• Whistleblower Sues Over 18-Mile Stretch Roadway in Florida Keys
  
• EPA Approves Everglades Water Quality Standard
  
• Federal Proposal Would Slash Miners' Asbestos Exposure
  
• House Committee Tries to Change National Environmental Policy Act
  
• Washington State Cracks down on Dental Mercury Pollution
  
• Bird on Longest Migratory Path Faces Extinction in Five Years
  
• Young Entangled Humpback Whale Cut Free in Alaska
  

Whistleblower Sues Over 18-Mile Stretch Roadway in Florida Keys

EPA Approves Everglades Water Quality Standard

The rule establishes a phosphorus standard of 10 parts per billion (ppb) for the entire freshwater area of the Everglades Protection Area along with a process for improving water quality and restoring the natural system in Everglades.

“Florida is investing in the latest science and using the best available technologies to remove phosphorus from water entering the Everglades,” said DEP Secretary Colleen Castille. “The federal government’s approval of Florida’s rule is an endorsement that we are on the right track for improving water quality, achieving further phosphorus reductions and restoring the Everglades to its natural condition.”

As part of its intensive schedule to improve water quality in America’s Everglades, the state is operating more than 36,000 acres of constructed wetlands that use plants to naturally remove nutrients from water flowing into the marsh.

The state is on schedule to construct an additional 5,000 acres of treatment marsh by 2006 and another 15,000 acres by 2009.

Together with improved farming practices, constructed wetlands have prevented nearly 1,700 tons of phosphorus from entering the Everglades over the last 10 years – cutting loads by more than 60 percent. The storm water treatment areas are cleaning water from the 170 ppb phosphorus levels of a decade ago to levels as low as 12 ppb today.

The rule requires the use of best available phosphorus reduction technology to ultimately achieve the water quality standard. More than $500 million will be invested over the next decade to implement an enforceable, long term plan to ensure continued water quality improvements and protection of the Everglades.

In July 2003, the Environmental Regulation Commission approved the rule proposed by the Department of Environmental Protection as a part of the Everglades Forever Act.

In June 2004, Judge David Maloney issued a Final Order formally upholding the department’s rule. Judge Maloney’s findings were affirmed by the First District Court of Appeals several weeks ago.

U.S. Wind Turbine Design Codes Certified

For more information about the FAST and ADAMS design codes visit NREL's National Wind Technology Center's Web site at http://wind.nrel.gov/designcodes.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development, operated by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle.

House Committee Tries to Change National Environmental Policy Act

Among those speaking in support of NEPA were members of the Coalition for the Valle Vidal working to protect a popular recreation and hunting area on the Carson National Forest from oil and gas drilling.

“The Coalition for the Valle Vidal is worried that parts of this groundbreaking law may be weakened or eliminated that make sure the public is given a voice in important federal decisions and the public is informed of impacts to our land and communities,” said Jim O’Donnell of the coalition.

“Federal agencies should have to consider common sense alternatives and use sound science. If NEPA is gutted, our efforts to protect the Valle Vidal will be severally hampered.”

NEPA is the guarantee that Americans affected by a federal action will get the best information about its impacts, a choice of good alternatives, and the right to have their voice heard before the government makes a final decision, O'Donnell said.

Some politicians blame NEPA for bureaucratic gridlock. To modernize the law they want to waive environmental review requirements and shut people out of the decisionmaking process.

Sue Kapillas of Communities for Healthy Forests, a timber industry group, told the Task Force, “Schools are affected by decreased forest revenues” and “The effects of a broken NEPA process on our rural communities and our schools is catastrophic.”

O'Donnell called these statements "false and misleading." In 2000, Congress passed legislation eliminating the link between logging levels and school funding.

NEPA requires that agencies evaluate and disclose the environmental impacts of their proposed actions. Agencies can start by doing an environmental assessment, which allows the agency to decide if its proposal would have significant impacts.

If the agency decides that the proposal will not have significant impacts, then the agency can end the process by issuing a finding of no significant impact.

If the agency finds that a proposed action might have significant impacts, then it must do a full environmental impact statement (EIS).

