Nature's Voice Fall 2014

FOR THE 1.4 MILLION MEMBERS AND ONLINE ACTIVISTS OF THE NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL

Mountain lion © Tom & Pat Leeson

in this issue • Frances Beinecke Steps Down • NRDC’s Next President: Rhea Suh • Tackling Reckless Fracking Head-On • Defending a Rare Wolf and the Tongass

FALL 2014

in the news Saving Patagonia Thanks in part to messages from more than 100,000 NRDC Members and activists, President Michelle Bachelet of Chile took a strong stand for environ­mental protection when her government revoked permits for the HidroAysén dam project. The hydropower plan, opposed by the majority of Chileans, called for the construction of five giant dams across two of Patagonia’s most majestic rivers, potentially devastating this world-renowned wilderness and local communities. NRDC will continue advocating alongside local partners and advise the Chilean government to help ensure that the nation stays on a path of clean energy that will benefit both its people and the environment.

Cracking Down on Ivory August 12 was a World Elephant Day to remember as Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York signed into law a bill that will prevent the sale of almost all ivory in the state, regardless of its age, and drastically increase the associated fines. Because it is very difficult to accurately date ivory, for years smugglers have been able to import illegal new ivory by disguising it as “antique.” The new measure, along with a similar law signed by Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey, are important first steps in shutting down the large but hidden U.S. ivory trade and saving African elephants. According to a new report, 100,000 elephants were killed for their ivory tusks between 2010 and 2012.

Beinecke Steps Down, Suh Steps Up

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fter a remarkable career spanning four decades with NRDC, including nine years at the helm, Frances Beinecke will step down

as the organization’s president in January, and Rhea Suh, currently assistant secretary for policy, management and budget at the U.S. Department of the Interior, will succeed her. Last fall, Beinecke announced her decision to retire, and a select committee was formed to conduct a rigorous search for the person best qualified to lead NRDC at this pivotal moment for the environment. Suh, the unanimous choice, will become only the third president in NRDC’s 44-year history. (See profile of Suh below.) “Rhea is a ferocious fighter for the environment,” says Beinecke. “She brings the kind of tenacity and never-say-die determination that has set NRDC apart as America’s toughest environmental advocate.”

NRDC’s Next President: Rhea Suh

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he daughter of Korean immigrants, Rhea Suh was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, where fishing trips with her father on Lake Granby and

camping out under the starry skies of Rocky Mountain National Park fostered a deep commitment to the environ­ment. That passion for the natural world ultimately led to her appointment over­seeing the U.S. Interior Depart­ment’s budget of $12 billion and the 70,000 employees who staff our nation’s parks, wildlife refuges and other treasured places.

Prior to that, Suh put her environ­mental commitment front and center during an extraordinary professional journey that included teaching earth science in the New York City

This holiday season, send thoughtful gifts to all the special people on your list — and help save the environment at the same time. www.nrdcgreengifts.org 2

public schools, working in the U.S. Senate and spear­ heading the effort to protect the Great Bear Rainforest

Beinecke started at

wild places, among other major efforts. “Frances has

NRDC as an intern in

combined unrelenting advocacy with tireless passion

1973, just three years

to advance our agenda for a more sustainable planet,”

after the organization

says Dan Tishman, chair of NRDC’s Board of Trustees.

was founded, and her

“Our challenge was to find a successor who would

rise to leadership was

embody the core values of NRDC while leading us

interwoven with

with the same steady hand, strength and vision that

NRDC’s own growth

Frances has. We have found that with Rhea.”

into a global champion of the environment, Frances Beinecke, NRDC’s president since 2006.

now deploying nearly 500 professionals

in seven offices — all supported by a dedicated army of 1.4 million Members and online activists.

Beinecke attests that Suh is uniquely suited to help NRDC reach out to millions more Americans from all walks of life. “At pivotal moments in history, smart institutions seize the opportunity to foster generational change that infuses everyone with new passion, new energy and new ideas,” says Beinecke. “Rhea Suh has

Beinecke was promoted to executive director in 1998,

been a pioneer of the urgent mission to broaden our

serving as second-in-command to NRDC’s first

movement, to ensure that environmentalism is as

president, John Adams, whom she succeeded in 2006.

diverse as America and youthful enough to win the

Under her leadership, the organization has focused on

tough battles ahead. By naming Rhea as its next leader,

advancing bold solutions to the most far-reaching

NRDC is sending a powerful message that the environ­

problems: creating a clean energy future to curb climate

mental fight for hearts and minds will be fully engaged

change, reviving our oceans and saving endangered

in every corner of this nation.”

in British Columbia, one of the most successful land protection campaigns in North America.

