Friday, August 21, 2009
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) held a public meeting this week to discuss proposed water pollution rules for Lake Michigan. ELPC and the members of the public are worried that poorly crafted regulations could lead to a controversy similar to 2007, when BP was permitted to dump mercury into Lake Michigan.
ELPC is concerned, in particular, that the proposed rules don’t address nitrogen and phosphorus – pollutants that have created a huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and could have similar effects on Indiana waters. As ELPC Senior Attorney Albert Ettinger told the Post Tribune, “I don’t think these rules are acceptable because they’re going to exempt very important pollutants that will have a demonstrable effect on waters in Indiana.”
Read the full article in the Post Tribune
Monday, August 10, 2009
Two years ago, BP made headlines with its plans to expand its oil refinery in Whiting, Indiana and dump additional pollution into Lake Michigan. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management had issued a permit allowing the added pollution. When the public – and ELPC and our environmental colleagues – expressed outrage over the news, BP eventually announced that it would proceed with its plans without adding more pollution into the Lake. Since that time, Indiana’s water quality rules, which had allowed the increase in pollution, have still not been improved.
The state’s current anti-degradation rules could allow BP or another company to increase the amount of ammonia and silty materials it dumps into the lake without examining cleaner alternatives. ELPC Senior Attorney Albert Ettinger and Staff Attorney Brad Klein told the Indiana press about their concerns that another pollution controversy could emerge if the state doesn’t improve its clean water rules.
Read the full story in the Post-Tribune.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
ELPC Senior Attorney Albert Ettinger spoke to the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana about a bill that would allow increased nitrogen and phosphorus pollution to be dumped into Lake Michigan. Scientists believe that phosporus and nitrogen are responsible in part for large amounts of algae that wash up and rot on beaches in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Ettinger said that the bill, proposed by Indiana Senator Beverly Gard, would prevent the Indiana Department of Environmental Management from calculating the amount of pollution entering Indiana’s waters. The bill could also undermine attempts to improve impaired waters so they could be used for swimming or fishing.
Read the full story here
Thursday, October 30, 2008
According to ELPC Senior Attorney Albert Ettinger, “consideration of alternatives” must be key to new anti-degradation rules being reviewed in Indiana. Industries, environmentalists, municipalities and government officials are working together to clarify existing water rules in Indianapolis.
read the full article here
Monday, September 8, 2008
Court Ruling Will Push Kentucky to Enforce Clean Water Rules
ELPC gained a big victory last week when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded the U.S. EPA’s approval of Kentucky’s flawed administrative rules in an opinion that will significantly affect state obligations to maintain and protect water quality under the Clean Water Act’s antidegradation policy that is designed to “keep clean waters clean.” ELPC attorneys represented Plaintiffs Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and Floyds Fork Environmental Association. Learn more.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Thirty-five years after the federal Clean Water Act passed, most Midwestern states still have not adopted all of the water quality standards required by the Act. The consequence: polluted rivers and lakes that harm aquatic life and fail to achieve our quality of life goals. ELPC Senior Attorney Albert Ettinger and Staff Attorneys Jessica Dexter and Brad Klein are achieving slow, but steady, progress in advancing key nutrient, phosphorus and antidegradation standards in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Kentucky to help clean up the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
ELPC gained a big victory last week. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded the U.S. EPA’s approval of Kentucky’s flawed administrative rules in an opinion that will significantly affect state obligations to maintain and protect water quality under the Clean Water Act’s antidegradation policy that is designed to “keep clean waters clean.” ELPC attorneys represented plaintiffs Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Sierra Club Cumberland Chapter, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and Floyds Fork Environmental Association.
In summary, the Court found that the U.S. EPA’s approval was “arbitrary and capricious” because it did not require Kentucky to prove that the multiple exceptions contained in the proposed antidegradation rules would cause only insignificant, or “de minimis,” degradation of the state’s rivers, lakes and streams. Instead, the U.S. EPA merely accepted Kentucky’s unenforceable commitments to protect water quality, even though the plain language of state’s rules gave blanket exemptions to several categories of polluters, including the coal industry.
