Source: http://www.greatlakeslaw.org/blog/clean_water_act/
Timestamp: 2014-07-29 22:51:50
Document Index: 792091384

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 305', '§ 309', '§ 305', '§ 309', 'in fine', 'in fine', '§ 25']

Great Lakes Law: Clean Water Act and Water Quality
My new book, Modern Water Law: Private Property, Public Rights, and Environmental Protections, has been published by Foundation Press and is available on Amazon. I was honored to work with two superb co-authors on this book - Robert Adler, Interim Dean and James I. Farr Chair in Law, and Robin Kundis Craig, William H. Leary Professor of Law, both at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.
Modern Water Law: Private Property, Public Rights, and Environmental Protection provides a comprehensive text to study the range of legal issues and doctrines that affect water resources in the United States. The field of water law has evolved considerably in recent decades, expanding well beyond historic common-law doctrines of riparian reasonable use and prior appropriation. Modern Water Law thus offers a new conceptual approach to the field of water law as an integration of (1) private property (the common-law doctrines for riparian reasonable use and prior appropriation, as well as groundwater rights and the statutory schemes for administering water use rights), (2) public rights (navigation, the public trust doctrine, federal reserved rights, and interstate water management), and (3) environmental protections (the energy-water nexus, water pollution, and endangered species conflicts). The modern practice of water law requires attorneys to understand the interactions between different legal doctrines and regimes and how potential conflicts among them can be resolved in practice. Modern Water Law will prepare students and practitioners for the challenges of 21st century water law. Below is a summary of Contents (for more details, see the full Table of Contents):
1. IntroductionPART I: PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS TO USE WATER2. Riparian Law3. History and Principles of Prior Appropriation4. Groundwater5. Modern Application of Water LawPART II: PUBLIC RIGHTS AND INTERESTS IN WATER6. Control and Ownership of Navigable Waters7. Public Rights in Water: The Public Trust Doctrine8. Federal Water Interests9. Interstate Water Pollution, Apportionment and Management10. The Water-Energy NexusPART III: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION OF WATER RESOURCES11. The Intersection of Water Quality and Water Quantity12. The Federal Endangered Species Act, Water Management, and Water Rights13. Protecting and Restoring Watersheds and Water Systems14. Public Interests, Private Rights in Water, and Constitutional Takings Claims
Deferring to EPA’s interpretation of its own rules, Supreme Court holds that logging road runoff pollution is exempt from Clean Water Act regulation
In Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, the Supreme Court ruled 7-1 (Justice Breyer did not participate) that EPA’s interpretation of its own rules exempting channelized logging road runoff pollution from Clean Water Act regulation was reasonable. While the opinion authored by Justice Kennedy is a setback for environmental advocates concerned with runoff pollution from timber harvesting, there are some silver linings. First, the Court cleared away a potential hurdle for citizen enforcement of the CWA when it held that plaintiffs could use the citizen suit provision (CWA § 305) against a polluter, even when the citizen suit inherently challenges an EPA regulatory exemption under the CWA. The CWA provides a different cause of action (CWA § 309(b)) for judicial review of EPA rules and permit decisions in federal circuit court, subject to a 120-day deadline. The plaintiffs in Decker used the CWA § 305 citizen suit provision and alleged that the defendants violated the CWA, regardless of EPA rules that arguably exempted the defendants’ pollution from regulation. In effect, the citizen suit required the court to consider whether EPA’s regulatory exemption complies with the terms of the statute itself, long after the 120-day review period for agency action expired. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court held that CWA § 309(b) does not bar the filing of the citizen suit or the court’s consideration of the EPA’s regulatory exemption. This is a significant procedural win for environmental plaintiffs and clean water advocates, and will likely result in more collateral challenges to EPA’s regulatory exemptions under the CWA.