“I’m honored and thrilled to join NRDC, our nation’s leading defender of clean air, safe water and wild places,” says Suh. “We are facing daunting challenges to the health and future of our planet, and the bedrock environ­ the mother of a young child, I refuse to leave my daughter a world beyond fixing — and I know it’s not too late. That resolve is what brings me to NRDC. I look forward to working hand in hand with this great organization’s dedicated staff and passionate Members to advance our common cause of saving the one natural world we all share.”

Look for an extended interview with Rhea Suh in our next issue.

Rhea Suh, with husband Michael and daughter Yeumi.

Frances Beinecke © Matt Greenslade; elephants © Canstock

mental laws we depend on are under constant attack. As

3

Campaign Update

NRDC’s Fight to Save Imperiled Communities From Fracking Rages on Many Fr From the Grassroots Level All the Way to Washington, We’re Tackling Reckless Drilling Head-On

I

Theodore Roosevelt National Park © Tim Fitzharris; fracking site fire © 2014, Edward Wade, Jr.; fracking rig © Scott Goldsmith; farm © Jim Leap

n the summer of 2012, a convoy of enormous, odd-looking trucks began descending on San Benito County, California, just east of Monterey Bay. Polly Goldman, who owns a farmstead near the small town of Aromas, snapped a picture of the strange vehicles and posted it online. “Somebody responded to that and said, ‘Those guys are sampling for oil,’” Goldman recalls. “And she said, ‘It’s probably for fracking.’” Not long afterward, Goldman found herself besieged. “People were actually swarming all over our property putting these recording devices down, and it felt like people were taking over our property without anyone protecting us.”

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Goldman and her neighbors began to face the prospect that their idyllic rural community, with its rugged coastal mountains and rolling farmland, could be transformed into a sprawling industrial frack zone. Their alarm grew when they learned that there were virtually no protections against fracking in place. They decided to take action.

Banding together to form Aromas Cares for Our Environment, and with critical assistance from NRDC’s Community Fracking Defense Campaign, they succeeded in advocating for a new ordinance to put meaningful limits on fracking for the first time in the county.

“The folks in San Benito County deserve tremendous credit for mobilizing quickly and effectively,” says NRDC Senior Attorney Damon Nagami. “Too many

communities across the country, though, are finding out too late that they’re on their own — that when it comes to fracking, neither the state nor the federal govern­ment has their back.”

Today, more than 15 million Americans live a mile or less from a fracking well.

Even as oil and gas companies have embarked on an all-out fracking spree, state and federal protections against this dangerous form of extraction remain shockingly lax or almost nonexistent, despite the myriad threats fracking poses to local water supplies and air quality.

In order to break apart rock and release

lobbying, oil and gas companies have been allowed to keep their toxic mix of chemicals secret from the communities where they drill, and their air emissions, which can include harmful pollutants like hydrogen sulfide, carcinogenic benzene and highly volatile compounds that form ozone, go largely unregulated as well.

Just how harrowing it can be to live on the front lines of the fracking frenzy was evident last June when a raging fire and more than 30 explosions rocked a Halliburton fracking site in Ohio, causing contam­ inated frack fluid to spill into Polly Goldman and Jim Leap, residents of a tributary of the Ohio River, Aromas, California, took action against fracking a major source of public in their community. Above: their farmstead. drinking water. Limited over­ oil and gas deposits, fracking pumps sight meant that the U.S. Environmental massive amounts of water and sand mixed Protection Agency had to wait five long with hazardous chemicals into the ground. days for Halliburton to deliver a full list Huge quantities of this contaminated of chemicals used at the site. While such “frack fluid” can return to the surface, accidents make headlines, many other where it is often dumped into large, harms go unreported. Residents who open-air pits lined with plastic sheeting. have had their way of life upended when These pits can overflow or rupture, the frackers moved in have complained allowing waste to seep into groundwater, of a host of health problems, from contaminate soil or run off into streams migraines, dizziness and nausea to or rivers. It can also poison waterways asthma and even sudden blackouts — when it’s inadequately treated at complaints the oil and gas industry has wastewater plants that are not equipped routinely dismissed. Predictably, the industry has been hostile to efforts to to handle it. Thanks to their aggressive

