#clean-water-act — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #clean-water-act, aggregated by home.social.
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BREAKING: After a multi-year court battle, we've won a major case over bacteria pollution in the South Bay!
A court has ruled that Sunnyvale and Mountain View are responsible for over 1,200 Clean Water Act violations--and must stop pollution from reaching local creeks: https://baykeeper.org/press_release/court-rules-that-cities-pollution-of-local-creeks-violated-clean-water-act/
#sunnyvale #mountainview #waterpollution #bacteria #bacteriapollution #cleanwateract #southbay #stevenscreek #calabazascreek
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Ten Things To Know About The Proposed 2025 WOTUS Rule [shared article]
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https://www.swca.com/news-insights/ten-things-to-know-about-the-proposed-2025-wotus-rule/ <-- shared (SWCA) precis article
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https://www.epa.gov/wotus/updated-definition-waters-united-states <-- shared EPA Updated Definition of Waters of the United States.
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https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-11/11132.1-01-ow_wotus_nprm_ria_20251110_508.pdf <-- shared EPA document ‘Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Proposed Updated Definition of Waters of the United States Rule’
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[this post is intended to pass on information in this article only, and further should NOT be considered an endorsement of a particular viewpoint, consultant, etc]
#water #hydrology #hydrography #USA #regulations #WOTUS #EPA #USACE #proposedRule #WatersOfTheUnitedStates #CleanWaterAct #CWA
@EPA @USACE -
The New York Times - Breaking News, US News, World News and Videos [Unofficial] @[email protected] ·In One Week, Trump Moves to Reshape U.S. Environmental Policy
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The Trump admin's newly proposed changes to the #CleanWaterAct would reduce or eliminate environmental protections in the Bay Area and across the U.S.
“This proposed rule could strip protections from the vast majority of wetlands in California, which are necessary to protect Bay Area communities from rising seas," as Baykeeper senior scientist Ian Wren said in a statement. "We can’t protect the Bay’s ecosystem and clean water if the law no longer recognizes the wetlands that make it possible."
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#EPA Rule Would Drastically Curb Protections for #Wetlands
The proposal could strip federal protections from most U.S. wetlands, some of which feed drinking water systems.
Maxine Joselow
By Maxine Joselow
Reporting from the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters in Washington
Nov. 17, 2025"The Trump administration proposed on Monday to significantly limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to limit pollution in wetlands, rivers and other bodies of water across the country.
"The proposed rule could strip federal protections from millions of acres of wetlands and streams, potentially threatening sources of clean drinking water for millions of Americans. It was a victory for a range of business interests that have lobbied to scale back the #CleanWaterAct of 1972, including farmers, home builders, #RealEstateDevelopers, oil drillers and #petrochemical manufacturers."
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/climate/epa-curbs-protections-for-wetlands.htmlArchived version:
https://archive.ph/KEbdk#WaterIsLife #USPol #SacrificeZone #SacrificeZones #CorporateColonialism #EPAFail #Industries #IndustrialUse
#Mining #PollutionSacrificeZones #GreedKills #CapitalismKills #CapitalismMustDie -
A 2023 #SCOTUS decision set the stage for the action by limiting the agency’s power to police #wetlands. In the opinion in Sackett v. EPA, Justice #Alito wrote that the #CleanWaterAct allowed the #EPA to regulate only wetlands with a “continuous surface connection” to a “relatively permanent” body of #water.
But he did not explicitly define a “relatively permanent” body of water. Now, the #Trump admin is describing it as a body of water that flows year-round or during the “wet season.”
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It was a victory for a range of business interests that have lobbied to scale back the #CleanWaterAct of 1972, including farmers, home builders, real estate developers, #oil drillers & #petrochemical manufacturers.
…Under the #CleanWater Act, companies & individuals must obtain a permit from the #EPA before releasing #pollutants into the nation’s #waterways. They must receive a permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers.…
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The #Trump admin proposed Monday to significantly limit the EPA’s authority to limit #pollution in #wetlands, #rivers & other bodies of #water across the country.
