Science In Defense of a National Treasure: EPA Releases Draft Assessment of...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a major step forward today in its review of petitions to intervene in the intensifying battle over the proposed Pebble Mine in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska.  After fifteen months of study,  the agency released in draft form for public comment an extensive scientific assessment of the Bristol Bay watershed, undertaken to determine the potential impacts of large-scale mining on salmon and other fish populations, wildlife, development, and Alaska Native communities and culture in the region. 

And those impacts are devastating:  The destruction of fish spawning and rearing streams; elimination of thousands of acres of wetland; reduction in the amount and quality of fish habitat due to water removal; and a whole host of other impacts, both direct and indirect. If the Pebble Mine fails, salmon and other fish species would be devastated – forever.  Even assuming no failure -- an assumption without basis in empirical fact -- the impacts on pristine salmon spawning habitat will be irreparable.

The agency initiated this massive assessment in February 2011 at the specific request of nine federally-recognized tribes in the Bristol Bay region, the Bristol Bay Native Corporation (a multi-billion dollar developer and the largest land-owner in the Bristol Bay region, representing over 9,000 native shareholders), commercial and sports fishing interests, and other concerned stakeholders.  

At the heart of the matter is the Pebble Mine – a giant gold and copper mine proposed to be sited at the headwaters of the Bristol Bay watershed.  The countless meandering streams that make up the watershed feed one of the most productive wild salmon fisheries in the world, supporting valuable fishing and tourism-related industry, indigenous people, and a vast array of wildlife.

The corporate partnership behind the Pebble Mine – the Pebble Limited Partnership, comprising the foreign mining giants Anglo American, Northern Dynasty, and Rio Tinto – have actively opposed EPA’s work on the Watershed Assessment released today. 

In 2010, the Obama Administration recognized the unique importance of the region, barring offshore oil and gas exploration in Bristol Bay.  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar described Bristol Bay as “a national treasure that we must protect” and “too special” to drill.

In today’s announcement, EPA reiterated the importance of Bristol Bay and noted these key findings:

• All five species of North American Pacific salmon are found in Bristol Bay. The Bristol Bay watershed supports the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world. The Kvichak River produces more sockeye salmon than any other river in the world. The Nushagak River is the fourth largest producer of Chinook salmon in North America.
• Bristol Bay’s wild salmon fishery and other ecological resources provide at least 14,000 full and part-time jobs and is valued at about $480 million annually.
• The average annual run of sockeye salmon is about 37.5 million fish.
• Bristol Bay provides habitat for numerous animal species, including 35 fish species, more than 190 bird species, and 40 animal species.

EPA also examined the importance of Bristol Bay salmon in sustaining the traditional subsistence lifestyle of Alaska Native villages in the watershed.

The agency's Watershed Assessment will provide local, state, and federal decision-makers with science-based information on how to best protect the Bristol Bay watershed, its world-class salmon fishery, and the people, communities, commerce, and wildlife that depend on the salmon.

NRDC joins the Alaska Natives, Bristol Bay residents and businesses, and commercial and subsistence fishermen of the region in applauding EPA’s decision to conduct a thorough and scientific review.  We will review and comment in detail on the agency’s Watershed Assessment during the public comment process that begins today. 

And we fully support any future decision by the agency – indeed, we urge EPA -- to invoke their authority under the Clean Water Act to proactively protect the region from the inevitably devastating impacts of the Pebble Mine.  The Bristol Bay watershed is a natural resource -- a natural ecosystem unsurpassed anywhere in the world -- too important to risk.

Otero Mesa; Search for Rare Earth Threatens a Desert Bio-Gem

An essential mineral ingredient used in a variety of electronics from cell phones to smart bombs could be a death knell for a pristine part of a wild New Mexico desert grassland coveted by environmentalists—and considered sacred to Native Americans.

That ingredient—rare earth elements—is at the heart of a recent battle to protect one of the crown jewels of the southwest, the Otero Mesa, a unique desert environment that sits atop one of the largest untapped fresh water aquifers in the state.  

Check out this beautifully shot video from NRDC's Journey OnEarth producer Roshini Thinakaran and cameraman/editor Zackary Wenning as they explore the fight over protecting the Otero Mesa.  

The Otero Mesa is home to coyote, wolves, black-tailed prairie dogs, pronghorn antelope and endangered songbirds. It’s a remote grasslands area that was the subject of an intense fight to protect the area from oil and gas industry development during the George W. Bush Administration.

