nature's voice spring 2013
DESCRIPTION
All of the environmental projects and victories described in Nature’s Voice are made possible through the generous support of Members like you. If you like what you read, you are invited to make a special contribution at www.nrdc.org/joingiveTRANSCRIPT
FOR THE 1.4 MILLION MEMBERS AND ONLINE ACTIVISTS OF THE NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL SPRING 2013
in this issue
• Shell Is No Match for the Arctic
• Keystone Threat Papered Over
• Food: A Major Environmental Issue
• Big Win Protects Alaska Wilderness
Bar
n O
wl ©
Kar
en A
. Will
iam
s
Wilderness Under SiegeThe fight to save one of the West’s most remarkable — and unprotected — wildlands intensified after NRDC and our allies filed suit in federal court to block the oil and gas industry from drilling in Utah’s proposed Desolation Canyon wilderness. The plan calls for some 1,300 new wells on 200,000 acres of federal land, including more than 200 wells in the proposed wilderness area. The scheme was approved by the Obama Administration last year, despite receiving the Environmental Protection Agency’s worst possible environmental rating.
Big Win for Wild BisonYellowstone’s buffalo, also called bison, will continue to roam free across 75,000 acres of their historic winter range north of Yellowstone National Park. Once subjected to cruel hazing, capture and even slaughter to keep them out of Montana’s Gardiner Basin, the animals have recently been permitted to return to their vital
foraging grounds during the winter and much of the spring under a landmark agree ment among federal, state and tribal agencies. The agreement was challenged in court by
the Park County Stockgrowers Association and others, but the presiding state judge rejected their case. NRDC, Earthjustice and our allies in Montana defended the agreement in court.
in the news
Despite recent tough talk from President Obama
about addressing climate change, the State
Department has released yet another environ
mental review of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline that
shrugs off its climatewrecking impacts. The pipeline
would drive a dramatic increase in tar sands production,
which generates three times as much global warming
pollution as the production of conventional crude. “Building
this pipeline would be the same as putting five million new
cars on the road,” said NRDC President Frances Beinecke.
“For the State Department to ignore the threat from this
added pollution is like ignoring the increased odds of
getting lung cancer from smoking more cigarettes.” In
March, NRDC began mobilizing hundreds of thousands
of Members to submit comments to the State Department
protesting its recklessly inadequate review.
The renewed battle over Keystone XL came just weeks
after more than 40,000 Americans gathered in Washington,
D.C., on President’s Day for the largest climate rally in
history — organized by NRDC, the Sierra Club, 350.org
and other groups. They called on the president to reject
the pipeline and achieve the single biggest carbon
reduction ever by holding dirty power plants accountable
for what they dump into the air.
In a rousing speech to a firedup crowd, NRDC Trustee
Van Jones, who served in the first Obama Administration,
sent a strong message to the president: “History will judge
you 20 years from now based on one decision alone . . .
The decision to let this pipeline come through America
. . . would be like lighting a fuse on a carbon bomb.”
Take action at www.stoptar.org
Keystone Threat Papered Over
2
Bis
on
© P
ete
Cai
rns/
natu
rep
l.co
m; t
urtle
© M
asa
Ush
iod
a/S
eaP
ics.
com
; Van
Jo
nes
and
ral
ly ©
Mel
anie
Bla
ndin
g
This Earth Day (April 22) honor your family and friends with a gift of Ocean Protection. Watch our beautiful new video, narrated by Sigourney Weaver to learn more.
Van Jones, NRDC Trustee and Founder of Green for All, speaking at the climate rally.
www.nrdcgreengifts.org
3
Dri
ll ri
g ©
Jo
nath
an K
ling
enb
erg
/U.S
. Co
ast
Gua
rd
Bis
on
© P
ete
Cai
rns/
natu
rep
l.co
m; t
urtle
© M
asa
Ush
iod
a/S
eaP
ics.
com
; Van
Jo
nes
and
ral
ly ©
Mel
anie
Bla
ndin
g
Capping a string of dismal failures in a year
of thwarted attempts to drill in Alaska’s Polar
Bear Seas, Royal Dutch Shell lost control of
an enormous drill rig
being towed near
Kodiak Island on
New Year’s Eve.
The rig, more than
260 feet in diameter
and carrying some
150,000 gallons of
diesel fuel and other
petroleum products,
ran aground in rough
seas after all four
engines on its tow
vessel failed. “Shell’s
litany of mishaps and
blunders is outrageous,
each one worse than the last,” says Chuck Clusen,
director of NRDC’s Alaska Project.