Justice Scalia’s dissent presents another silver lining. The majority’s opinion relied heavily on deference to the EPA in interpreting its own regulations. While the text of the regulations seemed to indicate that the logging road pollution at issue in the case was subject to regulation, the EPA argued that it has always interpreted the regulations to exempt such pollution from regulation. The majority acknowledged that EPA’s interpretation was not necessarily the best read of its own regulations, but ultimately deferred to the EPA’s technical and policy expertise and held that EPA’s interpretation was reasonable. This principle is often called Auer deference (after Auer v. Robbins, 519 U. S. 452 (1997)), and the precedent directs a court to give an agency deference when the agency is interpreting its own ambiguous regulations, even in litigation.
In an amici brief filed with the Court, I and several other environmental / administrative law professors argued that the Court should limit the application of Auer deference and reconsider this precedent. Auer deference allows an agency to both make and interpret the law without public participation or meaningful judicial review. (The brief is titled Brief amici curiae of Law Professors on the Propriety of Administrative Deference; Sanne Knudsen of Washington and Amy Wildermuth of Utah deserve the lion’s share of credit for the effort.)
Justice Scalia cited our amici brief in his persuasive dissent and rebuke of Auer deference. According to Scalia, the majority opinion “gives effect to a reading of EPA’s regulations that is not the most natural one, simply because EPA says that it believes the unnatural reading is right.” Instead, Scalia would toss Auer deference and “presume (to coin a phrase) that an agency says in a rule what it means, and means in a rule what it says there.” Under this approach, Scalia would have held that the pollution at issue is subject to CWA regulation as the environmental plaintiffs argued.
While Justice Scalia was the lone dissenter against using Auer deference, his views may soon have more support from the Court. Chief Justice Roberts (joined by Justice Alito) filed a separate concurrence suggesting that Auer deference should be revisited. The Chief Justice cited our law professors amici brief but was reluctant to decide the issue on amici briefs alone. Instead, he wrote: “The bar is now aware that there is some interest in reconsidering [Auer], and has available to it a concise statement of the arguments on one side of the issue.”
Given that the EPA has already revised the regulation at issue to make clear that logging road runoff pollution is exempt, the Supreme Court’s decision is just a minor loss for the environmental plaintiffs. (Kudos my old friend and former law school classmate Chris Winter of the Crag Law Center, which represented the plaintiffs superbly.) The loss is offset by the jurisdictional win, which will give environmental advocates more litigation options to challenge regulatory CWA exemptions. And long term, Justice Scalia’s dissent and Chief Justice Robert’s concurrence may be a harbinger of a new standard for holding regulatory agencies accountable to the public.
The International Joint Commission’s Great Lakes Water Quality Biennial Meeting on October 12-14 is anchoring Great Lakes Week Detroit 2011. The Great Lakes Commission and the Healing Our Waters Coalition will also be holding their annual meetings as part of the event, which should draw hundreds of Great Lakes advocates and policy makers to Detroit and the Wayne State University campus.
Pursuant to the Canada-US Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the IJC convenes the Biennial Meeting to report on progress toward restoration of the physical, chemical, and biological quality of the waters of the Great Lakes basin ecosystem. Biennial Meeting workshops will focus on key challenges to water quality, including harmful and nuisance algae, aquatic invasive species, beach health, fish consumption, and chemicals of emerging concern. A special plenary session will focus on priorities for 2011-2013, providing the public with an opportunity to comment on IJC plans for future study. As the U.S. and Canada reach the final stage of negotiations regarding an updated Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, the Biennial Meeting will be a critical opportunity for public participation in Great Lakes governance. Registration for the IJC Biennial Meeting is free and open to the public, but you should register in advance, especially if you want to save a seat for the keynote session with former Vice-President Al Gore on Thursday afternoon. For more details on all events, see the IJC’s schedule and the Great Lakes Week detailed agenda.
Remember when rivers catching fire symbolized environmental degradation? I don’t - I was born in 1974, and my generation saw environmental values debated through Styrofoam cups and the spotted owl (rather lame symbols in comparison to a burning river). But the stories of rivers burning became a legendary chapter in the making of environmental law and the growth of political environmentalism. Yet I never understood the complexity of the problem, and the tremendous success in restoring these rivers, until I read Dr. John Hartig’s superb book, Burning Rivers: Revival of Four Urban-Industrial Rivers that Caught on Fire.
