Keeping it clean for 15 years

• Sunny Sunday anniversary highlights victories, losses and battles ahead
By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune

“It’s more important than ever that we have an informed and active citizenry to hold our corporations accountable,” Director Bob Shavelson said Friday.
Cook Inletkeeper and supporters gathered at the Kachemak Shellfish Growers’ Oyster Building on the Homer Spit in celebration of their work. The location was appropriate, since it is the headquarters for a consortium of shellfish growers dependent on pure Kachemak Bay waters for their farming.
A few large battles loom on the horizon to protect the Inlet: This summer, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the ‘keeper’s arguments on behalf of local tribes, that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Water Act when it tripled the amount of oily water discharge allowed of Chevron in Cook Inlet.
In their efforts to let Chevron know the impact of oil pollution in addition to the lawsuit, Cook Inletkeeper Board member and Nanwalek tribal leader Tom Evans traveled to Houston last week for the Chevron annual shareholders’ meeting. He was part of a broad-based effort to highlight the human rights abuses of Chevron business practices across the globe. 
“I would rather be home in Nanwalek with my family,” Evans said. “But my village eats where Chevron dumps its toxic waste. Chevron argues it can’t afford to properly treat its oil drilling wastes, but they raked in $4.55 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2010 alone.”
This case is likely to be argued in August, when the court meets to take up Alaska cases, Shavelson said.
The lawsuit looks at the current practices for dumping oily water in the Inlet. Crude from offshore drilling platforms typically goes to the Trading Bay Production Facility in a form that is mixed with water and then separated.
“The pure oil goes by pipeline to Drift River, where a tanker comes in, takes the oil and brings it to refinery,” Shavelson explained. “Now, the oily water is at Trading Bay. It is treated and then dumped in Cook Inlet; two billion gallons of oily water put back in per year.”
The EPA permit allows this amount of dumping, he points out.
And while this is one of eight cases the Inletkeeper has litigated in its short history, Shavelson called lawsuits a “last resort.”
“We try to amplify public voice, get people educated and organized, get them to influence the decision makers,” he said.
After the 1960s ushered in a wave of environmental laws, thanks to efforts like Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” the movement has suffered serious setbacks in more recent years.
“Now the corporations control every branch of government, including the courts,” Shavelson said, pointing out the Supreme Court rulings allowing that corporations do have free speech rights and the slashing of the Exxon settlement to oil spill victims.
Shavelson said this makes for an uphill battle for ordinary citizens when corporations and government are “given incredible advantages.”
In Alaska, environmental safety nets were torn apart by then-Gov. Frank Murkowski Administration and his Chief of Staff Jim Clark, including the coastal management program and shifting the permitting process within the Department of Natural Resources.
Embracing battles fought and yet-to-fight, Sunday was a day for celebrating the enduring ability of Cook Inletkeeper to sustain its energy through support.
Shavelson said the ‘keeper is overseeing the first project in Alaska — and worldwide — looking at climate change’s impact on salmon streams.
“You can get lost in looking at specific issues, but it’s important to step back and look at the big picture,” Shavelson explained. “From our perspective, the planet is on an unsustainable course, with climate change and ocean acidification as our gravest threats. These are fossil fuels and there is only a finite amount of them. We are willing to go to extreme lengths to satisfy our addiction to oil. But you can’t get around the fact it is a limited resource.”
Shavelson added that Cook Inlet has possibilities for world-class renewable energy, and that pursuing alternatives is a positive course of action for future jobs and generations. That is top-priority for the ‘keeper.
“We have to wean from coal, oil and gas, and make a transition to renewable quickly,” he said.

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Posted by Newsroom on Jun 2nd, 2010 and filed under Headline News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.