Fertilizer really a pollutant

See the tiny balls of white stuff next to the edge of the turf grass? Those re pellets of chemical fertilizer spilled on the impervious surface of the sidewalk by the fertilizer applicator. The first rain event that comes long, in turn, washes these pollutants into the nearest storm drain. From there, they travel (along with a lot of other gunk) into the watershed's principal receiving streams and lakes. In this case, that's Lake Champlain. No wonder the lake's water quality is worsening -- all in the name of the great all-American lawn.

EPA charts direction for next four years

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued its fiscal year (FY) 2014 to 2018 Strategic Plan today, which provides a blueprint for advancing EPA’s mission to protect public health and the environment across the country.

The plan envisions a new era of partnerships with state and local governments, tribes, federal agencies, businesses, and industry leaders to achieve environmental benefits in a pragmatic, collaborative way.

“EPA will address the increasingly complex array of environmental challenges we face by advancing a rigorous research and development agenda that informs and supports our policy and decision making with timely and innovative technology and sustainable solutions,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “We are heeding President Obama’s call for action on climate change, the biggest challenge for our generation and those to come by building strong partnerships at home and around the world. We are working to mitigate this threat by reducing carbon pollution and other greenhouse-gas emissions and by focusing on efficiency improvements in homes, buildings and appliances.”

The five strategic goals in EPA’s plan include:

•           Addressing climate change and improving air quality;
•           Protecting America’s waters;
•           Cleaning up communities and advancing sustainable development;
•           Ensuring the safety of chemicals and preventing pollution; and
•           Protecting human health and the environment by enforcing laws and assuring compliance.

The agency will continue to deliver significant health benefits to the American public through improved air quality and reduced emissions of toxic pollutants, and will take action to keep communities safe and healthy by reducing risks associated with exposure to toxic chemicals in commerce, our indoor and outdoor environments, products, and food.

The agency will also continue efforts to improve water quality, given the nation’s significant water infrastructure needs, focusing on common sense, flexible approaches that rely on sustainable solutions, such as green infrastructure, and build resiliency to help us adapt to the effects of a changing climate.

The plan prioritizes environmental justice, continuing to focus on urban, rural, and economically disadvantaged communities, to ensure that everyone, regardless of age, race, economic status, or ethnicity, has access to clean water, clean air, and the opportunity to live, work and play in healthy communities.

To achieve the outcomes articulated in the FY 2014-2018 Plan, the agency outlined four cross-agency strategies:

•           Working toward a sustainable future;
•           Working to make a visible difference in communities;
•           Launching a new era of state, tribal, local, and international partnerships; and
•           Embracing EPA as a high-performing organization.

The EPA developed the FY 2014-2018 Strategic Plan in accordance with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) Modernization Act of 2010. Reflecting the agency’s interest in reaching out to stakeholders and communities, the EPA requested input on a draft plan last winter from over 800 organizations and individuals and issued a Federal Register Notice to solicit broad public feedback. As appropriate, the EPA incorporated suggestions and comments received in the final Plan.

More information on the Strategic Plan is available at: http://www2.epa.gov/planandbudget/strategicplan

Army Corps, EPA clarify protections for nation's wetlands

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEMarch 25, 2014

EPA and Army Corps of Engineers Clarify Protection for Nation’s Streams and Wetlands

Agriculture’s Exemptions and Exclusions from Clean Water Act Expanded by Proposal 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) today jointly released a proposed rule to clarify protection under the Clean Water Act for streams and wetlands that form the foundation of the nation’s water resources. The proposed rule will benefit businesses by increasing efficiency in determining coverage of the Clean Water Act. The agencies are launching a robust outreach effort over the next 90 days, holding discussions around the country and gathering input needed to shape a final rule.
Determining Clean Water Act protection for streams and wetlands became confusing and complex following Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006. For nearly a decade, members of Congress, state and local officials, industry, agriculture, environmental groups, and the public asked for a rulemaking to provide clarity.
The proposed rule clarifies protection for streams and wetlands. The proposed definitions of waters will apply to all Clean Water Act programs. It does not protect any new types of waters that have not historically been covered under the Clean Water Act and is consistent with the Supreme Court’s more narrow reading of Clean Water Act jurisdiction.
“We are clarifying protection for the upstream waters that are absolutely vital to downstream communities,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “Clean water is essential to every single American, from families who rely on safe places to swim and healthy fish to eat, to farmers who need abundant and reliable sources of water to grow their crops, to hunters and fishermen who depend on healthy waters for recreation and their work, and to businesses that need a steady supply of water for operations.”
"America's waters and wetlands are valuable resources that must be protected today and for future generations,” said Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) Jo-Ellen Darcy. “Today's rulemaking will better protect our aquatic resources, by strengthening the consistency, predictability, and transparency of our jurisdictional determinations. The rule's clarifications will result in a better public service nationwide."