As the title implies, Burning Rivers tells the stories four rivers in the Great Lakes basin that caught on fire because of oil pollution – most famously the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, as well as the Buffalo River in New York, the Rouge River in southeast Michigan, and the Chicago River in Illinois. Dr. Hartig’s research goes beyond oil pollution and resulting river fires, and provides a fascinating historical lesson on the relationship between the growth of the industrial Midwest and the degradation of our urban rivers. He details how these urban rivers were critical natural and national resources that helped the United States industrialize and prosper, even playing a role in the massive effort to win the Second World War. Urban rivers paid a price for all this, and were all but dead from oil and chemical pollution by the late 1960s.
But the story does not end with dead waterways. Instead, the book details the tremendous community and political efforts to restore the rivers. Taken together, the stories of each river’s restoration paint an inspiring picture of our capacity to work together and solve environmental problems. The successes are amazing. Rivers once left for dead now teem with nesting bald eagles, trophy northern pike and other sport fish, and community parks for swimming. The ecological restoration has often come in partnership with economic progress, such as Ford’s modern Rouge Complex, which provides a model of sustainable manufacturing and water protection. Reading Burning Rivers gives me a new sense of optimism and hope that we can overcome our modern water pollution problems and finally achieve the Clean Water Act’s goal of fishable, swimmable, and drinkable water in our urban rivers.
Dr. John Hartig is the ideal person to bring the stories of urban rivers to press. He was trained as a limnologist and has over 30 years of experience in environmental science and natural resource management. He currently serves as Refuge Manager for the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge and previously served as River Navigator for the Greater Detroit American Heritage River Initiative and spent twelve years working for the International Joint Commission on the Canada-U.S. Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. Dr. Hartig has been an Adjunct Professor at Wayne State University where he taught Environmental Management and Sustainable Development, and has served as President of the International Association for Great Lakes Research. He has authored or co-authored over 100 publications on the Great Lakes. Most recently, Burning Rivers won the 2011 Green Book Festival award for scientific writing.
Burning Rivers: Revival of Four Urban-Industrial Rivers that Caught on Fire can be purchased through the publisher Multi-Science Publishing Co., online from Michigan Sea Grant, and from Amazon. Proceeds go to the Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society for dissemination of science.
The following guest post is by Gabriel Eckstein, a professor of law at Texas Wesleyan University. Prof. Eckstein is also the Director of the International Water Law Project and a Senior Fellow with the Texas Tech Center for Water Law & Policy. He and George William Sherk recently published an EPA-funded study entitled “Alternative Strategies for Managing Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Products in Water Resources.” The study is available on the Micropollutants Clearinghouse website, a great resource for data, articles, and reports about PPCPs in drinking water systems across the country.
What’s in your water? Researchers have known for more than 40 years that pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) – such as antibiotics, prescription and over the counter drugs, steroids, reproductive hormones, fragrances, soaps, and thousands of other products – can end up in our drinking waters (see the Micropollutants Clearinghouse to view thousands of studies, articles, and reports about PPCPs in drinking water). Studies done over the past several decades have indicated that these contaminants can be found in both surface and ground waters throughout the United States (as well as most other countries). This has raised serious concerns stemming from the possibility that the presence of these PPCPs may pose a threat both to human and environmental health, either through direct exposure (e.g., contact with endocrine disrupting compounds) or indirect consequences (e.g., emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria). The water treatment and wastewater treatment communities have been especially concerned over PPCPs because of their ubiquitous nature and ability to persist or only partially degrade in water or during the wastewater treatment process.
Sources of PPCPs include human & animal feces and urine, hospital/medical wastes, wastes from industrial and agricultural processes, pharmaceuticals and personal care products that are disposed of inappropriately, urban runoff, and leachate from landfills. These contaminants are rarely treated or removed in the wastewater treatment process and typically remain in waters discharged from wastewater treatment plants into receiving streams and lakes, as well as in solid and liquid wastes applied to lands designated as application sites.