The proposed rule could strip federal #protections from millions of acres of wetlands & #streams, potentially threatening sources of clean #DrinkingWater for millions of Americans.
#climate #wildlife #law #EnvironmentalLaw #CleanWaterAct
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/climate/epa-curbs-protections-for-wetlands.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share -
I am supremely confident that some minister, who is totally not having a massage with a lobbyist or property developer, will always do what's right in order to protect the water supply for communities large and small. No need to be concerned that the sale of Stag & Doe tickets will somehow poison me or cause E.coli deaths. Absolutely trustworthy.
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Four Bay Area beaches are among 10 of the dirtiest in CA, as our partners at Heal the Bay report.
And San Francisco accounts for A LOT of coastal California's sewage spills.
Last year, the EPA & CA joined us in suing SFPUC for its 500+ Clean Water Act violations, including bypassing treatment systems and failing to maintain required treatment capacity during storms.
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/four-bay-area-beaches-ranked-among-dirtiest-21073825.php
#sewage #sewagepollution #sanfrancisco #sfpuc #sf #cleanwateract #waterpollution #bayarea #sfbay #sanfranciscobay @sfgate
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Black Louisiana Community Coated in Toxic Fallout After Explosion at Oil Plant
“We need help over here and we’re not getting it,” said a resident of the city where 90 percent of kids live in poverty. -
Communities Near Data Centers Struggle Now. Trump’s AI Plan Will Make It Worse.
The plan calls for reducing regulations and making federal lands available for constructing data centers.
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What good are #TreatyRights if the fish are poisoned?
Monday, July 14, 2025
By George Ochenski, Daily Montanan"By virtually any measure, the #ConfederatedSalishKootenai Tribal Nation is an incredible success story against all odds. Forcibly removed from their homeland in the Bitterroot Valley, despite not having waged war against the white settlers or army, their own '#TrailOfTears' brought them to the Flathead Valley to live within the boundaries of the vastly reduced lands they retained in the #HellgateTreatyOf1855.
"Although the #HellgateTreaty is widely regarded as one of the best treaties signed by any of the nation’s #IndigenousPeople, even land supposedly reserved for the exclusive habitation of the #SalishKootenai was opened to purchase by non-tribal #settlers by the #DawesAct of 1887.
"The act’s intentions were to allocate reservation lands the tribes already owned to individual families as private property and, as part of the 'civilization' of #NativeAmericans, it required tribal members to register with the federal government to receive their 'allotment.'
"The entire debacle was part of the #AllotmentAndAssimilationEra from 1887 to 1934. Simply put, the federal government’s plan was to force Native Americans to be 'assimilated' into #EuropeanAmerican culture.
"Importantly, any reservation lands not allocated to tribal members was deemed
'surplus' land and opened to purchase by non-tribal settlers. This excursion into #ReservationLands was further exacerbated by the ability of tribal members to sell their allotment parcels to non-tribal members."The fracturing of the Salish-Kootenai’s tribal lands through sales to non-tribal members continues to cause serious problems today, including the long and on-going battle to retain their #water, #hunting and #fishing #TreatyRights.
"Article III of the Hellgate Treaty could not be more clear regarding the Tribe’s fishing rights: 'The exclusive right of taking fish in all the streams running through or bordering said reservation is further secured to said Indians; as also the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places…'
"Yet, just last month the Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribal Nation issued a very serious warning to tribal members regarding the fish they have treaty rights to catch because they are poisoned.
CSKT Fish Consumption Advisory
"The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes issued a fish consumption advisory on June 24, 2025, warning tribal citizens not to eat fish due to the presence of Polychlorinated biphenyls (#PCBs), #dioxins and #furans at levels deemed unsafe for humans: Source: Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes
"The #FishConsumptionAdvisory urges 'all tribal members to avoid consuming all species and sizes of fish harvested from the lower Clark Fork River from the Bitterroot River near Missoula to the Flathead River near Paradise. Recent testing has confirmed the presence of polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxins and furans in fish at levels that are unsafe for consumption by Tribal peoples. It is also advisable to avoid consuming rainbow trout and northern pike harvested from the Bitterroot River and the upper Clark Fork River above the Bitterroot River to Rock Creek, and, to avoid consuming rainbow trout from the Blackfoot River.
