Clean Water Act

 

NWPR & WOTUS

 

EPA Water Chief Sees ‘Huge’ Challenge Developing ‘Durable’ WOTUS Policy. According to InsideEPA, “EPA water chief Radhika Fox is acknowledging there are ‘huge’ challenges in reaching the Biden administration’s goal of crafting a ‘durable’ definition of waters of the United States (WOTUS) to ensure watershed protection but says it is possible if stakeholders are willing ‘to get uncomfortable to find that common ground.’ Fox’s comments came during a roundtable discussion at the virtual fall meeting of the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) last week where state regulators and former EPA officials weighed in on how to build durable watershed policy and emphasized the need to find middle ground. The discussion comes as the Biden administration has launched a controversial process aimed at crafting a ‘durable’ WOTUS definition to avoid continuing the pendulum swings that have occurred during the Obama, Trump and the current administrations, though former EPA officials have questioned whether a middle-ground approach is possible. And recently filed responses to a series of questions the agencies asked about their efforts shows a wide gap in stakeholder views, raising doubts about the agencies’ ability to craft the ‘durable’ policy officials are seeking.” [InsideEPA, 9/13/21 (=)]

 

Permits & Certifications

 

Judge Urged To Preserve Enviro Win In Maui Water Feud. According to Politico, “Green groups last week pressed a federal judge not to rethink a ruling that served as the first test of major Supreme Court Clean Water Act precedent. In a Friday filing, the groups urged Senior Judge Susan Oki Mollway of the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii to reject a request by Maui County to reconsider her determination that local officials must secure Clean Water Act permits for a wastewater treatment plant on the island. ‘This Court has bent over backwards to give Defendant every opportunity to make its case regarding its unpermitted discharges from injection wells at the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility,’ wrote attorneys for the Hawaii Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation and West Maui Preservation Association. Mollway’s decision followed the Supreme Court’s ruling last year in Hawaii Wildlife Fund v. County of Maui that said that — under certain circumstances — the Clean Water Act may apply to pollution that moves through groundwater on its way to a federally regulated waterway (Greenwire, April 23, 2020). The Supreme Court sent the Maui case and several others like it back to the lower courts for an examination of whether the disputed discharges could be considered the ‘functional equivalent of a direct discharge.’” [Politico, 9/13/21 (=)]

 

Water Pollution

 

PFAS

 

New Jersey Fights Industry Challenge In Test Case Over States’ PFAS Limits. According to InsideEPA, “New Jersey is fighting a legal challenge brought by industry groups seeking to knock out its landmark drinking water and groundwater regulations governing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) -- which, in the absence of federal standards, is considered one of the country’s most-stringent such limits among states. In a brief filed late last month in the state-court challenge, officials pushed back on industry claims that its 2020 drinking water and groundwater standards violate state administrative requirements, arguing the standards are based on years of research and reflect its Department of Environmental Protection’s (NJDEP) longstanding expertise in the area. ‘This court should reject Appellants’ attack on [NJDEP’s] exercise of its broad authority and expertise to remediate pollution and protect public health and uphold the [standards],’ New Jersey tells the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division in an Aug. 27 brief in the case, In Re Appeal of the NJDEP’s June 1, 2020, ‘Adopted Amendments: N.J.A.C. 7:1E Appendix A, 7:9C Appendix Table 1, 7:9E-2.1, 7:10-5.2, and 12.30; and 7:14A-4 Appendix A and 7.9’. New Jersey is viewed as a leader among states in addressing PFAS, with experts saying its PFAS limits for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) -- finalized in 2020 -- are among the strictest in the country and with environmentalists hailing the standards.” [InsideEPA, 9/13/21 (=)]

 

Plastic Pollution

 