What have we done about PPCPs in our water? Not much, though not because of a lack of effort. The legal system (at least in the United States) was never meant to deal with micropollutants on this scale. For example, while common law remedies like trespass, nuisance, negligence, and strict liability may be applicable to concerns over PPCPs in water supplies, they rely on litigation, an all-to-often expensive, time consuming, and very case-specific process. Moreover, success in litigation requires plaintiffs to prove causation – which manufacturer produced the PPCP involved in the suit, and which PPCPs resulted in the harm alleged in the suit – hurdles that may be difficult to overcome.
An alternative to common law remedies might be found under federal statutory regimes including the Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Toxic Substance Control Act, and Endangered Species Act. While these strategies may be relevant and important, their implementation also can be expensive and politically complicated. Moreover, none of these schemes specifically address PPCPs and none are singularly applicable to (let alone capable of managing) the thousands of different pharmaceuticals and personal care products introduced into our water systems every year.
A more effective route for responding to PPCPs in drinking water supplies may be to focus on alternative strategies that focus on removing (or limiting the presence of) PPCPs at the source. In the case of pharmaceuticals, alternative strategies might include:
Designing drugs and personal care products that minimize the human and animal excretion of wastes, which would then minimize the volume of PPCPs that enter the water system;
Changing the delivery mechanisms by better informing doctors and patients about the effects of PPCPs on the environment, and educating doctors and other professionals on how to individualize or tailor doses to the individual user rather than prescribing the manufacturers’ recommended dose;
Informing users on how to dispose of unused drugs and personal care products and producing a variety of package sizes to reduce the amount of unused drugs;
Developing more disciplined dispensing and inventory control protocols to reduce disposal of unused drugs, such as through limits on Internet sales and tying drug dispensing of the necessary quantity to the drug’s expiration date (i.e., minimize drug expiration before the course of treatment is completed);
Encouraging states or manufacturers of PPCPs to develop take-back arrangements and appropriate disposal/recycling programs; and
Developing nutrition and health maintenance programs that reduce illness and the need for PPCPs, as well as the use of alternative products that do not contain PPCPs, such as probiotics.
The issue of PPCPs in water supplies is a complex problem that will require more than one simple solution. Yes, it will require monitoring and regulating the PPCPs that do enter the water supply, new monitoring, detection, and analysis methods, and new drinking water treatment processes. Yet, to successfully limit the presence of these contaminants in our drinking water, it will also require a reduction in the sources of PPCPs. This reduction will be achieved only through a combination of technological and industry fixes as well as regulatory and statutory mechanisms.
(Note: Another complimentary strategy to address this problem is being pursued by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. Working with NRDC, GLELC filed a petition last year with the Food and Drug Administration to close a regulatory loophole that allows pharmaceutical drugs to be approved without considering their impacts on drinking water. For more info, see this previous post.) March 10, 2011
At a public event yesterday at Wayne State University, the International Joint Commission released its 15th Biennial Report on Great Lakes Water Quality. In its report, the IJC detailed 32 recommendations for action at the federal, state, provincial and local levels of government. (The full report and executive summary are available online.) Most notably, the recommendations focus on the need for the U.S. and Canada to approve a revised Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement to protect drinking water and human health from threats including inadequate wastewater treatment, agricultural run-off, industrial livestock operations, and pharmaceuticals. The report also recommends binational governance improvements to provide a rapid response to stop the spread of invasive species and basin-wide consistency in fish consumption advisories. The release of the report is just part of the ongoing public process under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. The process culminates with the Great Lakes Biennial Meeting, which will be held October 12-14 at Wayne State University in Detroit.
Update: More IJC news – President Obama announced that he intends to nominate the final two US members of the IJC: (1) Dereth Glance, currently the Executive Program Director for Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a non-profit citizens environmental and public health advocacy organization in New York and Connecticut; and (2) Rich Moy, a Senior Fellow at the Center of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy at the University of Montana and former Water Management Bureau Chief for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. See the White House announcement for more info. November 08, 2010
Enforcing the federal Clean Water Act in state proceedings – guest post by Melissa Scanlan
The following guest post is by Melissa Scanlan, one of the leading public interest environmental attorneys in the Midwest. After graduating from the University of California-Berkeley in 1999, Melissa returned to her native Wisconsin and founded Midwest Environmental Advocates, which she led as Executive Director for almost a decade. In June of this year Melissa started a new environmental consulting firm where she is teaching, writing, and promoting social enterprises engaged in water policy, sustainability, and environmental justice. Melissa continues to serve of the board of Midwest Environmental Advocates, and she is also writing a blog, Dreamers and Doers. On a personal level, I have tremendous respect for Melissa and what she accomplished in launching and running Midwest Environmental Advocates, filling a much needed role in Wisconsin. Melissa has a long list of litigation, public advocacy, and legal scholarship accomplishments, and she is scheduled to teach a course about the Clean Water Act at Marquette University Law School in the spring 2011 semester.
