Mercury Rising

GOV. ARNOLD ON ENERGY • "NATURE BOY" LARRY DAVID

WATERKEEPERWATERKEEPERAUTUMN 2004

mercuryrising Letter From the President Waterkeeper: Redefining the Environmental Debate

responsibility toward our children. Dr. David Carpenter, a national author- Rather than honoring the free market, ity on mercury and human health, told they fight for corporate welfare and me that the children of a woman with envision a system of capitalism for the equivalent concentrations would have poor and socialism for the rich. cognitive impairment. He estimated In a true free-market economy you they would suffer permanent IQ loss of can’t make yourself rich without five to seven points. Half of the mercu- enriching your neighbors and your ry emissions in our country are coming community. A true free-market from coal-burning plants that could properly values natural resources and remove this poison cheaply and easily promotes efficiency and the elimina- but choose instead to externalize their tion of waste. Waste is pollution. So the costs by poisoning our children and free market eliminates pollution. But contaminating our waterways. polluters subvert the discipline of the Proposed Clinton-era regulations free market. Corporations are external- required utilities to remove 90% of the izing machines – ever seeking ways of mercury within 3 years, but President foisting their costs on the public, and Bush, after accepting $100 million from pollution is perhaps the most common the industry, scrapped those regula- orporate polluters, their phony method for loading production costs tions in favor of regulations penned by think tanks and political toadies onto the rest of us. Acid rain pollutants, utility lobbyists that will effectively C like to marginalize environmen- asthma-causing particulates and dead- allow the industry to escape enforce- talists as “tree huggers,” or “radicals” ly mercury that are now discharged able mercury controls forever. but there is nothing radical about clean from coal burning power plants thanks All environmental injury is a sub- air or water. Environmentalists are bat- to President Bush’s blessing, imposing version of the market system and an tling for the very mainstream values costs on society that should, in a true assault on democracy. The corpora- that right-wing fanatics so often herald free market, be reflected in the price of tions that persuaded our President to in their rhetoric: property rights, law those utilities’ energy in the market dump those public health regulations and order, local control, and free mar- place. You show me a polluter, I’ll show don’t want free markets or democracy, ket capitalism. Too often these are only you a subsidy—a fat cat using political they want profits. Oftentimes the best hollow facades that mask the radical clout to escape the discipline of the free path to profits is to capture govern- agenda of the White House’s doubles- market. ment officials using our campaign peakers whose only real value seems to All our federal environmental laws finance system, which is nothing more be corporate profit taking. These feder- were intended to promote free market than legalized bribery, and then use al officials have taken the “conserve” capitalism by forcing actors in the mar- that power to privatize and plunder the out of conservatism. They only ketplace to pay the true costs of bring- commons. Corporations are a good embrace property rights when it is the ing their products to market. thing for our economy, but they should right of polluters to use their property Werkeeper Alliance and our 128 local not be running our government. To pro- to destroy their neighbor’s or the public programs enforce these laws. We go tect our democracy and our environ- property. (Where is their clamor when into the marketplace, and catch ment, we must ensure that government industrial hog syndicates and moun- cheaters. “We are going to force you,” agencies and public trust assets stay taintop mining conglomerates destroy we tell them, “to internalize your costs within the hands of the people. the properties of their neighbors?) the same way you are internalizing Pollution threatens all of our national While proclaiming law and order, they your profit.” I don’t even consider values. It violates the free market, let corporate polluters off the hook. (As myself an environmentalist anymore. diminishes property rights, mocks law President Bush did last year when he I’m a free-marketeer. So long as the and order, promotes corporate rather ordered the Justice Department and polluters are cheating, none of us will than local control and shatters the EPA to drop dozens of lawsuits against get the benefits of the efficiency, pros- duties of responsibility mandated by coal-burning utilities and corporate perity and democracy that the free Judeo-Christian and other religious tra- hog farms that had contributed mil- market promises America. ditions. It is pessimistic, defeatist and lions to his campaign.) “Local control” This issue of Waterkeeper Magazine anti-democratic. It contradicts America’s is only invoked to dismantle the obsta- focuses on mercury, which has led to historical ties to wilderness and the cles to corporate dominion at the local warnings against eating fish in 45 American tradition of responsibility, level (When Arnold Schwarzenegger states. One out of every six American resourcefulness and commitment to com- passed the toughest auto emissions women of childbearing years now car- munity. It is unpatriotic and un- law in the U.S., the White House threat- ries so much mercury in her body that American and threatens our public health ened to join Detroit in suing). And her children are at risk for permanent and national security far more than any while proclaiming Christianity, they IQ loss, blindness, autism, kidney, heart terrorist. Our battle is a battle for those routinely violate the manifest man- and liver damage. I recently tested my values and for all the things that make dates of Christianity that we act as own blood for mercury and found us proud of our country. WK stewards of the Earth and exercise levels double those considered safe.

04 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org WATERKEEPER 06 Proud Sponsors of Sponsors Proud Printed in USA • Cummings Printing Cummings • USA in Printed ForestStewardshipCouncil. the of rules the to accordance in forests well-managed from comes the in used fiber the of 17.5% least at and content, post-consumer 20% to up with paper Schooner Domtar on printed pages Inside herein. use for licensed Soundkeeper,is of and mark Inc. service and trademarkregistered a is Soundkeeper a a and California Gulfkeeper Northern Waterkeepers of Creekkeeper,marks service and Coastkeeper,trademarks registered are Deltakeeper and Inc. Baykeeper herein. use for Alliance, Waterkeeper of marks service markslicensedby trademarks andservice Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc.Riverkeeper and isaregistered mark ofR trademark andservice trademarks registered are Lakekeeper and 2004 © Waterkeeperonly,Reproductioncontent Alliance. editorial of appropriateacknowledgement.creditauthorizedwith and is WaterkeeperMagazine CONTENTS 20 18 12 10 08 04 38 34 30 Mercury Rising: Mercury SchwarzeneggerEnergy on GovernorArnoldCalifornia News Healthyto Fish Guide PRS Editor the to Letters WelcomeLetter Commencement Bay,Commencement Washington Navigationon Hazard Riverkeeper Delawarethe Daywith Typical A David:Boy”Larry “Nature emission rules for coal-fired powerplantscoal-fired for rules emission WaterkeeperMagazine 20 Fall 2004 Fall The consequences of lax of consequences The 34 62 60 59 56 54 50 46 44 40 Volume 1 Number 2, Number Volume1 Index to Advertisersto Index Shore Stephen Waterthe photographerwithOn Mercury about me Ask ChesapeakeInitiative WaterkeeperNationalConference WaterkeepersWorldthe Around News: Special Monica Baykeeper Settles Suit with Los AngelesBaykeeperLos Monica with Suit Settles WarriorRiverkeeper Billion Dollar Baykeeper:DollarBillion Georgia Dublin, in WaterCleanWork the Act Making 46 Fall2004 Cook Inletkeeper & Black Inletkeeper& Cook iverkeeper, Inc.andislicensed Waterkeeper,Channelkeeper manufacturing process manufacturing re licensed for use herein. use for licensed re d nekee are Inletkeeper nd www.waterkeeper.org Santa 54 Magazine Ads age individuals to report violations by rewarding The premier issue of your magazine was the courage to do so. But the money you can recov- informative and helpful. But I was shocked to see er under these laws doesn’t approach 50 percent of prominent ads for Fords SUVs - hybrid or not - and the penalty. Some state laws also allow whistle- Honda's personal watercraft. I don't think these blowers to receive some of the penalty. The federal sponsors/commercials are appropriate for the Clean Water Act, the one Waterkeeper Alliance Letters to the magazine. -Joan Breiding, via email most commonly enforces, does not provide for a Editor bounty. Environmental groups can, however, We have put a lot of thought into what adver- recover their attorney fees and costs. This provi- tisers we will allow and we’ve tried to set appro- sion is important to ensure that citizens have priate standards. In both these cases, we chose to equal access to justice – it helps put some of the accept ads for vehicles that use advanced tech- burden for enforcing the law back onto polluters. nologies, although their overall environmental Whether or not a citizen is entitled to a bounty we record is questionable. believe that anyone who knows about illegal pol- The Ford ad is specifically for their new lution is obliged to take action. (See article , page gas/electric hybrid vehicle. We believe that pro- 40- (Making the Clean Water Act Work). Everyone moting a step in the right direction is as important has a right to clean water and with that right as fighting the many bad decisions that come out comes a responsibility to speak up for clean water. of Detroit (as well as Tokyo and everywhere else where the auto industry makes its decisions). The Clean Marinas Honda ad is for their four-stroke personal water We have a marina and we want to be responsi- craft. The four-stroke engine is a significant ble in continuing to manage it. How and what, if improvement on the two-stroke motors used in any, ideas can you give us so we can help. - L, via most other PWCs and boats. We understand the email controversy surrounding the use and misuse of these vehicles. We have Waterkeeper programs Any marina owner, manager or staff, or boat around the country that are fighting PWC use on owner that wants to reduce their impact on their the waters they protect. We also have Waterkeeper waterbody can have a large effect by educating programs that depend on PWCs as patrol craft and boaters about chemicals used around the marina. rescue vehicles. Use non-toxic boat cleaners and polishes. If you We are going to do our best to keep a high stan- paint boats with anti-fouling paint, contain as dard for advertisers in the magazine. We appreci- much of the dust as possible and dispose of it ate your sharing your concerns and with your help properly. Implement spill cleanup protocol and we’ll find the right balance. have absorbent pads available to make fueling less dicey. Pass out information to boaters on how to Enforcing the law keep bilges clean and sell or promote bilge My friend said that when someone turns in a sponges and socks. Providing a sewage pump-out company creating pollution they get half of the station will also have a large positive effect. money. Is that true? - Nay Rivas, via email For more information visit the NOAA Clean Marinas program on the web at: http://cleanmari- A lot depends on the law that you are trying to nas.noaa.gov/marinalinks.html. The website pro- enforce. A few federal laws contain bounty provi- vides links to 19 states, and governmental and sions (such as the old River & Harbors Act and non-profit partners, who are participating in the some whistleblower statutes). These laws encour- Clean Marinas program.

08 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org You can use this Guide to Healthy Fish to help you make Hog Factories informed choices about the fish you and your family eat. Dear Waterkeeper - Maybe a boycott of Smithfield and other corporate polluters would send a message. I'm sure that most consumers who were made aware of this revolting dis- regard for human and animal health would opt to purchase products from more responsible, sustainable and preferably small family farms. - Christi Love, via email You’re right – consumers hold the key to reshaping the

Photo by Rick Dove way our food is produced. Fortunately, the law and the majority of the public are on our side. We’ve chosen to fight this industry through litiga- tion while emphasizing that responsible agriculture is a proven, and successful, path towards environmental and eco- nomic sustainability. There are several good resources for people who want to purchase products from traditional fam- ily farmers – visit our website at (www.waterkeeper.org) for an updated list of these resources. Or visit the Sustainable Table page put together by GRACE ( www.gracelinks.org) and the Eat Well Guide, an evolving list of sustainable suppliers arranged by zip code (www.eatwellguide.org).

