What: Community film screening of TAPPED and a discussion of Nestlé’s plans to make a huge profit from bottling and selling Oregon’s public spring water.

When: Thursday, June 7th at 6:30 pm (doors open at 6:00pm)

Where: The Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan

Tickets: $10, $5 for students with ID.  Kids 12 & under get in free!

Crag  is donating our legal services to Bark and Food and Water Watch to challenge the approval of water exchange permits that move Nestlé one  key step closer to bottling and selling Oregon’s water.  To learn more about the many issues around Nestlé’s proposal to bottle and sell our water, please join Crag, Bark and Food and Water Watch for this screening of the award-winning film TAPPED.  This all ages, family-friendly event will feature a discussion about Nestlé’s plans to bottle Oregon water, what this could mean for Oregon communities and how people can take action to prevent Nestlé from privatizing Oregon’s public water resources.

TAPPED is a behind-the-scenes look into the obscure world of the bottled-water industry — a mostly unregulated industry that privatizes our water and sells it back to us.  From the production of plastic bottles to the ocean where so many of these bottles end up, TAPPED follows the machinations of the bottled-water industry and the communities affected.  It provides a powerful portrait of the lives damaged by the bottled-water industry, featuring  those caught at the intersection of big business and the public’s right to water.

Shortly after the war, the company sought to get rid of the waste that was the byproduct of manufacturing these chemicals, and it had the toxic waste transported in over 25,000 fifty-five gallon drums to Alkali Lake in Lake County just north of Christmas Valley.   According to news reports at the time, the drums were leaking when Oregon DEQ took over the site in 1976, and it was estimated that about 50% of the Agent Orange and residues had evaporated into the air and leaked out onto the desert floor.  DEQ took over the illegal waste site because the company had done nothing to ensure the toxic waste was properly maintained.  In 1976, the DEQ crushed and buried the drums onsite as KOIN news documented in this historic footage from its news broadcast.

Now decades later, the company that made the waste and profited from its sale demands to be let off the hook by Oregon for a mere $700,000 in monitoring and maintenance costs along with a permanent cap on its future liability – capping the overall liability for monitoring only at a paltry 20%.  The company is demanding that DEQ let it off the hook for about 50 cents per gallon for the poisons it made which were dumped in Oregon’s high desert – just to cover the cost of monitoring and maintaining the site to date.  The company is refusing to take any responsibility for an actual clean up of the illegal dump site.

DEQ floated this “offer” to the public and it was rejected.  On behalf of local residents and the Oregon Natural Desert Association, the Crag Law Center objected to the settlement, and DEQ recently announced publicly that it would not go forward with the deal.   The EPA’s recent review of the site underscored the limitations of the monitoring conducted to date.   The EPA’s report identified the risks that the toxic dump poses to the threatened Western Snowy Plovers, Greater Sage Grouse,  backcountry visitors to the nearby Juniper Mountain proposed Wilderness area, adjacent cattle operations and nearby spring water sources.  The EPA did not explain how the site scores on being designated for clean up on the National Priority List (the Superfund list), and ONDA may petition the EPA to designate the area for clean up.

While Bayer Cropscience reports billions in sales every year, its attorneys have said they would fight Oregon in court unless the DEQ agreed to just monitor and maintain the site – and not perform any clean up.   If a third party opens the case, Bayer Cropscience has demanded that DEQ accept the lion’s share of the responsibility and make Oregon taxpayers responsible for 80% of the estimated future costs.

An EPA technical team visited the site last year and documented that these highly toxic chemicals are migrating from the dump site – underground and on the surface in rain water.    While the DEQ has put a perimeter fence up around part of the most toxic parts of the dump, the fence does nothing to prevent the migration of the chemicals in the ground and surface water.  The area where the toxic chemicals were applied to land – as part of failed experiments – has not been fenced off or cleaned up.  The DEQ has not proposed any options to clean up the site – as cleaning even part of it up the site could cost tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.  To date, DEQ has taken a “maintain and monitor approach” – and Bayer only offered to pay based on the limited site characterization performed by DEQ.

Local citizens do not believe that the Oregon DEQ or its attorneys with the Oregon Department of Justice have done an adequate job holding Bayer accountable nor have they done an adequate job characterizing the risks that the toxic dump poses to human health and the environment.  DEQ appears to be conflicted and unable to advocate for the public interest.  Bayer Cropscience appears to be exploiting the conflict by offering DEQ a little something towards its cost to date, while foisting the burden for any clean up onto Oregon taxpayers.  On behalf of our clients, the Crag Law Center has asked DEQ to exercise its authority and work with EPA to declare the site a Superfund site and initiate a clean-up action with EPA’s help.  DEQ has yet to explore feasible clean-up options – including digging up the most contaminated soils and ridding them of dioxin.  DEQ needs to take a fresh look at the facts and pursue a meaningful settlement with the polluter.