The Court’s opinion sends Kentucky’s rules back to the U.S. EPA for further review. Kentucky likely will have to significantly revise and improve its rules in order to comply with the Court’s decision. ELPC’s persistent legal and policy advocacy is important to improve water quality and protect our Midwest natural heritage.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
July 30, 2008 – ELPC and conservation groups from nine states bordering the Mississippi River petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asking the agency to take concrete steps to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River basin. Read the press release or petition.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Metropolitan regions around the Midwest are expanding rapidly into neighboring farmland and natural areas, but few people are asking, “Is there enough water?” The allocation of water from Lake Michigan is limited by Supreme Court decree. Many areas on the fringe of the Chicago region are predicted to suffer water shortages within the next 20 years, but development is booming in those same locations. At the same time, new development is dramatically increasing demand for water and damaging the needed water supplies. Hundreds of thousands of acres of new parking lots, roads, and other impervious surfaces prevent rainwater from soaking into the ground and replenishing groundwater supplies – and the water that is able to soak in often ends up polluted by gasoline, oils, road salts, or fertilizers and pesticides from suburban lawns. Shallow aquifers are increasingly polluted, and deep aquifers become more contaminated by radon the further they are drawn down.
By 2020, a number of townships and municipalities in the Chicago region will not have access to a sufficient amount of water to meet growing demand. Most of these shortages are projected for the “outer counties” where rapid growth is occurring without consideration of the availability of, or impact on, water supplies and where rapid growth is also threatening water quality.
ELPC is working with key stakeholders in these communities to achieve three goals: (1) Promote smart growth planning policies and practices that will enable suitable development to go forward: (2) Protect vulnerable groundwater resources from contamination; and (3) Protect surface water resources in Northern Illinois rivers, lakes and streams from development pressures that can harm aquatic ecosystems. We believe that our efforts will increase the level of discussion about these critical issues and promote solutions that meet the growth and environmental needs of these communities.
Learn how you can conserve water and help keep our water clean.
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Mississippi River provides drinking water for over 18 million people. It is an important cultural, recreational, economic, and wildlife resource. Each summer, however, a “Dead Zone” roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts forms in the Gulf of Mexico at the river’s south end. In 2005, ELPC joined the Water Quality Collaborative, a diverse group of regional and national non-profit organizations devoted to improving the health of our nation’s largest river.
Several factors impede the health of the Mississippi River. Inadequate government oversight, lack of coordination among non-profit organizations, and lack of federal protection from agricultural runoff makes restoring the river very difficult. Agricultural runoff is the primary source of excess sediments and nutrients in the Mississippi River. Fertilizers accumulating in the Gulf of Mexico allow plants to grow to excess, starving the waters of oxygen and killing fish and wildlife. Each summer, this creates a “Dead Zone” roughly the size of Massachusetts in the Gulf.
More than 20 regional and national non-profit organizations comprise the Water Quality Collaborative. This provides a special opportunity for member organizations to build off one another’s strengths. Working as a unified group with shared goals will fill knowledge gaps and extend the resources of the various groups beyond traditional boundaries.
Friday, June 6, 2008
The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system on the Earth, with 84 percent of North America’s surface freshwater and 21 percent of the world’s supply. Only the polar ice caps contain more fresh water. More than 30 million people live in the Great Lakes basin and the daily activities of these people, from the water consumed to the waste returned, directly affect the Great Lakes environments.
In spite of their large size, the Great Lakes are sensitive to the effects of a wide range of pollutants. Major stresses on the lakes include toxic and nutrient pollution, invasive species and habitat degradation. Sources of pollution include the runoff of soils and farm chemicals from agricultural lands, waste from cities, discharges from industrial areas and leachate from disposal sites.
The large surface area of the lakes also makes them vulnerable to direct atmospheric pollutants that fall as rain, snow, or dust on the lake surface, or exchange as gases with the lake water. Outflows from the Great Lakes are relatively small in comparison with the total volume of water, so pollutants that enter the lakes are retained in the system and become more concentrated with time.
Injurious Species
ELPC continues to work with the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC) and Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) on reducing the spread of Asian Carp and other injurious species that threaten the Great Lakes.