But now hard rock mining has come knocking on the Otero Mesa, driven by the burgeoning high-tech global demand for rare earth minerals widely used in electronics and new technologies. One company, Geovic Mining, is expected to start surveying operations this summer along the tallest peak in the area, Wind Mountain.

Initial government surveys suggest the concentration of rare earth minerals is low compared to other areas being mined. According to the data available now, NRDC geologist Briana Mordick says it would take 10,000 grams of rock to get just 2-7 grams of rare earth elements Numbers like that, locals say, could threaten the entire mountain with destruction and create a massive waste disposal problem. 

But it’s not just the destruction of this desert landscape, sensitive animal habitat and groundwater supplies that worries locals.  Native American petroglyphs also were carved into the rock of Wind Mountain by tribes that roamed the land long before settlers pushed into these remote desert areas. Tribal leaders, historians and environmentalists are prodding the Obama Administration to declare the Wind Mountain area a National Monument to protect the important history and culture of the region.

Larry Shea of the nearby Mescalero Apache Advocates for the Otero Mesa is fighting to keep these ancestral grounds from being destroyed. “We hold this area somewhat in a sacred sense for our people who have utilized this area as a place of refuge,” Shea told Journey OnEarth.

As the development fight over the Otero Mesa rolls on, dust storms blow tumbleweeds across the desert landscape, ricocheting off boulders adorned with fading Apache petroglyphs. Beneath these rocks, the search for rare earth elements may represent the end of this bio-gem world as we know it, a high-tech coup d’état for a remarkable environment that for now remains virtually untouched since time began.

Enbridge announcement to increase tar sands imports to U.S. troubling

Enbridge Inc. yesterday announced major expansion plans to its pipeline system that will increase the volume of risky and dirty tar sands flowing to the United States, Central Canada, and even possibly New England.    Significantly, Enbridge now plans to expand and double the capacity of the very same tar sands pipeline (Line 6B) that burst in July 2010 causing the largest tar sands spill in the United States.  The expansion of this tar sands pipeline amounts to double-jeopardy for the community of Marshall Michigan who has faced over 20 months of a prolonged and expensive cleanup of their local river.  Enbridge’s expansion plans also reveal they plan to ship tar sands through Ontario and Quebec to Montreal – a region that currently does not import tar sands.  Bringing tar sands to Montreal also opens the door to importing tar sands to New England.  Increasing the volume of tar sands coming into the United States deepens our troubling reliance on one of the dirtiest fuels on the planet.  Tar sands – a thick, gooey, and heavy substance that is more toxic and corrosive than conventional oil – poses much greater risks than conventional oil.  And it is very troubling that Enbridge’s plans will introduce tar sands to parts of Canada and potentially parts of New England for the first time bringing new risks to waterways, public health, and local economies.   

A fact sheet on the prospect of tar sands coming to Central Canada and New England can be found here.

Late yesterday, Enbridge announced a series of projects including expansions and reversals of several of its existing pipelines.  The plans include expanding several of its main tar sands pipelines as well as pursuing pipeline reversals enabling Enbridge to bring tar sands further east.  Enbridge is not just importing more tar sands to parts of Canada and the United States, they are increasing the potential for more tar sands spills which pose major threats to water supplies and the economy of local communities.  For example, the expansion plans by Enbridge will enable them to double the capacity of a tar sands pipeline that spilled 1.2 million gallons of tar sands on the Kalamazoo River in Marshall Michigan in 2010. 

The Kalamazoo River tar sands spill – the largest in U.S. history – has had a profound and negative impact on the nearby community of Marshall Michigan who has experienced health problems and negative economic impacts that continue to this day because the spill is not yet cleaned up.  Tar sands oil is transported through pipelines as a mixture of tar sands and light natural gas liquid and other volatile petroleum products.  Because this substance is heavier, more corrosive, and contains more toxic chemicals and compounds than conventional crude, tar sands spills inflict more damage than conventional oil and are far more difficult to clean up.

Costs to clean up the Kalamazoo River have escalated to $750 million – 18 times as much per litre as conventional crude over the last 10 years.  The clean up of the Kalamazoo river spill which has lasted almost two years has been especially difficult because conventional oil response techniques have been ineffective according to the EPA.    While conventional oil floats on the surface, tar sands is thick and heavy and sinks in water making it very difficult to clean up. Between 2007 and 2010, pipelines transporting tar sands oil in the northern Midwest have spilled three times more per mile than the U.S. national average for conventional crude. 