Last week I attended oral arguments in the Curt Andersen, et al v. DNR case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. While an observer in this final round of the litigation, I had previously worked on the initial challenge to the water pollution permit that has, over the past five years, made its long journey towards a final disposition on a deceptively simple legal issue involving the system of cooperative federalism established by the Clean Water Act: In a state administrative law forum, can one challenge terms of a Wisconsin Pollution Discharge Elimination System (WPDES) permit, in a state in which the EPA has delegated authority to the state DNR to carry out the Clean Water Act, on the basis that the terms fail to comply with the federal Clean Water Act?
While the Wisconsin Supreme Court has lots of experience with the statutory interpretation and agency deference issues this case raises, it was in unfamiliar territory addressing the federal Clean Water Act. However, the questions the justices asked, struck at the heart of the Clean Water Act’s system of cooperative federalism and access to justice by challengers of water pollution permits. To get some background on the case, you can watch one of the conservationists who has litigated this case in an effort to reduce toxic mercury and excessive phosphorus pollution into the Fox River, Bay of Green Bay, and ultimately Lake Michigan. (Link to video on YouTube.)
Under Wisconsin statutes, section 283.31(3)(d), the DNR must issue WPDES permits with conditions needed to meet state and federal standards. Conservationists challenged Ft. James paper company’s WPDES permit terms in an effort to reduce mercury and phosphorus water pollution. The conservationists did not challenge the state law on its face, but as applied to this particular permit in which the DNR did not undertake a reasonable potential or an antidegradation analysis, as required by the Clean Water Act. The conservationists believe that had the DNR undertaken those analyses, it would have allowed less pollution to be sent into the Fox River.
The DNR argued that the only basis by which to judge the adequacy of a WPDES permit is state law, and that further, the DNR did not have the authority to determine the meaning of the Clean Water Act. Siding with the conservationists, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held that "the DNR has authority to determine whether discharge permit provisions authorized by state regulations comply with federal law." Curt Andersen, et. al. v. DNR, 2010 WI APP at 20.
Citing potential chaos at the agency, the DNR appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, claiming the outcome could impact over 1,000 companies and municipalities that send polluted wastewater into Wisconsin’s waterways. DNR Petition for Review Brief, at 3. In essence, the DNR argued before the Supreme Court that because state rules are required to comply with federal law and the EPA approved the state rules, any permit issued in accordance with the state rules automatically complies with federal law. DNR Petition for Review Brief, at 6. (I should note that approval of the rules by EPA is in dispute.) The DNR further argued that a challenge to a permit term is automatically a challenge to the state rule, and the proper forum for challenging a state rule is to either go through a new rulemaking or ask the EPA to declare the rule violates federal law. Several justices took issue with this logic and expressed discomfort with the automatic pass the DNR wanted to give to its application of rules as being consistent with federal law, which would deny any challenger the ability to have a judge review the veracity of the claim. Some justices also expressed concern that the DNR was equating rules with permit terms. The conservationists focused their oral arguments on clarifying that they have no problem with the state rules and are not challenging them on their face, but only as applied to the terms of Ft. James’ particular permit. The conservationists also showed the fool’s errand the DNR was trying to send them on by directing them to the EPA to resolve the matter; the 7th Circuit in American Paper v. EPA foreclosed that option in 1989 when it determined that if the EPA fails to object to a state-issued permit, the conservationists would have no recourse to challenge the decision in federal court (see the Conservationists' Petition for Review Brief). The case raises interesting issues of the relationship between the federal and state governments in administering a delegated program like the Clean Water Act. Although EPA retains an oversight role and may withdraw approval of Wisconsin's WPDES program, that oversight role does not absolve DNR of its state statutory obligation to ensure compliance with the federal law – or does it? Is the EPA the exclusive arbiter of whether a state law or state issued permit complies with the federal Clean Water Act such that it deprives an administrative law judge or state court of authority to find that a permit fails to comply with applicable federal laws?
