Idahoans Fight 'Mega-Load' Truck Route Through Wild & Scenic Corridor

Photo by Leland Howard, courtesy of Leland Howard Fine Art Landscape Photography

Idahoans are rightly proud of the Lochsa and Middle Fork Clearwater Rivers. Tumbling through a wild stretch of the Clearwater National Forest in north-central Idaho, both are designated Wild & Scenic Rivers. During the spring, the Lochsa—which runs just north of the spectacular Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness—is rated as one of the world's top rivers for "continuous whitewater."

Photo courtesy of Mountain Murmur

U.S. Highway 12, which parallels the Lochsa and Middle Fork Clearwater for nearly 100 miles, is also a source of local pride. The stretch of Hwy. 12 between Kooskia, Idaho, and the Montana border was one of the last two-lane U.S. highways to be built, completed only in the 1960s. Paralleling the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail for more than 80 miles, it provides access to wild, pristine hinterlands where rafters, kayakers, hunters, anglers, hikers, bikers, and recreationists of all stripes can pursue their passions.

But the Northwest Passage Scenic Byway, as Hwy. 12 through Idaho is known, is threatened by a plan by ExxonMobil and Imperial Oil of Canada to turn the route into a "mega-load" industrial truck corridor to transport massive tar sands plant "modules, assembled cheaply in South Korea and shipped across the Pacific to the inland port of Lewiston, through Idaho and Montana to Canada. The modules will then be used to construct Imperial/Exxon's proposed Kearl Project, a tar sands extraction and processing site near Fort McMurray, Alberta.

Longtime Sierra Club member Borg Hendrickson and her husband Linwood Laughy, below, with the Middle Fork Clearwater running behind them, live in Kooskia, in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains where the Middle and South Forks of the Clearwater converge. Last year, outraged by the Exxon/Imperial plan, the couple started Fighting Goliath, a grassroots network and information clearinghouse through which citizens opposed to the tar sands haul route can communicate and coordinate action.

"We've been mega-load opposition activists for a year now, and Fighting Goliath has become the focal networking place for mega-load opponents," Hendrickson says. "We maintain the website and the email list and provide people with resources, updates, and ways they can take action."

The mega-load route along Highway 12 is a bad idea for loads of reasons, she says. The Fighting Goliath website provides the Top 20 Reasons U.S. 12 is Special. But tree-trimming crews are cutting a "high and wide" swath along the Wild & Scenic River corridor, shearing highway-side tree branches up to a height of 32 feet to create a rectangular tunnel through the forest for the mega-loads.

Particularly galling to Wild & Scenic private property easement holders is the fact that they encounter bureaucratic obstacles trying to secure permission to cut limbs along the Wild & Scenic corridor, while ExxonMobil simply hires trimmers, and with the acquiescence of the Clearwater National Forest and Idaho Transportation Department, begins cutting.

Proposed Nuclear Plant Nixed in Colorado

In a major win for the Colorado Sierra Club and its coalition allies, on Monday, April 25, the Pueblo County commissioners voted to reject a land use designation that would have locked in county approval of a proposed nuclear power plant.

Above, Bob Kinsey of Colorado Physicians for Social Responsibility speaks at an April 1 "No Fools No Nukes" rally at the Pueblo County Courthouse. The Sierra Club helped organize the rally along with Puebloans for Smart Energy, Better Pueblo, and Pueblo Citizens for Clean Air.

"This is a victory for our environment and the health of future generations," says Joan Seeman, a nuclear and toxics specialist with the Club's Rocky Mountain Chapter. "Pueblo has cheaper, cleaner energy sources available that can grow the local economy with good, green jobs and a broadened tax base."

The commissioners' decision to reject the new nuclear plant received widespread media coverage, including this spot on KRDO13 ABC News. Below, the April 1 "No Fools No Nukes" rally.

Tribal Leader Urges Stronger EPA Regulation of Coal-Fired Power Plants

"Our relatives have always eaten fish," says Lee Sprague, a member of the Tribal Council of the Little River Band of Ottowa Indians in Manistee, Michigan, in an April 21 op-ed in the Muskegon Chronicle. "When I was young, it was taught to me that you always eat what you catch. This teaching has been with our peoples since time immemorial."