The full NEPA process can be lengthy and complex, and requires the agency to seek public comment at many points in the EIS process. But the federal courts have ruled that NEPA is a purely procedural law. Even after preparation of a full environmental impact statement, NEPA does not require any particular decision, only that the agency go through the process.

There have already been administrative changes to the NEPA process under the Bush administration, including an Executive Order signed by President George W. Bush directing federal agencies to “expedite” energy-related permits, and new rules requiring agencies to identify and eliminate “impediments” to oil and gas drilling.

The Healthy Forests Restoration Act circumvented NEPA by limiting the consideration of alternatives for projects covered by the law and expanding the use of categorical exclusions for potentially harmful logging.

A White House task force tasked with finding ways to “streamline” NEPA protections, composed of a dozen federally employed experts on NEPA, spent more than a year reviewing the law – and concluded that no legislative changes to NEPA are needed.

The House Resources Committee NEPA Task Force will hold several more field hearings and then issue a report in October summarizing the findings from the hearings and recommending changes to the law.

Washington State Cracks down on Dental Mercury Pollution

The agency will begin inspecting offices and follow up with orders to comply with the law, said Darin Rice, who manages Ecology's hazardous waste program. Dentists who do not comply will face penalties.

Rice said Ecology's inspectors will arrange times in advance for the office visits, which will be "short, straightforward and courteous." The visits are expected to take less than an hour.

July 31 marked the expiration of a two-year pact under which Ecology agreed not to enforce its regulatory authority over wastewater discharges that contain mercury dental amalgam. During that time, the Washington State Dental Association urged dental offices to voluntarily install amalgam separators and follow other best-management practices for handling hazardous waste.

"We felt the two-year window gave dentists generous time to install the equipment," Rice said. "We now need to level the playing field. A lot of dentists do a good job of managing their waste, and they expect their peers to be held to the same standard."

Reports from dentists across the state suggest that only 17 percent of offices outside Seattle had voluntarily installed amalgam separators as of early July. Still, Rice said more dentists probably had installed separators but neglected to report it, and there were reports that many were working in the final weeks to meet the deadline.

A coalition of environmental and health groups are showering the Department of Ecology with applause for the enforcement plan.

“Ecology is doing the right thing by saying dental mercury pollution has got to go,” said Ivy Sager-Rosenthal, Environmental Health Advocate for the Washington Toxics Coalition. “Ecology’s swift actions will protect Washington’s children and environment from this dangerous toxic chemical.”

Dental mercury is the largest source of mercury into wastewater systems. Mercury in dental offices comes from so-called "silver” dental fillings, which are about half mercury by weight. Because sewage treatment plants cannot properly treat mercury, the mercury ends up in waterways, contaminating sediment, fish and other wildlife, and, ultimately, ending up in people’s bodies.

To comply with state law, dentists will have to install mercury amalgam separators. These machines keep mercury from going down the drain.

”The cost of installing separators is relatively inexpensive when you compare the costs of dealing with life-long health effects of mercury exposure,” said Sager-Rosenthal. “It’s a small price to pay for safe and healthy children.”

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can affect the brain, spinal cord, kidneys, and liver. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up to one in 10 women in the United States already carry enough mercury in their blood to pose a threat of neurological damage to the fetus.

Bird on Longest Migratory Path Faces Extinction in Five Years

WASHINGTON, DC, August 3, 2005 (ENS) - The Red Knot, a migratory shorebird that makes an 18,000 mile journey each year from its winter home at the tip of South America to the Arctic and back again, is heading toward extinction, conservationists say.

In response to the 80 percent decline in Red Knot population over the past 10 years, conservation groups filed an emergency petition asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Red Knot as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

The listing request comes from an alliance of wildlife groups including Defenders of Wildlife, New Jersey Audubon Society, American Bird Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, Delaware Audubon Society, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Audubon New York, Audubon Maryland-DC and Virginia Audubon Council.

The birds stop to refuel just a few times on their migration. Their final stop is at Delaware Bay, which is the most critical because it is the last major refueling spot before completing the journey to their Arctic breeding grounds.

At the Bay, the starving birds must feast on fat-rich horseshoe crab eggs in order to restore the energy they need to complete their migration and to provide energy for the first several days or weeks in the Arctic as food there can initially be scarce.