Comments or letters to the editor can be submitted via Women and children should pay close attention to the kinds of fish email [email protected] or by mail to Waterkeeper they consume.Too much mercury and PCBs can cause health problems Magazine, Suite 100, 828 S. Broadway, Tarrytown, NY 10591 for anyone. Because they alter the way young brains develop, these Please include your full name and address. pollutants can harm babies and children most of all. Both mercury and PCBs linger in the body and build up over time.They can pass from a pregnant woman or a nursing mother to her baby.

To learn more about the health effects of mercury and PCBs, visit http://www.mercuryaction.org

This Guide to Healthy Fish was created by Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals.

10 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org WATERKEEPER M A G A Z I N E Waterkeeper NEWS

828 South Broadway Suite 100 Tarrytown, NY 10591 The official magazine of Waterkeeper Alliance Mission: Waterkeeper Alliance connects and supports Canada Investigated by NAFTA local Waterkeeper programs to provide a voice for Watchdog waterways and communities worldwide. [ ]

Jordan Wright Publisher he Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) Eddie Scher Editor announced that it is launching an investigation follow- Bülent Bingöl Art Director ing allegations that Canada is failing to enforce the Jennifer Hintze Production Director T Fisheries Act by allowing PCBs to leak into the St. Lawrence Contributors River near Old Montreal. Eric Hoffman Creative Director The allegations were made by a coalition of Canadian and William Abranowicz Photography Consultant Joseph Sohm Photographer U.S. nonprofit organizations in 2003. Lake Ontario Lisa Kereszi Photographer Waterkeeper, Waterkeeper Alliance and partner organizations Laura McPhee Photographer provided evidence that PCBs had been leaking from the Yolanda Edwards Photo Editor Technoparc site into the St. Lawrence River for at least three Volo Publishing LLC years. 468 West Broadway New York, NY 10012 Board of Directors Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (President) Terry Backer (Vice President) - Soundkeeper, Inc. Bob Shavelson (Treasurer) - Cook Inletkeeper Leo O’Brien (Secretary) - Waterkeepers Northern California/San Francisco Baykeeper Casi Callaway Mobile Baykeeper Richard J. Dove Neuse Riverkeeper emeritus Daniel LeBlanc Peticodiac Riverkeeper Alex Matthiessen Riverkeeper Inc. Mark Mattson Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Joe Payne Casco Baykeeper Bruce Reznik San Diego Baykeeper Maya van Rossum Delaware Riverkeeper Andy Willner NY/NJ Baykeeper Anne Brasie Grand Traverse Baykeeper Karl Coplan Pace University, Environmental Litigation Clinic Fernando Rey Cartagena Baykeeper Board Murray Fisher Honorary member Board of Trustees Terry Tamminen Laura and Rutherford Paul Polizzotto Seema Boesky Seydel Karen Lehner F. Daniel Gabel, Jr. John Paul DeJoria Gordon Brown Tom Gegax William B. Wachtel Michael Budman Jami & Klaus von Heidegger Glenn R. Rink Staff Steve Fleischli Executive Director Susan Sanderson Development Director

Eddie Scher Communications Director Ontario Waterkeeper Scott Edwards Legal Director Jeff Odefey Staff Attorney Erin Fitzsimmons Chesapeake Regional Coordinator Thom Byrne Field Coordinator Cate White Development and Communications Lake Photos by Associate PCB contamination leaking into Saint Lawrence river. Janelle Hope Robbins Staff Scientist Richard J. Dove Waterkeeper Liaison Mary Beth Postman Assistant to the President Environment Canada, the Canadian equivalent of U.S. EPA, and barrels of other fuels floating down river, overwhelming defended its failure to complete an investigation or lay charges smells of kerosene and petroleum, as well as untreated sewage in a statement submitted to the CEC in November, 2003. In and other pollutants. Two hundred and fifty-thousand people August, the CEC ruled that Environment Canada’s statement, in Asheville and the surrounding communities were without “left open central questions” and ordered the creation of a fac- drinking water for more than four days. The Riverkeeper tual record. offices were not spared, flood waters filled the basement The CEC has indicated that its factual record will outline destroying supplies, maps and educational materials and fill- Environment Canada’s actions in response to the PCB leak. Its ing the building with sewage and diesel fumes. More than 25 investigation will uncover how this kind of contamination occurs despite strong laws. “The CEC’s finding in this case is groundbreaking because the NAFTA body will determine whether Canada is ignoring its own clean water laws,” says Mark Mattson, an environmental lawyer who investigated the Technoparc site. “The PCBs con- tinue to leak into the river every day, and Environment Canada knows it. The Fisheries Act clearly prohibits this kind of pollu- tion.” The CEC’s investigation is unique because it is the first such investigation into water pollution in an urban setting. “Montreal is one of Canada’s largest, most important cities,” says Mattson. “For the first time, residents in urban centers will see whether they have the same rights to clean water as the rest of the country.” The Commission for Environmental Cooperation is an inter- national organization created to address regional environmen- tal concerns, help prevent potential trade and environmental conflicts and to promote the effective enforcement of environ- mental law. Its work is intended to complement the environ- mental provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mark Mattson is president of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and an investigator of the Technoparc site.

Hurricane Frances Meets the [ French Broad ]

urricane season has hit the Southeastern U.S. hard this year. Hurricane Frances ran into the mountains H of western North Carolina flooding the French Broad River and causing massive property damage. No fatalities were reported but the lives of many people were devastated. In addi- tion, the French Broad River itself is paying a price. Phillip Gibson, French Broad Riverkeeper, and his son Truman Turner got onto their river following the hurricane to assess environmental damage. While news reports depict the loss of human property, the damages to the river are rarely Photos by French Broad Riverkeeper Broad French Photos by mentioned. Residents reported 30,000 gallon petroleum tanks Flooding on French Broad River, N.C.

14 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org volunteers worked to clear the ruins and get the program back Frances. Award honorees are selected for their dedicated on its feet. efforts on behalf of Florida’s fish and wildlife resources. The While the U.S. Geological Survey indicated that this was a Apalachicola Bay and Riverkeeper, also known as ABARK, is 100-year flood event, development and the increasing impervi- being honored for aggressive advocacy to protect and preserve ous coverage (buildings, roads, etc.) added to the volume of the Apalachicola River and estuary, including ABARK’s efforts water. The French Broad Riverkeeper is encouraging communi- to ensure adequate freshwater flows. ty leaders to prepare a watershed plan that will alleviate some The Apalachicola River basin stands out because of its of the causes of this pollution during increasingly frequent incredible natural resources. More than 180 fish and 1,300 "100-year" flood events. For additional photos and information plant species live in the river and bay along with 40 amphibian visit www.riverlink.org species and 80 species of reptiles - the highest density and diversity of amphibians and reptiles in the U.S. and Canada. St. Johns Riverkeeper Agrees to Settle Also, more than 50 species of mammals including the endan- gered Florida black bear, West Indian manatee, Indiana bat and Clean Water Suit for Condom Creek [ ] gray bat live in the watershed. The Apalachicola Bay is one of the most productive estuaries in the northern hemisphere, pro- he St. Johns Riverkeeper announced a settlement in a viding 90 percent of Florida’s oysters and more than 10 percent Clean Water Act suit against JEA, a Florida sewage and of the total U.S. production. T water company, over a broken pipeline that was illegal- ly discharging into a small tributary of the Ortega River. In March, St. Johns Riverkeeper responded to a tip from a New Grand Traverse Baykeeper fisherman about plastic floating in the water near the conflu- Tugboat at the Clinch Park Marina ence of a small creek and the Ortega River. Riverkeeper notified [ in Traverse City, Mich. ] the community and engaged in negotiations with JEA and Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection to resolve ohn Nelson, Grand Traverse Baykeeper, is touring marinas the problem. throughout the Grand Traverse Bay watershed to intro- JEA agreed to pay a $200,000 fine and will fund $350,000 J duce residents to the new Baykeeper tugboat and distrib- worth of projects to improve water quality in the St. Johns River. Projects will include reducing bacteria levels in Jacksonville tributaries, providing pump-out facilities at mari- nas, installing and maintaining short-term pump-out facilities during the upcoming Super Bowl, and funding nutrient studies for the St. Johns River. “We worked closely with JEA on resolving this issue, and to their credit, they stepped up and accepted responsibility for the problem and agreed to a substantial consent order that will provide a positive outcome to an unfortunate situation,” said Jimmy Orth, Executive Director of St. Johns Riverkeeper.

ABARK Named Water Resource [ Organization of the Year ] Baykeeper Traverse Grand Photos by uting materials to boaters on the control of invasive species he Florida Wildlife Federation named Apalachicola Bay and clean boating tips. They are also serving Baykeeper Wave and Riverkeeper as its Water Resource Organization of ice cream, a special blend of homemade ice cream made T the Year – one of the oldest conservation award pro- exclusively for the Baykeeper. Over the course of the summer grams in Florida. The award will be presented in Jacksonville at long tour they served approximately 1,000 ice cream cones to the Federation’s 67th Annual Conservation Awards Banquet, people who stopped by their booth and checked out the boat. which was postponed from September 11 because of Hurricane

16 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org As California Goes...

By Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

hen I ran for Governor, many that encourages public-private partnerships, Renewable energy sources are a key to people told me I would have rewards modernization, attracts investment, our long-term success. Recently, I launched W to choose between rebuilding creates jobs, eliminates duplication and California onto the Hydrogen Highway, so the state's depressed economy and protect- ensures accountability. All of this stimulates that by 2010 all Californians will have access ing the environment. They were wrong. As our economy. to clean hydrogen fuel and cars. There are Governor, I have seen firsthand remarkable Sustainable and renewable energy strate- already more than 300 businesses working opportunities to protect and empower both. gies represent new technology that fuses on hydrogen technology in the state, creat- California's proud tradition of environ- environmental concerns with economic ing high-quality, sustainable jobs for the mental stewardship calls to mind an old say- growth. I have a plan for California that inte- future, and we must continue to invest in the ing about our state, "As California goes, so grates forward-thinking environmental tech- most fuel-efficient vehicles. In addition, I goes the nation." And we have led the nology to map out both short-term and long- have made a promise to implement the nation by creating an environmental policy term solutions. state's Renewable Portfolio Standard seven

18 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org years ahead of schedule and to obtain a third of California's energy from renewable energy sources by 2020. My Where the Rubber Meets the Road Administration is also examining ways to make natural gas sup- plies more reliable with renewable sources such as landfill gas In his first year running the world’s fifth largest economy Governor and biomass conversion. Schwarzenegger has had a chance to put his mark on the legislative and Despite achievements in reducing overall pollution levels in regulatory environment in California. Here’s what the Schwarzenegger our state, our dependence on polluting energy sources contin- administration has done so far: ues to be a hazard to public health. Air monitoring shows that • Supported California Air Resources Board’s new global warming more than 90 percent of Californians breathe unhealthy levels rule – called the “world’s toughest smog rule.” of at least one air pollutant during some part of the year. This • Vetoed bill requiring the Ports of Los Angeles and Long poor air quality contributes to numerous health problems for Beach to address air pollution – two of the largest sources of our citizens. I have taken an aggressive step toward reducing smog in Los Angeles. air pollution through the Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program. The Moyer Program dedicates • Signed Executive Order to establish statewide Hydrogen Highway and speed commercialization of hydrogen and $160 million annually to help owners of old, high-polluting fuel cell technologies. diesel vehicles and equipment upgrade to those powered by compressed natural gas, electricity or clean-running diesel. • Opposed advancing a deadline for achieving 20 percent This incentive-based program works to improve air quality renewable electricity by 2010 – a position he supported in his while lowering overall consumer costs for smog check require- own environmental action plan. ments. • Signed legislation banning the discharge of sewage from cruise In the short term, the "Green Bank" program will offer an ships within three miles of state’s coastline. immediate strategy to maximize the resources we have. Green Bank makes loans to commercial and multi-family structures to • Established the nation’s first cabinet level oceans agency and retrofit for energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling. signed California Ocean Protection Act to stop pollution and California is also encouraging a "utility loading order," the habitat destruction, and improve fishing practices and marine management. process by which utilities acquire power, where energy conser- vation and demand response top the list. We are also providing • Endorsed repeal of California’s Unfair Competition law, a law incentives to use alternative energies whenever possible. that allows citizens to brings suits to stop pollution and protect Utilities must maximize cost-effective conservation and public safety. efficiency measures before they contract for central station power plants. • Signed legislation creating the 25 million acre Sierra Nevada Conservancy – protecting plants, wildlife, and drinking water supplies. Our renewable energy projects also provide greater energy security and stimulate visionary businesses – converting farm • Shut down expansion of California's state parks by halting waste and urban greenwaste to energy, for instance. We also purchases of scenic beaches, forests and historic sites – even intend to lead the nation in production of solar power with when paid for with private donations. creative programs to add more photovoltaics to our homes and • Signed bill requiring state and federal officials to ensure that state buildings. Solar power in California is already a billion water quality standards are met before allowing increases in dollar industry, and in the future it will create many times that water pumped from Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. in revenues and good jobs. More than 1 million Californians are currently employed in • Created the California Performance Review, a panel of industry our $75 billion tourism industry, and our magnificent coastline and their lobbyists charged with recommending changes to make is a powerful draw for visitors and tourists. In May, the government “more efficient.” Now the Governor must resist pressure from lobbyists and trade organizations to weaken local California Ocean Summit featured testimony from experts in control and protection of natural resources. industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations to address coastal pollution and ocean protection. The forum, and the upcoming Oceans Action Plan, are impor- tion is in the unique power we all have as partners in the movement. By tant steps in mobilizing California's scientific edge and initiat- tapping into our state's technological enterprise and our proud con- ing public-private partnerships to reinforce our commitment to servation traditions, we unearth answers and opportunities to solve protecting our tremendous coastline and valuable oceanic environmental problems and create sustainable jobs for future genera- resources. tions. In California, we no longer view our economy and our environ- We cannot merely talk about the environment and the econ- ment as separated by a chasm, but rather bridged with opportunity omy, we must take action. The secret of environmental protec- that will help California lead the nation once more. WK www.waterkeeper.org Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 19 Industries are pumping mercury into our environment, threatening public health. Government is passing rules, but who are they really protecting?

MERCURY RISING Story by Scott Edwards power generatingarea. major coalproducingand River Basin.Thebasinisa Kanawha RiverintheOhio AmosPlantonthe John E. American ElectricPower's

Photograph courtesy of Joseph Sohm ix hundred and thirty thousand. This is the number of infants who will be born this upcoming year with unsafe levels of mercury, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 2006 there will be another 630,000. And again in 2007. Each year, the S number of children impacted by mercury poisoning is four times higher than the number affected by all other birth defects combined. Chances are, you, or someone you love, will be touched by the growing epidemic that is affecting America’s most vulnerable population – our future generations.

Dropping the Ball on Mercury Estimating the Impacts Fish Testing

In January 2003 the Centers for Disease Control Unfortunately, fishermen and fish consumers across and Prevention (CDC) found that nearly 1 in 12 the country are not being supplied with the women of child bearing age (16 to 49) are currently information they need to make educated choices about exposed to levels of mercury that exceed EPA safe the fish they eat. For example, Michigan recently levels, putting more than 300,000 fetuses at risk from announced that it is doing away with its annual the harmful effects of mercury poisoning. We now know Michigan Family Fish Consumption guide because of that that number was a gross underestimate. EPA budget cuts. This guide educates Michigan anglers scientists recently raised that estimate to 1 in 6 and the public about mercury, PCBs, DDT and other women based on evidence that mercury concentrations contaminants found in the fish caught in Michigan’s in umbilical cord blood is significantly higher than the waterways. Michigan residents rely on this report to mother’s blood concentration. Using 2000 census make informed decisions on what fish to keep figures, EPA determined that as many as 630,000 and which to throw back. In many other states, newborns each year are now at risk of serious congenital mercury fish advisories are not being updated on a neurological and developmental impairment. regular basis. That’s why Waterkeeper and 60 of its member organizations, in partnership with the University of North Carolina, Asheville are conducting According to EPA, more than one third of American their own mercury fish testing in watersheds across lakes and a quarter of our rivers are now under mercury North America. By spring, local Waterkeeper fish advisories. These advisories warn the public to eat the fish in limited amounts or not at all. Indications are programs will be sharing the results with their that the only reason this number isn’t higher is that the communities to help the public and the policy makers rest of the nation’s waterways are not being tested. make the right choices. “Mercury is everywhere,” EPA head Mike Leavitt recently admitted. “The more waters we monitor, the more we find mercury.” Yet EPA has laid down its arms in its For more information on the mercury fish testing battle to protect human health and to safeguard the program and to find information on your own State’s natural environment – air, water, and land – upon which fish advisory program visit www.waterkeeper.org/mercury. life depends. Industry is now scripting the very environmental and human health policies that are supposed to curtail polluting activities. With the recently proposed mercury rule, EPA has officially run up the www.waterkeeper.org white flag, or worse, joined the other side. /mercury Industry in the Driver's Seat

Latham & Watkins was among the most active law firms and utility-industry representatives that lobbied the administration last year during preliminary deliberations over the proposed mercury rule. The firm represents Cinergy and several other utilities and energy-related companies. It maintains a substantial financial interest in the outcome of the rulemaking. On behalf of its industry clients, Latham & Watkins lawyers busily prepared extensive legal memoranda suggesting alternate, less restrictive regulatory control of mercury emissions from power plants.

Then the EPA rulemaking process took over. Robert Perciasepe, who headed the EPA air-policy office during the Clinton administration, describes how this process should work: “The regulations are supposed to be drafted by the staff – the people in the science program and regulatory branches.” Yet, with the mercury rule, the normal process went awry. The Los Angeles Times reports that EPA staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for because of “White House concerns.” And a side-by-side comparison of the proposed rule and the memoranda prepared by Latham & Watkins shows that at least a dozen paragraphs were lifted, some verbatim, from the industry memos drafted before and during the rule-making process.

According to a source quoted by the Washington Post, “[i]f you had to pick one person, it was Jeff Holmstead in EPA’s air office who played the key role in development of the cap- and-trade approach to regulation of mercury emissions.” Not surprisingly, Holmstead, the mercury rule’s chief architect, worked for Latham & Watkins before moving his office to EPA headquarters in October 2001.

Jeffrey Holmstead, Assistant “That's not typically the way we do things, borrowing language from other people,” states Administrator for Air and Radiation, US EPA, former Holmstead. Obviously, he was willing to make an exception in the case of the proposed Lawyer-Lobbyist at, Latham and Watkins, LLP mercury rule. Coal waiting to be turned into merucury emissions at LACOA's power plant near Rockland, Texas

Where are the Dirtiest Power Plants tesy of Steven Holt in the Country? r

PLANT STATE MERCURY LBS. PER YEAR Photograph cou Monticello Texas 2,097 Homer City Pennsylvania 1,852 Keystone Pennsylvania 1,851 Miller Alabama 1,589

Martin Lake Texas 1,366 t) epor Montour Pennsylvania 1,219 Scherer Georgia 1,203 Powerton Illinois 1,127 , Analysis: USPIRG (2003 R

Four Corners New Mexico 1,052 A San Juan New Mexico 1,042 Source: EP Which States have the Highest Annual Mercury Emissions? Montana and Washington issued advisories for all of their rivers STATE TONS POUNDS and lakes last year. Texas 5.023 10,045 Hawaii issued an advisory for Pennsylvania 4.979 9,959 its entire coastline. Ohio 3.555 7,109 Illinois 2.995 5,989 Despite the growing number of fish advisories across the nation, EPA is doing little to force reductions in West Virginia 2.466 4,932 power plant mercury emissions. In January of this year Alabama 2.466 4,931 EPA issued a proposed rule that allows for a meager 29 percent reduction over the coming years, far below the Indiana 2.442 4,884 90 percent reduction that EPA claimed was achievable under the Clinton Administration. In fact, the proposed Kentucky 1.740 3,480 mercury control rule does not require a single piece of Michigan 1.541 3,083 mercury control technology, instead conveniently setting emissions limits at those levels that can be achieved N. Carolina 1.538 3,076 simply if industry adheres to existing mandates for

Source: EPA, Analysis: USPIRG (2003 Report) controlling other harmful gases.