"As the Advisory explains: 'These contaminants pose a health risk to all fish consumers, and an even greater health risk to the most sensitive members of the Tribal population including women of child bearing age, pregnant nursing women, and young children. These contaminants have been linked to negative health effects in the immune, and nervous systems and may be associated with birth defects…PCBs and dioxins are classified as probable and definite #HumanCarcinogens, respectively.'
"So what good are treaty fishing rights if you can’t eat the fish because they’re poisoned? Are they really 'rights' — or is this just another in our nation’s long and shameful history of abrogating its treaties with Native Americans?
"Moreover, #Montana’s poison fish affect us all. Just as our government has failed the Salish-Kootenai, they have likewise failed to uphold our rights to the 'swimmable/fishable waters' guaranteed by the #CleanWaterAct — because no one, tribal or non-tribal, is immune to poisoned fish."
#WaterIsLife #TribalNations #NativeAmericanNews #WaterPollution #PoisonedFish #StolenLand #LandBack #EPAFail
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We're in court fighting for clean creeks and a healthy Bay! 💪
A few years ago, our investigators found that Sunnyvale and Mountain View's runoff contained high levels of bacteria--around 50x what's legally allowed. What's more, the runoff was being discharged into local creeks. So we sued under the #CleanWaterAct.
Since then, we've tried to work with the cities to address their problems, but they have refused to take responsibility. So now we're in court to prove our case and demand they do right by their residents and the Bay's waters.
Pictured: the Baykeeper team in San Jose before arguing our case against the cities for releasing bacteria pollution into Bay creeks
#sfbay #sanfranciscobay #sunnyvale #mountainview #bacteria #sewage #bacteriapollution #cleanwateract #bacteria
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Massive gasoline spill at Southern Ute reservation now seeping toward Animas River
Private wells near Durango were flooded with 12 feet of gasoline after 23,000 gallons leaked from a broken Enterprise Products pipeline in December
#environment #cleanwateract #PipelineSafety
https://coloradosun.com/2025/05/09/durango-gasoline-spill-southern-utes-animas-river/ -
#EPA is legally required to use "best available science" in environmental protection. A former EPA science advisor explains the crucial role of objective, peer-reviewed research in regulation. https://theconversation.com/epa-must-use-the-best-available-science-by-law-but-what-does-that-mean-253209
#PublicHealth #CleanWaterAct -
https://www.texasobserver.org/brazos-river-development-pollution-drifting-toward-disaster/
>What’s more, Dow-Freeport is operating with a wastewater permit that expired in 2019 but has been “administratively continued” by TCEQ, according to an agency spokesperson. That means Dow is allowed to follow outdated rules while a TCEQ review of the facility’s new draft permit drags on.
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>“It is concerning that this is coming up on five years, which is, frankly, the length of time a new permit would have been,” said Josh Kratka, a senior staff attorney at the National Environmental Law Center. While Kratka doesn’t know what’s transpiring between Dow and TCEQ specifically, he explained that many companies try to convince regulators that they can’t reasonably comply with pollution limits in order to delay enforcement. “Rather than really crack down, enforcing a solution quickly, the regulators just give them more time,” he said.This article was written in 2023. So far as I can tell, the permit in question, WQ0000007000, was originally granted in 1978. Its latest "approval date" is from 2016, and its latest "expiration date" is... STILL 2019. And yet the permit is still "active" rather than expired.
You can check at: https://www6.tceq.texas.gov/wqpaq/index.cfm
Put in "WQ0000007000" for the State Permit No., click Add, then click Search.
(Sidenote: still using ColdFusion? In 2025? Damn).
Ouch.
#TexasObserver @TexasObserver #BrazosRiver #Brazos #Brazoria #Texas #TCEQ #FreePort #CleanWaterAct #CleanWater
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Houston residents can expect to see increases on their water bills starting in April as part of the city’s five-year plan to fund its sewer system repairs.