Enbridge’s announcement is also significant in that it finally reveals their true plans – to bring tar sands to Montreal, Quebec where tar sands can easily be shipped southward into New England revitalizing a plan first introduced in 2008 called Trailbreaker.   Late last year, Enbridge sought regulatory approval to reverse a smaller portion of one of its pipelines in Ontario, Canada.  Environmental groups in Canada and New England demanded that Enbridge come clean and share all of their expansion plans (the project was called Phase 1)  to learn about the true plans by Enbridge to ship tar sands eastward.  In April, NRDC and several other groups sent in 40,000 comments to Canada’s National Energy Board demanding that Enbridge come clean on its long-term plan to bring tar sands to the United States. 

Yesterday’s announcement finally revealed Enbridge’s real plans which what NRDC suspected – to ship tar sands much further east to Montreal.  Environmental Defence Canada and Equiterre called Enbridge’s announcement to bring tar sands to Montreal a “bait and switch” on the eve of public hearings to discuss only a portion of the plan.  According to Gillian McEachern with Environmental Defence Canada, “Enbridge's plan would to saddle Ontarians with more air pollution and more risk of toxic oil spills into our water to help get more tar sands oil out of the country, and worse, has tried to avoid a full public debate about the impacts of its plan.” 

NRDC and others have asked Canada’s National Energy Board to conduct a comprehensive environmental assessment of Enbridge’s broader plan to bring tar sands into the United States especially given that tar sands poses a much greater risk of spills threatening water supplies. Ultimately, Enbridge needs to reveal its real plans to ship tar sands to New England, something that has been acknowledged by Enbridge as very possible as recently as October 2011 but has never been officially confirmed.   The true costs of relying on tar sands needs to be something that is fully understood and considered as part of a full and comprehensive public process given the increased risks to waterways and public health.

Voices Against Tar Sands: What Americans closest to the Keystone XL tar...

In the national debate surrounding tar sands expansion and projects like TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the powerful voices of Americans on the front lines are often lost in the noise. And it’s easy to see why - the public is under a constant barrage of devious advertising that includes oil industry commercials presenting scripted comments by paid performers as the authentic views of fellow citizens; faked twitter accounts created by lobbyists that portray the lives of fictitious Americans passionate for tar sands; and industry supported lobbying groups that are characterized as nonprofit grassroots organizations. However, if you go to the front lines of tar sands expansion and the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, you’ll hear something entirely different – the authentic stories and powerful voices of those most affected by these projects. These are ranchers, farmers, landowners, businessman, housewives and civic leaders who cross the political spectrum but are unified by a shared understanding that tar sands projects like Keystone XL are not in the best interest of their communities and their country. My colleague Rocky Kistner went out and captured some of these voices in a series of interviews. These citizens and their stories are now being gathered and presented in NRDC’s new site, Voice Against Tar Sands, presenting the unscripted views of people on the front lines of tar sands expansion.

The debate surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline proposal has become so politically polarized and distorted in the media that it’s all too easy to forget what it’s about. Keystone XL isn’t just any oil pipeline – it’s a tar sands pipeline that will carry a substance called diluted bitumen, or raw tar sands, across America’s rivers and through its aquifers on its way to international markets.  Extracting raw tar sands in Canada destroys forests and pollutes water on orders of magnitudes greater than conventional oil production. Its production and use emits significantly more toxins and carbon than conventional crude. Moreover, it presents potential risks to pipelines than safety standards haven’t kept up with and when spilled, it is far more difficult to clean.

Texan landowners, many of whom have no problems with conventional oil pipelines, have found the more they learned about Keystone XL and tar sands, the less they like it. Eleanor Fairchild, whose husband was the chief geologist for Hunt oil, didn’t oppose the Keystone XL pipeline until she learned more about the tar sands that it would carry and experienced the bully tactics of TransCanada. Mike Hathorn, a Texas welder and landowner who is comfortable with the oil pipelines already on his land, is concerned about the safety of Keystone XL and the raw tar sands it will carry.  

Some people, like Susan Connolly and Debra Miller, have seen firsthand what happens when a tar sands pipeline spills. Living in Battle Creek, Michigan, these residents were at ground zero when Enbridge spilled about a million gallons of raw tar sands into the Kalamazoo river watershed. Early on, spill responders found that tar sands behaved differently than conventional crude, dramatically increasing the challenges of cleanup. Susan Connolly and her children felt the first hand effects of tar sands exposure – nausea, rashes, headaches and lethargy. Debra Miller’s business was closed for eight months and watched the spill’s long term impacts to her community. After nearly two years, the cleanup for the Kalamazoo spill continues at a cost of $725 million dollars – making it the most expensive oil pipeline spill in U.S. history.  

