Clean Water Act

 

Permits & Certifications

 

EPA Fights EAB Suit Over First-Ever CWA Permit For Aquaculture Farm. According to InsideEPA, “EPA is urging its Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) to dismiss a pair of challenges from environmental groups who oppose a first-ever Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for an offshore fish farm in the Gulf of Mexico, rejecting the critics’ claim that the permit is unlawful because the agency erred in its response to comments on it. Additionally, the environmentalists’ allegations that the permit for Velella Epsilon Offshore Aquaculture Project -- the first ever permit for offshore aquaculture -- violates the CWA, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) lack merit and do not warrant review, the agency says in recent filings with EAB. A coalition of nine national and local environmental groups led by the Center for Food Safety argues in its petition for review that the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit issued by EPA Region 6 violates all four laws. Region 6 covers the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas and areas off the coast of Texas and Louisiana.” [InsideEPA, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

Earthjustice Calls Proposed CWA Enforcement Standard Change ‘Unlawful’. According to InsideEPA, “EPA’s proposed change to requirements for the type of negligence standard states must use for criminal enforcement of delegated Clean Water Act (CWA) programs is ‘unlawful’ and should be withdrawn because, if finalized, it would allow for inconsistent enforcement of the CWA between states and EPA, says an Earthjustice attorney. Dominque Burkhardt, an associate attorney with the environmentalist law firm Earthjustice, said at a Jan. 7 virtual EPA public hearing on the proposed change that the firm would be filing more-detailed comments in opposition to the proposal by the Jan. 13 comment period deadline. EPA in December proposed to clarify that states and tribes that are authorized to, or that seek authorization to, administer the CWA Section 402 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NDPES) permitting program and/or the CWA Section 404 dredge-and-fill permitting program are not required to establish the same negligence standard that the water law establishes for federal criminal enforcement actions. ‘Rather, EPA may approve state or tribal programs that allow for prosecution based on any negligence standard, including gross negligence or recklessness, as opposed to requiring that a state or tribe be able to establish criminal violations based on simple or ordinary negligence,’ the proposal says.” [InsideEPA, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

Water Pollution

 

PFAS

 

EPA Denies Environmentalists’ TSCA Toxicity Testing Petition For 54 PFAS. According to InsideEPA, “EPA has denied a widely supported TSCA petition from environmental and environmental justice groups urging the agency to require the Chemours Company to conduct toxicity testing on 54 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) detected near its North Carolina plant, arguing the petition was insufficiently supported and the testing too costly. ‘After carefully reviewing the petition, EPA has determined that the petition has not provided the facts necessary for the agency to determine for each of the 54 PFAS that existing information and experience are insufficient and testing is necessary to develop such information,’ EPA’s website states. In an unpublished Federal Register notice sent to petitioners Jan. 7, EPA outlines its activities to research and regulate PFAS, arguing that its ‘denial is not based on lack of concern with PFAS. In fact, EPA’s high concern for these chemicals is detailed in . . . this document. EPA is leading the national efforts to understand PFAS and reduce PFAS risks to the public through implementation of its PFAS Action Plan . . . Instead, EPA finds the petitioners have not met their burden under TSCA section 21.’” [InsideEPA, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

New Jersey Court Rejects Industry Groups’ Bid To Stay State PFAS Rules. According to InsideEPA, “A New Jersey state superior court has rejected an attempt by groups representing manufacturers and other industries to stay landmark New Jersey drinking water and groundwater regulations governing the two most-studied per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) pending the outcome of litigation challenging the rules. In a brief order issued Jan. 4, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, denied a motion by several business and industry groups, the PFAS manufacturer 3M and publicly owned utilities to stay the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s (NJDEP) PFAS water regulations for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) -- the two most studied PFAS among the thousands in the class of compounds. The stay of the state’s rules was sought by the litigants, pending resolution of the litigation. ‘While we are disappointed with the decision, we maintain our previously articulated position on these restrictions,’ 3M said in a statement responding to the ruling. Previously, upon filing the suit with others, 3M argued the new rules ‘burden public entities and business owners without clear benefit to public health or sound scientific foundation. Through this action, we hope to ensure NJDEP follows its own rules for regulation to ensure accountability, sound reasoning, and transparency.’” [InsideEPA, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