The DNR’s position, of course, would cut both ways: impacting permit holders who claim the state is regulating beyond that required by the federal law as much as it would impact the immediate litigants who resort to federal law to claim lack of protection of the state’s waters.
You can watch the oral arguments on Wisconsin Eye. We expect a decision from the Court some time within the next six months. I’m hopeful that the Court will not interpret the facts and law in a way that nullifies a fundamental Clean Water Act right: the right to challenge through state proceedings a state's issuance of a permit that fails to comply with applicable federal law and regulations.
Update: See Melissa's op-ed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for more on the case.
Update March 23, 2011: The Wisconsin Supreme Court has released its opinion. Bottom line: The DNR won.
Wisconsin develops innovative rules to control phosphorous pollution
The state of Wisconsin, with significant contributions by stakeholders, has developed a package of innovate new rules to control phosphorous pollution from point and nonpoint (runoff) sources. Attorney Bill Davis of the Environmental Law and Policy Center played a key role in developing and advancing these rules through the administrative process. Bill is ELPC’s Clean Water Program Manager, working out of their Madison, Wisconsin office. I’ve known Bill for over ten years, as he previously served as the Executive Director of the State Environmental Leadership Program and the Executive Director of Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade (now Clean Wisconsin), and I asked him to write a guest post on this significant policy victory to address a widespread water quality problem.
Across the Great Lakes region – and the country – nutrient pollution in our water is a major problem. Nutrient pollution causes a range of impacts, including toxic algae blooms that have killed pets and the “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico from the polluted Mississippi River and tributaries. Unfortunately, current law offers few tools to address much of this pollution because the Clean Water Act does not reach nonpoint pollution. However, given the severity of the issue, the US EPA has encouraged states to adopt numeric water quality criteria for nutrients and has recently promulgated such standards for Florida. As a result, more states are beginning to address this problem.
Wisconsin has recently taken action to control phosphorous pollution by adopting two rules – one that sets water quality criteria for Wisconsin waters (NR 102) and an implementation rule (NR 217) that translates the criteria to permit limits. (The final rules have not yet been published – see this document from the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board with the draft rules, comments, and additional info.) The implementation rule has tremendous potential as a useful tool to address both point source pollution and nonpoint (runoff) pollution, which is not directly regulated under the Clean Water Act. Both rules have advanced through Wisconsin’s administrative process and await publication and approval by the US EPA, which we expect by the end of this year.
To give a sense of the novelty of the Wisconsin approach, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau, municipal wastewater treatment plants, and the major environmental organizations (including ELPC) all testified in favor of these rules. Why? I believe the primary reason is the Adaptive Management section of the implementation rules (NR 217). This provision allows point sources in watersheds impaired by nonpoint phosphorous pollution to meet their permit limits by contracting with nonpoint sources in the watershed to reduce their phosphorous loads. This option [essentially a market/trading program to allow more cost efficient ways to reduce pollution] is very attractive to regulated point sources. For point sources, contracting with nonpoint sources to reduce their pollution is significantly less expensive than adding end-of-pipe treatment technology like filtration. Further, regulated point sources are no longer being singled out to solve the nutrient pollution problem, and the agriculture community gets a potential new source of revenue for pollution reduction. For the public, environmental groups, and state DNR, the new rules create an enforceable mechanism to address nonpoint sources which are the dominate source of nutrient pollution in many of watersheds. Given the political realities across the region, solutions that engender this kind of broad support have the best chance of long-term success.
Wisconsin is now working on guidance for NR 217 and as always, the devil is in the details. There are many issues that need to be resolved, such as the necessary proximity between the point sources and nonpoint sources, the specifics of the pollution reduction plans and contracts the points sources must prepare, and the monitoring requirements and margins of safety. We know other states are interested in this approach, and will continue our hard work to make sure the Wisconsin package is a good example and model for other states.
