ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES COMMITTEE
2008 EVERGLADES COALITION ANNUAL CONFERENCE (PDF File)
ACTION ALERT: PROTECT THE ARCTIC WILDERNESS
MERCURY EMISSIONS
GLOBAL WARMING
CORAL REEFS AND BEACH EROSION
ACTION ALERT: PROTECT THE ARCTIC WILDERNESS
Tell your Senators and your Representative that you oppose oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge! If you know that they too oppose it, thank them for being vigilant in protecting this area and our resources for future generations.
ACTION NEEDED
1. Please contact your Senators and Representative now, by phone and by email, urge them to oppose oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Tell them to keep drilling in ANWR out of the budget. Phone calls can be made through the Capitol Hill switchboard at 202-225-3121 or 202-224-3121. Or, you may send an instant email alert by going to lwv.org and entering the members site. Follow instructions to the legislative action page.
2. Send this alert link to other concerned citizens—your grassroots network, organizations to which you belong, your friends and family.
3. Join with like-minded organizations in your community to take action to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
MESSAGE
Please oppose oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This irreplaceable natural resource must be protected for the benefit of future generations. Drilling in the Refuge is not good energy policy and it does not belong in the budget. Please do not allow the arctic wilderness to be plundered.
BACKGROUND
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a 19.3 million-acre refuge situated between the Arctic Ocean and the Brooks Range in the northeastern corner of Alaska. The Refuge covers an amazing diversity of habitat, from rugged peaks and glaciers to tundra and the coastal plain. The coastal plain is the most biologically rich part of the Refuge and helps to form one of the last completely preserved ecosystems left in North America. The Refuge is home to numerous animal species, including musk ox, polar and grizzly bears, wolves, and the largest international herd of caribou in the world.
The coastal plain of the Arctic has been called the Serengeti of North America. Every year, the 129,000 caribou of the Porcupine River Caribou Herd migrate to their calving grounds on the coastal plain. Millions of birds from as far away as Antarctica and Asia, as well as U.S. species, migrate to the coastal plain to nest.
The Refuge was established in 1960 by President Eisenhower and expanded by Congress in 1980. That legislation, as the price for passage, included a compromise that set aside the coastal plain - the biological heart of the ecosystem - for study of oil and gas potential. The Refuge contains the last five percent of the entire Alaskan coastal plain that does not already allow for oil drilling, but proponents are working to have it completely opened for oil exploration and drilling.
Some suggest that the need for energy security justifies oil drilling in this pristine environment. The League of Women Voters disagrees. The United States Geological Survey estimated that there are likely only 3.2 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil under the Refuge. The United States uses this amount of oil in less than six months. The best way to increase energy security is through energy efficiency. Modest fuel efficiency improvements for motor vehicles alone would save approximately five times the amount of oil estimated to be under the Arctic Refuge.
At the same time, even "responsible drilling" can be very harmful to the natural environment. According to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation's Oil Spill Database, the oil fields of Alaska's Northern Slope have averaged 427 oil spills a year since 1996. The U.S. Department of the Interior estimated that the Porcupine River Caribou herd could suffer a decline of up to 40 percent if oil drilling takes place on the coastal plain.
A National Academy of Sciences study of the environmental impacts of thirty years of oil drilling along Alaska's North Slope concluded that the consequences were unfavorable and likely to worsen, despite efforts by oil companies to minimize damage. While it did not directly take a position on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the National Academy report showed the long-term problems with drilling in the arctic wilderness. It pointed out that thousands of acres of tundra vegetation have been destroyed and that ''wilderness values'' -- a broader term encompassing solitude and scenic qualities -- have been compromised in a much larger area. The problem has not been the individual wells, but associated infrastructure, like roads, pipelines and housing.
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MERCURY EMISSIONS
(part 1) by Jean Shindler, Environmental Committee, LWVBC
According to data published by the U. S. Envirorunental Protection Agency (EP A), the primary sources of mercury pollution in the U.S. are coal-fired electric power plants (40%), incinerators burning municipal (19%) and medical (10%) waste, and chlorine plants (5%). Mercury also occurs naturally in the environment. Coal-fired electric power plants are the largest industrial source of mercury contanmination in the U. S. The nation's 600 power plants emit nearly 48 tons of mercury into the air every year.
Public Health Threat.