It’s no wonder that ranchers like Randy Thompson balked when TransCanada told him they were going to build a pipeline through his land, which happens to overlay one of the richest sources of fresh groundwater in the United States.

Meanwhile, those living in communities near the Texas Gulf Coast refineries that will process the tar sands crude from Keystone XL worry about increased emissions.

These are the voices of people who have come to understand that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and tar sands expansion do not fit in the healthy future they want for their communities and their children.  These voices represent many of the people who were arrested in front of the White House to protest Keystone XL, and later came by the thousands to encircle the White House in opposition to Keystone XL. To understand Keystone XL and the public opposition it has created, you have to hear what the people closest to it are saying. And now you can.

Please go to Voices Against Tar Sands to learn more.

Voices Against Tar Sands: People on the Front Lines Speak Out

Washington’s political wars rarely match reality back home. So when politicians and K Street lobbyists peddle the $7 billion Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, you can bet the red meat rhetoric about jobs and national security—fanciful charges according to independent analysis—is straight out of the game plan from DC’s most popular blood sport; trolling for petro dollars.  

But outside the rarefied circles of Washington, voices of a different world hold sway, voices of people who care more about community health and their children’s future than the Faustian bargains and false promises of Big Oil. These are voices of citizens from all walks of life, grandmothers, housewives, ranchers, farmers, civic leaders, willing to speak out about the growing threats of toxic tar sands oil in their lives. They are front line witnesses too often drowned out by the political din blaring from the monied corridors of the nation's Capitol.  

Check out NRDC’s new website Voices Against Tar Sands that includes nearly a dozen people's stories about their fight against some of the most dangerous mining and pipeline projects in the world. Below, farm manager Julia Trigg Crawford, recently profiled in the New York Times, talks about her critical eminent domain case over the Keystone XL pipeline, which TransCanada wants to run through her property near Paris, TX.

As my NRDC colleague Anthony Swift notes in his blog, these are the voices that really matter, people who give personal testimony to one of the greatest environmental threats we face today; the extraction of the dirtiest oil on earth.

Extracting raw tar sands in Canada destroys forests and pollutes water on orders of magnitudes greater than conventional oil production. Its production and use emits significantly more toxins and carbon than conventional crude. Moreover, it presents potential risks to pipelines than safety standards haven’t kept up with and when spilled, it is far more difficult to clean.

These witnesses include Michigan residents and small business owners devastated by tar sands-polluted rivers; Nebraska farmers fighting to preserve the world’s largest fresh water aquifer; Texas landowners battling TransCanada’s 1,700 mile land grab; minority neighbors located near massive tar sands refineries poised to spew more airborne poisons into their backyards.   

They are voices like Susan Connolly, a mother of two young children sickened by an Enbridge Energy pipeline that ruptured in July 2010, pouring a million gallons of heavy tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River, parts of which are still off limits to human contact and fishing today.

“I don’t think the communities are aware of what is going to be occurring. They don’t realize the severity of it and just how detrimental it can be to their communities…the only ones who are going to benefit are the pipeline companies. They talk about jobs and job growth. The only job growth for this pipeline that I have seen are for the workers that are cleaning up the spill.”

Four states away, people like Nebraska farmer Randy Thompson, recently profiled in Esquire magazine, have been battling TransCanada’s plans to build the Keystone XL pipeline through the environmentally sensitive Sand Hills region and ship a daily torrent of 800,000 barrels of tar sands oil across critically important agricultural and drinking water supplies.

“We have a foreign corporation here trying force their will on the American people and it’s not right. There’s no benefit to our country that I can see. We’re an agricultural state if we don’t have water we’re out of business…it doesn’t do any good to complain to your neighbor across the fence. You need to make someone else hear your voice, someone that actually has the power to do something about it, that being our politicians, so we need to make the message loud and clear to them we’re not happy with this project.”

Playground in Port Arthur, TX, future destination for Keystone XL tar sands oil. 

Photo: Rocky Kistner/NRDC

Meanwhile, in Texas landowners are fighting a multi-year battle over the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline, a plan to pump tars sands crude from the Cushing, OK, oil hub all the way to the massive petrochemical refineries of Houston and Port Arthur and then to the export market. They are the landowners who bear the risk and worry of tar sands spills near their homes and drinking water sources.