The company’s efforts to drill in the Chukchi and
Beaufort Seas — home to more than half our nation’s
polar bears and critical habitat for endangered whales
and other marine mammals — have been plagued
from the outset. Last July one of Shell’s drill ships
slipped anchor and nearly ran aground; in August
the Coast Guard refused to certify as seaworthy the
linchpin of Shell’s emergency plan: a spill-response
barge that suffered 400 separate safety-related
problems. A month later, a 30-mile-long iceberg
forced Shell’s drill rig to flee one day after it started
operations. Meanwhile, the containment dome Shell
planned to use in the event of a blowout to capture
spewing oil was, according to media sources, “crushed
like a beer can” during pre-deployment testing in
placid Puget Sound.
“Shell hasn’t even faced the worst weather conditions
the Arctic has to offer,” says Clusen, alluding to
gale-force winds, subzero tempera tures, 20-foot
surging seas and
winter pack ice.
“If one of the
richest companies
in the world can’t
buy its way to safety
in the Arctic, it
proves what we’ve
been saying all
along: This is no
place to drill.”
The Obama
Administration
temporarily sus-
pended Shell’s
offshore Arctic drilling
operations in the wake of the latest accident, but it
has not ended oil explor ation there. Oil giant
ConocoPhillips has proposed sinking its own wells
in the Arctic Ocean. For its part, Shell is intent on
returning to the Polar Bear Seas, with plans to drill
off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
and in other sensitive waters.
As NRDC and Earthjustice press ahead with courtroom
action to stop Shell from drilling, more than 50,000
NRDC Members and online activists recently petitioned
President Obama to call off the rigs and undertake
a critical review of all offshore drilling in the Arctic,
taking into full account Shell’s failures. “What have
we learned from Shell’s bumbling misadventure?”
asks Clusen. “Only that it’s an environmental disaster
waiting to happen.”
Take action at: www.stopshell.org
Shell Proves It’s No Match for the Arctic
Shell lost control of its Kulluk drill rig, which ran aground.
Campaign Update
Food: Not a day goes by that we don’t think about it. But how many of us think about it as a
major environmental issue? “Few things impact our health and our planet more than food,” says Jonathan Kaplan, director of NRDC’s fast-growing Food and Agriculture Program. “Hundreds of millions of acres in the U.S. alone are devoted to agriculture, and chemical-intensive farming has been a disaster for the environment. NRDC is now working at every stage along the supply chain — literally from farm to table — to help those farmers who are making sustainable choices and to challenge agricultural practices that pose the greatest risk.”
Today, the organic agriculture business is booming. Sales of organic food and beverages reached $26.7 billion in 2010, an increase of almost 8 percent over the year before. The word locavore has entered the popular lexicon, and farmer’s markets have sprouted up across the country. Yet as Kaplan points out, even as consumer interest in sustainably produced food has surged, just a scant fraction of farmland in the United States — less than 1 percent — is devoted to organic farming. While many farmers have made important gains in adopting environmentally friendly practices, the vast majority of farmed acres remain dependent on pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, fossil fuels and ever-scarcer water supplies. Approximately 880 million pounds of pesticides are sprayed on crops each year, and the agricultural sector is responsible for 7 percent of America’s total global warming pollution, having increased 13 percent since 1990.
Massive amounts of fertilizer runoff have contaminated precious water resources from coast to coast and created a fish-killing “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico that can swell seasonally to more than 6,000 square miles.
Sustainable farming practices — such as greater irrigation efficiency, conser-vation of biodiversity and a reduction in the use of chemicals — can signifi-cantly ease these environmental impacts. But making such changes can be financially risky for farmers, which is why NRDC is working to grow the market for sustainably produced foods by tapping into the purchasing power of large food buyers. Almost half of all the food consumed in the U.S. flows through a relatively small number of large retailers and food service providers. “If you can convince these big middle
men to consider the environmental impacts of the food they’re supplying, then you start to shift the market,” Kaplan says.“Farmers will know they have a large buyer to sell to.”
With NRDC’s help, the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Unified School District (which serves 650,000 meals to students each day) recently
took a decisive step in this direction by adopting the Good Food Purchasing Policy, which encourages food providers to purchase from local farms and from farms that use environ mentally sustainable practices. NRDC played a key role in the broad coalition of groups that developed the policy. Likewise, we are working to improve the sustain-ability of New York City’s food supply by supporting sustainable farms, creating new wholesale distribution hubs for local farmers, increasing access to healthy food and leveraging the enormous purchasing power of city and state institutions. By reforming the food system of the nation’s largest metro-politan area, we are creating a model for more sustainable food systems in other regions of the country.