The health of rivers, lakes, bays, and coastal waters depend on the streams and wetlands where they begin. Streams and wetlands provide many benefits to communities – they trap floodwaters, recharge groundwater supplies, remove pollution, and provide habitat for fish and wildlife. They are also economic drivers because of their role in fishing, hunting, agriculture, recreation, energy, and manufacturing.

About 60 percent of stream miles in the U.S only flow seasonally or after rain, but have a considerable impact on the downstream waters. And approximately 117 million people – one in three Americans – get drinking water from public systems that rely in part on these streams. These are important waterways for which EPA and the Army Corps is clarifying protection.
Specifically, the proposed rule clarifies that under the Clean Water Act and based on the science:

• Most seasonal and rain dependent streams are protected.
• Wetlands near rivers and streams are protected.
• Other types of waters may have more uncertain connections with downstream water and protection will be evaluated through a case specific analysis of whether the connection is or is not protecting similarly situated waters in certain geographic areas or adding to the categories of waters protected without case specific analysis. 

The proposed rule preserves the Clean Water Act exemptions and exclusions for agriculture. Additionally, EPA and the Army Corps have coordinated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop an interpretive rule to ensure that 53 specific conservation practices that protect or improve water quality will not be subject to Section 404 dredged or fill permitting requirements. The agencies will work together to implement these new exemptions and periodically review, and update USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service conservation practice standards and activities that would qualify under the exemption. Any agriculture activity that does not result in the discharge of a pollutant to waters of the U.S. still does not require a permit.

The proposed rule also helps states and tribes – according to a study by the Environmental Law Institute, 36 states have legal limitations on their ability to fully protect waters that aren’t covered by the Clean Water Act.
The proposed rule is supported by the latest peer-reviewed science, including a draft scientific assessment by EPA, which presents a review and synthesis of more than 1,000 pieces of scientific literature. The rule will not be finalized until the final version of this scientific assessment is complete.
Forty years ago, two-thirds of America’s lakes, rivers and coastal waters were unsafe for fishing and swimming. Because of the Clean Water Act, that number has been cut in half. However, one-third of the nation’s waters still do not meet standards.

The proposed rule will be open for public comment for 90 days from publication in the Federal Register. The interpretive rule for agricultural activities is effective immediately.

More information: www.epa.gov/uswaters 
Watch Administrator McCarthy’s overview: http://youtu.be/ow-n8zZuDYc

Hog wild: Factory farms are polluting Iowa's water

This, buckaroos, is more than just a case of pigs in the muck. Read about the water pollution right here.

More pollution for Chesapeake Bay blue crabs?

This comes down to that tired old equation, "will it hurt the economy?" Some outfit may pollute, sure, but it employs people, so it must be good Right? I hate the whole notion of putting a dollar value on every thing and looking outside and seeing "natural resources," not God's flora and fauna. Here's what the National Wildlife Federation says about the Chesapeake's blue crabs.

Vermont government and cleaning up Lake Champlain

Gov.Peter Shumlin can start by asking counties and municipalities within them to stop the clearing of forests and the subsequent conversion of that land to crap like parking lots, driveways and even lawns, all of which contribute a hell of a lot of nutrient pollution to Lake Champlain via its tributaries (Winooski River, Otter Creek, Mississquoi River, Lamoille River, etc.). Then, having declared that water quality means more than a developer's bankroll, we can all start restoring the natural landscape - the landscape that's critical toward filtering surface waters and, ultimately, to cleaning up the big lake's water. So, come on,folks. Let's get going on this. Here's Vermont Public Radio's take on the governor and the lake.

Muddying the waters far from home

"Home" in the headline is Florida. And Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen asks, with a load of satire, just why it is that his state's governor and attorney general have joined a bid to squelch the Chesapeake Bay's cleanup plan. Why? As Hiaasen points out in this column, the likely reason has a lot to do with pending campaign contributions from Big Oil, Big Agriculture, the home-building industry and assorted other wide-eyed polluters.

Surprise: We all live downstream

I’ve lived and worked in many watersheds in my 60-plus years.

There’s the Rio Grande in New Mexico; the Platte River in Nebraska; Lake Champlain (once at Plattsburgh Air Force Base on its west side, in New York State, and now on the east side, in Vermont); Lake Thunderbird and the Canadian River in Oklahoma; the Snake River in Idaho; and the Lower Ocmulgee in central Georgia.

They all have lots in common, much of it on the negative side of the graph, unfortunately: The loss of natural land to sprawl and the gougers, diggers, bulldozers, chainsawers, polluters, dam builders, graders and asphalters of urban America.

My home in Vermont is – like yours in Pennsylvania – actually in several watersheds. First is the Winooski River (I live a half-mile from it). Second, and much larger, is the Lake Champlain watershed, which is international and multi-state in scope.

“We all live in a watershed,” reads the election campaign-style lapel button I got from the Puget Sound Partnership in Washington State some years ago.

That conservation outfit is correct. We do.