The largest source of airborne mercury in the country is the nation’s 1,100 coal-fired power plants that spew almost 50 tons of deadly mercury into the air every year. Return on Investment: Every child knows that what goes up must come down. Mercury is no exception. When mercury comes down Rewards for an Industry that from power plant smokestacks it seeps into the soil and Contributed Almost $3 Million eventually ends up in our waterways. That’s where to the Bush/Cheney Campaign bacteria and chemicals go to work, transforming it in 2000. into something extremely toxic: methylmercury. Methylmercury is dangerous because it bioaccumulates Starting in the late 1990’s the electric utility industry – it builds up in living things because organisms, including began making enormous payoffs to Republican people, absorb it at a faster rate than they can get rid of candidates in the form of campaign contributions. it. Fish absorb methylmercury as water runs over their Since 1996, the industry has pumped nearly 50 gills, but the bigger problem lies in the food chain. When a large fish eats a smaller fish it absorbs the mercury million dollars into the Republican Party in the hope that was in the prey’s body. Over the fish’s life that it will be insulated from regulatory controls under methylmercury accumulates to dangerous levels, a our nation’s public health and environmental statutes. million times the concentration in surrounding water or more. We humans, at the top of this food chain, are exposed to methylmercury when we eat the mercury- laden, larger predatory fish like tuna and swordfish. EPA reports that a predatory fish can have more than 1 million times the mercury found in the surrounding water Mercury is highly toxic. One study found that 1/70 of a teaspoon of pure mercury is enough to contaminate a 25-acre lake. In 1993, 27 states had issued advisories warning people of the dangerous levels of mercury in some fish. By 2003, 45 states and the District of Columbia had mercury fish advisories. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. It has been linked to Case Study: Minamata all sorts of serious physical and central nervous system disorders, including mental retardation, and even death. Mercury contamination of the world’s In adults, even at very low doses, it causes neurological waterways and the impacts on human health was dysfunctions, circulatory and immune system deficiencies. most dramatically catapulted to the forefront of But mercury is most dangerous to a child’s developing public awareness in Minamata, Japan, where a brain. During pregnancy, a woman eating contaminated petrochemical and plastic company dumped 27 fish will pass some of that mercury on to her child tons of mercury into Minamata Bay for a period through prenatal blood transfer and, later, through of more than thirty years from 1932 to 1968. breast milk to a nursing infant. In fact, studies indicate Thousands of people from surrounding fishing that the fetus will have a larger amount of mercury in its villages were afflicted with what has become blood than the mother because mercury concentration in known as “Minamata Disease.” Symptoms umbilical cord blood is almost twice as high as that found in the mother’s bloodstream. This recent discovery include a lack of coordination, weakness and led EPA to double the Center for Disease Control and tremor, slowed and slurred speech and altered Prevention’s prior estimate of 300,000 at-risk children vision and hearing. These symptoms worsened born each year. Now, EPA estimates that 630,000 and led to general paralysis, involuntary children are born each year in this country with unsafe movements, difficulty in swallowing, convulsions, mercury levels. brain damage and in some cases, death. The impact of mercury contamination in these communities has been powerfully documented in the photographs of Eugene Smith. 21 states have issued statewide mercury advisories for fresh water fish tesy of Laura McPhee r Photograph cou ereszi tesy of Lisa K r Photograph cou

Millions of Americans depend on fish as a healthy some fish are safe and some aren’t, what you get is that alternative to other types of meat. Thousands depend they just stop eating fish altogether,” said Mobile on our nation’s fisheries for their livelihood. The health Baykeeper Casi Callaway. “Seafood is good for you, so it of children is in jeopardy and our commercial fishing shouldn’t be cut out altogether. If you do, then you’re industry is at risk. “When you tell pregnant women that depriving yourself and hurting an entire industry.” [See the public, yet for almost 30 years the industry has dodged the problem. When Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990 to require power plants to reduce their toxic emissions, energy lobbyists forced a regulato- ry reprieve for the nation’s coal-fired plants until the completion of a study of human health effects. That study was released in 1998 and the verdict was unmistakable. “Mercury emissions from electric utility steam generating units are considered a threat to public health and the environment” warranting strict regulation under the Clean Air Act, concluded EPA’s December 2000 official finding. Yet, in 2004 EPA proposed a mercury reduction rule that is anything but strict – allowing the energy industry to conduct business as usual while jeopardizing the health and safety of the American public.

With the release of the proposed EPA rule, Michael Leavitt, EPA administrator, was quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying that the agency is “charged with writing a [mercury] regulation that works for an entire industry.”

“Quite frankly, I always thought it was the job of fed- eral agencies like EPA to safeguard our well-being,” responded Zachary Corrigan, Staff Attorney, U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “Amazingly, this administration, as they have in so many other instances, wants the American people to place their public health, welfare and trust in industry’s hands when history has clearly shown that this industry’s leaders do not have the public’s best interests in mind.”

But this is exactly what EPA is proposing to do in its proposed mercury emissions rule – give over regulatory control of mercury to the energy industry through a market-based cap-and-trade program. In this kind of pollution control program EPA sets a cap, or limit, on the total amount of mercury pollution that can be released nationwide. Power plants are issued credits for their pollution. A new, relatively clean plant might not use all of its credits, so those credits (and the right to dump mercury into the air and water) can be sold to other plants. Cleaner plants make a profit by selling their pollution allowance to worse polluters. The idea is that the incentive to make money will lead to less pollution. Unfortunately, because of the nature of mercury pollution, it will also lead to toxic hotspots around our nation’s biggest polluters – those plants willing to spend a little more to continue emitting mercury.

Physicians for Social Responsibility’s Healthy Fish, Download Waterkeeper Alliance’s Healthy Families wallet card on page 10.] response to EPA’s proposed mercury regulations and find out more at The federal government’s own scientists have made Recent studieswww.waterkeeper.org show that mercury is much. more of a the link between mercury contamination and the risk to Cleaner Local Plants Means Cleaner Local Water

The electric utility industry has long argued against strict mercury emission controls by claiming that the nation’s mercury problem results largely from long range deposition of mercury from global sources, such as Southeast Asian power plants, not local sources such as U.S. utility units. Recent studies, however, definitively refute industry’s claim.

Beginning in the 1980s the State of Florida began to place strict controls on the airborne discharge of mercury from medical waste incinerators operating close to the Everglades National Park, forcing a reduction of these harmful emissions by nearly 99 percent (using technology that could easily be adopted by coal-fired power plants). Multi-agency studies which began in 1994 show a dramatic and almost immediate drop in mercury in aquatic life in the Everglades since the industry was forced to reduce its emissions. Over the last ten years, scientists have confirmed a 70 percent decline in mercury in bird feathers and a 60 percent decrease in fish tissue.

The message is clear. “Mercury levels in the natural environment are a worldwide concern but local investments can illiam Abranowicz yield local results,” states Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David B. Struhs. “This is sound scientific evidence that advances in cleanup technologies can significantly reduce pollutants, improve water quality and tesy of W recover wildlife.” r

To read the full study, visit the Florida DEP’s website at [http://www.dep.state.fl.us/secretary/news/2003/nov/1106.htm ] Photograph cou

Recent studies show that mercury is much more of a local problem than industry would have us believe; Commericially though there are global implications of mercury Available contamination, most of the pollution stays near its source. Strict regulation of local sources of mercury leads to dramatic reductions in mercury contamination doublE s Pe A k of local waterways. This is what makes a cap-and-trade program for mercury unsafe and unfair. If you live near a “Recent data indicate cleaner plant, things might not be so bad. If you live near that mercury can be effec- a dirty plant though, a cap-and-trade program isn’t going tively removed by using oxi- to make your fish safe. In fact, it can lead to a hot-spot dizing agents or sorbent where mercury contamination remains high in your injected into the gas community, even while EPA is touting its success at stream.” EPA Regulatory Finding, December 2000 reducing national averages.

The energy industry justifies its disposal of mercury in “. . . commercially available sorbent the air and water by holding out the specter of high materials are SorbalitTM and Darco FGD . . . in energy costs, arguing that poisoning our children is an addition to commercially available synthetic zeo- acceptable consequence of saving a few pennies on our monthly electricity bills. In truth, there is no need to lites. Both types contain large surface areas strike such a dismal balance. Our country has proven and have a good potential for [mercury] and affordable technology available to slash mercury removal.” EPA Proposed Mercury Rule, January emissions from power plants without any significant 2004 increase in energy costs. “This really isn’t about energy costs,” said John Walke, Clean Air Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is about an industry “Currently, there are no commercially fighting tooth and nail, spending millions of dollars to available control technologies designed avoid cleaning up their mess. This is about an industry for reducing [mercury] emissions.” EPA that wants free reign to pollute without the government, the public, consumers telling them they have to stop.” Proposed Mercury Rule, January 2004

Even if it means poisoning 630,000 infants a year. g Mercury and Fair Trade: Does Lax U.S. Enforcement Violate NAFTA?

A coalition of American and Canadian environmental groups filed a formal complaint with NAFTA’s Commission for Environmental Compliance (CEC) demanding an investigation into the dramatic increase in mercury contamination of U.S. lakes and rivers. Waterkeeper Alliance, Canada’s Sierra Legal Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth Canada, Sierra Club, and other groups allege that EPA is failing to effectively enforce provisions of the Clean Water Act against coal-fired power plants, degrading water bodies and leading to widespread fish consumption restrictions on both sides of the border.

Submission alleges that the failure of effective enforcement through appropriate government action has thwarted the aim of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation to prevent trade advantages between the parties gained at the expense of the environment.

The CEC is an environmental watchdog agency created under NAFTA with the responsibility of investigating and reporting on countries that fail to enforce their environmental laws. The CEC Secretariat, based in Montreal, must now determine if the U.S. will be asked to respond to the allegations and whether an international investigation is warranted.

THE COST OF COAL: Reality is no Obstacle

Our nation’s misguided coal-fired energy policy starts warnings, industry-supported groups like Americans with the environmental devastation of Appalachia’s for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) argue, under the ancient mountain ranges and ends with 48 tons a year false guise of patriotism, for weakened environmental of dangerous mercury emissions from utility units protection standards with their new TV ad campaign. entering our air and waterways and contributing to thousands of fish advisories across the country. Yet But this group is anything but “balanced” and there is even with 45 states under mercury fish consumption nothing patriotic about environmental degradation. BIG COAL* VS. REALITY

[T]he U.S. coal-based electricity sector “The Mercury Study Report to Congress, in 1997, identified fossil-fuel is responsible for only about 1% of the fired power plants as the largest source of human-generated mercury mercury emitted in the atmosphere emissions in the country.” EPA, December 14, 2000 each year. “There is a plausible link between anthropogenic releases of mercury from industrial and combustion sources in the United States and methylmercury in fish.” EPA, February 24, 1998

There is some disagreement over the “Even low levels of mercury exposure such as result from [a] level of mercury considered "safe." mother's consumption [of] methylmercury in dietary sources can …there is no consensus as to what adversely affect the brain and nervous system.” level of exposure presents a threat to EPA Website, September 2004 public health. “Environmental Protection Agency scientists said yesterday that new research indicates that 630,000 U.S. newborns had unsafe levels of mercury in their blood in 1999-2000.” Washington Post, February 6, 2004

*Quoted from ABEC website, September 2004. No longer mocking sunsets • Illustration by John Cuneo