“Today, more than 15 million Americans live a mile or less from a fracking well.”

ronts

The impacts of fracking are threatening many public lands, including Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota (above). In Mount Pleasant Township, Pennsylvania, residents have reported health problems they link to fracking (far left). More than 30 explosions rocked a Halliburton fracking site in Ohio last June (left).

study the long-term health risks posed by fracking, but independent scientists have begun to assemble a disturbing picture of what it means to live amid the fracking boom. Studies have found elevated levels of hormone-disrupting chemicals and known carcinogens like arsenic and benzene in the groundwater near fracking sites, as well as alarming levels of air pollution. In parts of rural Wyoming, for example, researchers have measured ozone concentrations that are almost double the federal limit.

And a Colorado study found that babies born to mothers living in communities where fracking was intense were 30 percent more likely to suffer from congenital heart defects than babies born to mothers who did not live close to oil and gas wells.

From the grassroots on up, NRDC has been fighting to protect communities from this assault. As it did in San Benito County, our Community

Fracking Defense team has been empowering local residents with vital legal and technical assistance in key states where the oil and gas industry has been running roughshod over their rights and property. We helped win landmark legal victories in New York and Pennsylvania, where, in a pair

Robert Redford’s new video on fracking has reached more than 1.1 million people on Facebook. View the video at www.demandcleanpower.org

of stunning upsets, high courts ruled against Big Oil and Gas and upheld the right of communities to prohibit fracking on the basis of local zoning laws. Meanwhile, we continue to fight for moratoriums on fracking in California, New York and North Carolina and to advocate for strict controls on fracking in those states where it is already occurring.

At the federal level, NRDC Members are petitioning President Obama to take five critical steps, including 1) requiring oil and gas companies to publicly disclose all the chemicals they’re pumping into our environment, 2) setting tough standards to control toxic air pollution (including methane, the powerful global warming gas) and 3) producing a compre­hensive study on the risks fracking poses to our drinking water and ensuring it is protected. In addition, we’re calling on the administration to 4) reopen its invest­igations of drinking water contamination in communities that have been hit hard by fracking — investigations that the EPA dropped, leaving residents to suffer the conse­ quences. And we’re calling on President Obama to 5) close all public lands to fracking until our natural heritage is protected from industry’s abuses. More than 100,000 NRDC Members have called on the White House to intervene now and rein in the fracking menace by directing his agencies to take these five urgently needed actions.

Make your own voice heard at: www.frackalarm.org 5

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Energy Giant Resorts to Stealth in Tar Sands Pipeline Push n a flagrant end run around U.S. environ­mental law,

including a detailed and public environmental review, the

Canadian energy giant Enbridge has struck a backroom

Enbridge plan would modify an aging cross-border section

deal with the State Department that would allow the

of existing pipeline in an attempt to skirt such scrutiny.

company to dramatically increase imports of dirty tar sands

The company is no stranger to controversy: Its million-gallon

oil to the Great Lakes region.

spill of tar sands oil into Michigan’s

Enbridge is ultimately seeking to

Kalamazoo River in 2010 was the

double the capacity of its existing

most expensive inland oil spill in

Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline

U.S. history.

to more than 800,000 barrels a day,

“We’re fighting hard against Keystone

Right whales courtesy of NOAA; Enbridge pipeline courtesy of NTSB

which would put it on par with the

XL, but we can’t lose sight of the

climate-wrecking Keystone XL

larger tar sands invasion,” says

pipeline proposed by rival

Swift. “Big Oil is determined to move

TransCanada. “For the State

massive quantities of this climate-

Department to approve this scheme under cover of night makes a

Enbridge pipeline that caused the Kalamazoo spill.

mockery of our democratic process and undermines the president’s efforts to address climate change,” says Anthony Swift, an attorney with NRDC’s International Program.

destroying fuel into the United States in any way it can — by

pipeline, rail and barge. We’ve got to be prepared to engage on multiple fronts if we’re going to repel sneak attacks like this one.” More than 50,000 NRDC Members have already

While new pipelines crossing into the United States must

appealed to Secretary of State John Kerry to reverse his

undergo a lengthy approval process via the State Department,

department’s decision.