But with the development of coal-fired power plants, mercury has found its way into Michigan's water systems and into the fish. "Now when my youngest son catches a fish," Sprague says, "I cannot feed him the fish that he caught because it may have mercury in it. My three daughters, two of whom are now of childbearing age, cannot eat the fish in Michigan without endangering the life of future generations. This contradicts what our elders have always taught us to do."

"Thankfully," he says, "there may be a solution. This month, the U.S. EPA proposed a long-overdue update to the Clean Air Act that will strengthen public health protections from coal-fired power plants." But forces are at work to undermine the EPA's authority to issue these rules.

"We need the EPA's strong new protections from toxic mercury so we can all reduce mercury levels quickly and decisively for future generations," says Sprague, whose column also ran on the Native News Network's website on Earth Day. The EPA is holding public hearings on their proposed mercury and air toxics standards on May 24 in Chicago and Philadelphia and May 26 in Atlanta.

[See bottom of post for specifics on EPA hearings.]

Sustainability Pays

Photo by Natalia Korobova, courtesy of CORE Colorado

By Becky English, Energy Committee Chair for the Sierra Club's Rocky Mountain Chapter

Each spring, Connected Organizations for a Responsible Economy — CORE Colorado — hosts its premier annual conference, the Sustainable Opportunities Summit in Denver. 

At this year's gathering of people from business, education, financial institutions and nonprofits, there was one overriding message: Sustainability Pays. No longer is sustainable business behavior something to be relegated to an annual gesture of philanthropy, or a token recycling program. Instead, sustainability is merging into mainstream business best practices, and is reflected in a number of benefits, including improved profitability. 

Auden Schendler, below, Vice President of Sustainability for the Aspen Skiing Company and author of the book Getting Green Done, emphasized climate change urgency in his keynote speech. The ski industry is clearly more sensitive and vulnerable to global warming than other businesses may be. Schendler's plea for widespread adoption of sustainable strategies carries considerable weight, in part because Colorado's tourism and recreation sectors are very important in the state's economy.

Photo by Natalia Korobova, courtesy of CORE Colorado

This year's summit reflected that convergence of sustainable values. A number of speakers identified places in their corporate operations where doing the right thing for the earth and its systems was also exactly the right thing for optimizing business profit, creating loyal customers and employees, and building strong brands.

In Search of Another Good Bad Branch

Cumberland Chapter clean water activist and lifelong sportsman Tim Guilfoile was recently named Conservation Editor of a new online magazine, The Contemporary Sportsman, where he authors a regular column, Wilderness Journal, in his official capacity as Deputy Director of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels Program.

Guilfoile was honored earlier this month as a Legal Hero by the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program, one of only 18 people to be so honored over the last decade.

Contemporary Sportsman publisher Jim Stenson says a Sierra Club presence in a fly-fishing or hunting magazine is a natural fit. "I know a lot of Sierra Club members hunt and fish," he says. "At its heart, Contemporary Sportsman is a very green magazine, and so is its sister publication, Contemporary Wingshooter. I want to give the Club an opportunity to interact with our members and our demographic. They participate in conservation, and we're more than happy to promote the Sierra Club's watershed and habitat projects."

Guilfoile's latest column, In Search of Another Good Bad Branch (scrollable PDF), recounts his visit to a stream in the mountains of eastern Kentucky called Bad Branch. As part of the Bad Branch Falls Nature Preserve, the stream is off-limits to fishing. But its pristine beauty inspired Guilfoile to set off in search of other mountain streams where he could indulge his passion for fly-fishing.

Although he'd fished the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, Guilfoile had never fished the range in his home state. He got the most current computerized topographical maps available and chose an area that looked like it would be chock-full of good fishing streams. What he found when he got there shocked him.

Ten Thousand Youth Activists Push For Climate Action at Power Shift 2011

Photo by Kim Teplitzky

An estimated 10,000 activists from around the country converged on Washington, D.C., from April 15-18 for the third biannual Power Shift, a 3-day climate summit featuring seminars, job fairs, films, speeches, panel discussions, and workshops in community organizing and movement-building.The aim is to train and recruit new front-line troops in the clean energy and climate movement.

[Click on any image in this post to watch a 45-second video of Power Shift 2011.]