Coal Ash

 

Challenge To Colstrip Cleanup Plan Upsets MT Landowners. According to Public News Service, “Many landowners in southeastern Montana are displeased with Talen Energy’s decision to challenge a cleanup plan for Colstrip’s coal ash ponds. The company, which is part owner of the Colstrip power plants, says the $285 million plan for retired Units 1 and 2 is ‘grossly excessive.’ The ponds contain 5.7 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash. Clint McRae, a Colstrip rancher and member of the grassroots organization Northern Plains Resource Council, said the coal ash has contaminated the region’s shallow aquifers and Talen is trying to portray itself as the victim. ‘They have a responsibility to the state of Montana and to the public, and specifically the adjacent landowners to clean up their mess,’ McRae said. ‘And the ruling that they were going to challenge this was very disappointing, but it has served them well for the last 40 years, and it wasn’t surprising that they went down that lane.’ McRae supports the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s plan, approved in November. Northern Plains estimates cleaning up the ash pond complex would bring 218 jobs to the region for at least a decade.” [Public News Service, 1/11/21 (=)]

 

Toxic Algae

 

As Red Tide Spreads Along Florida's Gulf Coast, Army Corps Begins Reducing Polluted Discharges From Lake O. According to WLRN-Radio, “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to cut back on discharges from Lake Okeechobee beginning this weekend, ending months of polluted releases to the St. Lucie Estuary and returning to more normal flows down the Caloosahatchee River to the Gulf Coast. The decision comes as red tide conditions worsen on the Gulf Coast, where dead fish have littered beaches and toxic levels of the algae have been detected from Sanibel to Marco Island. The move was part of an overall strategy to scale back releases once the dry season settled in and not prompted by the red tide’s appearance, Col. Andrew Kelly said Thursday. ‘We’re going down about a third of a foot lower than it was a month ago,’ he said in a briefing. The Corps began releasing lake water — blamed for worsening coastal algae blooms because the water contains high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus from farm and urban run-off — in October. For weeks, Kelly said the agency had hoped to avoid the discharges but a prolonged and record-breaking rainy season, that drenched much of South Florida, pushed up lake levels that began threatening the 1940s-era Herbert Hoover dike.” [WLRN-Radio, 1/11/21 (=)]

 

Lake Okeechobee Discharges To End. According to WPEC-TV, “Lake Okeechobee discharges will end Saturday after nearly three months and roughly 75 billion gallons of water poured into the St. Lucie River. Right now, the lake’s elevation is over 15 feet, a third of a foot lower than it was a month ago. The U.S. Army Corps projects the lake will be about 14 feet by the end of dry season, but they have yet to answer how they will handle the lake’s higher-than-normal levels when that time comes.” [WPEC-TV, 1/7/21 (=)]

 

Wastewater

 

Bill Would Halt New Fracking Permits While State Conducts Impact Studies. According to New Mexico Political Report, “State Senator Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, D-Albuquerque, plans to introduce a bill during the upcoming legislative session that would enact a four-year pause on fracking permits while studies are conducted to determine the impacts of fracking on agriculture, environment and water resources and public health. The bill directs state agencies and departments, including the Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, the New Mexico Environment Department, the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture to study and report annually to the governor and the relevant legislative committees on the impacts of fracking on the respective sectors. ‘It’s not a moratorium on fracking or banning fracking altogether. It is simply a pause on issuing new permits for four years,’ Sedillo Lopez told NM Political Report. ‘The bill requires agencies to study the issue of fracking, and to give recommendations to the legislature for legislation and rules that would be appropriate to deal with the consequences of fracking on our air, our land, our water, and our health,’ she said.” [New Mexico Political Report, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

Plastic Pollution

 