Oil and Gas Companies Threaten Seismic Assault

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arine life along the Atlantic Seaboard is under a new threat, following an Obama Administration decision to open up the coast — from New Jersey to Florida — to seismic exploration by oil and gas companies. The seismic search for oil would be highly destructive, involving arrays of underwater air guns, their blasts dynamite-loud, firing up and down the coast about every ten seconds for weeks or months at a time. “Not only is seismic exploration a gateway to offshore drilling, but it is a major assault on our ocean ecosystems, with far-reaching impacts on marine mammal populations, many of which are already imperiled,” says Michael Jasny, director of NRDC’s Marine Mammal Protection Project.

According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the bombardment of noise would injure up to 138,000 marine mammals and disrupt their feeding, calving and breeding across thousands of miles of ocean. Directly in the line of acoustic fire are the 500 remaining North 6

Atlantic right whales, one of the most endan­gered species on the planet. So great is the noise and the ocean’s ability to transmit it that right whales would be threatened off the coast of New England, hundreds of miles away from the seismic activity.

North Atlantic right whales.

In the wake of the administration’s policy change, oil and gas companies have begun applying for seismic exploration permits, and some of them are sure to commence operating in the Atlantic once they get approval. NRDC is prepared to go to court, if necessary, to challenge those permits and protect our fragile marine environments from this deafening threat. “Green-lighting seismic testing off the East Coast makes no sense for whales, for fisheries or for our children’s future in a warming climate,” says Jasny.

EPA Move Would Halt Pebble Mine

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RDC’s campaign to stop a toxic mega-mine that would imperil one of the world’s largest wild salmon runs took a dramatic turn over the summer when the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new limitations that would effectively block the project. More than 100,000 NRDC Members and online activists weighed in on the proposal, urging the EPA to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay wilderness from corporate plunder.

“EPA is acting in response to an extraordinary threat,” says NRDC Western Director Joel Reynolds. “I’ve seen a lot of ill-conceived development projects in my 25 years with NRDC, but the Pebble Mine is arguably the worst. There is simply no responsible way to gouge a mine of this scale out of the headwaters of Bristol Bay. It would be an environmental disaster waiting to happen.”

That point became shockingly clear less than a month after the EPA issued its proposed restrictions. At the Mount Polley copper and gold mine in central British Columbia, a major breach in an earthen dam unleashed a torrent of contaminated mine tailings — an estimated 1.3 billion gallons — which swept into nearby salmon streams and lakes. The dam was designed by Knight Piésold, the same company hired by Pebble’s corporate All of the environmental projects and victories described in Nature’s Voice are made possible through the generous support of Members like you. If you like what you read, you are invited to make a special contribution at www.nrdc.org/joingive

backers to design the enormous earthen dams in Alaska. Just last year, the company stated in a memo to the EPA, “Modern dam design technologies are based on proven scientific/engineering principles, and there is no basis for asserting that they will not stand the test of time.”

“Given the disaster at Mount Polley, there’s clearly no basis for asserting that these dams will stand the test of time. There never has been,” says Reynolds. “The dam at Mount Polley wasn’t even 20 years old. But the owners of the Pebble Mine want us to believe that its dams would hold forever in an active earthquake zone.

We’re not buying it.” The EPA is expected to announce a final decision on its proposal in the months ahead.

Until then, NRDC is keeping pressure on the agency to stand strong and not cave in to the mining lobby and its allies in Congress who are attacking the agency’s plan. We’re also focusing public outrage on Canada’s Northern Dynasty Minerals, the only remaining corporate backer of the Pebble Mine, until it abandons the project.

Tailings pond breach © Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press

At more than 2,000 feet deep, the Pebble Mine would be one of the largest open-pit mines in the world, generating some 10 billion tons of toxic mining waste held back by massive earthen dams. A rigorous scientific review of the project led the EPA to conclude that the mine posed potentially “catastrophic” risks to Bristol Bay and its $480 million salmon fishery. Now the agency has invoked its authority under the Clean Water Act in a move that would prohibit the mine.

More than a billion gallons of contaminated waste breached a dam at the Mount Polley mine in Canada. Inset: One of our latest ads against the proposed Pebble Mine.