The material at this site is highly toxic, poisonous to life – and it is actively migrating off the site.  There is no clean up planned.  On behalf of local citizens and the Oregon Natural Desert Association, the Crag Law Center will continue to press the EPA and the DEQ to make the polluter pay for the toxic mess it left in the desert.   Bayer Cropscience records billions of dollars in sales every year, and Oregon can do much better than to let the company off the hook for a pittance of just the costs to monitor.   The polluter who made the profits should pay the bulk of the costs to clean this toxic mess up.

Relevant Documents:

Proposed Settlement (Consent Judgment) with Bayer Cropscience

Oregon Natural Desert Association – Comments on Alkali Lake Settlement with Bayer

Letter to EPA from ONDA regarding Threats from Alkali Lake – December 22, 2009

Report to EPA – March 2011 re Alkali Lake Risks to Environmental Health

Maps:

Alkali Lake Vicinity Map

Aerial Map with Location of Dump Site

Map Showing Location of Arroyo

I’ve often wondered why some people in the U.S. are willing to listen to climate scientists and believe them without actually feeling or seeing the effects of climate change, and others are not. I know that scientists are sometimes hard to understand and that climate change is difficult to grasp. Nevertheless, the climate crisis is about our future and the livability of our planet, so I wonder why more people aren’t swayed by the scientific consensus around climate change.

It would seem that the weather may have a more profound impact than volumes and volumes of peer reviewed climate science. Recent polling is showing that the U.S. public is connecting our recent extreme weather events with climate change. Seventy percent of those polled linked record high summer temperatures in the U.S. in 2011 to climate change. As the NY Times summed up “a large majority of Americans believe that this year’s unusually warm winter, last year’s blistering summer and some other weather disasters were probably made worse by global warming.”

While a thirteen-year-old from Iowa does not need to see climate change to believe it and fight against it, apparently most of the public does need to see it to believe it. Which begs the question, how many more tornadoes, hurricanes, and record-breaking temperature months are necessary before the public starts fighting against the climate crisis like Glori?

Crag is excited to partner with the world’s first certified sustainable sushi restaurant, Portland’s own Bamboo Sushi, to raise funds and build awareness for Crag’s work to protect Oregon’s coast, ocean, rivers and wildlife.  On Tuesday, May 1st, Bamboo Sushi’s SE 28th restaurant will donate 10% of its net profit to Crag.

As if that wasn’t awesome enough, Bamboo will also be running a drink special April 24 – May 1, featuring a special Crag cocktail.  $1 from the sale of each drink special will be donated to Crag.

Join us at Bamboo Sushi  (SE 28th) May 1st ~ 10% will be donated to Crag!

Invite your friends, spread the word and make plans to drink and dine at Bamboo Sushi (310 SE 28th) on May 1st.  Treat yourself to sustainable seafood and delicious drinks while raising funds for and telling your friends about Crag’s work to protect the wild and natural places you love.

Help us spread the word by joining the Facebook event and inviting all your Facebook friends!

Our clients Bark and Food & Water Watch are members of the Keep Nestlé Out of the Gorge Coalition.  We are always looking for ways to build partnerships beyond the environmental community, and this coalition brings together non-traditional allies.  The group includes Oregon’s public employees union AFSCME, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Oregon Mission Centres of Sisters of the Holy Names, together with Sierra Club, Environment Oregon, and Alliance for Democracy.

The Nestlé issue transcends the environmental movement because of the range of problems it presents.  Nestlé has a poor track record as an employer, casting doubt on its promises of good-paying jobs.  For many, the idea of privatizing our shared public resource—water—for private gain resonates as a violation of the public trust and the state’s duty to protect our natural resources for present and future Oregonians.  Building on these common interests, the coalition has broadened its reach by including groups whose values resonate with a variety of communities and perspectives.

The proposal also raises the larger question of Oregon’s economic future.  Will we continue to attempt to drive our economy through extraction and privatization of our natural resources?  Or will we progress to an economic future driven by innovation and recognizing the value of protecting ecosystem services?

Bark and Food and Water Watch are members of the Keep Nestlé Out of the Gorge Coalition, which also includes the union Oregon AFSCME, Oregon Mission Centres of the Sisters of the Holy Names, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Environment Oregon, Alliance for Democracy and the Sierra Club.   The Coalition formed two years ago in response to Nestlé’s bottled water proposal, which has become the most controversial proposal in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area since the proposed casino in Cascade Locks.

