The Green River has been listed as one of the "most endangered rivers" in the country. (NPS)

It’s been a tough spring for rivers in the Rocky Mountain West. After a winter that never really got started, the snow pack—our primary source for water in our rivers—is historically low in Colorado and throughout the region. Runoff from snow melt is sparse and came early, leaving behind disappointing river peak flows. The last time we were in this situation the river life suffered and it looks like we’re heading that way again.

Despite this dark outlook, we received some great news (along with some refreshing heavy spring rains) here in Denver last week—news that gives us hope for one of our favorite rivers, the Green.

OR7, well camouflaged.
(Richard Shinn / DFG)

Oh, Journey, we know you are lonely. We know you have been searching for that special girl, maybe even from California. The search has been long—months long. We know you broke the pack rules, crossed the state of Oregon and then the California state border looking for love and made national news doing it.

But recent reports say you’ve been hanging out with the wrong crowd. They say you’ve traded in your lone wolf status and are hanging with … the coyotes.

I know they are fun. I hear them often, laughing and carrying on all hours of the night. But, Journey, you are not going to find that special gal hanging with those California cavorters. If you aren’t careful and officials see hybrid babies of yours and one of those coyotes, the California Department of Fish and Game has to kill them.

Sometimes an all-in strategy can tarnish the entire package.

Take for example President Obama’s recent decision to tout an “all-of-the-above” approach to achieving energy independence and lowering gas prices. It’s a catchy, feel-good campaign slogan perfect for banners and sound bites, but it’s a hollow energy strategy. Worse yet, it opens America up for destructive practices by painting the administration into a fossil-fuel corner.

Recently, House Republicans seized on Obama’s vulnerable position by successfully insisting that the administration add “clean coal” to its energy policy website. Never mind that coal is dirty at every step of the process, from mining to burning to disposing of the waste. It’s also the source of 99 percent of mercury from the U.S. power sector and the largest source of carbon pollution in the U.S.

Even the coal industry knows that coal is dirty, which is why it has tried desperately to rebrand its baby as “clean coal,” an oxymoron at its finest. The lynch-pin of “clean coal,” carbon sequestration, is wildly expensive and doesn’t address local pollution problems.

Trains transport coal to export terminals in open cars, a mile-and-a-half long. (Shutterstock)

(Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of blog posts by the author on issues related to proposed coal exporting from the Northwest.)

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

—John Muir

We are often reminded—perhaps nowhere more profoundly than in nature—that life does not persist solely of its own volition. When we look closer, we invariably find that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In German, the phenomenon is called gestalt—the notion of the unified whole.

This is the proper lens through which to analyze the increasingly controversial issue of coal export in the Pacific Northwest. With domestic demand for coal waning in the United States, coal companies seek to ship as much coal as possible from Montana and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to emerging Asian economies. Thus, there are six coal export terminal projects currently proposed for Pacific Northwest ports: Longview, Wash.; Bellingham, Wash.; Grays Harbor, Wash.; Coos Bay, Ore.; the Kinder Morgan terminal at Port of St. Helens, Ore.; and the Ambre Energy project with facilities at the Port of Morrow and the Port of St. Helens, Ore.

An environmental analysis examining each project in piecemeal fashion would not address the overall cumulative impacts to the region’s environmental health and quality of life. The cumulative impacts of the proposed coal export terminals would be significant:

Twenty-two environmental organizations including Earthjustice, representing more than 5 million Americans, sent a letter to President Obama on Friday, urging him to lead the U.S. delegation at the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June and be a strong advocate for action on clean energy, environmental rights and healthy oceans.

More than 130 heads of state and government leaders are expected to attend. Like the first Earth Summit in Rio 20 years ago, this gathering will help set the international agenda on environment and sustainability for the next 20 years.

The Earth Summit presents a rare opportunity for the global community to ratchet up action on issues like healthy oceans in the face of new challenges like ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is thought by many to be the greatest threat to marine ecology in this century, and is squarely on the agenda at Rio+20. Coral reefs—the nurseries of the sea—along with the shelled creatures that form the base of the marine food web are among the species and ecosystems most vulnerable to acidification.

New-fangled clothes washers (and dishwashers) save money, water and energy.

We know we have been critical of the Obama administration of late, calling on the Department of Energy to get moving on publishing crucial energy efficiency standards. But we are happy to applaud the administration when they make good on their promise for a clean energy future. The latest: new clothes washer and dishwasher standards will not only save American consumers money on their utility bills, but will lead to washers that use much less energy and water.

Earthjustice participated in negotiations that led to a joint agreement between manufacturers and environmental and consumer advocates recommending the standards that DOE has now adopted. Specifically clothes washers will use up to 35 percent less energy and water and dishwashers will use about 14 percent less energy and 23 percent less water.