They are voices like Eleanor Fairchild, a proud Texan whose husband once had been chief geologist with Hunt Oil. After he retired, the couple bought a house and property with a beautiful lake near Winnsboro, TX, a place her husband, now deceased, called “heaven on earth.” Now, Eleanor finds her land is threatened as she battles TransCanada over plans to run its Keystone XL tar sands pipeline straight through their slice of heaven.

“At first I wasn’t against the pipeline because I did realize what tar sands was…the more I learned the worse tar sands looks. They just wanted a place to put their pipelines down and to heck with the landowner….they just weren’t very nice people when it came to what you wanted for your land…. There should be laws that protect people from this type of treatment. We have to think of children and grandchildren and what we’re doing to this earth. I think we need to leave this earth in as good a shape as we can for generations to come.”

Watch this video of Port Arthur resident Erma Lee Smith, who needs a "breathing machine" in her apartment next to the massive refineries of Port Arthur, TX.

Meanwhile, at the end of the proposed 1,700 mile conduit of Canadian crude, the petrochemical Gulf community of Port Arthur lies waiting for a bigger toxic assault. This is where community activist Hilton Kelley, the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, has been battling refineries, long a source of hazardous waste and air emissions that locals blame on respiratory problems and cancers in their community. Kelley says residents do not needs the added toxic assaults that tar sands oil will being to his home.

 “All my life we’ve lived in the shadows of refineries and chemical plants that’s located here in our area…once that pipeline is built all those jobs are gone that they said was going to bring so much wealth, those are not permanent jobs, and what were going to get is a continuous flow of this tar sands that is heavy in mercury heavy in metals and heavy in sulfur and what it’s going to do is increase the negative air quality that we presently have.”

These are but a few of the powerful voices from the front lines of the tar sands fight, voices that we will be adding to in the months ahead. They are from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, a multitude of races and communities from regions north to south. They all share a common bond; the health and safety of their families and their friends and neighbors, their cherished environments threatened by Canadian tar sands mining operations rapidly metastasizing through the boreal forests and pristine watersheds of northern Alberta. But this environmental carnage is just the beginning, part of a massive network of pipeline plans designed to pump millions more barrels of dirty tar sands oil toward U.S. refineries and the export market off North America's coasts.

Watch and listen to the voices of people in its poisonous path. These are words well worth heeding, not the empty rhetoric of petrochemical companies trying to fatten their  already profitable bottom lines. These are the people who speak from personal experience and observations in their own communities; they are the ones who speak from the heart.  

NASA's James Hansen: tar sands is the "dirtiest of fuels" and "game over...

James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, made another appeal this week to end our reliance on tar sands oil or it will be “game over” for the climate.  If we continue to approve pipelines bringing in the dirtiest of fuels like tar sands he said, “there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children a climate system that is out of their control.” The production of tar sands oil has three times the global warming emissions as conventional oil production. Hansen rightly cautions that turning to these “dirtiest of fuels” for our gas tanks derails efforts to reduce our dependency on climate-changing fossil fuels.

While Hansen acknowledges the devastating climate ramifications from tar sands are a long-term outlook, one only has to look at today to realize global warming is here and already causing significant problems.  Last year, record-breaking extreme weather events tied to global warming threatened communities across the country causing more than $1 billion in property damage. Global warming poses one of the most serious public health threats facing the nation. “We can say with high confidence that the recent heat waves in Texas and Russia, and the one in Europe in 2003, which killed tens of thousands, were not natural events — they were caused by human-induced climate change” Hansen said.

Hansen doesn’t apologize for sounding apocalyptic because the reality is that deep carbon emissions reductions will be needed to counter these trends.  To make these deep emissions cuts, we have no other choice than to reject expansion of tar sands and the extraction of other sources of dirtier, more destructive and more expensive forms of oil.  As the world now approaches the end of cheap and easily accessible oil, the oil industry is now exploiting new sources of petroleum that were once uneconomical to extract.  These so called “unconventional oils” are carbon laden, locked deeply into the earth and bound to sand, tar, and rock. Tar sands from Canada is one of these unconventional fuels - a very hard-to-reach dirty energy source that was left in the ground deep under the Boreal forests and wetlands for decades because it was too costly and energy intensive to remove. 