Corporations Tried To Blame You For The Plastic Crisis. Now States Are Turning The Tables. According to Grist, “Consider this recent public service announcement, where two uncanny squirrel puppets sit in a tree, watching passerby on the sidewalk and cheering when they put plastic bottles in the recycling bin. A man nearly throws a bottle in the trash (gasp!), but at the last moment, puts it away in his bag to ‘recycle later.’ ‘Way to go, Mr. Brown Shoes!’ one squirrel says. Then a message pops up on the screen: ‘Recycle your bottles like everyone’s watching.’ This ad is from Keep America Beautiful, a nonprofit backed by big corporations (think Coca-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Nestlé) that’s been delivering versions of that message for more than half a century. The focus has been on the litterbugs who tossed garbage on the ground, rather than on the companies manufacturing all that trash-to-be to begin with. Countless mountains of plastic waste later, the tide is turning. There’s growing momentum behind the idea that companies should be held responsible for the waste they produce, instead of taxpayers. This summer, Maine and Oregon became the first states to pass laws making producers pay fees for this packaging. The resulting programs could reinvigorate recycling systems, often scaled back when cities look for ways to save money, and prompt big companies to come up with cleaner alternatives.” [Grist, 9/13/21 (=)]

 

Environmental Justice

 

If You Want Proof Of Environmental Racism, Look No Further Hurricane Ida. According to TheGrio, “Nearly half a million people in Louisiana remain without power. The estimated wait time until power will return — 20 days to a month. On the east coast, those who reside in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York were also adversely affected as water swarmed into basement apartments and overwhelmed subways. Who has paid the biggest price for these grievances? Black and brown people. Vulnerable populations. Poor communities. Even the Environmental Protection Agency has agreed, ‘Racial minorities in the United States will bear a disproportionate burden of the negative health and environmental impacts from a warming planet.’ A warming planet that creates more earthquakes, storm systems and flash floods like Hurricane Ida. This warming planet has created conditions optimal for what we call environmental racism. Oftentimes coastal communities are the most affected, and when infrastructure like the levees and sea walls are considered, one must look to the storied history of how natural disasters have historically affected vulnerable populations in this country. Both Hurricane Ida and Hurricane Katrina disproportionally affected predominantly Black areas in the state of Louisiana.” [TheGrio, 9/13/21 (+)]

 

Op-Ed: Climate Investments Can’t Wait. According to an op-ed by Ayanna Pressley and Roseann Bongiovanni in Boston Globe, “Far too many people have been threatened by droughts, wildfires, and floods due to the climate crisis. In Massachusetts, heat waves this summer have affected Black and brown communities and low-income families the most. Due to decades of structural racism and discrimination, extreme weather is impacting our most vulnerable communities disproportionately. Low-income families and communities of color are far more likely to live in neighborhoods overburdened with toxic pollution, low-tree canopy cover, a dearth of open space, and plenty of asphalt, cement, and other impervious surfaces. These environmental stressors, compounded with housing that is less climate resilient, a lack of flood insurance, and less financial means to recover from a major climate event, result in irrecoverable catastrophe. Coastal flooding of hazardous facilities as well as urban heat island impacts pose serious threats for environmental justice populations like Chelsea and East Boston, which have shouldered the disproportionate share of toxic pollution and industrial dominance at the cost of human health and environmental degradation.” [Boston Globe, 9/13/21 (+)]

 

Western Water

 

Biden Taps Wartime Powers In Fight Against Wildfires. According to Politico, “An Oklahoma nonprofit organization that provides jobs to visually impaired people is a key player in the Biden administration’s stepped-up battle against wildfires. The White House last month quietly invoked a wartime law called the Defense Production Act to ramp up supplies of fire hose from NewView Oklahoma Inc., which relies on a blind and partially blind workforce to make a variety of products. It’s the main supplier of fire hose to the Forest Service, the organization’s marketing director, Avery Oden, told E&E News. Biden’s move, reported today by the Associated Press, is gaining new attention as the president makes a Western swing to view areas hit by wildfire and to highlight the federal response. The president today visited the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, where he mentioned the use of the Defense Production Act to produce fire hose and advocated for his proposal to spend billions of dollars on fire management and public water resources. ‘We can’t continue to ignore reality,’ he said of global warming, according to a pool report.” [Politico, 9/13/21 (=)]

 

