A Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement under the Clean Water Act was written in 1972 to set a cap on the amount of crud that could be dumped into Lake Michigan annually. The law set a limit on how much pollution companies could legally dump into the lake. The law also prevented any company that was dumping under the limit from increasing their dumped pollution.

Well, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently made an exception to this law for the $3.8 billion expansion of British Petroleum’s (BP’s) Whiting, Indiana plant. In exchange, the expansion is said to provide 80 more permanent jobs and 2,000 temporary construction jobs. The trade-off for this socio-economical exchange is 35% more sludge (a total of 4,925 pounds), and 54% more ammonia (a total of 1,584 pounds) pumped into Lake Michigan daily. Even though this increase in pollution is still below the federal and state limits, it is the first decision in years that allows a company to dump more toxic waste into Lake Michigan.
For a company that considers themselves "Beyond Petroleum" by supporting alternative energy development and environmental protection, they certainly are not displaying much attention beyond their own petroleum processing?

This Whiting, Indiana plant (currently the nation’s 4th largest refinery) was originally built in 1889 by John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil Co. We are happy that they are using the same facility, but due to the extra crude oil coming from Canada, BP can’t process the expanded volume in the same "small" plant. Therefore, the expansion became the obvious solution. The state excused this severe hike in pollution by saying the project will provide more jobs and security of oil suppliers to the Midwestern United States.

This is what the trade-off actually is: this "toxic sludge" is a cocktail of concentrated heavy metals and suspended solids that does not-so-nicely mix with our fresh-water swimming lakes. The ammonia becomes a problem when it provides a habitat for healthy algae bloom, thus killing the native fish, and altering the aquaculture of the fresh water.

Since the public announcement of the EPA permit grant in mid-June, people are also unhappy with the way these events rolled out. An environmental group, the Alliance for the Great Lakes, filed a petition asking Indiana’s Office of Environmental Adjudication to suspend the permit and reopen the appeal process due to inadequate public scrutiny. When the permit draft was made available for review, many organizations submitted comments on it. Yet, when the final permit was made available, these organizations were not informed on the proper date, nor were they informed of the appeal process. Now the Indiana Department of Environmental Management claims that the appeal process is closed because it is 15 days past the post date of the final permit. Over 70,000 people across the Great Lakes and the nation have signed this petition.

Additionally, Great Lakes supporters spread out over BP stations all over the Midwest region handing out flyers explaining the situation and requesting that customers fill up elsewhere. As this momentum builds, awareness speads, and hopefully BP will either change their ways or admit that they are beyond caring about the Great Lakes. We prefer the former to the later.

To sign the petition yourself go to:
Environment Michigan

U.S. National Bird: image courtesy of Ackerlund's Guide ServiceYesterday, June 28, 2007 the Interior Department took the American Bald Eagle off the Endangered Species List. After 40 years of living threatened and lonely, the Center for Biological Diversity released a report stating that there are over 11,000 pairs in the contiguous U.S. This is a startling number when compared to the all-time low of only 417 pairs in the 60’s. This population's decimation was always said to be due to hunting, habitat destruction, and the use of DDT on our agricultural crops. For so many years it was an honor and a surprise to spot a Bald Eagle and know you were in the presence of such a survivor, but what will happen to their flourishing population when asked to remove their “Federally Protected Property” sign from their nest?

From an FWS press release June 28, 2007 Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne states:

After years of careful study, public comment and planning, the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are confident in the future security of the American Bald Eagle," Kempthorne said. "From this point forward, we will work to ensure that the eagle never again needs the protection of the Endangered Species Act.

The good news is that earlier in June, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service implemented the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act and published a set of National Bald Eagle Management Guidelines. These rules protect the birds from developers who might be tempted to destroy their nests. Also, to stabilize this healthy, flourishing population, the Service is establishing a permit program that will allow a limited take of bald and golden eagles. This means we can still remove some from the wild by permit, but without permit we are prohibited to take, sell, kill, or harm eagles.