"Nature Boy" Larry

By Larry David

30 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org am pleased to announce that after a lifetime of indifference we appreciated. Sunsets were mocked. The moon, in particular, to man and nature, I have changed. I am now only indiffer- held no fascination for anyone. I don't think I ever heard anyone I ent to man. Yes, my friends, I've become "Nature Boy" Larry, even use it in a sentence. Nobody ever said, "Hey, check out the committed activist. Fighting the good fight. Walking the walk . . . moon!" We never gazed at it. We didn't do any gazing. Well, peo- or is it talking the talk? I'm pretty sure it's some combination of ple never looked up in general. We were too busy traversing a walking and talking. minefield of dog excrement. That's why, to this day, I can't look How could such a transformation take place? How did I go anyone in the eye, because, after spending many an afternoon from being Larry David, radical narcissist, to Larry David, radi- throwing my sneaker away and hopping home, I became fixat- cal environmentalist? Let me give you some background. ed on looking down. I grew up in Brooklyn. Of all the wonders and pleasures that So as a result of my background, I've never done anything Mother Earth has bestowed upon us, none of them could be outdoorsy. I don't hike, I don't ski, I don't fish . . . I would if you found in Brooklyn. The only grass I ever saw was on the divider could catch conservatives. I wouldn't throw them back so fast, of the Belt Parkway. There were no flowers. Just artificial ones. either. I'd let them flop around on the deck for a while. "It was Every apartment had artificial flowers. People took great pride wrong to lie about Saddam having nuclear weapons, wasn't it?" in their artificial flowers -- and fruit. Let's not leave out the "Yes, yes." "In fact, the whole war was a big mistake!" "Yes, fruit. Anything fake. We loved good, fake things. The greatest maybe." "No, not maybe! It was a mistake!" "OK, it was a mis- compliment you could give somebody was to mistakenly pick take. Throw me back. Please!" up a piece of their artificial fruit and try to take a bite out of it. Anyway, whatever harm's been done to the environment -- That made their day. and I know there's been a lot - it's never really affected me per- But I couldn't smell a real sonally in any way. That is, until flower anyway. I was born with a few months ago. The first the ability to smell only dis- Larry David thing that happened was I gusting things. I never smell noticed something on my face. anything pleasant. Ever. You went from radical And it turned out to be a can shove a lilac up my nose, benign skin cancer, which was and I wouldn't smell it, but narcissist to radical caused by ozone depletion! urine and BO I can smell from Cancer! On me! From ozone three blocks away. And environmentalist depletion! All right, it was Brooklyn was not wanting for benign. Of course, when people disgusting odors. Bus fumes, noticed the bandage and asked garbage, cigarette smoke. Everybody in Brooklyn smoked. Even me what happened, I told them it was cancer. You know, I nine-year-olds. You walk into someone's house, you're greeted played it a bit. It's the first time anyone's felt sorry for me since with smoke in the face. The whole borough was hacking and they published my income eight years ago. coughing and spitting. There was phlegm everywhere. It was When you have money, the only way you can get any sym- flying at you from every direction. Out of windows, cars. pathy at all is to say you have cancer. You could lose a limb, no Anywhere you walked, you had to keep ducking so you would- one would care. Only when they know you're going to die do n't get hit. It was like a shooting gallery. you get anyone feeling sorry for you. And even then, some peo- And of course, needless to say, there were no animals in my ple don't. "Serves him right, rich prick." That's what I am now, a life. My mother hated animals. All of them. If she had her way, "rich prick." Prick always follows the word rich. If you're rich, she would kill every living animal on the planet. She looked at you're a prick. Just the way schmuck always follows the word extinction as a good thing. When an animal was put on the poor. So I went from a poor schmuck to a rich prick without endangered-species list, she went out and got drunk. "Let 'em hardly any transition. Of course, I was a poor schmuck longer all die. Who needs 'em? What good are they doing?" than I've been a rich prick, and frankly, I'm not that much hap- And nobody ever went hiking in Brooklyn. The only time you pier as a prick than a schmuck. I never thought I'd become a took a hike was when someone told you to go fuck yourself. prick. Neither did my friends. They said, "He'll never be a prick!" Then you took a hike. Then you got the hell out of there in a And then, boom, I'm a prick. Now I have all new friends. All hurry. "You're right, sir. Perhaps it is time for a little afternoon pricks. Schmucks call me from time to time. I say, "I can't talk to stroll. I think I'll be moseying on." There was nothing in nature you. I'm a prick.”

www.waterkeeper.org Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 31 So I had the skin cancer caused by ozone depletion. OK, it was of cholesterol. What am I supposed to have -- soup? Soup's too benign, they took it off, not terrible. I'm OK. My life goes on. But distracting. There's too much to do, and it always spills when then a few weeks after that, I was reading the newspaper when you get it to go. And I don't want anything on a plate. Lunch is something caught my eye, and what I read has changed my life a sandwich. You don't eat lunch with a fork. You pick up lunch and inspired me to write this piece. I'll sum it up in one word: with your hands. Now the lunch decision is the hardest decision tuna. That's right, my friends, tuna. I read that there's mercury of the day. It's painful -- nobody wants to eat with me. The other in tuna, and it's just not safe to eat it anymore. Oh, sure, there's day a waiter asked me what I was having. I said, "Whatever." mercury in a lot of other fish, but I don't care about those other And all because of what? Mercury. Because nobody in our fish. I care about tuna. How am I supposed to live without tuna? government cares if there's mercury in tuna. Well, I care, and I What am I supposed to have for lunch?! I've been ordering tuna am going to do everything I can to stop it, so I can start eating for lunch every day since I was ten years old. This has been the tuna again. I hope you, too, will do whatever you can to help, so only decision of my life that I can make every day with any that once again I can sit down at a restaurant and say, "A tuna degree of certainty and feel good about it. And I was a tuna con- sandwich on whole wheat toast, with lettuce and tomato . . .

noisseur. I could tell the difference between Bumble Bee and hold the mayo." WK StarKist. I made my own. Me, in the kitchen -- chopping and dic- ing! I had my own recipe, with pickles and peppers. By Larry David From Rolling Stone, June 24, 2004 © Rolling Stone LLC 2004 Oh, sure, there's been peanut butter every now and then -- All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission. but that's only when tuna's not available. I couldn't eat peanut butter every day. And I can't eat BLTs or grilled cheese because

Give a Gift That Counts for the Environment

Free Shipping for your Holiday Gifts. Friends and Family will Love Waterkeeper Gear. Visit www.waterkeeper.org to order today. y 9 A.M. I’ve checked in at the office, picked up my maps, a digital camera and Fred Stine, one of my Citizen B Action Coordinators, and headed out to the site of an illegally filled wetlands. I’m thinking about my testimony this evening against legalized fish kills taking place in Delaware Bay at the hands of our power company, PSE&G, but I have to con- centrate now on the photos I need for evidence in our court case next week to secure the restoration of 14 acres of formerly beat- iful and productive wetlands. I drop Fred off downstream and drive up to where a little creek drains off a trucking site. The creek is heavily damaged from illegal dumping of dirt and rubble. Fred and I will confirm, absolutely, where this little creek leads on its way to the Delaware River. Fred is following the stream from the lower stretch down towards the Delaware. I slog through the woods just downstream from where the creek drains off private proper- ty, a truck stop and repair shop owned by John Pozsgai. I enter the creek and start following it downstream, carefully photo- graphing the bright orange material covering its bottom and the tires that have washed downstream from the Pozsgai site. I can sense the unhappiness of this stream; it has been abused for over a decade. I hit a highway culvert. It’s too small to climb through so I drop an orange and watch as it floats downstream towards Fred who’s awaiting its arrival to confirm the stream’s flow. I drive by the Pozsgai truck stop, step out onto the road and start taking my photos – important evidence for the case that will be heard next week in federal court. As I’m clicking away, an Lower Delaware River. Photos by Delaware River Delaware Photos by A typical day A Day in the Life of Maya van Rossum, Delaware Riverkeeper

www.waterkeeper.org Riverkeeper and her Daughter Anneke patrolling the Philadelphia reach of the Delaware. old black car pulls quickly in front of me and stops. A short, stocky the River and to the community, not just to you.” He threatens to older man jumps out and starts screaming at me to leave him alone call the police. “Please do, you have assaulted me on public proper- and to stop taking pictures. Used to verbal attacks, and even some ty and they need to be here. Please, please call them.” Of course, he physical ones, I stand my ground and continue taking photos. He doesn’t. After chasing me around the car a few times he gives up, gets back in his car and drives off. I climb into my car, shaken, but with my camera in hand. I’m ready for court. I can now prove, indisputably, the damage this man has done to the river and the neighborhood as a result of his illegal dumping. Once, this wetlands was the beautiful entrance to the community, home to birds, turtles and a variety of wildlife. Now, it’s a desolate wasteland, littered with construction debris and old trucks and equipment. Once a natural sponge holding back storm water, the community next door has paid the price with flooding that had to be remedied at community expense. Back at the office, it’s time to work on my testimony for the evening’s public hearing. PSE&G’s Salem Nuclear Generating Station kills more than three billion fish every year. Tonight the state will consider a permit that will allow the fish kills to contin- ue unchecked. Tonight the voice of the River and the community needs to be heard to stop it. We’ve waged this battle before; last time we lost, this time we must succeed. I pour over the scientific studies we’ve collected and commissioned, finalizing my written testimony and considering carefully the words I will use to try to stop these massive fish kills. PSE&G’s Salem plant is the single largest predator in Delaware Bay. It’s allowed to kill indiscrimi- nately on a daily basis. The phone rings constantly throughout the day with questions, concerns and calls for help. Every member of the 13 person

Discarded tires damming and polluting stream by John Pozsgal’s property.

grabs my arm with one hand and pulls back his other in an effort to slap my face. I manage to pull away, avoiding his grasp as he tries to pull me back by my hair. I run around my car to evade him. He starts yelling at me over the roof of my car. “This is my property, I can do with it what I want, you can’t stop me, leave me alone, I know your type, you're out to get me, you have no rights here ….” He goes on. “You have no right to fill the wet- lands,” I respond. “They belong to Dumping on destroyed wetlands.

www.waterkeeper.org Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 35 “Let It Be” – Riverkeeper and residents fight for the last branch of Brandywine Creek.