But, in recent years, Delaware Bay's horseshoe crab population has rapidly diminished and the number of birds able to reach their breeding grounds and successfully reproduce has declined. This year, the state of New Jersey, where crabs also live, declared a moratorium on harvesting the crabs to give the migrating birds an opportunity to feed.

"Our petition plainly demonstrates that the Red Knot is on the path toward extinction. The Bush administration now has the opportunity to reverse the bird's downward spiral and the Endangered Species Act is the tool they need to do that," said Defenders of Wildlife Executive Vice President Jamie Rappaport Clark, who served as director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Clinton administration.

"The Red Knot's decline is a direct result of the overfishing of horseshoe crabs whose eggs are a critical food source for the Red Knot's migration," said Perry Plumart, American Bird Conservancy's Director of Conservation Advocacy.

"We urge Interior Secretary [Gale] Norton to act now to keep the Red Knot returning to Delaware Bay in the decades to come."

The birds visiting the Delaware Bay, once numbering more than 100,000, now number around 17,000. If nothing is done to ensure the bird's survival, recent scientific models predict extinction as early as 2010, in just five years.

"The Red Knot features one of the longest migrations of any bird species and is a valuable part of the coastal web of life from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America," said Greg Butcher, director of Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society. "Our willingness to act quickly and decisively to save this icon of global connectedness is a powerful test of our stewardship of Earth's vital resources."

A copy of the petition can be found on line at: http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/redknots/petition.pdf.

Young Entangled Humpback Whale Cut Free in Alaska

KODIAK, Alaska, August 3, 2005 (ENS) - A team of researchers from University of Alaska-Fairbanks successfully released a young humpback whale that had become entangled in commercial crab fishing lines and buoys in waters near Kodiak last week.

The whale was one or two years old and about 20 feet long, according to Kate Wynne, a marine mammal specialist with the UAF Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program based in Kodiak.

Wynne is among the few individuals in the state authorized by the National Marine Fisheries Service to disentangle marine mammals. Wynne led seven other researchers in the rescue effort.

“The whale was thin and near complete exhaustion when we arrived at the scene,” said Wynne. “The young whale was nearly immobilized by lines, the crab pot, and buoys and it is likely the whale would not have survived through the night without intervention.”

The team used three small boats and specialized disentanglement poles and knives to cut at least four lines that had ensnared the whale’s pectoral fins and flukes.

“It appeared that one line may have gone from his flukes forward along his right side, over his lower lip and back to his left pectoral fin, and then to his fluke, essentially hog-tying him,” said Wynne. “To surface for air, it had to do a sort of stomach-crunch, flexing enough so the buoys attached at his flukes submerged when his head was up. It had to have been quite a work out for the little guy.”

After five hours the team was able to cut all the lines. Wynne said the whale finally swam away when the team cut free the two commercial fishing buoys it had been dragging.

“We are just really happy that everything worked out, that we were able to safely release the whale without the whale or any of us getting hurt,” said Wynne.

Wynne, who together with other scientists and graduate students at the UAF Fishery Industrial Technology Center in Kodiak, monitors humpback whales and other marine mammals as part of a long-term study of the region’s ecosystem.

She says the number of whale entanglements in fishing gear is up slightly this year. She said the whales might be pursuing prey species like capelin and sandlance nearer to shore, bringing the whales closer to a variety of fishing gear along the coast.

So far this year, 10 humpback whales have been reported entangled along Alaska’s coast, according to Aleria Jensen, marine mammal stranding coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Juneau, Alaska. On average, about eight whales become stranded each year.

Humpback whales are an endangered species frequently seen in waters around Kodiak Island each summer. No one knows for sure how many humpback whales feed in Alaska waters, but scientists estimate at least several thousand of the animals return from calving grounds off Mexico and Hawaii to feed on abundant stocks of zooplankton and schooling fish in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea.

Adult humpbacks grow to nearly 50 feet and can tip the scales at 25 tons, according to the "Guide to Marine Mammals Alaska" identification book, authored by Wynne.

Mariners are reminded to report entangled marine mammals to the National Marine Fisheries Service enforcement or the United States Coast Guard on marine radio VHF Channel 16. Unauthorized attempts to free marine mammals are a violation of federal law.