Banks Called Out For Their Role In Financing Plastic Pollution. According to Forbes, “The pressure to clean up plastic pollution faded in 2020 thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to a surge in the use of plastic in PPE and to keep food and other purchases safe. However, the problem has not gone away – in many ways, it has worsened – and that pressure will return with a vengeance in 2021. Each minute, a truck full of plastics ends up in our oceans and around 1 million marine birds and 100,000 marine animals die each year from eating plastic. Plastic packaging pollution is now found from the deepest oceans to the top of Mount Everest and the average person eats about 70,000 particles of microplastic a year. A new report, Bankrolling Plastics, says that banks are in part responsible for the plastic pollution crisis, because they are ‘lending vast sums of capital without making any effort to address the plastic pollution crisis. ‘By indiscriminately funding actors in the plastics supply chain, banks have failed to acknowledge their role in enabling global plastic pollution. They are not introducing any due diligence systems, contingent loan criteria, or financing exclusions when it comes to the plastics industry.’ In what it says is the first investigation into bank financing of the plastics supply chain, the report, produced by non-profit portfolio.earth, says that banks have provide more than $1.7 trillion to 40 companies with significant involvement in the global plastics supply chain, including the polymer, packaging, fast-moving consumer goods and retail industries. Plastic is overwhelmingly produced from fossil fuels, contributing to climate change as well as causing huge amounts of waste on land and in the oceans.” [Forbes, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

Water Infrastructure

 

Task Force Calls For Spending On Carp, Climate, Soo Locks. According to E&E News, “A bipartisan House task force is calling on the Army Corps of Engineers to ensure billions of appropriated dollars are quickly used to fortify the Great Lakes against an invasion of Asian carp, help fix the Soo Locks and make the region more resilient in the face of climate change. The Great Lakes Task Force in a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Rickey ‘R.D.’ James on Friday laid out their priorities for the Army Corps’ work plan for the coming year. The lawmakers also emphasized that money to do that work was included in a massive, multitrillion-dollar spending package that President Trump signed into law last month (Greenwire, Dec. 28, 2020). The Army Corps’ work plan identifies what level of fiscal 2021 funds will be directed to specific projects, programs and activities. ‘Together, we call on the Army Corps of Engineers to allocate sufficient workplan funding to combat Asian Carp, make necessary improvements to the Soo Locks, and successfully carry out both the Great Lakes Resiliency Study and the Great Lakes Fishery and Ecosystem Restoration program,’ the House members wrote. ‘The FY 2021 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill provided robust funding for the Corps. This letter makes clear our priorities for how Corps funding is allocated,’ they wrote.” [E&E News, 1/11/21 (=)]

 

Yazoo Hullabaloo. According to Politico, “Fresh off his trip to Costa Rica, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler will be in Mississippi today, along with the state’s Republican senators and governor and the Army Corps’ regional leader, for a presser on a controversial flood project that was vetoed by the George W. Bush administration but is poised for approval in the Trump administration’s final days. The Yazoo Backwater Area pumps project has been a top priority for the region’s Republican power players, particularly following damaging floods in 2018 along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and the Trump administration has worked at lightning speed to finalize a slightly reconfigured version of the project which, in late November, EPA said was sufficiently different from the vetoed version so as to be allowed to advance. The Corps could issue its final Record of Decision as soon as this week. But environmental groups say the project would still be massively destructive to tens of thousands of acres of wetlands and is fundamentally aimed at draining wetlands for agriculture rather than protecting homes and infrastructure. They have already signaled their intent to sue, and are asking the incoming Biden administration to swiftly reverse course on the project. ‘The Biden-Harris administration can immediately and publicly walk back EPA’s veto decision, and they can do that cert by issuing a letter and they can also reconfirm that the veto applies to the Corps’ plan,’ said Jill Mastrototaro, policy director for Audubon Mississippi.” [Politico, 1/11/21 (=)]

 

Western Water

 

Front-Runner Surfaces To Lead Biden's Bureau Of Reclamation. According to E&E News, “A veteran Colorado River attorney and New Mexico native has emerged as a leading contender to become President-elect Joe Biden’s top water manager in the West. Multiple sources say Tanya Trujillo is a top candidate to be Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner in the Biden administration. Trujillo currently sits on Biden’s Interior transition team. In an email, she declined to answer whether she is under consideration for the role, referring E&E News to the transition’s press office — which did not return a request for comment. Reclamation is the dominant federal water regulator in the West and plays a critical role in managing the Colorado River’s resources, as well as federal infrastructure in California that shuttles water from the state’s wet north to farms and cities in its drier south. The next Reclamation commissioner will face significant challenges, particularly on the Colorado River, which serves 40 million Americans and millions of acres of cropland. ‘The job is crucial as climate change adaptation becomes ever more important,’ said Jennifer Pitt of the National Audubon Society, a veteran Colorado River advocate. ‘Climate change impacts are being felt all across the West. We’re in the grips of what seems to be a never-ending drought.’” [E&E News, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