Photo by Heather Moyer

Power Shift 2011, billed as the largest grassroots training event in the nation's history, culminated on April 18 with a gathering in front of the White House, marches to the Department of the Interior, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and British Petroleum's Washington headquarters, and a Lobby Day on Capitol Hill calling on lawmakers to reject campaign contributions from corporate polluters.

Photo by Kim Teplitzky

To make sure their message reverberated locally as well as nationally, demonstrators rallied on the steps of GenOn Energy's lobbying headquarters in Washington to demand the retirement of the Potomac River Coal Plant in nearby Alexandria, Virginia. "GenOn is literally making us sick," said Chelsea Roseberry, a student at George Mason University and a Sierra Club volunteer. "I'm here to expose the truth about Big Coal."

Photo by Phillip Ellis

A Clean Air Task Force report has found that pollution from the GenOn plant is responsible for 37 deaths, 60 heart attacks, 610 asthma attacks, and over $287 million in total healthcare costs annually in the Washington, D.C. area. Nationally, GenOn is responsible for more than 12,000 asthma attacks, 815 deaths, and $5.6 billion in healthcare costs each year.

Miami University Becomes 16th School to Move Beyond Coal

The first week of April, Miami University of Ohio announced it would immediately begin reducing the amount of coal burned on campus and eventually eliminate it altogether, validating the demands of Miami students who have worked for months to pressure the university to improve local health by abandoning coal. Above, student activists celebrate the decision.

"This shows that young people in Ohio aren't sitting idly by, waiting for campuses to protect our health," said Janina Klimas, coordinator of the Ohio Student Environmental Coalition. "Students across the state are stepping up and organizing on their own campuses to make the transition away from coal."

"The momentum and power of this movement has proven itself time and again," said Christian Adams, a junior at Miami and a representative of Miami Beyond Coal. "Dirty coal power is clearly on its way out of American campuses and communities. History is on our side."

Miami's move is part of a strong trend among schools in Ohio and across the country to reduce pollution by ruling out the future use of coal as an energy source. In March, Ohio University announced it would move off coal by 2016. Case Western Reserve University announced last summer that it would eliminate coal in its district heating system, and Oberlin College published a plan this January calling for its coal plant to be eliminated in favor of landfill gas.

"Every year that coal is burned on campus means more asthma, more lung disease, and more heart problems for local residents," said Nachy Kanfer of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. "That's why we'll keep pushing to eliminate coal as soon as possible." 

The Sierra Student Coalition has been instrumental in moving campuses off coal. Miami joins Cornell, Penn State, Case Western Reserve, Ohio University, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Clemson, Oberlin, Louisville, Western Kentucky, Eastern Illinois, Western Illinois, Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Missouri University of Science & Technology, SUNY-Binghamton, and Wisconsin-Madison.

"This victory at Miami University is proof that students are helping lead the fight for clean energy," said Beyond Coal Director Mary Anne Hitt, "and they are winning."

Want to get your campus off coal? Check out the Campuses Beyond Coal guide book.

Hollywood Hair-Testing Event Makes News in L.A.

On April 13, the Sierra Club's Los Angeles Beyond Coal Campaign hosted a mercury hair-testing event in a Hollywood hair salon that was featured on ABC News' afternoon and evening telecasts. Watch the 2-minute segment here.

ABC Channel 7 is the most-watched news program in Los Angeles, averaging about 200,000 viewers. Club organizer Chrissy Scarborough took the lead on planning and coordinating the event.

"I'm always curious about mercury levels," participant Annie Phyo told ABC7 correspondent Denise Dador. "I know that it's in our environment, it can be contaminated in our food sources."

Women who came to the Primrose Organics Salon had 30 strands of their hair clipped to test for mercury in their bodies. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, as many as one in 12 American women have enough mercury in their bodies to put a baby at risk-meaning some 300,000 infants may be at increased risk of in-utero mercury exposure.

Among those who had her hair clipped was Huffington Post blogger Lisa Boyle, below. Read her post about mercury, the Club's hair-testing event, and the connection between coal and mercury.

Coal-fired power plants are the largest domestic source of federally unregulated mercury pollution in the United States. "We're hoping that this test will help highlight how coal's pollution affects people right here in Los Angeles," Sierra Club spokesman David Graham-Caso told ABC News.

