By Shawn Gaynor

Jan. 21 (GNT) – A coalition of environmental groups filed an appeal today against the leasing of federal lands for the construction of LS Power’s White Pine Energy Station.

Photo courtesy of Coal-Is-Dirty.com.

The appeal, filed by Earthjustice on behalf of ten environmental groups, expresses concerns about the White Pine facility’s impacts on human health, climate change, and lowered visibility in the Great Basin National Park in Nevada and Zion National Park in Utah.

By filing the appeal, the groups will challenge a Dec. 22, 2008 decision by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management granting LS Power Group the necessary rights of way to construct a 1,590-megawatt coal-fired power plant on federal lands in eastern Nevada.

“Instead of allowing a huge new dirty coal plant, LS Power and BLM should take the lead from other companies and public agencies that are working to meet electricity demand through energy efficiency and renewables,” said John Barth, an attorney for the groups.

According to the coalition, White Pine would release an estimated 12.88 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year and would also emit significant amounts of other harmful pollutants such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, and fine soot, impairing local air quality and visibility.

The plant would also consume 4.5 million gallons a day of water for cooling in one of the nation’s driest states.

LS Power backed out of building a similar coal plant in Waterloo, Iowa, on Jan. 10, just days after project development partner Dynegy dissolved its partnership with LS Power.

It is unclear how LS Power will raise the capital for the White Pine project after Dynegy’s withdrawal, but Mark Milburn, director of project development for LS Power, announced in a statement that construction of the White Pines facility would proceed.

The White Pine plant is one of three new coal fired power plants proposed for Nevada. The other two facilities — the 1,500-megawatt Ely Energy Center and the 750-megawatt Toquop Energy Project — are also seeking approvals to begin construction.

Dr. Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, whose group is a party in the appeal, said Utah citizens already suffer poor air quality due to regional coal plants, and that the three new plants proposed for Nevada will only make the air quality worse.

“Yesterday, four of the top five most polluted cities in the country for air quality were in Utah,” said Dr. Moench. “The air pollution was the equivalent of everyone smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, including children and pregnant women. Utah citizens are not going to stand back and allow several new coal plants to make these pollution problems even worse.”

With Obama’s inauguration and Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) poised to take the reigns at the Interior Department, the coalition expressed their hope that the incoming administration will take a different, more environmentally friendly approach to public-land management and energy issues.

“We’re hopeful that the new administration in Washington will act quickly to secure a clean energy future for the United States, and manage our public lands in ways that benefit all Americans,” said Earthjustice attorney Paul Cort.

Nationally, upwards of thirty new coal fired plants are proposed, though tight credit markets may delay or cancel some of those projects.

GreenNewsToday.org

By Shawn Gaynor

Jan. 16 (GNT) – The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Jan. 14 the removal of the gray wolf from federal endangered species protection in all Northern Rocky Mountain areas excepting Wyoming, a move that has drawn a sharp response from a coalition of 12 environmental groups that have fought back and forth with the Bush administration over protection for the gray wolf.

On Jan. 14 the US FWS removed the Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolf from Endangered Species Act protection. Photo courtesy of Defenders of Wildlife.

“Wolves have recovered in the Great Lakes and the northern Rocky Mountains because of the hard work, cooperation and flexibility shown by States, tribes, conservation groups, federal agencies and citizens of both regions,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Lynn Scarlett.

But environmentalists fear that individual states will reduce the population of Northern Rocky Mountain wolves if federal protection is removed. They say this reduction would create a genetic bottleneck, where inbreeding could spell long-term trouble for the species.

“This blatantly political maneuver is hardly surprising,” said Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, whose group is part of the coalition that sued for continued federal protection in 2008. “The Bush administration has been trying to strip Endangered Species Act protections from the Northern Rockies wolf since the day it took office – no matter the dire consequences of delisting wolves prematurely and without adequate state protections in place.”

The Bush administration’s prior effort to remove federal protection the Northern Rockies wolf was rebuffed in federal court and then voluntarily withdrawn by the FWS shortly afterwards.

Schlickeisen says the new FWS decision will send the fate of the wolves back to the courts. “We intend to challenge this poorly constructed decision in court as soon as the law allows.”