Climate Change May Make Snowpack Smaller, Melt Faster. According to Wyoming Public Media, “Climate change may make snowpack in the coming years smaller and force it to melt earlier in the year. University of Wyoming associate professor in civil engineering Noriaki Ohara said his team predicted future climates using computer models. They explored 13 different climate scenarios, each reflecting different carbon emissions. He said the tricky part was narrowing down the global model to look at small regions because they wanted to focus on three important watersheds that supply water for a large portion of California’s population. But Ohara said the result is extendable to Wyoming. ‘[The] fraction of the snowfall out of the precipitation decreased, so [there was] therefore a smaller snowpack, especially in the lower elevations,’ he said. ‘For higher elevations, the snow melts very fast, so therefore the peak season should be earlier.’ Ohara said most models measure the effects of air temperature, but this one also accounts for humidity, wind speed, and radiation from the sun.” [Wyoming Public Media, 1/8/21 (+)]

 

Misc. Waterways

 

Renewables And Unions: Biden Rounds Out Energy Cabinet. According to E&E News, “President-elect Joe Biden has laced his Cabinet with deep energy ties across the federal government as he prepares to take office and enact an ambitious green energy plan, facing a slim majority in the House and Senate and deep political polarization. Biden closed out his Cabinet picks last week with the choice of Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) for Commerce secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh for Labor secretary, both of whom have executive branch energy experience. This morning, Biden announced his pick for CIA director, former Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who has defended the Obama-era Clean Power Plan for cutting power sector emissions. Offshore wind insiders say Raimondo appears to be an answer to the growing friction between a burgeoning renewable sector and the fishermen who have long been the ocean’s dominant users. She served as governor of the Ocean State when the first offshore wind farm in the country, Block Island, was built and brought into operation. The wind industry, beset by delays and tension over the last few years, could be a critical green power component for the Biden administration’s goal of zeroing out electricity-sector carbon emissions by 2035.” [E&E News, 1/11/21 (=)]

 

AP | One-Third Of America's Rivers Have Changed Color Since 1984. According to E&E News, “America’s rivers are changing color — and people are behind many of the shifts, a new study said. One-third of the tens of thousands of mile-long river segments in the United States have noticeably shifted color in satellite images since 1984. That includes 11,629 miles that became greener or went toward the violet end of the color spectrum, according to a study in this week’s journal Geographical Research Letters. Some river segments became more red. Only about 5% of U.S. river mileage is considered blue — a color often equated with pristine waters by the general public. About two-thirds of American rivers are yellow, which signals they have lots of soil in them. But 28% of the rivers are green, which often indicates they are choked with algae. And researchers found 2% of U.S. rivers over the years shifted from dominantly yellow to distinctly green. ‘If things are becoming more green, that’s a problem,’ said study lead author John Gardner, a University of Pittsburgh geology and environmental sciences professor. Although some green tint to rivers can be normal, Gardener said, it often means large algae blooms that cause oxygen loss and can produce toxins.” [E&E News, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

Political Tide Turns For Foes Of Boundary Waters Project. According to E&E News, “The battle over a proposed copper and nickel mine near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness may soon tilt toward the opposition. Foes of the Twin Metals mine say they’ll renew their push for the federal government to reject the project, block expansion of mining and make public a related environmental assessment that the Department of Agriculture has kept mostly hidden. ‘It’ll be interesting to see what the incoming administration does,’ said Alison Flint, senior legal director at the Wilderness Society, which has sued the Trump administration to halt the project near Ely, Minn., and to release more public documents related to it. At a minimum, she said, opponents hope the incoming Biden administration will pause the process. The Wilderness Society and others opposed to the project say it would jeopardize the downstream Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The wilderness area, which includes the Superior National Forest, holds as much as a fifth of all the fresh water within the 193-million-acre national forest system, according to the conservation group.” [E&E News, 1/8/21 (=)]

 

 

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