Scenes from the Enbridge Kalamazoo River oil spill clean up
I just got back from visiting the oil spill site in Marshall, Michigan. Even after several hard rains, the Kalamazoo River’s banks are still covered in oil, and the smell hangs in the air. I’m not much of a photographer, and I’m sorry that the pictures I took don’t really show the full extent of the disaster, but take a look: http://www.greatlakeslaw.org/photos/enbridge_spill_8_4_2010/.
As I was photographing the condition of the Kalamazoo River, I met a local amateur outdoor filmmaker who goes by “Nomadic Dog.” He’s just one of the thousands of Michigan citizens who loves the outdoors and is heartbroken over the spill. He made a short video a few days after the spill that conveys both the impact of the pollution and the emotion of this disaster. In the middle of the video, while surveying the Kalamazoo River covered in oil, he says: “The aftermath of human error. And what suffers? Everything downstream.”
Great Lakes Environmental Law Center sends notice of intent to sue Enbridge over pipeline oil spill
The Great Lakes Environmental Law Center has sent a notice of intent to sue Enbridge, Inc. for violations of the Clean Water Act resulting from the burst pipeline that has spilled approximately one million gallons of oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. The Clean Water Act requires this formal 60-day notice prior to commencing a citizen suit to enforce violations of the law. As detailed in the 60-day notice letter, based on the estimated size of the spill, Enbridge could face fines of over $26 million. And if Enbridge is found to be grossly negligent in its maintenance and operation of the pipeline (especially in light of the numerous warnings issued by federal regulators regarding corrosion of the pipeline), the company could face $100 million in fines. While enforcement and fines alone won’t clean up the Kalamazoo River, this legal action by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center will help insure that Enbridge is held accountable for their violations of the Clean Water Act.
Update: See coverage of GLELC's notice of intent to sue by Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press, John Flesher of the Associated Press (in the Kalamazoo Gazette) and Eartha Jane Melzer in the Michigan Messenger.
Enbridge pipeline spills over a million gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River Here are the facts: On Monday July 26, a 30-inch pipeline in Marshall, Michigan belonging to Enbridge Inc. burst. The U.S. EPA estimates over 1 million gallons (over 23,000 barrels) of crude oil spilled into Talmadge Creek, a waterway which feeds into the Kalamazoo River. On July 28, the U.S. EPA assumed the role of Federal On-Scene Coordinator pursuant to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, which gives EPA responsibility for inland (rather than offshore) oil spills. The EPA is now coordinating and directing the response activities carried out by Enbridge and government agencies, and has issued a removal order to Enbridge.
The spill site currently includes a 30-mile stretch of the Kalamazoo River between Marshall and Battle Creek and nearby marshlands, residential areas, farmland, and businesses. As a result of air quality monitoring showing unsafe levels of benzene, local officials are evacuating 30-50 households in the area. Local health officials have also issued a water advisory for any residents that rely on well water near Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River.