More good news is that we have a month to adjust to the fact that there are more Bald Eagles out there than most of us thought. The removal of the Bald Eagle from the list will be official thirty days after publication.

The original weakened population was due to widespread use of DDT (Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), the first modern agricultural pesticide used widely after World War II. The eagles began laying eggs with weakened shells, which put a great stress on the population. When it finally reached the low point of 417 pair, protection was set in place in 1967. The Endangered Species Act followed, and was initiated in 1973, headlining the Bald Eagle as one of the first species.

The fact that the population has risen due to this protection is a national model for cooperation with environmental protection laws. Yet the question is, if we were doing so well, why stop protecting them? And, I hate to say it, but if we take them off the list and dilute the penalty, will the population continue to flourish? Certain states with a lower population are requesting to keep their state protected under the Endangered Species Act, but they have been denied thus far. Arizona governor Janet Napolitano requested their exemption, saying Arizona's native populations (which use eagle feathers for ceremonial purposes) were not adequately consulted. That request was denied, saying the region had "the appropriate number of eagles" and that Arizona's eagles did not meet the criteria to be protected as a distinct population segment.

What will happen? We will have to find out, but there is a way to communicate with the top dogs in charge. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is currently accepting public comments on this topic.
Comments on the monitoring plan must be received 90 days after publication in the Federal Register. Comments may be sent by mail to Bald Eagle Post-Delisting Monitoring Plan Comments, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Rock Island Field Office, 1511 47th Avenue, Moline, Illinois 61265. Comments may also be transmitted electronically to baldeaglePDM@fws.gov or by following the instructions at the Federal eRulemaking Portal: .

A little history on DDT, I thought you might like to know:

• In World War II it was used as a mosquito repellant the prevent the spreading of disease like malaria and typhus
• Paul Hermann Muller won the Nobel Prize in 1948 “for his discovery of the high efficiency of DDT as a contact poison against arthropods”.
• Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, which catalogued DDT as the most detrimental pesticide in terms on environmental impacts. Her
• Silent Spring let to a public outcry that eventually got DDT banned in the U.S.

See also:

Environmental Defense, "Eagle's Return Shows Species Law Works"

Devils Lake installation: image courtesy of Green Museum

There is a little family of asexual plants commonly known as duckweed, and otherwise known in the botanical world as lemnaceae. These smallest flowering plants are lean, lime-green, clean, eating machines. Lemna is the most common of this family, and has quite a profound impact for its size. Each plant has one paper thin leaf the size of the tip of an eraser. They thrive in freshwater lakes, streams, and ponds high in nitrogen, ammonias, and phosphorus. As they feed on these “excess nutrients” the tiny plants help remediate the water on which they live atop.

Though these lime-green plants are tiny, there is no need to call them fragile. They can grow in full sunshine or dense shade, and they endure a challenging range of ph levels. They hibernate during the cold months at the bottom of their watershed and, come May, the plant “springs” up and gets to work cleaning its ecosystem. This tiny plant has been known to cover bodies the size of football fields in just a couple months. It goes unsaid that these tiny soldiers are friend and not foe when it comes to water remediation.

When artist and engineer Viet Ngo established a company back in 1983 called Lemna International that applauds and utilizes the capabilities of these mini soldiers, we weren’t surprised. Ngo, a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant, and his colleagues got a little fame when they designed a carefully engineered art installation in 1990 on Devils Lake, ND. Funded by the EPA, they designed and implemented the beautiful 50 acre, 9 channel, intestine-like system that extracted all detrimental phosphorus, nitrogen, and algae from the wetland before the water reached a bay of Devils Lake. This $50 million project encouraged the group of designers, artists, and engineers to combine the profoundly simple yet complex water remediation technology with other environmental infrastructure problems to clean up the earth. Over 25 years later, the company is managing its success with innovation, consciousness, and integrity.