Delaware Riverkeeper Network staff chips in to field the calls – ference in the world. This River is a living, breathing ecosystem. giving insights, information, offers for help and guidance. Each We come upon the dredge spoil disposal site – piles of river bot- call is urgent in its own way. Each one from a concerned citizen tom sediments stored on land, covering over prime habitat and requesting assistance of the Delaware Riverkeeper to protect a wetlands with sediments laden with PCBs and other dangerous local stream or wetland. Unfortunately many of the calls are sim- toxins. She snaps her photos. We talk about the Army Corps plans, ilar – a new development proposed, wetlands filled, streams about the damage and destruction it will cause, and about the destroyed, fish being killed or a dam being proposed. false economic promises being used to justify this pork barrel Another call comes in – it’s a reporter who needs to get out on project. The story will run in tomorrow’s paper. the River. For nearly a decade and a half we have been fighting a We dock the boat and I head directly to the public hearing. I proposal by the Army Corps to deepen the Delaware River – a proj- meet up with other activists and concerned citizens to strategize ect that will cause tremendous environmental damage and over the coming evening’s event – and to lament the reality of threaten drinking water supplies. She’s working on a story about what this fight is all about, billions of fish killed needlessly. the project and needs to get out on the River to photograph areas The hearing begins with a dog and pony show by the agency, that will be damaged – can I take her? “Absolutely – I need an hour trying to convince us that the permit they want to issue is really to finish up what I’m doing and then we’ll meet at the dock and alright. When my name is called I go to the podium to testify. It’s head out.” I’m just about to run out the door when the phone rings a struggle to contain my anger and let my points make the case. again – it is an informant inside one of the agencies telling me However, it’s also imperative that these industry representatives about a project that has just been permitted and needs to be and government regulators understand my passion and commit- stopped. I quickly gather all the information I need to request ment to protecting the River. My love for the River is more power- access to the project’s files, a challenge that will have to be mount- ful than their cold and overly scripted words and PowerPoint pre- ed tomorrow. sentations. This River belongs to the public, not to them. They With my passengers on board I steer my boat onto the need to see and hear that. They’re intimidating, but I’m right to Delaware. The beauty of this River even in this very urbanized sec- fight for the fish and the River. Part of the crowd cheers, others tion is striking. Along old piers nature has struggled, successfully, boo – I feel good about standing up for my River and what is right. to come back – breaking up wood and concrete and replacing it As I drive home to my daughter, who is being cared for by my with trees and shrubs creating favored fishing and swimming mother tonight, I think about my day, all that was accomplished, haunts. The reporter’s appreciation and surprise at the beauty of and all that was not, and I look forward to tomorrow and being the River is obvious – seeing it from the water makes all the dif- the Delaware Riverkeeper – the voice for the Delaware River. WK

36 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org Commencement 1 Baykeeper and the Sunken Vessel WN 9127 NN (RIP)

By Lisa Lawrence, Commencement Baykeeper

had quite a wild morning recently chasing a missing vessel. I was out on my boat with a Washington state environmental I officer to check on a derelict boat, but all we found was the line used to tie it up hanging in the water. I’d been monitoring this ves- sel since a local marina was busted for scuttling derelict vessels and, based on a citizen tip, I had warned State officials and the Coast Guard that this boat would sink with fuel on board after the first good storm. Which it did. The water was about nine feet deep and we couldn’t see any sign of the boat. We were waiting for the tide to go out when I got a call on my cell phone from the Coast Guard, who doesn’t have a 4 boat here in Tacoma, but had driven down from Seattle to “respond.” “Guess what I found?” he asked. The boat was wedged under the back of a barge at the Army Pier about a quarter-mile away. Just the front two or three feet of bow was showing. It looked like an Orca poking its head out of the water. Climbing onto the barge to get a better look the Coast Guard and state officials saw evidence of a fuel spill – making the sunken boat an environmental hazard. But then we saw it start to move with the tide back towards where it originally sank. There wasn’t much to do but laugh. It was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve seen on the water in a while. Now it’s a “navigation hazard” and The Coast Guard rolled into action, ordering a boat and dive/recovery team. By nightfall, an Army Corps of Engineers vessel had plucked the boat from the Bay.

7 1. Tied off to log boom with a single yellow bowline on Sept. 2 2. No sign of the vessel at 10:15 on Sept. 16 3. The bowline is still there. In about nine feet of water, there is nothing visible of the vessel 4. Vessel located underneath barge at Army Pier 23 at approximately 10:30 5. Vessel begins to move away with the outgoing tide 6. Vessel continues to move away with the outgoing tide 7. Vessel begins to move back across the mouth of the Hylebos Waterway with the outgoing tide 8. By nightfall, WN 9127 NN is raised by Army Corps of Engineers. 9. The Baykeeper boat Sheri T moored at Pier 23 after transporting DNR personnel to site, investigating and photographing the vessel 2 3

5 6

8 9 Making the Clean Water Act Work

Using the Law to Fight Water Pollution in Dublin, Georgia

It was a hot June day in 1969 when the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland burst into flames. Fueled by decades of industrial abuse, unfettered discharges of oil and gas, com- bustible chemicals and toxics, the fire severely damaged over- head railroad trestles and cast a pall over surrounding commu- nities. It was not the first time that the river had caught fire, but with images of the flames and smoke dancing upon the water’s surface appearing in national magazines, the event focused the nation’s attention on the fragile state of our precious natural resources in unprecedented ways. In the early 1970s, Congress responded to the country’s growing environmental crisis by enacting a series of compre- hensive environmental laws designed to protect our water, air and land from increasing degradation. In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity” of our nation’s waterways. Each of our nation’s environmental statutes allows federal or state environmental agencies to impose fines – and sometimes even jail time – when polluters violate the law. However, the true artistry behind the United States environmental protection laws rests in the citizen suit provisions of these acts. Congress recog- nized that no matter how much authority was vested in the feder-

40 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org “I have never seen anything like this Altamaha The Altamaha Riverkeeper is coming from a discharge pipe,” Holland a grassroots organization dedicated to said. "There are continuous problems in Riverkeeper the protection, defense and restora- this area that threaten the health of the tion of Georgia’s biggest river–the river and the people who fish in it. The SP Newsprint Company’s Altamaha–including its tributaries the pollution has to stop." Dublin Mill Violates Clean Ocmulgee, the Oconee and the This is the second report in the last few Water Act. Ohoopee. James Holland, a retired months of an alleged violation of the waterman, is the Riverkeeper and Fishermen in the Oconee River were Clean Water Act in the same proximity of founder. catching more than fish; shredded plastic the Oconee River. In May, following up on was tangling their lines. After trying to citizen reports, the Altamaha Riverkeeper fish for several days and continuing to alleges that SP Newsprint Co. has and investigated and documented a pipe in snare plastic the sportsmen became con- continues to violate the terms of its the same area and alleged that the city of cerned and reported the strange catch to National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Dublin was discharging unprocessed the Altamaha Riverkeeper. Riverkeeper, System (NPDES) Permit as well as the sewage and floating solid materials into James Holland, investigated the site and Clean Water Act, the Water Quality the river. WK on each visit he repeatedly scooped up Control Act, and accompanying regula- pieces of shredded plastic that were bub- tions … Responses to 60- On August 5, the Altamaha Riverkeeper Stay tuned day notices are varied. The intent to sent the SP Newsprint Co., SP Recycling Citizen suits against pol- sue letter may signal the beginning of under the Clean Water Act Corp. and SP Newsprint Sales a letter pro- luters negotiations between the Waterkeeper typically begin with the filing of a 60- viding them with sixty days notice of and the alleged polluter. The alleged day letter of intent to sue. This means their intent to sue the company for what violator may simply ignore the notice that plaintiffs, like the Altamaha James Holland considers violations of the letter and continue to pollute. Or fed- Riverkeeper, must wait at least 60 federal Clean Water Act. The notice, eral or state agencies may step in and days after putting the alleged violator informing the company it must stop pol- commence their own actions against on notice before filing a lawsuit in luting the Oconee River or face legal the alleged discharger. When that court. Copies of this letter must be action, was sent by the Altamaha happens, the Waterkeeper is preclud- sent to both the alleged violator and Riverkeeper's attorneys at the Georgia ed from filing suit because the govern- the state or federal agency that main- Center for Law in the Public Interest. ment is deemed to be “diligently pros- tains regulatory oversight over the ecuting” the offender. We’ll be back in facility. This notice letter serves sever- the winter 2005 issue with the next al purposes. Primarily, it gives the installment of this story. alleged violator a chance to cease the polluting activity. It also allows a state or federal environmental agency to exercise its prosecutorial power and go after the polluter itself.

bling up through the water from an underwater pipe identified as belonging to the SP Newsprint Company. He docu- mented a discharge of brown effluent, paper and what appeared to be fecal mat- ter resulting in an offensive sewage odor and film on the surface of the water. The investigation lasted from May Altamaha Riverkeeper samples from City of Dublin discharge.

through August, the Altamaha Riverkeeper Altamaha Riverkeeper Photos by

42 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn announces settlement as City Council members and Tracy Egoscue, far left, look on. Photo by Santa Monica Baykeeper Photo by Santa Monica Baykeeper Wins $2 Billion Settlement from Los Angeles: One of the largest sewage cases in U.S. history

massive legal battle that dragged on for six years has In 1999 Steve Fleischli took over as Santa Monica Baykeeper, come to an end with a 107-page settlement agreement organizing rallies, filing legal briefs, and expanding the support for A and a $2 billion price tag. This August Santa Monica the case. “Tamminen taught me that we needed a comprehensive Baykeeper, Tracy Egoscue, negotiated the settlement agreement, approach to this case,” recalls Fleischli. “A legal strategy. A media which, among other things, requires the City of Los Angeles to strategy. A political strategy. Grassroots, yet sophisticated. And replace at least 488 miles of sewer lines and clean 2,800 miles of when we talked to people about the spills, it was amazing how sewers every year. Over the next ten years the City of Los Angeles many people responded.” will increase the capacity of the system – the largest in the nation Critical mass came in 2001 when – after a year-long engineer- – in an effort to reduce sewage spills. In addition, the City will ing study – the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the spend $8.5 million on environmental projects, like creek and wet- State Regional Water Quality Control Board filed their own lawsuit land restoration, to improve water quality in Los Angeles. against the City, which was consolidated with Baykeeper’s case. Six years ago, Santa Monica Baykeeper founder Terry Residents from Baldwin Hills, Crenshaw, South Central Los Tamminen notified the City of Los Angeles that he was fed up with Angeles, and Leimert Park then joined the litigation, as most spills raw sewage spills – nearly two a day that contaminated neighbor- and odors occurred in their communities. It wasn’t just a beach hoods and beaches – and that he intended to sue. “I can tell you issue; it was a quality of life and social justice issue. that a huge light bulb went on for me when I looked at the City’s Baykeeper’s Board of Directors – led by Tamminen and spill reports and connected them to the fact that the vast majority President Jordan Kaplan – and local foundations, such as of our Beachkeeper volunteer monitoring reports tested hot for Environment Now, were re-energized, pouring tens of thousands pathogens,” says Tamminen. Because of the thousands of spills of dollars into the case. Baykeeper’s outside attorneys, Daniel over many years and because enforcement was nonexistent, Santa Cooper and Danielle Fugere, became critical in the legal fight, Monica Baykeeper filed suit on November 9, 1998, alleging some working with the state and federal Departments of Justice in for- 20,000 violations of the Clean Water Act. The City simply scoffed. mulating legal strategies. Along with expert Bruce Bell of

44 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org Photo by Santa Monica Baykeeper Photo by

The entire Santa Monica Baykeeper staff celebrates with Board Raw sewage flows into Los Angeles streets. members.