Mercury is considered a potent neurotoxin that can cause serious damage to the brain, liver, and kidneys. It is particularly harmful to the developing brains and nervous systems of fetuses, infants, and young children. Women of child-bearing age are especially at risk. EPA scientists estimate that every year more than 600,000 children are overexposed to mercury by the time they are born.
What Is Mercury?
Mercury is a naturally occurring element found in the air, water, and soil. Unlike other pollutants, mercury is a chemical element that cannot be destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another (solid to gas, for example). Mercury exists in three forms. (1) Elemental mercury is a silver-white metal that is liquid at room temperature and can evaporate into an invisible, odorless toxic vapor. It is used in thermometers, fluorescent light bulbs, electric switches, and scientific instruments. (2) Inorganic mercury compounds are mercury salts used in fungicides, antiseptics, and medicines. (3) Organic mercury compounds are formed when mercury combines with carbon. Microorganisms convert inorganic mercury into methylmercury, the most toxic folm of mercury.
Sources of Mercury.
Mercury is found thoughout the environment as a result of both natural and human activities. Natural sources of mercury, such as volcanic eruptions and ocean emissions, contribute about 40 percent of current worldwide mercury emissions. Human activities accounting for the remaining 60 percent are industrial manufacturing processes and burning mercury-containing fuels and wastes. The cycling of mercury is complex and not well understood. Once released into the environment, mercury can continue to recirculate for long periods of time. Mercury can travel great distances in the atmosphere before it is eventually deposited back to earth by rain or snow. (The U.S. accounts for 3 to 5 percent of total global mercury air emissions; Asian countries, 50 percent.) After being deposited on earth, some mercury is retained by plants and soil; other mercury is deposited into streams, lakes, and oceans. In its inorganic form, mercury remains in a relatively inactive biological state.
Mercury Exposure.
Mercury enters the body primarily though fish consumption. Both saltwater and freshwater fish contain varying amounts of methylmercury. Once mercury enters a water ecosystem, microorganisms in the sediment and water may convert inorganic mercury forms to methylmercury. Small organisms take up methyl- mercury as they feed. When animals higher in the food chain eat the smaller ones, they take in methylmercury. As the process continues, large predatory fish at the top of the food chain, such as swordfish and tuna, have much greater methylmercury concentrations than fish that are lower on the food chain (a process called "bioaccumulation").
Mercury and Human Health.
Most people have at least trace amounts of mercury in their tissues, reflecting mercury's widespread presence in the environment. The effects of mercury can be very severe, subtle, or may not occur at all. Mercury exposure at high levels can harm the brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, and immune system of people of all ages. Young children and fetuses are especially at risk of impaired neurological development. Methylmercury exposure in the womb can adversely affect a baby's growing brain and nervous system, impacting cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills. Mothers exposed to methylmercury but showing no symptoms of neurological damage have given birth to infants with severe disabilities. They can also expose their infant children through their milk when they breast-feed. Elemental mercury affects health primarily when it is breathed as a vapor and absorbed through the lungs. Such exposure happens when products containing elemental mercury break and expose mercury to the air. Symptoms include tremors, muscle atrophy, emotional changes, headaches, and respiratory failure. High exposure to inorganic mercury may damage the gastrointestinal tract, nervous system, and kidneys. Exposure to organic mercury compounds can cause skin rashes, mood swings, memory loss, and muscle weakness.
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MERCURY EMISSIONS (Part II) by Jean Shindler, Environmental Committee, LWVBC
What Has Been Done to Reduce Mercury Emissions?
In the 1960s and 1970s the American public became increasingly concerned about the effect of pollution on human health and the environment. In response, Congress enacted a number of measures designed to protect the national environment. In 1970 Congress passed the Clean Air Act, the comprehensive federal law that regulates emissions from all sources. Its purpose is to protect the quality of the nation's air resources, promote public health, and assist in developing air pollution prevention and control programs. Its initial goal was to achieve mandated standards by 1975. The act was amended in 1977 to strengthen pollution controls and again in 1990 to meet unaddressed problems such as acid rain and hazardous air pollutants.
In 1970 Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect the environment by controlling and reducing all types of environmental pollution. As mandated by the Clean Air Act, the EPA was required to establish technology-based federal standards for air quality that limit quantities of hazardous pollutants from industrial emissions. The Act gave the EPA the authority to regulate power plant mercury emissions by establishing "performance standards" or the more rigorous "maximum achievable control technology" (MACT).