We’re also collaborating with stake-holders from across the food industry to develop a Stewardship Index for fruits, vegetables and specialty crops. This will allow farmers and food retailers to better assess the overall environmental footprint of the produce they’re growing and selling, taking into consideration such factors as soil conservation, energy use and the
“Farm to Table” Campaign Takes On Bad Farming, Toxic Chemicals, Massive Food Waste — and More
4
Far
m ©
Ed
Cal
laer
t; s
cho
ol l
unch
© E
mily
Har
t; f
arm
er’s
mar
ket
© B
arri
e F
anto
n/O
mni
-Pho
to C
om
mun
icat
ions
; po
ultr
y fa
rm ©
Ed
win
Rem
sber
g;
Above: Each year, 880 million
pounds of pesticides are
sprayed on crops in the U.S.
Right: A poultry factory farm.
NRDC BRoADeNS FIght to MAke U.S. FooD SUPPly SAFeR, MoRe SUStAINABle
Chemical-intensive farming has been a disaster for the environment.“ ”
“Farm to Table” Campaign Takes On Bad Farming, Toxic Chemicals, Massive Food Waste — and More
greenhouse gas emissions associated with a given product.
Long before the current popularity of organic foods, NRDC was campaigning to make the American food supply safe from highly toxic pesticides. We were instrumental in the battle to pass the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, which, thanks to the legal pressure we put on the EPA, has resulted in drastic reductions in the use of some of the most dangerous pesticides, including organophosphates, a class of chemicals known to cause neurological damage. Even as our campaign against such pesticide use continues, we’ve taken on new challenges, such as mounting a strong offensive against the Food and Drug Adminis tration for its failure to ban bisphenol A (BPA), a hormone-disrupting chemical often used in food packaging, from the nation’s food supply. “We’re building on our legacy of countering the influence of industry lobbyists and pressuring federal agencies to do what they’re supposed to do, which is to protect the health of the American public,” says NRDC senior scientist Sarah Janssen, who
helped advocate successfully for a ban on BPA in baby bottles in California and 11 other states.
NRDC has been slugging it out in court with the FDA over another critical food-safety issue as well: the livestock industry’s profligate use of antibiotics in animal feed, a
practice that has been linked to the rise of drug-resistant bacteria that threaten human health. A federal judge recently sided with us, ordering the FDA to stop dragging its feet and
start tackling the problem head-on in a ruling that brought widespread attention to this public health threat.
NRDC’s Food and Agriculture Program recently made other
big news by sparking a national conver sation
over just how much food in America goes to waste: a startling
40 percent, according to a ground breaking
report by NRDC project scientist Dana Gunders. “Half of all the land in the U.S. and 80 percent of the freshwater we consume goes to food prod uction, yet retailers, restaurants and con sumers end up throwing away $165 billion in food each year,” Gunders says. “There are enormous opportunities when it comes to addressing the problem of waste, and even more when we work to improve the entire system for how we grow and sell food.”
5
Above: Star Route organic farm, Bolinas, California. Far right: A farmer’s market in Boston. Inset, left: With NRDC’s help, Los Angeles schools are buying more food from local and sustainable farms.
NRDC BRoADeNS FIght to MAke U.S. FooD SUPPly SAFeR, MoRe SUStAINABle
Sustainable rancher Gabe Brown (above) and "Young Food Leader" Andrea Northup (above right) were two winners of NRDC's Growing Green Awards in 2012.
A laska’s Western Arctic Reserve is one of the largest
expanses of wilderness left in North America, and
now a staggering 11 million acres of it — an area
bigger than Connecticut and Massachusetts combined —
have been put offlimits to oil and gas development.
Following more than a decade
of campaigning and litigation
by NRDC, Interior Secretary
Ken Salazar has announced the
Obama Administration’s plan
to safeguard some of the most
critical wildlife habitat within the
reserve, including vital calving
grounds for America’s largest
caribou herd and summer habitat
for threatened polar bears.
“The Western Arctic Reserve
is less wellknown than the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,
but its wildlife populations are every bit as important and
endangered,” says Chuck Clusen, director of NRDC’s Alaska
Project. Clusen has visited the remote wilderness numerous
times (once, a dozen musk oxen walked right into his
campsite). “Polar bears, grizzlies, caribou, walrus, bowhead
whales, beluga whales, seals,” he says, ticking off some of
the variety of wild species he’s seen there. “And there are
millions of waterfowl and shore birds, some of which migrate
from as far as Africa and Antarctica.”