In addition to protecting the health of nearby residents, the most immediate concern is preventing the spill from moving down the Kalamazoo River into Lake Michigan. Heavy rains and resulting high water levels make this task even more challenging. We’ll be dealing with this spill, and the legal and policy implications, for months to come. For now, here are three points to consider when you see the images of oil covering the Kalamazoo River:
1. The Enbridge pipeline that burst is a section of one of the largest pipeline systems in the world, connecting the tar sands oil fields in Canada with refineries throughout the industrial cities of the Midwest. With this burst pipeline and resulting spill, it’s clear that every step of the tar sands oil production, transportation, and refinery process poses significant threats to freshwater quality and public health. Tar sand strip mining has wreaked environmental havoc on the landscape and freshwater in Canada. The pollution from refining tar sands crude directly impacts Great Lakes water and regional air quality, as demonstrated by BP’s Whiting, Indiana Refinery, which connects to the burst pipeline and is located on the shores of Lake Michigan. A few years ago, a regional fight broke out between Indiana and Chicago officials over water pollution from the BP Whiting refinery - the Chicago Park Superintendent famously complained that “they can keep their pollution on their side of the lake” when Indiana officials would not let him testify at a hearing involving a water pollution permit for the refinery expansion. While environmental groups had a recent success to control air pollution from the refinery, the spill shows that the environmental impacts of tar sands oil production are not limited to the refineries in cities and tar sands fields in Canada. 2. The proposed state Constitutional amendment to ban oil drilling in Michigan’s Great Lakes that has been championed by House Democrats such as my state representative, Rebekah Warren of Ann Arbor, would do absolutely nothing about this pipeline spill. I’d probably vote for the proposed Constitutional ban, although it seems to be motivated by politics in advance of the 2010 election far more than any genuine policy concern, as oil drilling is already effectively banned by Michigan in the Great Lakes. But if Rep. Warren and other state leaders are really concerned about protecting Michigan’s environment and people from oil spills, they should focus their attention on meaningful and substantive reforms – such as better regulation of pipeline siting and safety, increased resources for inspection, and vigorous enforcement of the law. Constitutional amendments and political grandstanding on non-issues is no substitute for real governance and problem solving, and is a disservice to Michigan’s citizens that deserve more from their elected leaders. 3. Political leaders, most notably President Obama and Governor Granholm, have jumped all over the spill with the tough talk and blame game rhetoric typical of politicians, especially in an election year. Do you want to know if the government is really serious about holding Enbridge accountable? Let’s see how aggressively the government pursues fines for this spill. Based on the estimated size of the spill, Enbridge could face over $25 million in fines under the Clean Water Act. And the fines could go up to almost $100 million if the spills resulted from Enbridge’s “gross negligence or willful misconduct” – a good possibility given Enbridge’s history of insufficient monitoring of corrosion on the pipeline. Let’s hope the government’s law enforcement and policy solutions live up to the politicians’ rhetoric, so that perhaps future spills can be prevented.
Pharmaceutical drugs in drinking water are a growing concern for both aquatic and human health. Water samples from the Great Lakes and other waterbodies often reveal potentially harmful levels of many drugs, including antibiotics, steroids and other hormones, cancer therapies, lipid regulators and anti-inflammatory drugs. These drugs may get into our water supply from direct disposal or through human waste, since the body does not fully break down all drugs taken in. Unfortunately, our wastewater treatment plants don’t have the technology to filter the drugs out – one study showed that up to 93% of active drug compounds leave the wastewater treatment plant at a concentration that is just as active as when the waste entered the sewers. As a result, the drugs enter the environment and wreak havoc on wildlife and human health. For example, many pharmaceuticals contain endocrine disrupting chemicals which can harm sexual reproduction organs in both fish and humans. For more background on this issue, see Elizabeth Royte’s article Drugging Our Waters from NRDC’s OnEarth magazine. Or for something a bit lighter, check out Stephen Colbert’s segment on the subject – funny and scary at the same time.
The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is supposed to review new drugs to be sure they are safe when they enter the environment. However, the FDA has adopted a loophole (a “categorical exclusion” codified at 21 CFR § 25.31) in which it exempts new drugs from environmental review if the estimated concentration of the new drug in the water supply will be below 1 part per billion. This may sound miniscule, but with many drugs entering our water supply, the science is clear that the exemption threshold is just not adequate to protect our health and should be repealed. To close this loophole, the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council recently submitted a petition to the FDA to revoke the exemption and conduct a full environmental review of new drugs that enter the environment. (The petition is the result of great work on this issue by Wayne Environmental Law Clinic student Kaitlyn Sundt.) The environmental review sought by the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and NRDC would not prohibit new drugs, even if they are found to cause public health and environmental harm, but it would require the FDA to study the potential harm and acknowledge environmental risks. If the FDA does not address the petition within a reasonable time or denies the petition without explanation, then legal action may be necessary to compel the FDA to act. Regardless of the FDA’s ultimate decision, the petition brings a critical topic to the forefront and has the potential to start a productive policy discussion about how to address the issue of controlling pharmaceuticals in the environment. June 03, 2010