Oil Spill Continues to Spread in the Gulf of Mexico

Last Saturday, an underwater pipeline owned by Shell leaked over 58,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.  The spill ocurred a mere 30 miles from the coast of Louisiana.  By Monday, the spill covered 28 square miles.  Today, it covers 80 square miles.  The spill comes at an awkward time for drilling advocates as the debate in the Senate rages over whether to open more of the Gulf to drilling.  The current energy bill which has been reported out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee opens up all of the eastern Gulf to drilling up to 45 miles from Florida's coast in most places and 25 miles in some.  Many of these advocates repeatedly point to the rigs in the Gulf as symbols of clean and safe modern oil technology.  As this spill shows with devastating clarity, oil production involves much more than oil rigs.  All the associated infrastructure necessary to transfer, store, and refine that crude oil into a useful product are just as vulnerable to leaks and spills as an oil rig.  So as long as we have archaic pipelines criscrossing the bottom of the Gulf transporting thousands of gallons of oil every day, newer and safer rig technology won't make a difference.  Oil drilling is still a dirty business.

The image below, provided by SkyTruth, pinpoints the location of the spill as well as outlining in red the network of subsurface pipelines.

Department of the Interior Withdraws Flawed Oregon Logging Plan

Sierra Club and others in the conservation community celebrated an Obama administration decision made last Wednesday to cancel a Bush-era plan that would have nearly quadrupled current logging on public lands in western Oregon.  The Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR), as it was known, was withdrawn on the grounds that the previous administration had failed to follow procedure when drawing up the plans.  Specifically, the plan was developed without proper consultation of impacts on endangered species under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.

Courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service

The forests in western Oregon will now revert to being managed under the Northwest Forest Plan which governed timber sales from 1994-2008.  Additionally, the government will request that the District Court vacate a Fish and Wildlife 2008 revision of spotted owl critical habitat.  It was this faulty revision on which the WOPR was partly based.  If the court agrees, the designated critical habitat for the owl would again be the 6.9 million acres that were designated in 1992.

The Obama administration's move signals a return to scientific management of our public forests and marks an importatn step towards protecting Oregon's remaining mature and old growth forests from unsustainable logging and roadbuilding.  These last wild forests protect the climate, produce clean water, and sustain world class salmon runs and recreational opportunities that contribute to Oregon's diverse economy

Administration to Proceed with Gulf Drilling Despite Legal Uncertainty

The U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS) is planning to go ahead with an August 19th lease sale in the western Gulf of Mexico.  The sale will cover 18 million acres off the coast of Texas and lies anywhere from nine to 250 miles offshore.  This announcement comes at a time of uncertainty as to whether planned offshore lease sales could proceed after a court case blocked lease sales in Alaska.

That decision was handed down by a federal appeals court this past April and challenged the MMS's 2007-2012 Outer Continental Shelf Leasing Program.  The decision specifically addressed the lack of proper environmental review for the leasing areas in Alaska's Bering, Beaufort, and Chukchi Seas but many experts agreed that the case invalidated the entire leasing program.

It appears that the Department of the Interior doesn't agree, however, as it intends to go forward with this lease sale.  Despite being in an area that was not covered by the Congressional moratorium that expired last year, this sale is a mistake.  The court decision clearly called into question the environmental review process for a 5-year program that was pushed through by the Bush administration as it was leaving office.

Alaskan Kensington Mine Temporarily Stalled

One month ago the Supreme Court upheld a permit that would allow a gold mine to dump its waste directly into a freshwater lake.  Last week, however, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) called on the U.S. Corps of Engineers to undertake a reevaluation of the permit.  The agency estimates that this could take around eight months and would include a new public comment period.

The permit was issued and upheld largely because of a 2004 Bush EPA memo that redefined the 'fill' material that could be dumped directly into bodies of water to include toxic, industrial, and wastewater slurries.  We must use this temporary stall to tell the EPA and the Council on Environmental Quality to reverse this dangerous memo and ensure that we protect and safeguard our clean waters.

You can send your comments here.

Department of the Interior Puts Hold on Grand Canyon Uranium Mines

This past Monday, Secretary Salazar announced that the Department of the Interior (DOI) is barring the filing of new uranium mining claims on 1 million acres surrounding the Grand Canyon National Park.  The hold on claims will last for two years while the Department studies the environmental effects that reviving uranium mining could have.  However, depending on the outcome of those studies, DOI has the power to extend that hold up to 20 years.

Courtesy of the National Park Service

During the past several years, high uranium prices have created a frenzied rush to file claims under the 1872 hardrock mining law.  There are more than 10,000 claims in the area and more than 2,000 of those are within 10 miles of the Grand Canyon.  If these claims turn into active mines the Colorado River, underground aquifers, and one of our nation's most treasured icons will be seriously threatened.

Chairman of the Parks Subcommitte Grijalva (D-Ariz.) has introduced legislation that would offer lasting protections for the region.  H.R. 644, the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2009, would permanently bar new mining claims in much of the same 1 million acres that Secretary Salazar intends to study.  The Sierra Club is working closely with Congress and the Havasupai Tribe to ensure that this protection is ensured.

Tell Secretary Salazar thank you for his actions.

See our press release here.