#CityOfHouston #Houston #Infrastructure #Local #News #CleanWaterAct #Epa #HoustonPublicWorks #HoustonWaterBills #MayorJohnWhitmire
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Trump’s #EPA clearly shows it doesn’t understand the assignment
31 separate actions roll back restrictions on #air and #water #pollution.
#LeeZeldin exulted over the plan to rescind EPA’s 16yo determination #greenhousegas is a danger to #publichealth and welfare, known as #endangermentfinding
Zeldin announced EPA would revise a key definition that guides environmental protection under #CleanWaterAct, a change advocates say would threaten water supplies for millions in #US
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/03/epa-launches-full-assault-on-environmental-protection/ -
A reminder of what the Bay looked like before environmental regulation—open dumping of industrial waste, raw sewage, and fuel, and constant oil spills.
Before EPA and laws like the Clean Water Act, America's waters were choked with pollution. Ohio's Cuyahoga River, which became a symbol of environmental degradation in the 60s, was so polluted that it repeatedly caught fire.
Today, it's estimated that the #CleanWaterAct alone prevents 700 *billion* pounds of toxic pollution from entering US waters every single year.
We MUST defend these vital laws and institutions.
#EPA #bayarea #sanfranciscobay #SFBay #environment #waterpollution
Photos courtesy of EPA's historic archive
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Supreme Court limits #EPA's flexibility in water pollution permits, requiring specific targets rather than broad orders. A law professor explains why the ruling's impact on clean water protection remains to be seen: https://buff.ly/kVDeYhl
By Robin Kundis Craig, University of Kansas #CleanWaterAct -
San Francisco handed #SCOTUS the chance to weaken the #CleanWaterAct -- and they took it.
This ruling will make it easier for polluters to pollute, and harder for regulators to protect the health of people and the environment. Really shameful.
https://www.kqed.org/news/12029553/supreme-court-sides-with-san-francisco-against-epa-sewage-lawsuit
#sfpuc #sanfrancisco #pollution #waterpollution #waterislife
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How #SanFrancisco Sh/t Just Flushed Away The Power Of The #EPA and #CleanWaterAct ...
#ICYMI #SF ex City Attorney/ current #SFPUC General Manager Dennis Herrera Set Up A Landmark Conservative #Pollution Positive Victory AT #SCOTUS ...
Herrera & The #CityByTheBay Are Saluted By Case Allies Like The American #Fuel & #Petrochemical Manufacturers, National #Mining Assn, and farming waste advocates...
You Just #CantMakeThisShitUp ...
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A Comment on the Aquila Back Forty Wetland Permit
An Aquila Resources map outlines the wetlands that will be impaired by its open pit sulfide mine on the Menominee River.Earlier this morning, I sent this comment on the Aquila Resources Back Forty Wetland Permit to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. Public comments may be submitted here until February 2nd.
To the MDEQ:
You have probably already received a number of comments on the Back Forty Mine wetland permit application from people who live out of state, as I do. Some of those opposed to sulfide mining on the Menominee River live on the Wisconsin side, just across or downstream from the proposed mine site. Others, across the country and around the world, are deeply concerned about the cumulative effects the current leasing, exploration, and sulfide mining boom around Lake Superior will have, and are alarmed to see federal and state regulatory agencies abdicating their responsibilities to the American public in order to do the bidding of foreign mining companies.
Denying the wetland permit is the only prudent and responsible course for MDEQ to take.
As the organization American Rivers noted when it placed the Menominee River on its list of “most endangered” rivers in 2017, the Aquila Resources Back Forty project poses a “significant threat” of acid mine drainage to the river, and to the “cultural and natural resources of the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, and the Great Lakes Region.” Allowing Aquila to destroy or compromise area wetlands to construct its mine will only heighten the risk of large scale environmental catastrophe.
The risk is compounded by both regulatory and scientific uncertainty. As you are well aware, the Menominee Tribe maintains that the MDEQ lacks authority to issue this permit, because under provisions of the Clean Water Act the Menominee River and its wetlands are federal waters. This question remains unsettled. In the meantime, a third party, independent review of Aquila’s wetland permit application found errors and inconsistencies regarding the company’s findings on groundwater drawdown and the mine’s feasibility analysis. The wetland permit application you are considering is either flawed, because the people who filed it are incompetent, or misleading, because they have something to hide.
