industry pretends that gas and advanced biofuels at an average and launched the runaway oil addiction their product dominates the energy sec- cost of $18 a barrel. Thus we can end our that now has us acting like a crackhouse tor because efficiency and low price give oil addiction completely by replacing our junkie rolling old ladies for drug money. it an advantage in the free market. This is current $60 per barrel oil with new sup- Our jones for petrodrugs has embroiled a myth. Their dominance is the result of plies costing on average $15 per barrel. us in the Mesopotamian quagmire, helped corporate welfare and crony capitalism. Lovins’ report shows how, with a one- make America a pariah among nations Their greedy and malevolent attacks on time investment of $180 billion — less and damaged the cause of democracy our national interests have included an than half of what we’ve already shoveled across the globe. illegal conspiracy to destroy clean public down the mole hole in Iraq — we can The good news is that a revolution in transportation in America. retool the car, truck and aviation indus- technologies and materials has equipped Between 1920 and 1955, the oil com- tries, improve efficiency in our buildings us to run the same strategy that liberated panies systematically purchased and de- and industry, and wean ourselves entirely us in the late 1970s, but this time we can stroyed electric rail street car systems in from our destructive and costly oil ad- get off oil altogether, and for good. Lovins 45 U.S. cities, including New York, Phila- diction. This transition would generate a shows how using off-the-shelf technolo- delphia, St. Louis and Los Angeles, with million new jobs, three-quarters of them gies, America can triple the efficiency of the methodical purpose of eliminating in rural and small town America and save cars, trucks and planes, halve electricity clean mass transit and forcing the pub- the million jobs now at risk in the Ameri- demand and walk away more prosperous lic authorities to purchase their prod- can auto-making industry. for our efforts. ucts. They tore up the rail lines or buried We know from past experience that And aggressive government action them beneath asphalt tarmac from their green investment is good for America’s could advance our transition from oil refineries. In a gratuitous demonstration economy, not to mention our national dramatically, far faster than Lovins’ most of ruthlessness and resolve, they burned security. Between 1977 and 1985, U.S. in- optimistic predictions. If, for example, Los Angeles’ famous red cars — an other- 6 Waterkeeper Magazine Summer 2007 www.waterkeeper.org wise forgotten scandal dramatized in the billions in tax breaks and dismantled en- cartoon movie Who Killed Roger Rabbit. vironmental laws. A federal court only In each city they replaced streetcars with recently declared illegal Bush’s refusal filthy diesel buses, which were far more to improve efficiency standards already expensive to operate. They were con- mandated under the 1992 Energy Pol- As Amory Lovins recently victed of anti-trust conspiracy by Presi- icy Act. When asked if President Bush told me, “We customers dent Harry Truman’s Justice Department would encourage Americans to reduce but were allowed to walk after paying a our profligate gasoline use in May 2001, have more market power one dollar fine. The crime was done. In his spokesman, Ari Fleischer said, “That’s than the oil supply cartel. the 1990s the Justice Department didn’t a big no. The President believes that it’s even bother to prosecute when Big Oil an American way of life… The American We are the Saudi Arabia conspired with automobile manufactur- way of life is a blessed one.” of ‘negabarrels,’ and we ers to kill the electric car. The stunning The oil barons get returns of roughly documentary Who Killed the Electric Car 1,000 to 1 on their political and lobbying can save oil faster and shows how the conspirators destroyed investments. This includes direct federal cheaper than they can GM’s popular fully electric Saturn — subsidies of $16 billion annually to Big Oil. which, mandated by California law, had This public largesse takes the form of ev- conveniently sell their oil.” shocked Detroit and its oil patch cronies erything from research and development with its runaway popularity. Worried that support and loan guarantees to acceler- other states would follow California’s ex- ated capital depreciation schedules in the ample, GM forcibly recalled and crushed tax code, waiver of royalty payments, the every electric Saturn. Chevron purchased absurd oil depletion allowance and other from Kazakhstan to Nigeria to Saudi Ara- the patents on GM’s brilliant nickel bat- direct subsidies and tax breaks given to bia. Add to these costs the destruction of tery system to make sure that the idea the oil industry. It seems doubly absurd to our oceans and beaches, the obliteration would stay dead. give such subsidies to an industry that re- of indigenous cultures and the erosion of Big Oil protects its monopoly by shar- ported record earnings of over $137 billion our humanity, which are all part of the ing its profits with politicians. According in profit in 2006. The Wall Street Journal price we pay for oil. to the Center for Responsible Politics, recently reported that Big Oil is so awash The true costs of our oil dependence, oil and gas companies contributed more in profits that it is having difficulty finding according to author and former Califor- than $186 million to U.S. political candi- ways to spend all its money. nia EPA Director Terry Tamminen, run dates between 1996 and 2006. These con- In reality, true subsidies to the industry from $135 billion to $1 trillion annually tributions helped the industry win vast are much higher. The Institute for Trans- — or $2,700 for every U.S. citizen. These influence in Washington, D.C., including portation Studies at the University of Cal- subsidies allow oil companies to artificial- the current White House, which slid into ifornia at Davis estimates the minimum ly lower the price of gasoline.