wetlands

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April 17, 2024

Dire threats seen for America’s ‘most endangered’ rivers

By Johnathan Hettinger

Rivers from Arizona to Alaska, Mississippi to Connecticut, and California to the Carolinas face dire threats from climate change, overdevelopment, pollution and water scarcity, according to a new report released by American Rivers this week.

But this year, the most endangered river isn’t a single one — it’s all of the streams in the entire state of New Mexico, according to the report.

The environmental nonprofit, which focuses on river health and publishes an annual list of most endangered waterways in the US, found that New Mexico is the state most likely to be impacted by a US Supreme Court ruling issued last year in the case of Sackett v. EPA, which stripped federal clean water protections for small streams and wetlands across the country.

The Sackett ruling found that the Clean Water Act only applies to continuous and permanent surface waters, meaning that seasonal rivers and wetlands that aren’t directly connected to rivers aren’t covered by the federal law. Instead, it’s up to states to regulate these bodies of water, which account for more than half of all wetlands and streams in the US.

“These streams and wetlands are the beginning of all of our rivers. And all of that water is connected, so when we lose the protections in our headwaters, those wetlands and streams, our rivers are threatened and the long-term quality of your drinking water will likely be harmed,” Tom Kiernan, president and CEO of American Rivers, said in a video released about the list.

In New Mexico, that means the majority of streams are left unprotected because the state does not have a permitting process in place. That could mean dire downstream consequences for rivers, including the Gila, San Juan, Pecos and Upper Rio Grande.

“People depend on this water. We have depended on this water for hundreds of years. This is our tradition, this is our culture. We don’t want to be a people that loses its traditions because we haven’t taken the right steps to protect our rivers,” Vicente Fernandez, acequia mayordomo and community leader, said in a press release.

September 22, 2023

Booming natural gas exports threatening Gulf Coast fishing communities

By Shannon Kelleher

Most mornings, Nathan Berwick rises well before dawn at his home in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, setting out on nearby Lake Charles in a small fishing boat to check his crab traps. If it’s not too hot and the water is calm, Berwick’s family occasionally joins him on the boat. His eleven-year-old daughter enjoys playing with baby crabs that fall from the traps as Berwick hauls them from the water.

Berwick comes from a long line of crabbers dating back to the 1820s, when his ancestors first arrived in the heel of the Louisiana boot – the state’s southwest corner.

“Thirty years from now I want my children to be able to say, ‘this is my home, this is where eight generations of Berwicks have lived,’” he said.

But this simple dream is in danger from a growing threat facing Berwick and others who contribute to – and depend on – the $1.5 billion fishing industry along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.

The fossil fuel industry has identified the Gulf region as a key site for expanding liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals. Eight new terminals are planned for southwest Louisiana alone, with a total of at least 16 new LNG projects anticipated for the Gulf region in coming years.

The terminals take in gas from transmission pipelines, cool it to a liquid, and store it for overseas exports. LNG is considered the cleanest of fossil fuels because it produces less carbon dioxide than coal and oil. And industry groups, including the Center for LNG, claim the fuel is vital to a clean energy future, with the potential to provide energy security and “lift people out of poverty.”

But environmental groups and concerned residents call the claims “greenwashing,” citing emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane and other air pollutants associated with LNG facilities, leakage, and emissions along its supply chain. They also point to a history of alleged shoddy operating practices that jeopardize public health and safety – all forced on communities with little consent.

August 29, 2023

Justices ring death knell for isolated US wetlands

By Judith Helgen
A recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court strips away protections from our nation’s remaining treasure of isolated wetlands. The court has reverted to the dark days when wetlands were viewed as dirty swamps to be drained — habitats with no value.

There’s a convoluted legislative and regulatory history which gave the U.S. Army Corps authority to oversee the nation’s navigable waters. The Corps protects waters that have a significant nexus, or connection, to a navigable water like a river. On that basis, the court removed isolated wetlands as Waters of the United States. Yet scientists have documented that most waters — including isolated wetlands — are connected, even when they don’t have an obvious nexus.

As a result, the justices have rung a death knell for these unique, watery environments.

Permanent and semi-permanent wetlands support an amazing diversity of underwater life: mayflies, dragonflies, small algae-eating crustaceans, and other quietly beneficial species. Isolated wetlands also provide physical services, such as holding water on the landscape and settling silt and pollutants.

Biologists like me who care about our watery environments are in shock.

Nationwide, less than half the country’s original 220 million acres of wetlands remain after vast areas were drained, primarily to create farmland. Farmers had no malicious intent; their crops are a major contributor to the Midwest economy. Minnesota has already lost half of its 20 million acres of wetlands because of drainage to create farmland.

Shouldn’t we protect those that remain?

October 5, 2022

Chicago’s southeast side pushes back against pollution

By Paul Gordon

For more than 100 years, the Southeast side of Chicago has been a magnet for industry – a place where working class families made their homes and raised their children alongside steel mills, grain elevators, cement kilns and other operations drawn to the easy transportation of goods afforded by rail lines and the proximity of the Calumet River.

There once was a common saying in the area: “If there is soot on the windows, there is food on the table.”

The price for the industrial prosperity has been high: Now the area is home to two Superfund sites, multiple landfills, and numerous abandoned tracts of heavily polluted land that lie adjacent to a new cast of polluters – factories constantly busy milling, grinding and combusting.

Once a marshy area, 40% of Chicago’s wetlands have disappeared since 1900. The wetlands, which filter pollutants and prevent flooding, began to drain when the city altered the course of the Chicago River, sending its industrial waste-fouled waters away from population centers.

Without the wetlands, residents of Chicago’s southeast side experience high rates of flood damages, poor air quality, heat vulnerability, and other harmful environmental impacts, leaving people struggling for ways to protect their health and the environment.

“All of the environmental issues facing Chicago are magnified on the Southeast side where industrialization and contamination have created an inhospitable and dangerous environment for many,” said Daniel Suarez, conservation manager for Audubon Great Lakes, a regional arm of the national nonprofit conservation group.