Since the 1970s, progress has been made in cleaning up air pollution. However, air quality has remained poor or has even deteriorated in many parts of the country. Because scientists have shown that power plant pollution causes serious health problems and environmental damage, in 2000 the EPA ruled that mercury must be regulated as a hazardous air pollutant and would require MACT to control emissions. In 2001 the EPA ruled that industry would have to use existing technology to cut emissions by 90 percent-from about 50 tons a year to 5-by 2008. EPA experts determined that achieving a 90 percent reduction was achievable using technologies currently available and would cost industry less that 1 percent of its revenue.
Under the Bush Administration.
In 2001 Vice President Richard Cheney chaired an energy policy task force. He ultimately incorporated many recommendations from energy industry executives into the administration's final energy plan. That same year a utility lobbyist suggested weakening New Source Review (NSR) requirements, a key part of the Clean Air Act. NSR is a permitting program enabling Congress to control pollution from the country's oldest and dirtiest factories by requiring replacement by newer and cleaner plants or installation of modern pollution controls. In 2002 the administration announced new rules undercutting NSR. By 2003 every state except Wyoming and Alaska issued health advisories, the lowest-level intervention, for mercury contamination in a wide variety of fish in its lakes and rivers. The EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt claimed that the increasing number of advisories was due to more monitoring, not more pollution. In 2003 Leavitt downgraded mercury from "hazardous pollutant" to "pollutant," thereby requiring less stringent standards for controlling emissions. In 2003 President Bush submitted a plan called the Clear Skies Initiative to Congress that would amend the Clean Air Act. Heavily backed by the utility industry, the proposal to regulate mercury emissions would lower emission targets for mercury, allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, and delay cleaning up mercury pollution by at least a decade. Congress has yet to act on the plan.
In February 2005 the EPA Inspector General found that the Bush administration overlooked health effects and sided with the electric industry in developing rules for reducing toxic mercury pollution based on analysis submitted by a research group representing 17 coal-fired utilities in eight western states. In March 2005 the EPA proposed the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) requiring 28 states to reduce mercury emissions 70 percent by 2015. On March 15, 2005, the EPA issued the Clean Air Mercury Rule, the first federal controls on coal-fired power plant mercury emissions. Building on CAIR, the new EPA rule intends to cut emissions from 48 tons to 38 tons in 2010 and to 15 tons in 2018. Under a "cap-and-trade" system, a power plant can buy pollution credits from other plants that have lowered their emissions below targeted levels. Because utilities can buy allowances rather than clean up emissions, state officials and environmental groups are concerned that the new rule creates "hot spots" around plants that pollute the most.
Where to Go from Here.
In the absence of meaningful federal controls, states are now seeking their own solutions to curb toxic mercury emissions. In March 2005 nine states filed suit against the EPA. In May 2005 eleven states challenged the EPA cap-and-trade rule. In June 2005 governors and state legislators in four states announced that they will enact their own controls to reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
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GLOBAL WARMING
by Ruth Alter, Environmental Committee, LWVBC
What is it? It is a reality. It is true that the earth has warmed and cooled several times over the ages but the term "global warming" as it is used today is used to describe an unnatural phenomenon. It is real, it is man made, and it is getting worse by leaps and bounds.
It started with the Industrial Revolution in the 1700's and it has accelerated ever since. The Industrial Revolution required ever larger amounts of fossil fuels. The combustion of fossil fuels sends many noxious gases, which we call greenhouse gases, into the atmosphere much faster than our plants and oceans can soak them up. In addition, man has been adding to this acceleration by cutting down forests worldwide, particularly the rainforests. Normally, the forests absorb the CO2 in the atmosphere and convert it into oxygen but this slows down drastically when there is a glut of CO2. There are other gases which add to this poisonous mix, such as methane which is emitted by the large herds of cattle grown for hamburgers, and mercury which is a byproduct of coal gasification.
What are some signs of global warming? They are many: rising sea levels, retreating glaciers and shrinking lakes among them. Plus the spread of deserts as land temperatures rise and the spread of hurricanes as ocean temperatures rise. In the past century the ocean temperature has risen by an average of one degree Fahrenheit and even more in the polar regions where the ice caps are melting at an even faster rate. As the oceans rise they infringe on the coastal areas of many lands and are particularly devastating to island entities. For example, the South Pacific island of Vanuatu has been called "the first example of displacement by climate change" . As for Antarctica a recent study has shown that it is melting at a far faster pace than had been anticipated. Moreover, a November 2005 study published in the Journal Science describes how analysis of Arctic air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millennia shows that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere today than in the last 600,000 years.