Today, our growing addiction to tar sands and to oil more generally is taking America and the world away from making progress to combat climate change.  This is not theoretical.  Building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline alone for example would wipe out the benefits of new EPA standards adopted that would cut greenhouse gas emissions from medium to heavy-duty trucks.  Solve Climate News recently outlined how tar sands pipelines – existing and planned – are creeping on to the American landscape. 

But Hansen reinforces a critical point: rather than making the obvious choice to reject these dirty and out-dated sources of oil, we are instead increasing the “addiction” building new tar sands pipelines.  Building the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline for example is the equivalent of seven coal-fired power plants operating continuously or having 6.2 million cars on the road for 50 years. And this is just the climate emissions associated with one tar sands pipeline.  The tar sands industry has longer term plans to expand their exploitation of tar sands from just over two million barrels a day to as much as nine million barrels a day in the coming decades. 

Because the United States takes the vast majority of Canada's tar sands, we are in the driver’s seat determining whether tar sands becomes the energy of the future or a mistake of the past. What signal do we want to send?  A recent paper from the Carnegie Endowment called for strong policies to ensure that these new unconventional oil do not have significant advantage over low-carbon alternatives. Hansen called for a carbon fee from fossil fuel companies distributed to Americans to spur a reduction in oil use.  Regardless, Hansen suggests now is the time to signal a total rejection of tar sands in the name of protecting our climate.

Spinning the facts again on climate emissions from tar sands

An Alberta government sponsored report criticizing the European Union’s own independent analysis of climate emissions from tar sands has created a political debate but misses the science.  A study released yesterday by the Jacobs Consultancy paid for by the Government of Alberta tries to crunch numbers to make tar sands less of a climate problem but in fact cherry-picked certain facts to make tar sands production seem “cleaner.”  In fact, NRDC has shown that multiple independent studies have confirmed that Canada’s tar sands emissions are some of the most carbon-intensive oil on earth and a new study can’t change that fact.

There isn’t any secret about why the Alberta government commissioned this “new” study.  They are directly engaged in aggressive lobbying effort to European Union government who is considering whether to treat tar sands as different from conventional crude oil.  The EU is developing a clean fuels policy aimed at reducing the climate emissions from transport fuels by six percent by 2020.  As part of the development of this policy, they are identifying the climate emissions from different types of oils (or feedstocks) including  tar sands.  In short, the European Union’s own independent research (which found tar sands is 23 percent higher than a standard conventional fuel in the EU) threatens Canada’s efforts to export its carbon intensive fuel overseas.  My colleague Simon Mui reported on this EU sponsored study which reinforced how tar sands is among the dirtiest forms of crude oil anywhere on earth.

Unfortunately, the Government of Alberta study was initially released to reporters who were forbidden from soliciting a critique of the study.   The Edmonton Journal said “reporters who agreed to the embargo’s terms were barred from seeking advance third-party comment on the report before its release.”  An advance third-party comment on the report would have revealed serious concerns about the data used in the report as evidence the EU was overstating the carbon impact of tar sands.  In essence, journalists - and therefore the public - were misled about the performance of tar sands extraction process prompting one-sided stories.

According to the Pembina Institute who has conducted a detailed analysis showing the overwhelming majority of conventional crudes have substantially lower emissions than tar sands: “The [Jacobs Consultancy] study is not a comprehensive assessment of oilsands emissions, but cherry-picks examples of the very cleanest oilsands projects. The Jacobs research actually shows that the absolutely best (and least emissions-intensive) examples of Alberta’s oilsands production are still almost entirely more emissions-intensive than other oil production methods around the world. The study clearly reinforces that the oilsands are a significantly more polluting feedstock and should be treated as such by the European Union.”

Unfortunately, Canada’s intense lobbying efforts has resulted in a delay to the adoption of the EU policy and the release of this new study is part of that broader effort to undermine and further delay its implementation.   The science behind climate emissions from tar sands has unfortunately become politicized.  We can only hope the European Union will see past the political debate that unfolds after the release of reports like these and sticks to evaluating the science that confirms high greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands.    Progressive climate policies like the European Union’s clean fuels standard deserves nothing less.

A Win for the Whales: Iceland Stops Fin Whaling

Endangered fin whales may once again be spared from Iceland’s harpoons.  According to media reports, Iceland will suspend its fin whale hunt in 2012. Fin whales are the world’s second largest animal and are listed as an endangered species.

This is the second year in a row fin whales have avoided slaughter in Iceland.  In 2011, Iceland postponed its fin whale season citing a lack of demand for fin whale meat in Japan after the tsunami.  This year, media reports indicate that fin whaling giant Kristjan Loftsson – the man responsible for all of Iceland’s fin whaling – failed to reach collective agreement with the Association of Icelandic Fishermen on salaries and conditions for deckhands. 