Deceit might be Aquila’s best strategy at this point. The Back Forty project has no claim to social license — none. The Menominee and other Wisconsin tribes have been adamant in their opposition. Local residents are overwhelmingly opposed as well. Of the 90 people who had the opportunity to speak at the January 23rd public hearing in Stephenson, only 4 could muster an argument for the mine, mainly because they put stock in the vague promise of “jobs” made by mining proponents. The rest — 86 out of 90, or 95 percent — stood in opposition to the mine.
Even if Aquila is not deliberately misleading the MDEQ and the public, the Canadian company has demonstrated time and again that it is not a responsible steward of Michigan or Menominee lands. In archaeological surveys of the region, for instance, Aquila claims to have uncovered nothing of “historical significance.” That is telling. These surveys have found nothing because they fail, or refuse to see, the significant Menominee history and culture that is right in front of their eyes. As tribal members have made repeatedly clear, Menominee history, ancestry, and culture begin and end in the river, the land, and the forest. What is historically significant or meaningful is not merely a collection of artifacts; it is a way of life and a deep connection to place. The Back Forty Mine threatens to destroy that connection.
In sum, the wetland permit application is flawed, the company has no social license to operate, and allowing the Back Forty to go forward would violate the public trust.
Postscript: On Monday, 4 June, Michigan DEQ Director Heidi Grether granted this wetlands permit, despite the DEQ’s own findings that the Aquila Resources project will likely cause “an unacceptable disruption to the aquatic resources of the State…and that the activities associated with the project are not consistent with the permitting criteria for an acceptable impact to the resources regulated under Parts 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, and Part 303, Wetlands Protection.” The permit DEQ issued — over its own objections — includes 28 pages of special conditions. It’s unclear why the DEQ did not simply deny the permit, as its findings warranted and in keeping with EPA objections to the Aquila application. More here.
#AmericanRivers #AquilaResources #BackFortyMine #BackFortyProject #CleanWaterAct #culturalResources #environmentalStewardship #federalWaters #historicalSignificance #history #MDEQ #MenomineeRiver #MenomineeTribe #MichiganDepartmentOfEnvironmentalQuality #mining #mostEndangeredRivers #publicHearing #PublicTrust #UNDRIP #UnitedNationsDeclarationOnIndigenousRights #UpperPeninsula #Water #WatersOfTheUnitedStates #wetlands #WOTUS
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The Political Project of MCRC v. EPA, 2
Second In A Series
In this Greg Peterson photo from the Cedar Tree Institute site, Northern Great Lakes Synod Lutheran Bishop Thomas A. Skrenes blesses one of the trees faith congregations planted on Earth Day, 2009.
Activists Afoot!As I suggested in my first post in this series on MCRC v. EPA, the complaint filed by the Marquette County Road Commission would have us believe that “anti-mining” forces worked secretly with and even infiltrated the EPA, and the agency’s objections to CR 595 followed a “predetermined plan.” The EPA, it claims, had decided to oppose the haul road even before the MCRC application was reviewed.
This sounds like legitimate cause for concern: permit applications should be reviewed on their merits, not pre-judged and not according to some other anti- or pro- agenda. We certainly wouldn’t want someone in the Environmental Protection Agency to be “pro-mining”; there are enough well-paid mining lobbyists already haunting the hallways in Lansing and Washington, DC. But in this case, the anti-mining label is being used as a term of opprobrium, and to distort and deliberately misrepresent what the Environmental Protection Agency is chartered and required by law to do: in short, to enforce the Clean Water Act and protect the environment.
When it comes to proving the insinuations it makes, the MCRC complaint offers slim evidence.