In addition, the range of plant and animal life is changing. For example, polar bears are finding life difficult in the Arctic. All kinds of harmful insects are increasing their range from the Tropics to the Temperate Zones. Here in Florida there are many varieties of plants and animals which have moved from the tropics and taken root here. Some damage by these predatory species has already been done.
As CO2 continues to rise so will the temperature another 3 to 10 degrees by the end of the century according to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. They say we have created an environment in which our children are going to live and we owe it to them to keep from making it worse.
After many attempts by environmentalists to get the international community to react to these problems, finally a treaty was crafted in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. The signatories included most of the major nations of the world, but not the U.S. which is one of the greatest contributors to global warming through its dispersion of greenhouse gases. The incoming administration did not acknowledge the reality of global warming and said it needed more study. The Kyoto Treaty was an inadequate solution to the problem but it was a start and it needed swift action by all the signatories to put it into effect and to expand it.
Now, eight years later, in 2005, as the problems have increased dramatically, there is finally some attempt here to counter them. The U.S. administration has finally concluded that global warming is a real threat but it has taken only baby steps to attack it. New energy policies need to be implemented. Some are simple, such as lowering speed limit, reducing the use of air conditioning, building smaller and more fuel efficient cars, etc. Others are more difficult and more expensive for the economy, such as controlling the emissions from factories and power plants. A few individual states and private businesses are getting into the act. They recognize that it is irresponsible not to take remedial action. Du Pont, for example, has greatly reduced its gas emissions from nylon manufacturing. California has passed laws to lower auto emissions. Nineteen states and the District Of Columbia have requirements for renewable energy. Other states and businesses are getting on the bandwagon. Just this month power company eexecutives from all over the country met with General Electric to discuss the reality of global warming when this administration ends. However, it is the Federal Government with its broad legal powers, which must abandon its laissez-faire policy and act swiftly to counter this developing disaster.
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CORAL REEFS AND BEACH EROSION
Coral reefs throughout the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate. One particular report that appeared in Science in March 2005, "Are U.S. coral reefs on the Slippery Slope to Slime?," found that the coral reefs of Florida and Hawaii (the only U.S. states with substantial reef systems) were succumbing to over fishing, over-pollution and siltation from deforested land, disease, and climate change. The same is occurring worldwide. Why should we be concerned? Coral ecosystems have a biodiversity that rivals that of the Amazon. Although they occupy only 0.2% of the worlds' oceans, they provide food and shelter to over 1/4 of all marine life, including over a million species of fish and vertebrates. They serve as nurseries for countless marine organisms. I cannot emphasize enough that the control of coastal growth is almost the most important factor.
Corals are an invaluable economic asset. It is estimated that $60 billion comes in annual revenues from U.S. commercial and recreational fishing, travel, dive and other water sports industry. A 2001 study estimated that in SE Florida coral reefs are valued at $8 billion. Research is going on in which coral provides an immeasurable supply of raw material for developing new medicines for heart disease, ulcers, leukemia, skin cancer, and AIDS.
Most corals are found at depth of 82 feet or less in shallow, warm waters. It has been found that just one degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature kills the zooxanthellae, their symbiotic algae, which are then expelled from the coral. Corals eventually die without the zooxanthellae. A July 2005 report found that ocean temperatures off the SE coast of FL are three degrees warmer than previously, resulting in extensive deaths and near extinction, of bighorn and staghorn corals, historically the dominant reef-building coral species in the Caribbean. Healthy reefs provide a natural shield, protecting beaches from otherwise damaging wave action and storms. On Oct. 'O5, a newspaper article reported that a sewage plant operated by Delray and Boynton Beach has been spewing millions of gallons of treated waste water, accelerating the growth of algae, smothering the reef and causing extensive reef death.
Scientists have made several recommendations including putting larger sections of the reefs off-limits to fishing and establishing policies for farming and development that will limit toxic groundwater runoff into the ocean. Unfortunately, these policies are slow to be enacted because they run into vested interests. Of course, global warming requires a world-wide effort to reduce the carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere.
Gertrude Sanders --Environmental Issues
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