Environmentalists fear that without federal endangered species protections, up to two-thirds of the population could be lost.

The FWS hopes that by leaving protection in place for the Wyoming population, where state law regarding predators leaves the wolf vulnerable to ranchers who would be allowed to shoot the wolf on site, they will avoid the problems of inadequate state protection outlined in the 2008 suit.

However in doing so the FWS has turned its back on its own guidelines, which state that endangered species must be protected on a regional basis, not a state-by-state approach.

“Wolves don’t read maps,” said Dr. Sylvia Fallon, a Natural Resource Defense Council Staff Scientist whose genetic expertise was central in the initial challenge case. “We agree that Wyoming’s plan is inadequate, but you cannot have protections start and stop at state lines.”

According to the NRDC, when the wolves were declassified in Feb. of 2008, hunting began immediately. Before federal protection was reinstated in July 2008, 24 wolves were reportedly killed.

Though controversial with ranching interests in the west, the reintroduction of wolves by the federal government 12 years ago has been widely hailed as a major success story. It has measurably improved the natural balance in the Northern Rockies and benefited bird, antelope and elk populations.

Tens of thousands of gray wolves once roamed North America before being slaughtered and eliminated from 95 percent of their habitat in lower 48 states in the 1930s. The gray wolf was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1973.

There are currently about 100 breeding pairs and 1,500 wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.

Source: GreenNewsToday.org

By Shawn Gaynor

Jan. 15 (GNT) – The final days of the Bush administration have proved busy ones at the Bureau of Land Management, who announced yesterday that it would be issuing new lease permits in three western states for oil-shale mining and production.

Solid oil-shale is changed into liquid fuel by heating and refining, a process that environmentalist say takes more energy to refine then it yields. Photo courtesy of the US DOE.

The new leasing program and the rule changes that have allowed them end a 79 year ban on oil-shale production in Utah and Wyoming, and expand leasing in Colorado where the ban was lifted in 2001.

Under the new leases the BLM will allow energy companies lease 640 acres of public land for a 10 year period to conduct research, development, and demonstration (know as an R, D, and D leases). During this time companies will experiment with new methods for producing fuel from oil-shale, and will have to demonstrate the economic viability of oil-shale production to expand their lease holdings.

The new leases broaden a previous leasing program of 160 acre R, D, and D leases recently issued by the BLM. Under that program six energy companies were awarded leases.

“Broadening the scope of research into oil shale technologies will help accelerate the development of these vast Western resources, and as a result lessen our dependence on foreign sources of energy,” said James Caswell, BLM Director.

But environmentalists including Melissa Thrailkill of the Center for Biological Diversity, feel that the latest news from the BLM is a step in the wrong direction, telling Green News Today, “We believe oil-shale as a fuel should not be pursued at all. We should be investing in clean energy technologies instead.”

Thrailkill warned that the new methods for extracting fuel from oil-shale, by heating the shale in the ground until a liquid fuel can be extracted and refined into diesel or jet fuel, consume more energy then they produce – essentially trading solid fuels for a smaller amount of liquid fuels.

“Little research is available on oil-shale and its impacts right now because no oil-shale industry exists right now,” said Thrailkill. “However, what we do know is that producing oil-shale fuels require extra refining processes, and the heating of the oil-shale in the ground, which means that you input more energy in oil-shale then you get out.”

But the current leadership at the BLM seems determined to move ahead with oil-shale fuels. The new leases are just one of several steps taken recently by the BLM to pave the way for large scale oil-shale production – production it says could yield up to 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the Western United States.

In November, the BLM finalized regulations governing the commercial leasing of oil-shale resources on Federal lands, and in September, the agency finalized a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement setting aside approximately 1.9 million acres of public lands in the three states for potential commercial oil shale development.

This prompted a coalition of environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, The Wilderness Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Sierra Club among others, to responded to the new rules, filing their concerns on Jan. 8 in formal letters to the BLM, notifying the agency of a pending lawsuit issued over the new rules failure to consider their impact on endangered species, and western water supplies.