The EPA gives us this definition: “A watershed is the area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place. John Wesley Powell, scientist geographer, put it best when he said that a watershed is: ‘that area of land, a bounded hydrologic system, within which all living things are inextricably linked by their common water course and where, as humans settled, simple logic demanded that they become part of a community’."

Many residents of metro Hazleton (oftentimes called “Greater Hazleton”) live in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, but neighbors in Carbon County reside in the Lehigh River watershed, part of the Delaware River’s watershed.

Roads, homes and other human activities have altered the composition of forests across the Chesapeake Bay watershed (and all the others, too), reducing tree cover and fragmenting those forests that still exist.

Fragmented forests are less resilient to disturbances and more prone to negative influences like wildfires and invasive species. The ongoing loss of trees and entire forests, with financial profit the true motive, toughens and heightens cost and the cleanup and restoration.

But just because some thousands of acres are (thankfully) owned by a public agency, the Hazleton City Authority, as watershed land, does not mean Pennsylvanians need not worry about the ecological health of that land or, even more so, the diminishing naturalness of other land, private or public, elsewhere in the same watershed.

The logging of hardwood trees relates poorly to the goal of healthy watershed land and the replenishment of groundwater.

The Chesapeake Bay Program: “Forests are critical to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Large stands of trees can protect clean water and air, provide habitat to wildlife and support the region’s economy.

“But human activities have altered the watershed’s forests, reducing tree cover and fragmenting forests that still exist. Conserving and expanding forest cover is a critical, cost-effective way to reduce pollution and restore the Bay.”

Streams across the United States are suffering a decline in health, as human development alters stream flow and pushes pollutants into the water. It’s a sad commentary on our times when one can stand on the shore of a major Chesapeake tributary (like the York River at Yorktown) and watch as rainwater polluted with the blue sheen of automobile engine oil dribbles into the current and out into the Bay. I’ve watched that process, a bunch of times.

The Bay Program (www.chesapeakebay.net/issues): “There are two broad categories of chemical contaminants that can be found in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries: metals and organics.

Mercury is the most common metal found in the Bay watershed.

Common organic chemical contaminants include:

-        - Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which act as a flame retardant in electrical equipment. Though their production has been banned since 1977, PCBs still pose a risk to humans and wildlife because they persist in the environment.

-        Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which form when gas, coal and oil are burned. PAHs are common in areas with high rates of development and motor vehicle traffic.

-        Organophosphate pesticides (OPs), which are mostly herbicides and insecticides used in agriculture. OPs can affect functioning of the nervous system.

-        Storm runoff from cities, towns and suburbs picks up oil, pesticides and other chemicals as it flows across lawns, roads, and parking lots and into nearby streams and storm drains. This type of pollution is significant and difficult to control.

Protecting the sources of our clean drinking water does not fit well with the selling of saw timber or the building of a road to get the truck in and the cut out. Every municipal water agency in Pennsylvania could preclude all sorts of problems, some of which I’ve discussed, by buying and protecting natural lands.
I call it Wild Nature and it’s where good water and a lot more come from.

In South Florida, a polluted bubble ready to burst

As this in-depth article wryly notes, the problems with Lake Okeechobee are many and varied. But Florida's leadership just doesn't seem to get it. But a certain estuary will if things are allowed to proceed as feared.

Oil spill and Lake Champlain pollution source

This, of course, is just one of a million-plus oil spills in the Lake Champlain watershed. I shot this pix in a local warehouse "park" yesterday. This is exactly the sort of non-point-source pollution that bedevils any and all efforts to clean up the water quality of this big lake and basins like Chesapeake Bay, too.

Carl Hiaasen on bad water, campaign dollars and other ills

This is a great read from Carl Hiaasen. Proof again that campaign contributions from polluters are paving the way toward no action on pollution. Save the Everglades?

The future of clean water

Daily, here in Vermont, I walk pass small oil spills. Their black imprints are everywhere - everywhere cars, trucks, and SUVs roll. When it rains, their presence is also indicated by the bluish sheen they exude. Is this the future of clean water? Read about that question right here.

RFK Jr.: Pollution of Lake Champlain is theft

The environmental law professor and conservationist was in Burlington yesterday to deliver a speech at ECHO, with U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy along for the ride. Kennedy urged restoration of the "commons" law when discussing the pollution, most of it stormwater runoff, that plagues the big lake. Here's the Burlington paper's coverage.

Lake Erie: Big algae problems, more to come

Lake Erie's huge algae bloom in 2011 covered nearly a fifth of the lake. A new report says warming climate and modern farming are creating ideal conditions for big algae blooms to clog Lake Erie.  Read more about it here.

EPA survey of rivers and streams finds more than half in poor shape

I don't find this surprising. Not at all. Depressing, yes. But surprising, no. Given the sorry-ass condition of stream after stream in the corner of Pennsylvania where I lived for 20 years, I'm not shocked by this report's findings. Why local business leaders in Luzerne County, Pa., have not yelled and screamed collectively for years now about the sorrowful shape of their local streams is itself a shock.