I spend most of my waking hours and honestly a lot of the sleeping hours too
thinking about reading and researching climate change in the environment. Which
means most of the time my brain is full of scary facts, a fair amount of sadness,
and a lot of anger and frustration at the seemingly little progress we've made
maintaining a planet that is a good home for everyone. But today I want to talk
about the good stuff. I want to talk about some of the progress - fill your
heart with warm fuzzies, joyful victories of the climate and environmental
movement. That's right we're gonna talk about some lawsuits.
I promise, it's gonna be great.
It's no secret that I am a big fan of earth justice but just in case
you haven't been following along with the exploits of this non-profit
environmental organization fighting for legal protections for people and the
planet, let's talk about some of the incredible work they've done this year.
They protected a super endangered whale by getting a court to rule on some the
fishing gear that kills those whales. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals found that
the Environmental Protection Agency was illegally failing to control ozone
pollution, or smog, which means the EPA must find a way to reduce that air
pollution - like all the gross stuff coming from coal plants - in upwind states
a win for both clean air and the climate. And they got a court to halt the
construction of a copper mine that was set to destroy some of the ancestral
burial grounds, ancient village sites, and sacred springs of the Tohono O’odham Nation,
the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and the Hopi Tribe. And that's just since August
Now if you'll let me fangirl for one moment, this morning I talked to a lawyer
who presented oral arguments at the Supreme Court.
His name is David Henken and he works for Earthjustice. I know, shocking, right?
David: The case - County of Maui versus Hawaii Wildlife Fund. We're representing
community groups in Maui that are trying to address a problem with a wastewater
treatment plant. The County drilled injection wells about 200 feet down to
go directly into the groundwater underneath the facility. With the design
being to dispose of these 3 to 5 million gallons of treated sewage every day
through the groundwater using the groundwater like a sewer to convey the
pollution out into the ocean. Miriam: Now this whole case, it's about the Clean Water
Act, which if you're unfamiliar is a pretty hefty piece of legislation. If you
like reading laws, I can totally recommend it. Great beach read.... If you
don't: it basically sets up how the US government regulates pollution
going into the water and the water quality of things like rivers and lakes.
Important to this case: it says you need a permit to discharge a pollutant into a
body of water. David: With the Clean Water Act Congress tried to regulate every source
of pollution. And the idea being that if we get all of the sources of pollution
under a permitting system, then we can look at each water body that's receiving
that pollution and make sure that any pollution that's entering the water body
is not degrading its quality. The County has taken the position that under the
Clean Water Act they admit that they would have needed a permit that would
control the pollution going to the ocean, if they've put a pipe directly into the
ocean. But they say that because they're using the groundwater as the sewer they
can evade the Clean Water Act. And so the issue before the Supreme Court is quite
simply this concludes like the county avoid complying with the Clean Water Act
and use our oceans, our lakes, our rivers as dumping grounds for the pollution simply
by putting the pollution down through the groundwater rather than going
directly into the rivers lakes and oceans. This type of pollution crops up
in all different types of situations not only with wastewater treatment plants
like The County's, but mining operations, chemical plants, petroleum pipelines. This
case The Court is currently holding pending the resolution of our case
involving a pipeline in South Carolina that breached and spilled about four
hundred thousand gallons of petroleum product into the ground into the
groundwater that's polluting the Savannah River. And so if you look at the
industries that are lined up on the side of The County in the case you can
appreciate what's really going on here. It's not about a single county
wastewater facility, but it's every polluting industry in the country that
wants to have license to destroy our Nation's waters.
Miriam: David's been working
this case for seven years. He's seen it all the way through the Federal Court, in
the Federal Appeals Court, and now the Supreme Court.
David: we're in it for the long haul this case a Maui has been going on only seven years! I say only seven years
because my longest running case has been going on for over twenty. So we're in it to
win it we also stick around till the job's done.
And after the job's done we make sure that nothing happens to
unwind those victories.
Miriam: And fingers crossed one of those victories in the
case of Hawaii Wildlife Fund versus The County of Maui will be announced in
spring of 2020. But while we're waiting for the folks up in the Supreme Court to
make a decision, there are still tons of things Earthjustice and all of us can be doing.
David: While waiting for the Supreme Court to rule, the main thing we're doing
is continuing to press
on all the other fronts to protect the environment. And folks can keep abreast
of all the things that we're doing, including the latest developments on
this case, by going to our website: earthjustice.org
We also encourage people to sign up for Action Alerts, which you can do through
the website, because if The Court goes the wrong way on this, we're gonna have
to be doing a full-court press in the courts, but also in the Court of Public
Opinion to make sure that our elected officials understand that we won't stand
for dirty water anymore. Miriam: And of course this isn't a regular video it's a cool
video. Specifically this is a Project for Awesome video, which means that not only
can you help out Earthjustice by donating directly, checking out their
website, or getting involved in an action, but you can go to projectforawesome.com
and vote for Earthjustice: so that a portion of the funds raised will go to
giving the earth a good lawyer.
What are you waiting for? Go vote for Earthjustice. go, go away