Month: November 2019

Democratic presidential nominees Oppose Water Privatization

Two front runners in the field of Democratic nominees for the U.S. presidential election appear to be unified on the controversial issue of the privatization of water systems including Elizabeth Warren who released an environmental plan that, among other things, calls for the nation’s water systems to be remain a public resource that should “be owned by and for the public.”

According to the plan “A Warren Administration will end decades of is investment and privatization of our nation’s water system — our government at every level should invest in safe, affordable drinking water for all of us.” The Warren plan includes the need for tighter federal classification of per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the reinstatement of the Waters of the United States rule which was eliminated by the Trump administration in order relieve industry from water protection restrictions, and investment into public water system infrastructure.

Warren’s focus on water ethics puts her in line with democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who advocates for similar protections for water resources in legislation he is sponsoring including the WATER Act which would help municipalities or state agencies bring treatment works back into public ownership and the Green New Deal, which would over haul the country’s approach to environmental issues. “According to Common Dreams. “Months earlier, in November 2018, Sanders gave a forceful rejection of privately controlled water after voters in Baltimore easily passed Question E, which bans the privatization of the municipal water and sewer systems.”

Research on private water systems, suggest that they “put public health at risk, a 66-page paper by University of Louisville law professor Craig Anthony Arnold argues, because the profit motive incentivizes companies to provide better services to customers who pay more and to maintain infrastructure with an eye to the length of the firm’s contract.” The Huffington Post.

While the Warren plan, does indicates that if Warren were to become the next president of the United States, privately-run water systems would become far less common, it does not provide whether or not,  as president, she would take action to prevent their formation.

Unprecedented Numbers of Pink Pacific salmon are showing up in the Arctic

In the latest indication of the rapidly warming waters in the western Arctic, Pink salmon were recently caught in the western Nunavut waters of Cambridge Bay. According to Karen Dunmall, an aquatic biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, due to diminishing sea ice, Pacific salmon have been following food sources, which include plankton to jellyfish, shrimp and smaller fish. This is another indication that climate change, which results in thinner sea and fresh water ice that forms later and breaks up earlier, warmer rivers, milder winters, longer summers and changes in wildlife and vegetation, is affecting the Arctic more dramatically than anywhere on the globe. It’s n across the Arctic

In total, the Arctic research salmon program estimates that in 2019 roughly 2,000 salmon samples have been provided to them – almost triple the number from 19 years of monitoring harvesters and this number appears to be rising.

Similarly, Pink salmon have spread to parts of northern Europe after being released into rivers in Russia in the 1960s. Unprecedented numbers of the fish were found in Scottish rivers in 2017 and they were seen again in 2019 on the Dee which flows through Aberdeenshire, the Tweed which passes through the Borders, Kyle of Sutherland which is an estuary in the east Highlands and the River Ness which flows through Inverness and into Loch Ness when in September, a lone male was captured on one of our underwater surveillance cameras.”

Fishery managers in Scotland are concerned that the Pinks which are voracious eaters and which have already become established in rivers and streams in Norway, could colonize Scottish rivers and out compete native Atlantic .

Removal of Protections of Salmon Habitat in Bristol Bay Surrounded by Controversy

 

Stating that by withdrawing safeguards for Bristol Bay in order to pave the way for development of the Pebble Mine, “the [Environmental Protection Agency] has handicapped its own scientists’ ability to protect a place” that the agency itself, has described, as having “unparalleled ecological value, boasting salmon diversity and productivity unrivaled anywhere in North America,” several groups representing Bristol Bay tribes and fishermen filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Anchorage in an effort to force the agency to restore the protections.

The Plaintiffs, including the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, Bristol Bay Native Association – a consortium of 31 tribes, the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association and Bristol Bay Reserve Association, two groups representing fishermen, and the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit promoting economic growth, have asked the federal district court in Anchorage to decide that the revocation of the 2014 determination made under the Clean Water Act, was arbitrary and capricious. The 40-page complaint states that, in withdrawing the 2014 proposed determination, EPA “failed to consider the substantive findings it made in support” of the determination that the Mine could cause significant harm to the environment.

According to Ralph Andersen who is the chief executive of BBNA, regarding the lawsuit, the Trump “administration not only broke the law, it made clear that local people have no voice in the management of our rivers, our streams and wetlands,… But the people of Bristol Bay are not pushovers.”

Shortly after the lawsuite was filed, Earthworks, a Washington-based advocacy group, filed a complaint with the New Jersey Bureau of the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate related to Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. – the Pebble Mine parent company possible insider trading. According to the complaint there was flurry of stock trades and communication in the days prior to the decision to revoke EPA’s section 401© certification that substantially improved the prospects for the Mine as indicated by price of the company’s stocks raising dramatically after the EPA’s decision was publicly announced last summer. A spokesman for Northern Dynasty called the allegations “entirely false and without merit” and denied any wrongdoing by the company.