Although fin whales face a welcome reprieve this year, Iceland has killed 280 endangered fin whales and hundreds of minke whales since it resumed whaling in 2006 in violation of the moratorium on commercial whaling. In 2009, Iceland dramatically increased its self allocated fin whale quota to 150 animals a year – more than three times the catch limit that the International Whaling Commission’s Scientific Committee (the world’s foremost experts on whales) considers sustainable for the species’ survival. 

NRDC and eighteen other NGOs responded to Iceland’s renegade whaling in December 2010 by filing a petition under the Pelly Amendment to the Fisherman’s Protective Act urging the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior to certify and enact sanctions against Iceland.

Former Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke responded to our petition in July 2011 by certifying Iceland for its continued slaughter of whales. In a letter to President Obama, he said that that “Iceland, by permitting its nationals to engage in commercial whaling and exporting endangered fin whale meat, is diminishing the effectiveness of the IWC conservation program.”

Led by renowned actor and marine mammal activist Pierce Brosnan, NRDC urged President Obama to impose tough sanctions against Iceland for its rogue whaling. And NRDC Members and activists sent over 100,000 messages to President Obama. 

President Obama enacted diplomatic sanctions against Iceland in September 2011, finding that “Iceland's actions threaten the conservation status of an endangered species and undermine multilateral efforts to ensure greater worldwide protection for whales.”

Unlike countries that rely on whale meat for subsistence purposes, Iceland has only a limited domestic market for minke whales, and its people have not traditionally eaten fin whales.   Iceland had hoped to find a profitable market in Japan – whose warehouses are already glutted with thousands of tons of excess whale meat from its own suspect “scientific whaling” program and whose demand for whale meat is at an all-time low following the 2011 tsunami.

Consider this a win for endangered fin whales.

Photo credit: NOAA

What's In the Name "Environmentalist"?

Someone sent me a blog post this morning titled "Don't call me an environmentalist," arguing that "we need to look beyond the divisions and understand that most of us are on the same side, regardless of the labels we place on ourselves."  Wouldn't it be great if that were all it took?

Here's my response:

First, I care less about what people call themselves than which side they’re on.  In fact, I spend much of my time these days working with people in Alaska who don’t consider themselves environmentalists – and have no aspirations to be. The only thing that matters is whether NRDC opposes the proposed Pebble Mine – and supports protection of Bristol Bay's wild salmon fishery.  We do -- and everyone should.  But tell that to the mining giants Anglo American and Rio Tinto who, so far, have a very different view.

Second, when I hear people imply or suggest that environmentalists don’t care enough about people or aren’t talking enough about green jobs, I think they must not be listening.  NRDC’s primary area of  focus in terms of staff and resources allocated is addressing climate change, and one of the central and consistently stated arguments in support of our work is the need to create green jobs, promote renewable energy, and protect people. 

NRDC’s largest public campaign at the moment is against the Pebble Mine, and I don’t think I ever talk or blog about it without emphasizing the sustainable economy and thousands of good jobs that are put at risk if that project goes forward.  I just saw a presentation yesterday by an NRDC colleague leading our fight against the Keystone XL pipeline – another of NRDC's most high profile campaigns -- and creating a green energy economy was at the heart of her presentation. 

Third, the key question for me is not what you call yourself but what is the strategy that will enable us to win.  Sometimes the message isn’t jobs even if the reality is that we‘re on the side of jobs.  Here's an example:  In our fight against the proposed Mitsubishi salt works at Laguna San Ignacio, NRDC's primary (though not exclusive) messaging focus was the need to protect the whales and their birthing lagoon, but the reality was that we were also defending the lagoon communities and their fisheries – and protecting a place that people can enjoy forever.  

The simple fact is that we could not have generated a million petitions against the salt works project by emphasizing the threat posed by the salt works to the region's economy.  And, by the way, though we were protecting gray whales in Baja – or marine mammals all over the world with our Navy sonar litigation -- the lagoon communities' sustainable economic activities, including their fisheries and eco-tourism, have prospered.  And even my own kids have gotten more out of going there  than just about anything I’ve ever done for them. 

