The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to obtain a South Carolina pollution control permit for its controversial project to deepen the Savannah River, according to a lawsuit filed today in state court by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Georgia and South Carolina conservation groups.
The National Park Service today announced new rules to manage off-road vehicle traffic on beaches so nesting and baby sea turtles and birds as well as pedestrians are protected in Cape Hatteras National Seashore, according to conservation groups.
On behalf of the Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation, the Southern Environmental Law Center today filed suit to stop contamination of the Wateree River, nearby groundwater, and wetlands by coal ash lagoons of South Carolina Electric and Gas Company in southern Richland County, South Carolina.
The federal government ignored the impact of BP’s 200 million gallon oil spill in its assessment of risks and precautions for the Gulf of Mexico before the first new lease sale since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, according to a lawsuit filed today in D.C. federal court by conservation groups.
A federal court today rejected the Portland Cement Association’s attempt to repeal public health protections provided by the Environmental Protection Agency against air pollution from portland cement kilns.
Georgia and South Carolina conservation groups today challenged a South Carolina agency’s approval of a $650 million project to deepen the Savannah River and warned Governor Haley not to destroy evidence concerning her office’s involvement in the matter.
The state’s air permit for the proposed Titan America cement plant in New Hanover County must reduce pollution to the maximum extent possible to protect public health and satisfy federal and state law, according to comments on the draft air permit filed by conservation groups.
Problems cited by South Carolina in its recent denial of a certification for the Savannah Harbor deepening project echoed comments submitted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by conservation groups in Georgia and South Carolina.
Conservation groups today called on the North Carolina Department of Transportation to rethink its plan for replacing Bonner Bridge at its current location and instead build a safer, more reliable access route for Outer Banks residents and tourists after the ocean created multiple new inlets and destroyed sections of N.C. Highway 12 during Hurricane Irene, cutting off the barrier island again right before a holiday weekend. Storms continue to prove the warnings by NCDOT consultants, federal agencies, and university scientists that over wash is inevitable for stretches of N.C. Highway 12 within and near Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.
Conservation groups will examine closely a draft air permit for the proposed Titan cement plant issued today by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources and encourage the public to participate in the upcoming public comment period.
Today’s vetoes by Governor Perdue of two bills--S.709 and S.781— defend North Carolina’s clean energy economy and a safe, healthy environment for residents and tourists, said the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, today filed suit against Panama-based Carnival Cruise Lines to enforce local laws that protect the city’s healthy environment and treasured historic assets.
The federal government illegally authorized new deepwater drilling by claiming that risky operations will cause no significant harm to the environment despite last year’s BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, said four environmental groups in a court filing today. The coalition challenged government approval of Shell’s plan to conduct new deepwater exploratory drilling off Alabama’s coast in waters 2000 feet deeper than the BP Deepwater Horizon even though regulators acknowledge that the operations may result in an oil spill ten times bigger than last year’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
After hundreds of visitors enjoy the Memorial Day weekend on North Carolina’s beaches, the N.C. House will vote to request that the federal government open its coast to the risk of oil spills from offshore drilling under the same practices that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and oiled 641 miles of Gulf Coast over 87 days.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama ruled that Defenders and SELC may pursue their claims that the government violated the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act in approving at least 221 oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill.
Senators from Virginia and North Carolina voted today on a bill (S. 953) that would expose the coasts, fishing, and tourism of both states to the risk of an oil spill from drilling under the same practices that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster a year ago, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Ignoring lessons learned from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, the U.S. House of Representatives today passed the last of three oil company bills that continues a lax approach to risky oil company activities, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
The House of Representatives voted today to pass HR1230 which would, among other things, compel the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement to offer leases for drilling offshore of Virginia within a year of final passage of the bill. The Southern Environmental Law Center is vigorously opposed to this move, which would put Virginia’s tourism and fishing economies in peril for a mere six days’ supply of oil, according to the latest government estimates.
New guidance proposed today by the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency would bring long-awaited and much needed clarity to the protection of our nation’s streams, wetlands, and open waters.
North Carolina Republican senators today moved to put North Carolina’s coast at risk to oil spills on the one-year anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster despite the harm witnessed to life in and around the Gulf of Mexico, said the Southern Environmental Law Center. The bill (S709) would redirect efforts away from alternative energy and force the state’s governor and agencies to adopt a pro-oil drilling position.
As the one-year anniversary of the deadly BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill nears, the Southern Environmental Law Center today called on Congress to fix systemic problems with oil drilling and the oil industry that the Presidential Oil Spill Investigation Commission identified as leading to the disaster.
SELC comments on the Department of Interior's finding of no significant impact from deep water drilling after the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.
SELC called on the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission to prevent waste in the striped bass trawl fishery after reports, photographs and videos of trawlers discarding thousands of striped bass on January 16, 2011 and again on February 3-4, 2011.