Editor: Stephen Mills Writers: Jason Best, Emmet Wolfe Managing Editor: Liz Linke Designer: Dalton Design Director of Membership: Linda Lopez

Natural Resources Defense Council 40 W. 20th St., New York, NY 10011 www.nrdc.org/naturesvoice • 212-727-4500 email: naturesvoice@nrdc.org 7

Wolf © John Hyde

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Defending a Rare Wolf and the Alaskan Rainforest

nce again, stretches of The Tongass is America’s largest the Tongass National national forest and the heart of the Forest in southern Alaska largest temperate rainforest left are being threatened by chain on the planet, but for decades saws, and one victim could be it was subject to massive logging the rare Alexander Archipelago operations that devas­tated a million wolf. NRDC and Earthjustice acres of old growth — home to have filed suit against the U.S. wolves, grizzlies and eagles. Thanks Forest Service for approving to 20 years of NRDC litigation and a management plan that opens advocacy, logging in the Tongass venerable old-growth habitat has fallen by more than 90 percent to logging while failing to protect and most of its wildlands are now both the wolf — currently being off-limits to logging. But the pressure Fewer than 1,000 Alexander Archipelago considered for threatened to clearcut ancient trees remains wolves still roam the Tongass. species status — and its primary intense. Although the Obama prey, the Sitka black-tailed deer. “There’s probably less Admini­stration has committed to ending industrial logging of than 1,000 of these wolves left,” says NRDC Senior Attorney Tongass old growth, Forest Service officials want to defer the Niel Lawrence, “and the Forest Service is bound by law phaseout for a decade or more. “That’s just not acceptable,” to ensure a viable population of them. Instead the agency says Lawrence. “After all the destruction wrought on the Tongass, is sacrificing them to logging interests.” more clear­cutting of ancient trees is a national disgrace.”

SWiTCHBOARD Democracy 101 — Or, What Does David Vitter Want?

Posted by: David Goldston, director of NRDC Government Affairs

On September 2, NRDC received an investigative letter from Senator David Vitter (R-LA), Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) and four of their colleagues, demanding “all documents and commu­ nications” between NRDC and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on carbon emissions from existing power plants and the proposed Pebble Mine in Alaska. On the former issue, the EPA has announced the first national limits on the largest source of the pollution that is driving climate chaos. On the latter, it has proposed mining restrictions that would block the massive, open-pit gold and copper mine — a project that NRDC has strongly opposed [see article on page 7].

Vitter’s letter is awash in dark and ominous language about collusion and secrecy, but a close reading leads one to wonder: How does David Vitter think policy should be made? NRDC exists, in part, 8

to “shape agency action” — just like every other group, right or left, that engages in policy advocacy. That’s what we did here — NRDC’s climate experts developed a proposal, publicly released it and then met with everyone we could about it — news media, utilities, EPA; you name it.

The EPA took the proposal into consid­ eration — it didn’t adopt it outright, and indeed we will be publicly pushing for changes in what the EPA proposed.

And the agency considered the proposal not because of some dark intrigue, but because the proposal showed that it was possible to get significant carbon reductions at reasonable cost under current law — something that had not been clear previously. So what exactly is it that Vitter et al. see as wrong with this? Should NRDC not try to meet with the EPA to discuss a public proposal?

Vitter and his allies don’t seem to raise objections when industry meets with the EPA to make its case. Is getting someone in public office to agree with some of your ideas now “collusion”? Sounds more like representative democracy.

The letter claims NRDC played “an out­sized role” on these issues, which is apparently the authors’ way of saying that the EPA ended up agreeing with some of what NRDC had to say. Vitter and company oppose the proposals that the EPA has made on climate and the Pebble Mine, and they haven’t gotten much traction on attacking them on the merits. They’re angry and resentful that a president who supports climate action and protecting fisheries got elected. So they’ve decided to make the policy process sound nefarious. And in doing so, they’re using their congressional authority to harass entities they don’t like and try to get groups like NRDC to think twice before trying to influence policymakers.

Those trying to influence public policy using the normal tools of government should not have to fear investigation from those who oppose their proposals. Vitter and Issa are free to try to block policies they dislike and to try to elect different officials. That’s Democracy 101. Using investigations to shut down debate and make the basic process of advocacy sound suspicious — now that’s ominous.

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Photo: Š Tim Fitzharris/Minden Pictures

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