Bison at Fort Peck, with one of the newest herd members. (Bill Campbell)

Home on the range, where the deer and antelope play? Forget about it. How about buffalo (yeah, I know they’re really bison).

After years of dreaming about getting one of the original Americans back out on the prairie where they belong, we’re a big step closer to seeing it happen.

After killing every last buffalo they could find, and starving the native folks who relied on them for food, 19th century market hunters missed a couple of handfuls of buffalo deep in the high country that would become America’s first national park, Yellowstone. The offspring of this small herd are among the last genetically pure buffalo (most other buffalo scattered across the country carry some cow genes).

Native tribes in northern Montana for years have sought to reestablish herds using Yellowstone stock. Until this year, they were blocked by cattle interests. But then the state agreed to move approximately 60 buffalo to the Fort Peck Indian reservation in far northeastern Montana. The Fort Belknap reservation, located in north central Montana, has asked for some buffalo and will hopefully get them soon.

Earthjustice attorney Tim Preso has worked for years on behalf of wild buffalo. Most of this work has been to ease rules unnaturally restricting buffalo to the confines of Yellowstone National Park. Outside the park, buffalo have for years been set upon by federal and state agents in helicopters, snowmobiles and on horseback—all intent on driving them back into the park.

A Navy vessel with research ship and orca pod, in the foreground. (Center for Whale Research)

Last week, the U.S. Navy came out with a shocking confession. They now admit that their coastal training exercises kill or harm more marine mammals than previously acknowledged. Apparently, new data led to a recalculation about how many whales, dolphins and seals are hurt by the mid-frequency sonar and explosions the Navy routinely use in training off our coasts.

Earthjustice is challenging a permit by the National Marine Fisheries Service allowing the Navy to train in the Pacific Northwest, off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and northern California. The challenge aims to get the Navy to move its training a short distance to deeper waters off the continental shelf where marine mammal populations quickly thin out, and away from other areas where marine wildlife congregate.

Note of clarification: We agree that warfare is more sophisticated than ever before, meaning the Navy has to use more sophisticated measures to make sure enemy subs and the like don’t get close enough to the U.S. to harm us. Unfortunately, they choose to train in the same coastal waters where ocean food production is high and are thick with marine mammals.

Little Blue Run Dam and reservoir, as viewed from the International Space Station, is the largest coal ash pond in the country. Materials suspended in the water give it a striking, turquoise color. (April 2002, NASA)

It’s inspiring to see the commitment of Rep. David McKinley’s constituents living in the shadow of First Energy’s behemoth 1,000-acre Little Blue Run waste dump continuing to speak the truth amid the lies flaunted by corporate interests. Steve and Annette Rhodes, life-long residents of West Virginia, describe the stark and unfortunate reality of living near a toxic coal ash dump and debunk the many falsehoods spouted by Rep. McKinley in their recent piece in The Hill, Rep McKinley We Live Here with the Coal Ash. They are also quite clear that the coal ash amendment (Title V of HR 4348) pushed by Rep. McKinley is an overzealous attempt to jam a controversial public health loophole into an unrelated transportation bill.

Rep. McKinley is a broken record when it comes to citing flawed industry reports and ignoring the public health and environmental impacts of his dangerous provision. He consistently turns a blind eye to repeated private and public requests for relief from his constituents who live in the shadows of the largest toxic coal ash pond in the U.S. His constituents have testified before Congress, been quoted in the WV press, national press and elsewhere complaining of contaminated water flowing onto their properties, noxious odors and tainted soil.

Chester, WV, where the Rhodes live, borders Little Blue Run. The dump holds approximately 20 billion gallons of toxic sludge and is held back by a 400-foot earthen dam—the tallest of its kind in the U.S. It straddles the border between West Virginia and Pennsylvania and looms over Ohio. It’s rated a high hazard dam by EPA and is expected to kill upwards of 50,000 people in Ohio if it were to fail. According to the EPA, contaminated water from Little Blue Run has been dousing properties at a volume equal to seven fire hoses and arsenic has been migrating into Marks Run, a local stream.

Campaign Director Jared Saylor and Policy & Legislation intern Adriane Underwood carry letters from more than 50,000 Earthjustice supporters who support protecting the Arctic.

On a muggy Tuesday morning, two polar bears lumbered south on 17th Street in Washington D.C. A walrus waved at drivers honking their horns. A sandpiper flapped its wings as it passed food trucks and coffee shops. And, 40 representatives from more than a dozen environmental groups wore bright blue shirts emblazoned with the logo “SAVE THE ARCTIC.”

Paws, wings, shirts and all, they headed towards the White House with a few things to tell the president. Joined by a few hundred activists, they gathered to deliver more than one million comments from concerned citizens, asking President Obama to stop plans by Shell Oil to drill in the remote, fragile waters of the Arctic Ocean this summer.