In February the Water Department approved water transfer permits that start Nestlé down the path to bottling and selling Oregon water.  The spring water is located on state property and is currently used by the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW) for a hatchery raising threatened salmon.  The approved transfer applications now under protest are an integral part of the process that would lead to ODFW exchanging its water rights with the City of Cascade Locks, so that ultimately the City can sell the spring water to Nestlé.  In essence, the state agencies are carving up the water right for a publicly owned fish hatchery to facilitate Nestlé’s plans to bottle and sell Oregonians’ public water for private gain.

“It’s the State’s job to safeguard Oregon’s public resources, especially our precious water resources for the benefit of all Oregonians, not multinational corporations. Allowing the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to move forward with this water rights exchange would permit a state-owned resource to be used for a private business model that is unsustainable,” said Jackie Dingfelder, Oregon State Senator for District 23. The Coalition has raised many other concerns, including the increased manufacturing of wasteful plastic bottles and Nestlé’s documented track record of not serving rural communities’ best interests when bottling public water resources.

We need your help!  Support Crag’s legal efforts to prevent Nestlé from bottling and selling our spring water by making a donation to our No Nestlé in the Gorge fund.

Stay tuned here and on our Facebook page for updates on these protests, and check out Scott Learn’s recent Oregonian article about this issue.

The basic concept is simple. There are some natural resources – take water for example – that are so important, so essential for human life and well-being that our government holds them in trust for all citizens under the Public Trust Doctrine. So, what is the Public Trust Doctrine? As the diagram depicts, it came to the United States from England but originated in Roman times. The Doctrine is judge made, which means the Doctrine has been created and defined by the courts (also called common law). Today, the Public Trust Doctrine is also recognized in statutes and constitutions.

The Public Trust Doctrine places an obligation upon the government to ensure that certain natural resources, like water, called “trust resources” are not substantially impaired or put entirely into private hands. Put another way, the government can allow some use of these resources so long as the resource won’t be substantially impaired by the use or completely turned over to a private entity. For example, a corporation could not move into Oregon and bottle all of our fresh water without violating the public trust doctrine. Nor could the same corporation bottle a majority of our fresh water supply without violating the doctrine.

So, what does the Public Trust Doctrine protect? Water. After that, it varies from State -to-State and country-to-country. For example, here in Oregon our courts and legislature have recognized that fresh water, submerged and submergible land (think streambeds), shorelines, forests, and wildlife are all natural resources that the State of Oregon holds in trust for its citizens.

But there is one essential natural resource that needs to be recognized under the Doctrine: our atmosphere. We learn as schoolchildren that without Earth’s atmosphere our planet would not support life. In the ATL cases, the youth plaintiffs are asking the courts to recognize that the atmosphere is an essential trust resource.

The stakes are high. We only have a few more years in which we can cap our greenhouse gas emissions and start reducing them in time to ensure that climatic tipping points – the melting of ice sheets or thawing of the tundra – don’t occur. After these tipping points, we simply won’t be able to return our atmosphere to its present condition and life on our planet will change forever. The young plaintiffs in the ATL cases recognize these facts and are demanding that our government take action before it is too late. Will you join them? Support the Oregon ATL case today with a donation to Crag, who is representing two amazing young women in their lawsuit against our state.

Currently, the rezone has been approved by the Klickitat County Planning Department and it is now awaiting approval by the County Board of Commissioners.  If the County Commissioners approve it, local citizens and conservation groups may appeal the matter to Washington Superior Court.

In October of 2011, the County planning department issued a Mitigated Determination of Non-Significance (“MDNS”) and found as a threshold matter that the proposed rezone determination was not likely to have a significant effect on the water quality, water quantity, wildlife and other natural resources enjoyed by the public and private landowners under the State Environmental Policy Act.

The affected lands and waters found in the White Salmon River valley are remarkable.  The water is enjoyed by tens of thousands of people annually and relied upon by local residents for their drinking water.  The area boasts the Wild & Scenic White Salmon River and its “outstandingly remarkable values” include wild fish, world class white water boating, a rich heritage of Native American cultural sites and unique hydrogeology of cold water springs that feed the river.  The planning area contains prime and unique farmlands that are of statewide significance and numerous Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (“WDFW”) designated “priority habitats.”

This map shows in red the lands along the river which are proposed to be rezoned to 2-acre density, which is 10 times the density of what current zoning allows on this rural resource land.

According to a top expert in the field, Mark Yinger, the water in the White Salmon River, in its tributaries, and in the leaky, inter-connected aquifers are vulnerable to increased levels of uncoordinated new development which will rely heavily on new groundwater wells spread out across the landscape.  Download Mark Yinger Technical Memorandum to Department of Ecology

For some time now the Klickitat County planning department has tried to amend the Sub-Area Plan and zoning code to allow a significant increase in the nature and location of development which responsible agencies and individual property owners have opposed because of the significant impact on the natural resources and livability of the lands in the White Salmon River valley.