Depleted By Drought, Lakes Powell And Mead Were Doomed From The Beginning. According to The Washington Post, “For the first time, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued a water shortage for Lake Mead starting in 2022. Located between southern Nevada and northwestern Arizona, Lake Mead provides water and generates electricity for the more than 20 million people in the lower Colorado River Basin. This shortage isn’t a surprise. Water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell to the northeast have already reached historic lows amid the summer drought. By January, the bureau projects water levels at Lake Mead to fall to 1,065.85 feet — nine feet below the first shortage trigger elevation. Levels on Lake Powell, which stores water for the Upper Colorado River Basin, are only marginally better, projected to be just 45 feet above the required elevation to produce hydropower. The overall situation is not good, but why? This whole reservoir system along the Colorado River Basin was designed to get us through the drought years. Why isn’t it working? A glimpse into the history of the system, how it was designed and the impacts of climate change sheds light on why it was destined to fail — and why it may never recover.” [The Washington Post, 9/10/21 (=)]

 

Flooding

 

More Flooding Is Coming. Here’s How Cities Can Prepare. According to Grist, “Climate change is already intensifying flooding in much of the country, including the Northeast, the Mississippi River Valley, and the Midwest. The air becomes 4 percent more saturated with water for every 1 degree Fahrenheit that the planet warms. When that water comes back down as rain, it’s heavier than it used to be. The most torrential downpours in the Northeast now unleash 55 percent more rain compared to the 1950s, according to the most recent National Climate Assessment, and could increase another 40 percent by the end of the century. Flooding is one of the deadliest forms of disaster in the U.S. — the flooding from Ida’s remnants in the Northeast killed at least 52 people, less than two weeks after flooding in central Tennessee killed 22. This week, Tropical Storm Nicholas is dousing Texas and Louisiana, where the ground is still saturated by Ida’s rains, threatening more lives. Data about flood risks could help cities make these kinds of events less deadly, but good data is hard to come by. The Federal Emergency Management Administration’s, or FEMA’s, flood maps are outdated and don’t account for ‘pluvial’ flooding, the kind caused directly by extreme rainfall. ‘What FEMA’s flood maps don’t do is attempt to model the kind of flooding New York City just experienced,’ Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said. ‘This flooding is not caused by a river coming out of its banks, it’s flooding caused by too much water hitting the ground and having nowhere to go because the man-built environment can’t handle it.’” [Grist, 9/14/21 (+)]

 

After Hurricane Ida, The Map Of Louisiana May Never Look The Same Again. According to Gizmodo, “Satellite images of Louisiana taken before and after Hurricane Ida show a dramatically altered coastline, with many low-lying areas still inundated with water. Scientists are carefully monitoring the landscape to see how it evolves over time, and whether some changes are permanent. Hurricane Ida made landfall on August 29—the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The category 4 storm made a mess of Louisiana, battering the state with strong winds, heavy rain, and storm surges. Ida was one of the strongest storms to hit the state, causing mass power outages, wrecking homes and businesses, damaging roads and bridges, and causing 26 deaths in the state. It also reshaped the landscape, though for how long we do not know. Ida swept through the Mississippi Delta, a region already vulnerable to the steady encroachment of the Atlantic Ocean. Levees, upstream dams, and rising sea levels due to human-instigated climate change are causing wetland regions to slowly shrink and even vanish. Other human activities, such as the pumping of groundwater and oil, are also contributing to this process, as is the natural sinking and settling of new delta sediment, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.” [Gizmodo, 9/10/21 (+)]

 

Misc. Waterways

 

Swift Climate Action Could Prevent 80% Of Domestic Migration By 2050. According to Bloomberg, “Climate change effects like drought and sea level rise could result in more than 216 million people migrating within their own countries by mid-century, according to a World Bank report released on Monday. As much as 80% of that could be prevented with swift action to cut emissions, the report found. Countries have to ‘close development gaps, restore vital ecosystems, and help people adapt,’ World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Juergen Voegele wrote. If they don’t, ‘hotspots of climate migration will emerge as soon as within the next decade and intensify by 2050.’ Global warming is already causing destruction around the world and the poorest regions are being hit the hardest. Keeping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century would help reduce internal climate migration, the report found, with average temperatures currently on track to increase at least 3°C by 2050. In many places, internal climate migration will amplify patterns already unfolding. The number of people who migrated domestically in 2020 due to extreme weather events rose to 30.7 million, or 75% of the total, according to a report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.” [Bloomberg, 9/13/21 (+)]

 

 

Please do not respond to this email.

If you have questions or comments please contact mitch@beehivedc.com