The Western Arctic Reserve was
set aside in the 1920s as an oil
reserve (later known as the
National Petroleum Reserve–
Alaska), but it has remained
largely untouched by Big Oil. In
recent years the oil industry has
clamored for leases in the reserve,
targeting some of its most
sensitive habitats. Although the
decision by Salazar is a milestone
in wilderness conservation, it
will be up to Congress to make the protections permanent,
and a number of smaller yet still important areas within the
23millionacre reserve remain vulnerable. “We ultimately
want to see all critical habitat within the Western Arctic
Reserve protected for future generations,” Clusen says.
6
Do
lphi
ns ©
Mic
hael
S. N
ola
n/S
eaP
ics.
com
Big Win Protects Vast sWath of alaska Wilderness
Sno
wy
ow
l © M
ichi
o H
osh
ino
/Min
den
pic
ture
s.co
m
The federal agency charged with protecting marine mammals wants to green-light a U.S. Navy training plan that will harass or injure whales and other
marine mammals more than 31 million times. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is preparing to approve the Navy’s five-year plan to use high explosives and deafening mid-frequency sonar in its training and testing exercises throughout enormous swaths of ocean off America’s coasts. Bombardment with extreme noise — up to 236 decibels in the case of mid-frequency sonar — can cause fatal hemorrhages in the lungs and other vital organs of marine mammals. The Navy’s own environ mental review concedes the jaw-dropping harm it could inflict with sonar and explosives: more than 1,000 deaths, 5,000 serious injuries and millions of cases of temporary hearing loss. This unprecedented toll is three times higher than the impacts of any previous Navy plan. Apart from killing and injuring whales, sonar and explosives can force the animals to abandon vital feeding areas, interfere with their ability
to find mates and cause calves to separate from their mothers.
“There are simple, common-sense steps the Navy could take to drastically reduce these staggering numbers without sacrificing military readiness, but it’s failed to seriously consider any of them, and the Fisheries Service has just rolled over,” says Zak Smith, attorney with NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project. “We’ll see them in court if that’s what it takes to block this senseless assault on whales.” Tens of thousands of NRDC Members and online activists have already filed comments protesting the agency’s controversial decision, and you can join the fight.
Take action at: www.SaveWhalesNow.org
Snowy owl.
Spinner dolphins.
Agency Set to Approve Navy’s Threat to Whales
Editor: Stephen Mills Writers: Jason Best, Michael Mahoney, Claire Morgenstern Managing Editor: Liz Linke Designer: Dalton Design Director of Membership: Linda Lopez
All of the environmental projects and victories described in Nature’s Voice are made possible through the generous support of Members like you. If you like what you read, you are invited to make a special contribution at www.nrdc.org/joingive
Natural resources DefeNse couNcil40 W. 20th st., New York, NY 10011 www.nrdc.org/naturesvoice • 212-727-4500 email: [email protected]
SWiTCHBOARD The following entry first appeared online at: www.switchboard.nrdc.org
Don’t Frack with Free SpeechPosted by: Kate Sinding, attorney, NRDC Community Fracking Defense Project
On February 12, NRDC and the Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy (CCSE) filed a lawsuit to protect a community’s right to free speech. What does that have to do with fracking? Speaking out about fracking is exactly what’s being restricted by the town board of Sanford, a small community in Broome County, New York. Last September, after taking a series of pro-fracking actions over a four-year period, the board abruptly imposed a gag order, silencing its citizens from discussing the red-hot issue of proposed new fracking in the state and the town.
Sanford’s town board has called on the state three times to begin fracking — and to frack Sanford. First the board urged the state to “stand aside” and allow drilling, and then called on the
state to hurry up and drill in May 2012. Finally, on September 5, 2012, Sanford Supervisor Dewey Decker signed a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo asking “on behalf of [his] constituents” that the governor allow fracking. The board has also taken concrete steps to bring fracking to Sanford — leasing town land, repeatedly making agreements with gas companies and supporting natural gas pipelines through town.
When residents turned out in droves to open town board meetings in response to these pro-fracking actions, the board decided to shut down the debate. Although it had set aside a portion of its meetings specifically to hear from the public, in September 2012 it unanimously forbade the public from discussing the one most pressing issue that had brought the town out in force: natural gas development.
Understandably, residents reacted to the gag order with shock, anger and dismay.