Back in 2007, the Klickitat County Planning Department issued a Determination of Non-significance for a significant rezone of over one thousand acres of land to 2-acre lots through the Husum/BZ Corner Sub-Area Plan Update (County File No. SEP2007-12, the “2007 Update”).  The Planning Commission approved the proposed update and rezone.  The County received numerous comments from multiple agencies, the public, and conservation groups.  Subsequently the County issued a DNS for a proposal by SDS Lumber Co. to rezone over 100 acres of the same Sub-Area from Resource Land to 1-acre minimum lot sizes.

The County received substantial comments from the public and state agencies and the decision of the Planning Commission was appealed by the Friends of the White Salmon River and the Yakama Nation.

The County’s 2010 MDNS relies heavily on a report produced by Aspect Consulting (the “Aspect report”) which presents an analysis of possible water quality and water quantity impacts of the Sub-Area Plan and mitigation.  The Aspect report contrasts forecasts of a hypothetical full build-out under existing zoning and under the proposed zoning. Based on its hypothetical projections, the Aspect report attempts an analysis of the impact on water quality and quantity and suggests it will be about the same because the total number of residential dwellings under the existing zoning and the proposed zoning.

The County received substantial comments from agencies, the public, and conservation groups which pointed out problems with the County’s MDNS.  For example, the County’s MDNS did not address the impacts of the rezoning on wildlife, as required by the County Commissioners, or the specific criticisms or recommendations submitted by the WDFW or the United States Forest Service in extensive comments dating back several years.

The County never obtained a peer review of the Aspect report or addressed the significant criticisms of the report identified by the Forest Service.  While the County identified the future removal of Condit Dam as being foreseeable, it did address the significant change in the existing condition caused by the removal of Condit Dam and Northwestern Lake.  The removal of Condit Dam is significant for a number of reasons. First, the lower section of the river is now full of sediments and the long process of recovery is just beginning. Second, numerous threatened and endangered fish species now have access to the White Salmon River and its tributaries within the planning area.  Third, the removal of Northwestern Lake has dramatically changed the water table and is having a significant effect on groundwater on adjacent lands.

Mark Yinger’s report underscores what the County has not disclosed, considered or analyzed in terms of the direct, indirect and cumulatively significant changes that will result in terms of new wells, new septic drainfields on the tributaries, seeps and springs along the White Salmon River.

Today, BLM announced that it will conduct a public scoping process, publish an environmental analysis and take public comment before making any final decision on access to Trout Creek.  BLM also revised its earlier order and implemented a voluntary closure during the nesting season for this year.  Thank you to everyone that emailed BLM with your concerns – your input made a big difference!

Trout Creek is still closed! It is more important than ever to respect the closure and the need to protect habitat for golden eagles.

Today’s announcement followed a recent three-hour meeting involving Eric Sorenson of the Access Fund, John Connor of the American Alpine Club and Chris Winter from the Crag Law Center.  They met with officials from the Prineville District BLM office, who expressed a strong interest in working with the public and involving climbers in the future of Trout Creek.

This is an important gesture of good faith from BLM, as they responded to our concerns and invited the climbing community to work with them to manage Trout Creek and implement an appropriate closure.  It is critical that the climbing community now take advantage of this opportunity to establish a good working relationship with BLM moving forward.  Please respect the closure.

For more information, check back here for updates and or stop by Friends of Trout Creek on Facebook.  You can also read the letter that was sent to BLM following the recent meeting.  We’re also awaiting a response to a Freedom of Information Act request, and we’ll post more information once its available.

When the scoping process opens, we’ll post information on how to participate.  In the meantime, feel free to contact us or leave a comment here if you have any questions or want to provide input.

Marine reserves can help increase the abundance, size, and diversity of marine life, including commercially important fish stocks, by restricting fishing and other resource extraction activities within the protected areas.  Studies show that marine reserves and protected areas have the greatest benefit when part of a network. The three marine reserves at issue in this bill would add to the existing pilot sites at Otter Rock on the central coast near Lincoln City and Redfish Rocks on the southern coast near Port Orford.  The addition of Marine Reserves at Cape Falcon north of Manzanita on the north coast, Cascade Head north of Lincoln City, and Cape Perpetua between Newport and Lincoln City, is a critical step to making the marine reserves network a success.

Oregon’s marine reserves process has been largely stakeholder-driven, with the recent recommendations for the three new marine reserves resulting from many, many hours of volunteer work by stakeholders to study, consider, debate and discuss the location of marine reserves large enough to be ecologically significant but small enough to avoid harmful social or economic impacts.  When the Senate passed this bill, it affirmed trust in that process and in the community members who worked tirelessly to achieve the compromise that allowed these marine reserves to move forward.  Here’s hoping the members of Oregon’s House of Representatives will see the same value and act to validate the work of these stakeholder groups to protect Oregon’s coastal waters and marine life for the next generation.