Carpenter Environmental Associates and engineers from EPA and the state, the plaintiffs held the City’s feet to the fire and refused to back down. Editor’s note: Finally, in December 2002, a federal judge found Los Angeles in violation of the Clean Water Act on several hundred occasions. Soon thereafter, the City Terry Tamminen is now the secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, and acknowledged liability for nearly 3,670 violations of the Act. when asked why Baykeeper brought suit against Baykeeper quickly found a friend in new City Councilmember Jack such a formidable adversary, he replied that the Weiss, who saw taxpayer money going down the drain while water quality Santa Monica Baykeeper was fulfilling its watch- and the community suffered. He convinced other new Councilmembers to dog role: “Waterkeepers are the last line of start pressing for settlement. They did, especially when Tracy Egoscue – a defense when polluters destroy the public trust former Deputy Attorney General for California – was handpicked in sum- resources and regulators fail in their duty.” Steve Fleischli is now executive director of Waterkeeper mer 2003 to replace Fleischli as Baykeeper. Numerous public and private Alliance in New York. Tracy Egoscue is now city council meetings soon took place, often in heated debate. But Egoscue patrolling Los Angeles waterways, busting more never wavered in the demand for clean water. Finally, the City had had polluters. enough. When all was said and done, the City of Los Angeles had spent some $5.6 million dollars on outside lawyers to fight the case. Baykeeper had racked ble without the persistence of so many people,” says Tracy up $1.6 million in fees and costs. At a press conference at City Hall in August Egoscue. “It was a phenomenal effort by the community and 2004, representatives from the Department of Justice and EPA called the his- environmental agencies working together to achieve a com- toric agreement “one of the largest sewage cases in U.S. history.” mon goal.” Indeed, the $2 billion case serves as a model of “The settlement agreement is without a doubt Santa Monica how a grassroots effort and a good strategy can make a huge

Baykeeper’s proudest achievement to date, and would not have been possi- impact in protecting water quality, no matter the opponent. WK

August 3, 1998 2000 2001 Santa Monica Baykeeper notifies the City of Los Federal EPA and California complete audit of Federal judge rules on the City of Los Angeles’ Angeles, the State of California and the Federal Los Angeles sewer system, revealing enormous motion to dismiss Baykeeper’s case. Baykeeper EPA of its intent to sue the city for thousands problems. prevails. of violations of the Clean Water Act due to January 8, 2001 sewage spills. Federal EPA and California EPA sue the City of December 23, 2002 September 18, 1998 Los Angeles. Cases are consolidated with Federal judge finds the City of Los Angeles liable for 297 sewage spills from July 2001 to California orders sewer repairs. Baykeeper’s 1998 case. July 2002. September 30, 1998 July 5, 2001 April 22, 2003 California and the City of Los Angeles negotiate Residents from Baldwin Hills, Crenshaw, South City formally admits liability for 3,668 violations $850,000 in fines for 32 sewage spills. Central Los Angeles and Leimert Park join the of the Clean Water Act for sewage spills litigation, noting highest spill levels and odors in occurring from 1993 – 2003. November 9, 1998 their communities. Baykeeper sues the City of Los Angeles, alleging August 2004 some 20,000 violations of the Clean Water Act All parties enter into a $2 and claiming remedies to date are insufficient. In billion,107-page settlement agreement. response, the City files a motion to dismiss Baykeeper’s case. BAYKEEPER CASE TIMELINE CASE BAYKEEPER Special NEWS

very Waterkeeper has a unique job, because every water- defunct oil refinery. Our lab director runs tests on nutrients for the body he or she protects is different. I’m the Cook Inletkeeper Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. I talk to my E and I work with citizens, agencies and businesses to protect lawyers about a case against the state of Alaska on coal bed the 47,000 square mile Cook Inlet watershed in south-central methane leasing. I finish comments opposing a government pro- Alaska. It’s a big area – about the size of Virginia – and with limited posal to expand natural gas drilling in the Kenai National Wildlife resources, it’s important to focus on the most pressing issues. It’s a Refuge. Our monitoring staff takes samples from a new road con- challenging job, but I love it. struction project. An Associated Press reporter calls with questions The Navy likes to say, “it’s not just a job, it’s an adventure.” Well, about the state’s shellfish mariculture industry. Our stream ecolo- Waterkeeping isn’t just a job either and it’s more than an adventure. gist treks deep into brown bear country to monitor an important It’s a lifestyle. It’s an attitude. It’s a title that requires the bearer to be salmon stream. Each time we respond to a proposal by a polluter to the heart and soul, eyes, ears, voice and conscience of the waterbody expand their activities, every chance we have to reach the public and the people, communities and resources that their waterbody with our message, every sample we collect and lawsuit we file is a supports. As Bob Boyle first noted in his account of the Hudson River strike for clean water, a healthy environment and our own well- in 1969, the Waterkeeper “in essence, gives a sense of time, place being. and purpose to people who live in or visit” the waterbody. Reaching the public is one of the hardest parts of the job. For No two days are ever the same at my job because being a example, the Cook Inlet beluga whale population has plummeted Waterkeeper is a juggling act, but a recent workday is a useful snap- over 50 percent in the last decade, and this small isolated stock is shot. A caller on our hotline reports 30 beluga whales feeding in the teetering on the edge of extinction. Yet few people know about the Upper Inlet. An anonymous email reveals pollution flowing from a plight of this remarkable white whale and fewer still are willing to Mr. Beluga A Day in the Life of Cook Inletkeeper By Bob Shavelson, Cook Inletkeeper

Beluga Whale at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma,WA (Photo by Robyn Angliss, thanks National Marine Mammal Lab) Cook Inletkeeper Bob Shavelson & Mr. Beluga 2004 Ray Vegas

46 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org take action to protect it. At Cook Inletkeeper we are looking for new Cook Inlet Keeper is just one of many Waterkeepers across the ways to reach the public. On Sunday, June 27 we held a “Beluga U.S., Canada and elsewhere. I’m proud to be a Waterkeeper, and I feel Bash” with live music and a halibut barbecue, and held the “Mr. privileged to be allied with so many smart, committed and talented Beluga” contest. More than 300 people came out to support beluga people in the Waterkeeper movement. Together, we’re taking back whale protection, and greet Ray Vegas Mr. Beluga 2004 with the our publicly owned waterways one watershed at a time. spontaneous chant “Girth First! Girth First!” Black Warrior Riverkeeper Calls Vulcan Material’s Bessemer Quarry on Pollution

labama is well sand, clay and other sediment is pumped Black Warrior Riverkeeper filed a formal known for back into the dry stream bed below the notice of intent to sue the quarry for 465 A its soft lime- quarry. This interruption of the natural flow violations of the Clean Water Act. stone geology, mean- of the stream is devastating for the creek Nearly two months later, and just dering underground and downstream waters in the Black days before the suit could be filed, the streams, caves and sink- Warrior River basin. It is also illegal. Alabama Department of Environmental holes. This same limestone is a valuable con- Vulcan has a permit allowing the dis- Management (ADEM) issued a proposed struction material and Vulcan Construction charge of water that flows into the quarry, order against Vulcan. The order, if finalized, Materials, LP built their Bessemer Quarry in but sampling confirms that they are dis- will require Vulcan to submit a plan to cor- central Alabama to mine the abundant charging water with more than 15 times rect all violations; implement and maintain limestone deposits. With a permit from the more sediment than the stream can handle. effective Best Management Practices; com- state the company has been quarrying lime- The company has blamed “geologic failures ply with applicable ADEM rules and permit stone since 1995. But in Bessemer, neglect in the local geology.” Black Warrior requirements; perform corrective actions; and absent enforcement have combined to Riverkeeper Nelson Brooke and chief prose- and pay a civil penalty of $50,000. Black put downstream fishing and habitat at cuting attorney Mark Martin agree that Warrior Riverkeeper questions whether the grave risk. there have been failures, but geology is not fine is large enough to remedy the harm to Fivemile creek, which ran just 50 feet the culprit here. This is a problem that could the environment and deter future miscon- from the Bessemer Quarry, now disappears have been avoided with proper manage- duct. There is now a public comment period just upstream from the quarry, running into ment of the quarry. Based on the company’s for the proposed order which ends a labyrinth of underground channels. But failure to address ongoing pollution issues, November 3. quarrying activities at Bessemer have punc- tured the aquifer, creating a siphon that interrupts the natural flow and sends up to a million gallons of water a day into the quarry. This water, now heavily laden with

Limestone erosion Quarry discharges sediment laden water into Fivemile Creek

48 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org Waterkeeper Programs

Blake Island State Park: Gallons of sewage in United States Puget Sound before notice of intent to sue: Columbia Riverkeeper, Bingen, WA 14,400 gallons per day. Gallons of sewage Commencement Baykeeper, Tacom, WA per day after: 0. North Sound Baykeeper, Bellingham, WA Puget Soundkeeper, WA Puget Soundkeeper, Seattle, WA

Tualatin Riverkeepers, Sherwood, OR Willamette Riverkeeper, Portland, OR

Number of shopping carts retrieved from 3 mile stretch of Jordan River in Salt Lake City: 237. An average of 59 per year. Great Salt Lakekeeper, UT

Colorado Riverkeeper, Moab, UT Great Salt Lakekeeper, Salt Lake City, UT

California Coastkeeper Alliance, Santa Monica, CA Baja California Coastkeeper, Imperial Beach, CA Humboldt Baykeeper, Eureka, CA Alamosa Riverkeeper, Capulin, CO Kansas Riverkeeper, Law Orange County Coastkeeper, Newport Beach, CA Petaluma Riverkeeper, Petaluma, CA Russian Riverkeeper, Healdsburg, CA Sacramento-San Joaquin Deltakeeper, Stockton, CA San Diego Baykeeper, San Diego, CA San Francisco Baykeeper, San Francisco, CA Black Mesa Waterkeeper, Flagstaff, AZ San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper, San Luis Obispo, California, CA Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, CA Grand Riverkee Santa Monica Baykeeper, Marina Del Rey, CA Ventura Coastkeeper, Oxnard, CA Waterkeepers Northern California, San Francisco, CA

On November 7, 2003, 285 volunteers pull all-nighter to monitor sewage in Russian River. Russian Riverkeeper, CA

Number of eelgrass shoots planted by volunteers: 500 Number killed by brittlestars: 470 Number that have re-grown and re-sprouted over the past year: 500! Santa Barbara Channelkeeper, CA

Number of rescue certified SCUBA diver volunteers: 45 Santa Monica Baykeeper, CA

Cook Inletkeeper, Homer, AK Prince William Soundkeeper, Anchorage, AK Number of boats on a summer weekend releasing untreated sewage into Peconic Bay before Casco Baykeeper, South Portland, ME establishment of “no discharge zone”: 10,000. Peconic Baykeeper, NY

In the largest citizen suit penalty ever assessed under Lake Champlain Lakekeeper, Montpelier, VT the Clean Water Act, Hudson Riverkeeper forces New Gallons of ice cream served in one day of the Grand York City to pay $5.7 million for Traverse Bay Baykeeper Tugboat Tour: 50 gallons polluting a pristine trout stream. (that’s 1500 cones of Baykeeper Wave ice cream.) Hudson Riverkeeper, NY Buzzards Baykeeper, New Bedford, MA Grand Traverse Baykeeper, Traverse City, MI Housatonic Riverkeeper, Lenoxdale, MA