Lemna International designs environmentally responsible and economical wastewater treatment technologies that naturally clean our polluted waterways. They design for everything form dams to freshwater remediation to drinking water treatment plants, pipelines, and distribution systems. Based in Minneapolis, MN the company has designed and implemented over 300 projects in 16 countries.

The company does not stop at only providing us with clean water. They make sure our water stays clean by removing any harmful waste and either safely putting it in landfills built to international standards, or incinerating it to generate electricity and heat in facilities equipped with air pollution control systems. Their impressive profile of clients ranges from industrial food manufacturers and tire plants to hospitals. They additionally serve a number of cities worldwide.

As the company gained momentum with their patented water remediation technology, they have branched out into additional sectors of environmental infrastructure including transportation, alternative energy, and general infrastructure. Like the lean, lime-green, clean, machines that duckweed are, Lemna International is actively seeking to fix any environmental problem a private or public client might have with an ingenious and unique solution!

Recent headlines have been telling us about a class of chemical detergents or surfactants (nonylphenol ethoxylates, NPE’s) found in many industrial and household cleaners that have been reported to cause male fish to develop female characteristics. This hormone instability is commonly due to foreign “hormone disruptors”. The hormone instability occurs when a foreign chemical is introduced to the body and imitates our natural hormones. The toxins bind to the same sites in our body where natural hormones bind, therein blocking the site from our natural hormones.

This chemical disruption is not going to facilitate spawning! Do we dare to question what these chemicals are doing to us? A World Wildlife Foundation Briefing on the chemical states that "NPEs has been shown to mimic the action of the female hormone oestrogen, and it is a potential factor in the increasing incidence of reproductive organ disorders and decreasing sperm counts in men."

The Sierra Club has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to ban this compound in areas where wastewater treatment plants are not equipped to extract it. The greater question is, how is it getting into our waterways and estuaries and effecting wildlife? In this I respond with: water is the most abundant molecule on earth, it is also referred to as the universal solvent. Combine these two facts and we get a lot of water that is not clean.

The World Wildlife Foundation report on how NPEs are reaching our water environment:

• 37% NPEs via the sewer system
• 46% via sludge spreading on agricultural land

Chemical pollutants that cause hazardous runoff come from lawn fertilizers, industrial pesticides, household cleaners, leaky tailpipes, industrial waste, store byproduct (such as a drycleaners), this runoff is not good. If you take this information inside with the newspaper, you realize that the pollution in your home is due to off gassing from materials you bring in that were treated with chemicals (everything from carpet to magazines) and cleaning products.

So here is the simple solution: just read your labels. We can’t eradicate chemical pollution immediately, but we can start acting consciously by purchasing safe and simple cleaning products, fertilizers, and food. A rule to shop by, if you can’t read it, don’t eat it (remember that 46% of this stuff is spread on our industrial farms-buy organic), and if you can’t pronounce it, don’t spray it on your counter (when you wash your hands this water goes down the drain to the treatment plant…).

One of the scariest commercials on TV right now is for a cleaning company whose products contain compounds we should not come in oral contact with. It shows the mom cleaning the countertop with this product then her child eating cookies from a box that just tipped over onto the same countertop. The mom is relieved because she just cleaned the counter from harmful bacteria, but simultaneously she could have put harmful chemicals on it that are equally as disrupting to her child’s health.

One sixth of the world’s population does not have access to safe drinking water. Most water born problems are due to bacteria that cause them to contract harmful diseases. We don’t need to add chemical hormone disruption to this list. In purchasing safe cleaning products, food, and supporting safe practices we are creating a safer living environment, reducing pollution in our waterways, enabling biodiversity, promoting natural reproduction, and helping to provide safer drinking water for the entire world.

WWF: Nonylphenol Ethoxylates (NPE)

The Green Report: Ban Sought on Detergent Ingredient

Image Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography