Methane Leakage, again

Just like that, the Supreme Court chips away at one of the foundations of this country’s Environmental Law.
Court Splits Over Wetlands Protections – New York Times

By DAVID STOUT. WASHINGTON, June 19 — The Supreme Court set the stage for a re-examination of the 1972 Clean Water Act, as it narrowly ruled today in favor of two Michigan property owners who have sought to develop tracts designated as wetlands.

By 5 to 4, the justices overturned lower court judgments against the Michigan land owners, who had run afoul of the Clean Water Act over their plans to build a shopping mall and condominiums.

The ruling was not the resounding, unambiguous triumph that the land owners, John A. Rapanos and June Carabell, may have hoped for. Instead, five justices found that regulators may have gone too far in trying to thwart their plans, and it returned the case to lower courts for further deliberation. One of the five justices, Anthony M. Kennedy, even suggested in a separate opinion that the property owners might lose once again in the lower courts.

I was very afraid when I last thought about this challenge way back in February. It was pretty clear at that point that Kennedy was the swing vote and that 8 out of 9 minds were probably made up. Kennedy’s lawmaking seems to be a little incoherent in this case. He was obviously not comfortable with the Scalia-Alito-Roberts-Thomas cabal’s clearly ideological decision, but can’t bring himself to make the centrist decision.

But Justice Kennedy wrote that the evidence in the long-running Rapanos and Carabell cases suggests “the possible existence of a significant nexus,” or connection, between their properties and navigable waterways — a connection that, if established in the lower courts, would reaffirm the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act over the tracts and could cause the property owners to lose again.

If you thought that there was a “significant nexus”, what kind of logic would then make you turnaround and support the opinion that there is no connection?

But Justice Scalia had a different perspective as he questioned the extent of federal jurisdiction. Under the government’s logic, he said, “a storm drain, even when not filled with water, is a tributary.”

“I suggest it’s very absurd to call that ‘waters of the United States,’ ” Justice Scalia added. “It’s a drainage ditch.”

Where Hon. Justice Scalia pretends to misunderstand the concept of drainage? I wonder if he would feel the same way if it was a pollution issue in his neighbor’s backyard.

This will make things confusing for a while, and you all know who confusion favors!

Dog bites man news o’ the day!

ScienceDaily: European Union Outpaces United States On Chemical Safety

In the 1970s and ’80s, the United States effectively set many global product standards for consumer and environmental protection. Today, Europe is playing this role, while U.S. government and industry oppose the resulting standards in Europe and in international arenas.

The size of the European market (more than 485 million citizens) will push manufacturers in the United States and Asia to meet European standards and will increase the availability of “green” products globally, contend the authors. Additionally, the new toxic risk information generated by REACH may allow environmental advocates in the United States and elsewhere to focus their efforts with specific, supportable data.

Amen to that, you can either lead, or be forced to follow. EU policies are far from perfect, and as vulnerable to politics, hypocrisy and competing interests as any other “country’s” policies. But, you can never fault them for lack of effort, and they do not seem to have suffered from any consequences to using the precautionary principle.

When an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.

Not so hard to grasp. But here’s the precautionary principle the US of A uses. I propose calling it the plutocracy-protectionary principle^TM.

When a proposed regulation raises threats of harm to the short term shareholder returns of an industry, precautionary measures to oppose this regulation must be taken even if cause and effect relationships are clearly established, or if scientific research has shown the opposite effect to the industry claim being made.

Note: When people say “clean coal”, they are referring in part to all the actions taken to limit particle and ash emissions out of the smokestacks. This is done in a variety of ways including washing the coal to remove inorganic ash components, trapping the particles using electrostatic precipitators, etc. What this leaves you with is very toxic coal ash, and very toxic acidified water loaded with the coal wastes it was used to remove.

Now you can pretend that this is somehow cleaner, and it is, to an extent, because you have concentrated the pollution by isolating it and not letting it disperse into the atmosphere. However, if you then dump the waste into unlined landfills, you completely defeat the whole point of the exercise. This very extensive report written by the Clean Air Task Force and Earth Justice looked at streams in Pennsylvania and found a ton of heavy metal pollution.

Coal is neither cheap, nor clean if you have to deal with all the pollution and pay for it, and we did not even have to get to that whole other pollutant, CO2!

<Pennsylvania Groundwater Contaminated By Coal Ash

Disposing of coal ash in mines is contaminating water supplies throughout Pennsylvania, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Clean Air Task Force and the nonprofit, public interest law firm Earthjustice.

In 10 of 15 mines examined across the state, groundwater and streams near areas where coal ash, or coal combustion waste, was placed had levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium and selenium and other pollutants above safe standards.

‘Disposing of coal combustion waste in these mines is threatening water supplies all over the state,’ said Jeff Stant, director of the Pennsylvania Minefill Research Project at the Clean Air Task Force. ‘If the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection won’t act now to stop these dangers, the U.S. EPA should step in to protect the residents of Pennsylvania who live near coal ash mine fills.’

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has refered to the ‘beneficial use’ of coal ash in these active and abandoned mines, claiming that the practice limits the outflow of acidic water from mines.

This study found the opposite was true – in six of the nine permits that used coal ash to treat acid mine drainage, acidity levels increased, leaving the mines more acidic at the end of monitoring.