Number of people since 1997 taken into the New Jersey Meadowlands to view the abundant nature… Long Island Soundkeeper, East Norwalk, CT and safely returned: 20,000. Hanckensack Riverkeeper, NJ Detroit Riverkeeper, Melvindale, MI Grand Traverse Baykeeper, Traverse City, MI Narragansett Baykeeper, Providence, RI Muskegon Riverkeeper, Newyago, MI Allegheny Riverkeeper, West View, PA St. Clair Channelkeeper, Harrison TWP, MI Delaware Riverkeeper, Washington Crossing, PA Tip of the Mitt Waterkeeper, Petosky, MI Monongahela Riverkeeper, Waynesburg, PA Erie Canalkeeper, Brockport, NY Upper Susquehanna Riverkeeper, Mansfield, PA Hudson Riverkeeper, Garrison, NY Youghiogheny Riverkeeper, Melcroft, PA Lake George Waterkeeper, Bolton Landing, NY Lake Superior Waterkeeper, Spooner, WI Peconic Baykeeper, Riverhead, NY Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Milwaukee, WI Upper St. Lawrence Riverkeeper, Clayton, NY Assateague Coastkeeper, Berlin, MD Chester Riverkeeper, Chestertown, MD Patapsco Riverkeeper, Ellicott City, MD Clinton Streamkeeper, Sabina, OH Hackensack Riverkeeper, Hackensack, NJ Patuxent Riverkeeper, Upper Marlboro, MD New York/New Jersey Baykeeper, Highlands, NJ Potomac Riverkeeper, Rockville, MD Raritan Riverkeeper, Keasbey, NJ Severn Riverkeeper, Annapolis, MD Wabash Riverkeeper, Indianapolis, IN South Riverkeeper, Edgewater, MD

Anacostia Riverkeeper, Washington DC werence, KS Kentucky Riverkeeper, Richmond, KY

Blackwater/Nottoway Riverkeeper, Sedley, VA

West VA Headwaters Waterkeeper, Rock Cave, WV James Riverkeeper, Mechanicville, VA Virginia Eastern Shorekeeper, Eastville, VA

Tennessee Riverkeeper, Sale Creek, TN eper, Vinita, OK Cape Fear Coastkeeper, Wilmington, NC Cape Fear Riverkeeper, Wilmington, NC Altamaha Coastkeeper, Darien, GA Cape Hatteras Coastkeeper, Manteo, NC Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Birmingham, AL Altamaha Riverkeeper, Darien, GA Cape Lookout Coastkeeper, Newport,NC Choctawchatchee Riverkeeper, Troy, AL Canoochee Riverkeeper, Swainsboro, GA Catawba Riverkeeper, Charlotte, NC Hurricane Creekkeeper, Tuscaloosa, AL Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, Columbus, GA French Broad Riverkeeper, Asheville, NC Mobile Baykeeper, Mobile, AL Ocmulgee Riverkeeper, Macon, GA Lower Neuse Riverkeeper, New Bern, NC Village Creekkeeper, Birmingham, AL Satilla Riverkeeper, Hortense, GA New Riverkeeper, Jacksonville, NC Savannah Riverkeeper, Augusta, GA Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper, Washington, NC Upper Chatahoochee Riverkeeper, Atlanta, GA Upper Neuse Riverkeeper, Raleigh, NC Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Plaquemine, LA Upper Coosa Riverkeeper, Rome, GA Louisiana Bayoukeeper, Barataria, LA Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, Baton Rouge, LA Waccamaw Riverkeeper, Conway, SC Apalachicola Bay & Riverkeeper, Eastpoint, FL Indian Riverkeeper, Jensen Beach, FL

Galveston Baykeeper, Seabrook, TX Pensacola Gulf Coastkeeper, Pensacola, FL St. John's Riverkeeper, Jacksonville, FL Wakulla/Aucilla Waterkeeper, Crawfordville, FL

Number of lawsuits filed against one polluter, Black Warrior Minerals, for bad mining practices: 19 – shutting them down twice. Hurricane Creekkeeper, AL Waterkeeper Programs Around the Globe

Bow Riverkeeper, Banff, Canada London Canalkeeper, London, England Canadian Detroit Riverkeeper, Windsor, Canada Thames Riverkeeper, London, England Fraser Riverkeeper in Vancouver, Canada Fundy Baykeeper, Waweig, Canada Georgian Baykeeper, Toronto, Canada Lake Ontario Waterkeeper, Toronto, Canada Ottawa Riverkeeper, Ottawa, Canada Petitcodiac RIverkeeper, Inc., Moncton, Canada

Punta Abreojos Coastkeeper, Punta Abreojos, Mexico Puerto Rico Coastkeeper, San Juan, Puerto Rico Rio Hondo Riverkeeper, Chetumal, Mexico Vieques Waterkeeper, Ocean Park, Puerto Rico

Nicoya Gulfkeeper, San Pedro de Montes de Oca, Costa Rica

Cartagena Baykeeper, Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

Choqueyapu Riverkeeper, La Paz, Bolivia Before taking their position, your local Waterkeeper was a:

Cabinetmaker Chemical Company Executive Civil Engineer College Professor Commercial Fisherman Community Activist Corporate Lawyer Department of Natural Resources Biologist Deputy Attorney General Drug Store Assistant Manager Earth Day Organizer Environmental Advocate Environmental Justice Organizer Environmental Prosecutor Freelance Writer High School Teacher Interior Decorator Lifeguard Morava Riverkeeper, Veronica, Czech Republic Lobbyist Marine Construction Project Manager National Academy of Sciences Study Director National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Officer Outdoor Gear Salesman Peace Corps Volunteer Psychotherapist Rock-n-Roll Drummer Shakespearean Actor Sheep Rancher State Representative Taxi Cab Driver And Dispatcher Timber Industry Association Executive Director Town Councilor & School Board Member U.S. Army Colonel U.S. Coast Guard Chief Boatswain Mate U.S. Marine Corps Colonel U.S. Navy Commander U.S. Park Service Ranger United Nations Program Officer Zookeeper Types & Numbers of Waterkeeper Programs

Basinkeeper ...... 1 Baykeeper ...... 17 Bayoukeeper ...... 1 Canalkeeper ...... 2 Channelkeeper ...... 2 Coastkeeper ...... 13 Creekkeeper ...... 2 Deltakeeper ...... 1 Estuarykeeper ...... 1 Gulfkeeper ...... 1 Inletkeeper ...... 1 Avon Riverkeeper, Victoria, Australia Lakekeeper ...... 2 Derwent Riverkeeper, Tasmania, Australia Riverkeeper ...... 70 Georges Riverkeeper, Raby, Australia Shorekeeper ...... 1 Soundkeeper ...... 3 Lang Lang Riverkeeper, Victoria, Australia Streamkeeper ...... 1 Snowy Estuarykeeper, Sidney, Australia Waterkeeper ...... 10 Waterkeepers Australia, Melbourne, Australia On June 2-6 Waterkeeper Alliance held our sixth annual conference in San Diego, California. More than 140 Waterkeepers from around the U.S., Canada, Australia, and Latin America participated in four days of strategic planning and training. Elected officials, supporters, artists, and members of the press joined us for panel discussions, workshops and events at the University of San Diego, Birch Aquarium, San Diego Maritime Museum, and aboard the Hornblower Cruise of San Diego Harbor. The Alliance officially launched our national mercury campaign, introduced our Waterkeeper Magazine, formalized international representation on the Board, and added a new Waterkeeper program. Waterkeepers came away from the meeting with innovative ideas and new skills, energized to continue protecting more than 67,000 miles of waterways worldwide.

Photos by Kevin Roche & Rick Dove

Photo by: Patricia Fisher

Waterkeeper Alliance President RFK, Jr. and Executive Director, Steve Fleischli present Senator Sarbanes with Chesapeake Champion of the Year Award. Waterkeeper Alliance Launches Chesapeake Initiative

(Washington, D.C.) On Thursday, June 24, 2004, Waterkeeper the Chesapeake Region from growing pollution threats, such as Alliance announced the launch of its Chesapeake Initiative, unchecked development, toxic dumping and sewage discharge. the first coordinated regional campaign for the Chesapeake To kickoff the Alliance’s Chesapeake Initiative, Robert F. Bay. Kennedy, Jr., President of Waterkeeper Alliance, hosted the With the support of over 4,000 members who annually con- Inaugural Chesapeake Champions Dinner, June 24, 2004, at tribute more than 20,000 volunteer hours, eleven local the Sequoia Restaurant on the banks of the Potomac River in Waterkeeper organizations currently patrol 1,500 miles of trib- Washington, DC. Terence Smith, Media Correspondent and utaries and shoreline throughout the Chesapeake Region. The Senior Producer for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, co-hosted Chesapeake Initiative will expand the capacity of each of these the event which recognized Senator Paul S. Sarbanes of Waterkeepers for on-the-water, citizen-based enforcement of Maryland for his commitment to the protection and restoration environmental laws. Such grassroots activism, where commu- of the Chesapeake Bay. WK nities take charge of their waterways, is critical to protecting

56 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org Photo by: Patricia Fisher

Terence Smith delivers keynote speech at Chesapeake Champions Dinner on the banks of the Potomac River in Washington, DC.

Chesapeake Watershed Waterkeepers: • Fred Tutman, Patuxent Riverkeeper • Lee Walker Oxenham, Patapsco Riverkeeper • Paul Otruba, Upper Susquehanna Riverkeeper • David Smith, Anacostia Riverkeeper • Ed Merrifield, Potomac Riverkeeper • Eileen McLellan, Chester Riverkeeper • Drew Koslow, South Riverkeeper • Fred Kelly, Severn Riverkeeper • Charles Frederickson, James Riverkeeper • Jay Charland, Assateague Coastkeeper • Richard Ayers, Virginia Eastern Shorekeeper

Visit www.waterkeeper.org/chesapeake for more information

www.waterkeeper.org Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 57 Give a Gift That Counts for the Environment

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Ad Index Want to be heard? AbTech Industries ...... Cover 2 Citigroup Private Bank ...... 37 If you feel strongly about the issues EBSCO Information Services ...... 49 Environmental Communications ...... Cover 3 raised in Waterkeeper Magazine, Ford Motor Company ...... 41 Forester Communications/StormCon ...... 9 make your voice heard. Visit Global Water Instrumentation, Inc ...... 3 Joseph Bigica Inc ...... 43 Jack Spade ...... 7 www.waterkeeper.org Kenneth Cole Productions ...... Cover 4 Longo & Longo ...... 13 Organic Valley ...... 15 to take action or to get involved Osram Sylvania ...... 5 Paul Mitchell Systems ...... 33 with your local Waterkeeper Philips Lighting CO ...... 17 Red Robin Burger ...... 47 program. Vortechnics ...... 11

62 Waterkeeper Magazine Fall 2004 www.waterkeeper.org