After all, if people are silenced by their own elected representatives, how can they trust them to act in their best interests? NRDC’s Community Fracking Defense Project and CCSE are suing to overturn the gag order and defend the right to free speech. As Sanford resident Mike Musante says, “When the board chose to cut off discussion, they ended any chance that I might have to affect the future value of my home or the quality of the air I breathe or the water I drink. Without debate there is no democracy, only rule by autocrats.”
7
Mel
issa
Bis
hop
pho
to ©
Ro
cky
Kis
tner
/NR
DC
W ith increasing temperatures making snowfall
scarcer on mountains and winter seasons shorter
across the United States, popular winter tourism
industries may be headed downhill, with
more than 200,000 jobs at risk. That’s the
sobering prognosis of a new study from
NRDC and Protect Our Winters (POW) that
charts the economic impact of climate
change and diminished snowfall on winter
tourism in 38 states.
The winter sports industry’s dependence
on consistent snow is serious business,
with more than $12.2 billion in estimated
revenue in the 2009–2010 season. The
impact of less snow is already apparent on the slopes. The
winter of 2011–12 was the fourthwarmest on record since
1896, with the thirdlowest snow cover extent since tracking
began in 1966. In the past decade, ski resorts lost an estimated
$1 billion in revenue resulting from low snowfall as compared
with highersnowfall years. And shrinking numbers of winter
sport tourists have hurt not only ski areas
but restaurants, lodges, gas stations, grocery
stores and bars.
A failure to address climate change will put
winter sports in even more hot water, with
temperatures projected to warm an additional
4 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of
the century. As a result, the length of the
snow season will be cut in half in the East,
and snow depths in the West will decline
25 to 100 percent. In order to protect winter
— and the hundreds of thousands whose livelihoods depend
on a snowfilled season — we must act now to support policies
that protect our climate and, in turn, our slopes.
No SNow Job: Climate ChaNge iS meltiNg wiNter SportS reveNue
Ski runs at Vail, Colorado.
NRDC Member Melissa Bishop, Sanford, NY.
8
It would be North AmerIcA’s lArgest opeN-pIt gold ANd copper mINe.
the mINe wIll creAte 3,000 pouNds of wAste for every persoN oN eArth.
thIs mouNtAIN of coNtAmINAted wAste hAs to be coNtAINed forever — IN AN ActIve eArthquAke zoNe.
It could wIpe out the lAst 312 belugA whAles of cook INlet.
gIANt dAms must hold bAck 10 bIllIoN toNs of mININg wAste mIxed wIth toxIc chemIcAls.
It threAteNs to destroy the world’s lArgest wIld sAlmoN fIshery.
81% of brIstol bAy NAtIve shAreholders85% of commercIAl fIshermeN68% of AlAskAN resIdeNts80% of brIstol bAy resIdeNtstIffANy & co. ANd over 60 other jewelers
the mININg pIt wIll be deeper
thAN the empIre stAte buIldINg... ...ANd wIde eNough to lINe up 9 of
the world’s loNgest cruIse shIps.
wIth dAms hIgher thAN the seAttle
spAce Needle...
the project would INclude 86 mIles of New roAds.
the fActs the ImpActs
pebble mINe
Our campaign against the Pebble Mine moved to Washington
in February as NRDC attorneys handdelivered 100,000
“Stop Pebble” petitions from our Members to the White
House and a fullpage ad in The Washington Post carried the
same strong message from Robert Redford. The longtime conserva
tionist and NRDC Trustee called on President Obama to prevent
the economic and environmental destruction of Alaska’s Bristol
Bay by ensuring that the Environmental Protection Agency use
its authority to kill the mine. A comprehensive study by the EPA
has found that the colossal openpit mine and other largescale
operations like it would spell disaster for the greatest wild salmon
fishery on the planet — along with Bristol Bay’s economy, Native
communities and wildlife populations. In April we’ll take our campaign
to London, where two of the mining giants behind the scheme —
Anglo American and Rio Tinto — will be holding their annual
shareholder meetings.
Redford Calls on President to Stop Mega-Mine
Above: Our ad in The Washington Post.
who opposes the mINe?
You can create a lasting environmental legacy by including NRDC in your estate plans. A gift through your will, trust,
retirement plan or life insurance plan will help preserve our magnificent natural heritage for generations to come.
Create Your Own Lasting Legacy
Phot
o: ©
Tim
Fitz
harr
is/M
inde
n Pi
ctur
es
www.nrdc.org/legacygift
For information on how to include NRDC in your estate plans
or to let us know you’ve already done
so, please contact Michelle Quinones,
Lead Specialist, Gift Planning, at
212-727-4552 or email her at