The Corps’ environmental analysis of the proposed deepening of the Savannah Harbor is either so fundamentally flawed that it must be redone, or it shows that the project is a colossal waste of valuable resources, according to comments submitted today to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, the South Carolina Wildlife Federation, the Center for a Sustainable Coast, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Savannah Riverkeeper.
Groups that kept the proposed Titan America cement plant near Wilmington, N.C., accountable to standards protecting the health of N.C. residents now will defend national pollution limits on cement plants after a federal court granted their intervention in Portland Cement Association v. EPA.
SELC called for systemic reform and better oversight after the oil spill commission’s investigation found the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout resulted from pervasive problems.
Problems in the oil industry by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling confirms the need for systemic reform and better oversight.
Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar today announced that the Atlantic coast and the eastern Gulf of Mexico coast will remain off-limits to offshore oil and gas drilling at least through 2017.
After a record-breaking year for wildlife at Cape Hatteras National Seashore and visitor occupancy in Dare County, NC, conservation groups are studying the Final Environmental Impact Statement released yesterday by the National Park Service as its latest step in the process of establishing rules for managing beach driving within the seashore.
The federal agency that oversees offshore drilling today announced it will revise the environmental analysis under which BP’s Deepwater Horizon operated and other oil drilling activities in the Gulf of Mexico continue, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Following a court challenge brought by conservation groups, the Army Corps of Engineers has reversed its removal of federal protection for a large wetland near Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, and brought the wetland under the federal Clean Water Act.
On behalf of the Georgia River Network and American Rivers, the Southern Environmental Law Center has challenged in federal court the flawed basis for the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to permit a $17 million, 960-acre recreational fishing lake in Grady County, Georgia near the Florida state line.
Conservation groups today filed suit against oil giant BP under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for the ongoing unlawful harm or killing of endangered and threatened wildlife caused by the company’s massive Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
Statement by Catherine Wannamaker, senior attorney, SELC, on the lifting of the temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
The environmental study by the state Department of Transportation for the proposed extension of I-526 distorts relevant data, skews the analysis of alternatives, and is heavily biased in favor of building the 8-mile, $489 million highway through wetlands, marshes and rural communities, making the study illegal, two conservation groups said today.
With the breeding season still underway, 2010 is already a record-breaking year for rare sea turtles and waterbirds that nest on beaches at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, according to preliminary numbers from the National Park Service.
A federal judge today ruled in favor of designating critical habitat areas for the wintering piping plover in North Carolina in compliance with the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The draft report released today by the South Carolina Department of Transportation, which describes the environmental impacts of the proposed Mark Clark Expressway, fails to consider alternatives that are far less harmful and less costly than building a major interstate through communities, open-space areas, and marshes west of the Ashley River in the Stono River watershed
The federal moratorium announced July 12 pauses risky deepwater drilling operations until safety and environmental safeguards can be assessed.
After a rare female loggerhead sea turtle was dragged and killed by an off-road vehicle while attempting to nest at night on the beaches of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, conservation groups request improved protections for nesting turtles threatened by ORVs.
Environmental groups expressed disappointment over a federal district court decision today to halt a six-month federal moratorium on new deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that would have allowed for safety reviews after the loss of life in the Deepwater Horizon explosion and ongoing deepwater oil spill damaging the Gulf Coast.
The Minerals Management Service (MMS) continues to approve new leases after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that give British Petroleum and other companies the right to drill even more deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico under the same inadequate oversight that led to the current oil spill, according to a new legal challenge filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Defenders of Wildlife. The groups say current policies create an incentive to allow drilling even in the face of evident risks because once a lease is issued by MMS, the U.S. government is obligated to pay the lessee either the fair market value of the lease or the amount spent to obtain the bid plus costs and interest if the government cancels the lease or refuses to allow drilling.
The Southern Environmental Law Center commends the Obama Administration for cancelling the oil and gas drilling lease sale proposed for 3 million acres off the coast of Virginia, but urges the Administration to permanently ban drilling in the Mid- and South Atlantic, as well as the eastern Gulf.
The Southern Environmental Law Center and Defenders of Wildlife today notified BP that they would file suit against the company for the unauthorized take of endangered species caused by the continuing oil spill and use of dispersants.
Defenders of Wildlife and the Southern Environmental Law Center today filed suit challenging the Minerals Management Service’s (MMS) complicity in the Gulf oil disaster and continued lax oversight of oil drilling operations, including its failure to require a thorough examination of spill risks from exploratory drilling operations like the Deepwater Horizon.
National Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Southern Environmental Law Center yesterday submitted comments regarding the National Park Service’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s Off-road Vehicle Management Plan.
SELC says Department of Interior acted appropriately in suspending the Virginia offshore drilling lease sale in light of the catastrophic blowout and oil spill in the Gulf, but that a permanent ban on new drilling is needed.
The state must examine all public health and environmental impacts of a proposed Titan America cement plant near Wilmington, N.C. before any state permits for the plant can be issued, according to an order issued by Judge Donald Stephens of Wake County Superior Court in a case brought by conservation groups representing residents of the affected area.