Obama Administration Approves Logging in Tongass Roadless Area

This past Monday the Obama administration approved its first timber sale in a roadless area.  The Orion North sale grants a Ketchikan lumber mill in the Tongass National Forest to clearcut 381 acres.  This is a very disappointing decision, especially considering President Obama's support for roadless areas as a senator and the pledge to uphold the 2001 Roadless Rule that he made as a presidential candidate.

This past May, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack issued a directive requiring Forest Service projects in roadless areas to pass through the Secretary's desk for approval.  This procedural directive was perceived as a way to ensure that impacts to roadless areas were minimized or eliminated altogether while the administration crafted a comprehensive roadless policy.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule was established by the Clinton administration in 2001 and protected 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest land.  These roadless areas provide clean drinking water to 60 million Americans, provide habitat for 1,500 distinct wildlife species, and help create the connectivity our public lands and wildlife need to adapt in the face of climate change.

Even though the 2001 Roadless Rule received the most extensive public input of any federal rule in history, the Bush administration spent eight years trying to weaken the rule, including an attempt to replace it with a petition process by which states could opt to open their roadless areas to development.

We hope that the Obama administration's recent decision is not indicative of the roadless policy that it is working to develop.  The increasing threats of climate change make protecting roadless areas even more important now than it was eight years ago.  It is critical that President Obama keep his pledge to uphold the 2001 Roadless Rule, including protection for the Tongass National Forest.

New Study Shows Need to Focus Fire Suppression Efforts on Protecting Communities First

A recent report shows that of the 44,000 fuel reduction projects in the Western U.S. under Bush's National Fire Plan in the past 5 years, only 3 percent were actually in the wildland-urban interface, the critical areas surrounding communities.  This finding reinforces what the Sierra Club has been saying all along, that the Forest Service needs to make protecting communities first the top priority of any fire policy.  A summary of the report is available here.

Unfortunately, instead of prioritizing areas immediately around communities, the Bush administration often used fire prevention as an excuse to open backcountry forest to the timber industry.  We are now paying the price with more at-risk communities and less resilient forests.  It's time now to use our federal firefighting resources wisely and to focus on keeping homes and communities safe.

As the study shows, much of the wildland-urban interface across the country is privately owned, so we must also continue to work with the Forest Service to better educate the public what areas are at-risk and what you can do to better fire-proof your home and property.

Department of the Interior Pushes for Renewable Energy on Public Lands

Last week, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the ongoing study of 670,000 acres of public land for the development of solar energy.  This study includes twenty-four separate tracts of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.  The announcement, while stating an intention to speed up development of renewables on public lands, also clearly stated Salazar's intent to maintain all the values of public lands.  These values include environmental protection and stewardship.

Salazar announced that by the end of 2010 he expects there to be 13 commercial solar project constructions on public lands.  This is certainly ambitious and we look forward to Salazar's intention to use our lands for clean energy instead of developing more climate-changing dirty fuels.  We expect to see this renewable energy developed and sited cleanly and responsibly and with as little impact on the land as possible.  Considering the millions of acres available for oil and gas, this is welcome direction to be heading.

Gray Wolves Regain Temporary Protection in Western Great Lakes

The long saga of the gray wolf has yet another chapter to add.  Most recently, the Obama administration chose to uphold a Bush administration delisting of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  This applied to all populations of the wolf except those in Wyoming where state management plans were not deemed stringent enough to secure protection.  However, last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reached a settlement agreement with plaintiffs in a lawsuit that had challenged the Service's removal of the Western Great Lakes sub-population of the wolf.

Credit: Gary Kramer/US Fish and Wildlife Service

Gray wolves in this region have exceeded the recovery goals that were set when it was first listed under the ESA.  However, in reaching this settlement, the Forest Service agrees that the public comment and review required under federal law was not sufficient to make the final decision.  The Service has agreed to allow additional opportunity for public comment on the rule and during that time the wolves will regain the protections that they enjoyed previously: the status of threatened in Minnesota and the status of endangered elsewhere.

National Forest Management Act Restored

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California overturned Bush's final attempt to repeal key protections for national forests under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).  The rule was issued in April 2008 and looked very similar to a 2005 rule, one which was also thrown out by a federal court.  Both rules eliminated requirements that national forests, as well as national grasslands, be managed for populations of all wildlife species, to preserve streams and lakes, and to protect diversity among forest ecosystems.  Additionally, the rules reduced public participation in forest management decisions.

courtesy of the National Park Service

The Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Wilderness Society were represented in the case by Earthjustice.  The rules were overturned on the basis that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.  They violated the former by approving regulations that were based on a faulty environmental impact statement and they violated the latter by failing to take into account the effects of eliminating wildlife protection standards on protected species.  By making certain that our forests and grasslands are managed not for extractive purposes but for water, wildlife, and ecosystems we can make them more adaptable habitats as the climate continues to warm.

This legal victory further bolsters efforts to update and modernize wildlife management on federal lands.  Reps. Kind (D-WI) and Jones (R-NC) recently introduced America's Wildlife Heritage Act (HR 2807), a bill that would provide agencies with the necessary science-based tools to monitor wildlife and manage for sustainable populations in the face of the 21st century challenges brought on by climate change and shifting habitats.  The Sierra Club is working with various sporting and conservation organizations to pass this significant legislation and ensure that we further improve management of our country's unique wildlife values.