For example, the complaint makes a big fuss over a November 28, 2012 letter from Laura Farwell, who lives in the Marquette area and is described here as “a prominent environmental activist.” The letter is addressed to Lynn Abramson, then a Senior Legislative Assistant for Senator Barbara Boxer, and Thomas Fox, Senior Counsel of the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee, asking them to “weigh-in” with the EPA on CR 595. (Exhibit 1).
EPA must determine whether to uphold its original objections to proposed County Road 595 under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”), pursuant to its supervisory authority over Michigan’s delegated wetlands permitting program. Tom may remember that during the August 30, 2011 meeting at EPA Denise Keehner of EPA’s office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds definitively reiterated EPA’s position and stated that the haul road would not happen.
Thus, this letter is to request, respectfully, that you weigh-in as soon as possible with the EPA on its decision.The MCRC complains about Farwell’s use of the word “definitively” here and casts the 2011 meeting in a sinister light:
on August 30, 2011, a very different type of meeting regarding CR 595 took place at USEPA Headquarters in Washington, DC. MCRC was neither invited to nor informed of the meeting. In attendance (as far as is known at the present time) were top USEPA officials, Congressional staff, KBIC representatives, and a prominent environmental activist opposed to the construction of CR 595. It further appears that USEPA made no formal record of the meeting.
Without a formal record, it’s impossible to know what transpired at this meeting, and if the complaint is going to rely on Farwell’s memory of the conversation, then it should also take into account her intentions in paraphrasing and recounting it, one year after it took place. The language here — “a very different type of meeting,” “neither invited nor informed,” “as far as is known at the present time,” “no formal record” — doesn’t help in that regard, and it’s meant to suggest that conjurations were already afoot.
It’s clear the MCRC was not included in some discussions at EPA. There’s nothing extraordinary or illicit about that. All concerned parties had been meeting with and petitioning the EPA for several years at this point. The complaint is still a long way from proving that the EPA “surreptitiously met with a number of environmental activists vocally opposed to the road,” and an even longer way from proving that there was anything like an anti-mining coalition assembled in secret at the offices of the EPA.
In an ironic twist, these allegations of secrecy and whispering behind closed doors may come back to haunt the MCRC: at a Marquette County Board of Commissioners meeting this month, the Marquette County Road Commission itself faced accusations that it had violated the Open Meetings Act in planning to bring its suit against the EPA. Public officials who intentionally violate that act are ordinarily fined and incur other liabilities; in this case, there would be some eating of words as well.
By November 28, 2012, the EPA had, in fact, “decided against the proposed haul road,” as Farwell puts it in the email she sent along with the letter to Abramson and Fox. The EPA had entered objections to the Woodland Road Application (in March, 2010) and announced their objections to CR 595 (in March, 2012). Even so, a Fall 2012 public meeting held by the EPA “in Marquette…for more input” had Farwell worried. She was not at all confident the EPA would uphold its original objections to the haul road. The matter was still far from being “definitively” settled.
Whatever reassurances Farwell was given at that 2011 meeting — or thought she had been given, or recalled having been given, one year later — were clearly at risk of getting lost in the bureaucratic shuffle. The purpose of her letter is to prevent that.
There is nothing surprising in all this. Those watching new mining developments in the Upper Peninsula are constantly having to chase after the EPA and demand that the regulator step in and do its job.
Jeffery Loman, a member of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and a former federal regulator, has repeatedly put the EPA on notice and complained of the agency’s failure to enforce the Clean Water Act.
In May of this year, the grassroots environmental group Save the Wild UP filed a petition with the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, arguing that Eagle Mine was issued the wrong regulatory permit. The appeal requested that the EPA require Eagle Mine to obtain a Clean Water Act permit in order to protect the Salmon Trout River and other surface waters from the discharge of mining effluent. The Appeals Board did not contest the facts put forward in the petition, but dismissed it for lack of jurisdiction. They hardly proved themselves to be staunch allies.
So watchdogs and environmental groups, too, have reason to gripe about the EPA and often feel powerless in the face of bureaucratic inertia and ineptitude. Laura Farwell herself seems to have felt that way, and that’s why we find her asking Abramson and Fox for help. The MCRC complaint exaggerates her influence at the EPA when it describes her as “a prominent environmental activist.” The epithet is used here to create the misleading impression that within the offices of EPA Region 5 and the confines of Marquette County there are political opponents with resources to match the power of multi-billion dollar, multinational mining companies.
Laura Farwell and her husband Frank moved to the area in 2006 from Madison, Wisconsin. They are members of the St. Paul Episcopal Church and participate, along with their son Cody, in the church’s Earth Day tree plantings. The couple donated some money to the UP Land Conservancy. Farwell has also organized events for the Cedar Tree Institute, which works to bridge “faith communities and environmental groups.” (She is described on the Institute’s site as “a concerned mother and local citizen.”) She is thanked for “working quietly behind the scenes” in a 2011 Earth Keeper TV video on the environmental risks posed by the Eagle Mine; and she’s copied along with many other local citizens in a Google Group post dated April 9, 2012, urging people to comment on CR 595 before the public comment period is closed.
Farwell’s commitments to land conservation are pretty clear, and while the complaint asks us to recoil in horror at the phrase “prominent environmental activist,” cooler heads are just as likely to be impressed by Farwell’s dedication to the people around her and the place where she lives. Maybe that dedication is all it takes to be a prominent environmental activist in the view of the Marquette County Road Commission.
Some locals, on the other hand, are legitimately concerned that nationally and internationally prominent environmentalists — like Bill McKibben, George Monbiot, Naomi Klein and their ilk — ignore the current situation around Lake Superior, or fail to give it the serious attention it deserves. National media have barely taken notice. Farwell herself admits that to the great and powerful in Washington DC “the proposed haul road may seem like some little back trail in the middle of nowhere,” but she urges that it will cut through “critical wetlands resources” and “enable the industrializing of this rural Great Lakes watershed by international mining interests.”
Farwell’s letter tries to create some urgency around the CR 595 issue by putting the road in context and specifying whose interests would be served by the industrializing of the region. A serious assessment of CR 595 would significantly widen the lens, taking into account the cumulative effects of all the new mining activities around Lake Superior: all leasing, exploration, development and active mining throughout northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario. Otherwise, we miss the big picture, and without that perspective, it’s just too easy to parcel out the land, the water, and the future of the region to the highest bidders.
The MCRC complaint, too, places CR 595 in the context of “mining and economic development in the Great Lakes region” in a few places, but only to make the specious argument that those who oppose or question the road are opposed to mining and therefore opposed to the region’s prosperity. These are the ideological leaps the complaint makes. Those who don’t make these leaps are called activists or anti-mining obstructionists. That is a political, not a legal argument.
It’s never too late to have a serious discussion of what sustainable economic development and true prosperity for the Great Lakes region might look like. How might we best organize our lives together in this place? is a fundamental political question. But at this juncture, it appears, the MCRC can’t afford to let that conversation happen. This lawsuit is an attempt to shut it down and stifle dissent. Where business leads, society must obediently follow. To question this order of things, as Laura Farwell seems to have repeatedly done, quietly, behind the scenes, is to commit some kind of nefarious act.
This is where the attitude on display in this complaint gets worrisome. With this lawsuit, the MCRC pretends to have the political authority to direct economic development in the region (not just to build and repair roads). But that is only pretense, and things in Marquette County are not as they appear. The public still does not know who is funding the Road Commission lawsuit, what they stand for and what they expect in return for their support. The real powers lurk behind the scenes.
#501c4 #antiMining #BillMcKibben #CedarTreeInstitute #CleanWaterAct #corporatePoliticalActivity #corruption #CountyRoad595 #CR595 #EagleMine #EarthDay #environmentalEthics #environmentalPolitics #environmentalism #EPA #GeorgeMonbiot #JefferyLoman #LauraFarwell #LundinMining #LynnAbramson #MarquetteCounty #MarquetteCountyRoadCommission #MarquetteCountyRoadCommissionVEPA #MCRCVEPA #mining #NaomiKlein #OpenMeetingsAct #politicalAuthority #politics #power #SaveTheWildUP #secrecy #StandUP_ #ThomasFox #TomCasperson #Water