Speaking about the new BLM leases, Peter Nelson of Defenders of Wildlife said, “It is clear that the ESA legal action is simply one indicator amongst many of the tremendous controversy surrounding oil-shale development, and that given the controversy, the department of the Interior should call a time out, end these midnight threatrics, and reassess the Bush oil-shale legacy.”

According the BLM’s own estimates, the new extraction processes for making fuel out of oil-shale uses roughly three gallons of water for each gallon of fuel produced. With leases being granted in states where water disputes already rage between municipalities, agriculture, environmentalists, and industry, many are wary of the impact industrial scale production of oil-share fuels would have on western water supplies, and what if any impact further water use will have on endangered western marine life.

The groups believe that victory in these suits may overturn oil-shale leases already issued by the BLM.

Ken Salazar, Obama’s pick to head the Department of the Interior, while oversees the BLM, is on record as opposing the BLM’s approach to oil-shale leasing.

In July of 2008 then Sen. Salazar (D-CO) issued a rebuke of Bush’s oil-shale plans, saying, “The Administration is trying to set the stage for a last minute fire sale of commercial oil shale leases in Western Colorado, despite the fact that we are still years away from knowing if the technologies for developing oil shale on a commercial scale are even viable.”

When asked if environmental concerns over oil-shale would receive different treatment under the Obama administration Thrailkill was cautiously optimistic.

“It’s clear that Bush was not an environmental president at all, and we hope we will have a different relationship with the new administration over the oil-shale program.”

She went on to warned that while Salazar has criticized the BLM for its program, he has not come out against exploring new oil-shale technologies, but has rather called for a slower approach.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. holds more than half of the world’s oil shale resources.

Source: GreenNewsToday.org

Gov. Palin of Alaska announced today that her state will challenge recent federal protection for the Cook Inlet beluga whale. Greennewstoday.org

By Shawn Gaynor

Jan. 14 (GNT) — Gov. Sarah Palin announced today that the state of Alaska intends to challenge the federal government’s decision to list beluga whales in Cook Inlet as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The notice of the state’s intent to sue was sent to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). It asserts that the listing decision should be withdrawn due to failure to adequately consider conservation or protection efforts by Alaska.

“The State of Alaska has worked cooperatively with the federal government to protect and conserve beluga whales in Cook Inlet,” said Governor Palin. “This listing decision didn’t take those efforts into account as required by law.”

The National Marine Fisheries Service listed the Cook Inlet beluga as a threatened species over the objections of Gov. Palin in October of 2008.

“Once again Governor Palin has demonstrated either a complete lack of understanding or lack of concern over the plight of endangered species,” said Brendan Cummings, oceans program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Cook Inlet beluga population received federal endangered species protection in late 2008. Photo courtesy of NOAA.gov

The group warns that the Cook Inlet is the most populated and fastest-growing watershed in Alaska, and is subject to significant proposed offshore oil and gas development in beluga habitat — plans that the federal listing may complicate.

The sounds issuing from the high explosives used in underwater resource exploration has long been known to affect marine mammals, and the noise is carried far distances by the dense ocean waters.

Though marine biologists estimate the worldwide population of beluga whales to be more than 80,000, the NMFS ruling recognizes the Cook Inlet beluga whale as threatened because it is genetically distinct and geographically isolated — one of five such populations in Alaska.

The Cook Inlet’s beluga population has recently seen a dramatic decline. There were an estimated 1,300 Cook Inlet belugas during the 1980s. By 1993, when regular surveys of the Cook Inlet population began,there were an estimated 643 individual whales. Between 1994 and 1998, the abundance of belugas declined again — by about 50 percent — to 347 whales. The 2006 population estimate for Cook Inlet belugas is approximately 300 animals.

Much smaller than many of their whale cousins, beluga whales average only 14 feet in length and weigh about 3,000 pounds. Characterized by their unique creamy white color, belugas have an extensive vocal repertoire and have long been called the “sea canary” by seamen who heard their myriad of sounds.

Alaska ’s legal action against the beluga whale marks the second time in recent months that Governor Palin’s administration has launched legal attacks against endangered species on behalf of the oil industry; in August 2008, Palin filed suit seeking to overturn federal protection for the polar bear.

Source: GreenNewsToday.org