And what about the fight against the terrible toll road proposed to be built through the California State Park at San Onofre State Beach?  The Coalition in opposition to the project turned out 3,000 people for a California Coastal Commission hearing and 6,000 people for a U.S. Department of Commerce hearing at the Del Mar Fairgrounds -- not because we were fighting for green jobs but because we were fighting to save a state park and world class surfing beach that serves 2.5 million people a year. 

Fourth, the reality is that sometimes we can’t create the kind of economy we want to create without also stopping bad projects that claim to create jobs but in fact simply perpetuate the kind of carbon-based, waste-based economy that is killing us.  Pick your issue:  Keystone XL, San Onofre toll road, Gregory Canyon landfill, Deepwater Horizon, 710 Freeway Extension, fuel economy standards, Pebble Mine, greening our ports, fighting poison run-off, Mitsubishi salt works, and on and on.  I’d like to think we could just sit around the table with all stakeholders and agree to do the right thing, but my experience has been that it doesn’t always work very well.

Finally, when I think of environmentalists, I think of just how challenging the work is, how long it takes to prevail, how complex are the strategic choices that need to be made, and how grateful I am for environmental organizations like NRDC, the Sierra Club, Audubon, the Center for Biological Diversity, and all the others who continue to take on these most difficult battles decade after decade.  And I’m grateful for others, too, who may not call themselves environmentalists but are still willing to stand up and work for clean air, clean water, healthy communities, wild spaces, renewable energy, and green jobs. 

Five hundred years from now this is the work people will care most about that we did for them today.   

Keystone XL tar sands pipeline application poses same threats and needs a...

TransCanada has applied to the State Department for a proposed pipeline that would run from the Canadian border to Steele City, Nebraska. This is a new application for the northern segment of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that was rejected by President Obama in January. New, but still posing the same threats to our farms, water and climate. This application means that the environmental review and national interest determination will also start anew. The State Department has indicated that the review will take at least until early 2013. But more important than the timeline, is the quality of the review. A thorough, rigorous and independent review will show that the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in our national interest.

The application comes at the same time that Republicans in Congress have been pushing a provision to approve the full Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in the transportation bill that will go into conference next week. We’ve heard loud and clear from the Senate that Keystone XL approval does not belong in the transportation bill or in Congressional hands at all and the President has threatened to veto the bill if approval of Keystone XL is included. The fact that TransCanada is moving ahead with its applications for the northern and southern segments of the project is another indication that Congress should let the normal permitting process – with its environmental review and space for public input – move forward.

This application for the northern route also comes at the same time that TransCanada is moving ahead with getting permits for the southern segment of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline project that would run from Cushing, Oklahoma to Port Arthur and Houston, Texas. In Texas and Oklahoma, TransCanada is seeking permission from the Army Corps of Engineers to rely on a “nationwide” permit, instead of individual permits, to construct some water crossings. In fall 2011, EPA wrote to the Corps to express concerns about relying on a nationwide permit to approve portions of the project. EPA’s letter identified 60 crossings in the Corps’ Galveston district alone that EPA found would not qualify for nationwide permitting and would “result in significant cumulative impacts on the aquatic ecosystem.”

This pipeline and the tar sands it will transport are nothing but trouble and landowners along the path as well as people across the country feeling the impacts of climate change deserve a rigorous new review – both to reanalyze the earlier faulty reviews and to assess the new information and changed circumstances that the application faces this time around. In Nebraska, for example, although TransCanada claims to have re-routed the pipeline around the Sandhills, it still crosses the Ogallala Aquifer and landowners in Nebraska along the new route say that their land is still in the Sandhills region. The upcoming environmental review should not rely on the earlier, inadequate environmental impact statement, but needs to make a fresh start and consider the full range of impacts that this pipeline would have on our water, land, health and climate.

So it is unfortunate, that TransCanada is claiming that a full new review is not needed and asking that the State Department just do the more minimal environmental assessment. Not only was the environmental review of the earlier Keystone XL tar sands pipeline faulty, but a lot has changed since it was undertaken. We now know that Keystone XL will actually cause oil prices to rise in the United States. We know that the oil industry wants the full project – northern and southern sections – in order to send tar sands overseas and not to help U.S. energy security. And we have seen changes in the U.S. oil market with the growth of the Bakken oil fields and plans for a dedicated pipeline to take Bakken oil to the refineries that it no longer needs Keystone XL to help out. In fact, the Energy Information Administration expects that by 2012, enough transportation projects will have come online to move current and expected increased in Bakken production.

TransCanada’s application might be the same-old, same-old. But, the State Department review needs to take a fresh look at a risky, dirty and expensive energy project.