Although Los Angeles receives nearly 40 percent of its electricity from coal-fired power, the nearest coal power plants are in Utah and Arizona. But as Graham-Caso explained, pollution from those plants affects not only nearby communities, but residents of California as well.

"Coal-fired power plants emit toxic clouds of pollution with a lot of different pollutants which then get rained down in the rivers and streams and end up in our fish, in the ecosystem, and on our dinner tables here in Los Angeles," he said.

New Water Sentinels Group Working to Protect Arizona's San Pedro River

 

Thanks to Arizona Water Sentinels Sandy Bahr and Steve Pawlowski, the San Pedro River, one of the most vibrant but endangered rivers in the state, will now be the focus of protection efforts under the umbrella of the Sierra Club's Water Sentinels Program.

Bahr, director of the Club's Grand Canyon Chapter, and Pawlowski, the chapter's Water Sentinels coordinator, teamed up with the University of Arizona and the Bureau of Land Management to train volunteers to test water quality and set up a plan to regularly monitor the San Pedro, one of only two rivers that flow north from Mexico into the United States. Below, volunteers at the training.

"The San Pedro is really important and essential to the survival of a number of imperiled species," Bahr told a reporter from the Sierra Vista Herald who came out to cover the event. "About 60 percent of Arizona's native wildlife relies on riparian areas associated with rivers and streams."

Under the tutelage of Bahr, Pawlowski, a water quality specialist from the University of Arizona, and a hydrologist from the BLM, some 20 volunteers from the Sierra Vista area, southeast of Tucson near the Mexican border, learned the basics of water testing.

Pawlowski outlined a plan to test four times a year at five different points along the river, and the newly anointed Upper San Pedro Water Sentinels got hands-on and knee-deep as they took water samples on the river. That's volunteer Eva Nagy, above.

Photo by Tiffany Sprague

The group will monitor the river's vital signs by testing its pH level and amounts of dissolved oxygen and dissolved solids. They will also collect samples for a lab in Tucson that will analyze E. Coli levels in the water. The data will be given to the BLM to help determine if the San Pedro is in compliance with water-quality standards that have been set for it.

Also part of the group's agenda is to conduct regular cleanups of the Upper San Pedro. The first cleanup—a joint effort with Huachuca Audubon, Friends of the San Pedro River, and the BLM—took place last December on a 5-mile stretch of the river, and another was held April 2 at a different location.

"We've demonstrated that we're capable of effectively killing rivers in Arizona, but we've not yet demonstrated that we can save them," Bahr told the group. "That's part of what you all are doing."

Earlier this year, Bahr was recognized by the Arizona Republic, the state's largest newspaper, as one of Ten Inspiring Women in Arizona.

 

Learn more about the Water Sentinels and find a project near you.

A 530-Mile Trek From the Colorado River to the Pacific Ocean

                                           Photo by Jeff Alu, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Longtime Sierra Club volunteer Cal French, a distant cousin of fabled 19th century trapper, explorer, and author Jedediah Smith, is undertaking a 530-mile trek from the Colorado River to the Pacific, retracing part of Smith's 1826 journey in which he led a band of 16 men from Utah to California.

"You can drive from start to finish in a long day," says French, 74. "So why walk it? To show that someone can walk across the heart of California on public and conservancy land, avoiding roads and highways, over an area that still looks natural. Through this personal connection with the land, I hope to highlight the necessity of preserving and protecting what wilderness remains."

A Sierra Club member for 42 years, French is keeping on online journal of his sojourn. Here is his dispatch that he sent out prior to commencing his journey:

__________

In 1826, my much-removed cousin Jedediah Smith, a 27-year-old fur trapper, led a band of 16 men from Utah to California, which was then part of Mexico. Now, 186 years later, and 47 years older than he was, I will be retracing part of Smith's route -- the part where he reached the nearly dry Mojave River. He was actually looking for the mythical Buenaventura River, which supposedly would connect the interior of North America to the Pacific Ocean, serving as a vein for commerce. Of course he never found it. My goal is different: I'll be looking to see how the different ecoregions from the eastern Mojave Desert across the mountains to the Pacific connect with each other.