SCDOT is proposing to construct a four-lane highway that extends I-526 approximately seven miles from Savannah Highway to the James Island Expressway.  At a cost of $489 million, or more, the project would consume significant public funds but do little or nothing to reduce traffic congestion. In fact, according to an analysis by the Coastal Conservation League, Savannah Highway and Folly Road would still have failing levels of service with the I-526 extension completed.

The highway would include two major river crossings, threatening the water quality of the Stono River and Wappoo Creek watershed. Further, it would encourage sprawl development southwest of Charleston, bringing more traffic, tailpipe emissions and polluted stormwater runoff to the region, especially Johns Island.

The Coastal Conservation League and Southern Environmental Law Center, along with many concerned citizens, have for years advocated for new or improved solutions to traffic in the region. Solutions that cost less, pose less of an environmental threat, and that actually enhance economic opportunities and quality of life for the affected communities are sorely needed. The League's innovative "A New Way to Work" proposal establishes a network of connected streets to take much of the traffic off Savannah Highway and other busy roads, while redeveloping suburban areas to bring jobs, shopping, and services closer to residents. It would cost approximately half as much as the Mark Clark Expressway.

The SCDOT's draft environmental impact statement, however, completely ignores this proposal and any of the alternative solutions it offers.

"As a regional organization, we see a lot of highway proposals in the South like this one - projects that hearken back to the 1950s and 60s when building bypasses and beltlines was the sole solution," said SELC Senior Attorney Chris DeScherer.  "We now understand how these massive projects backfire - pushing sprawl further out, pushing our infrastructure to the limit, chewing up farms and wetlands."

"Other alternatives embody the new national trend and policy of livable community design," said Josh Martin, CCL Land Use director. "Wisely reworking existing areas before developing new land; wisely focusing on a diversity of travel modes; wisely returning to town and village patterns proven through the years is possible through this alternative.  This is the emerging vision nationwide and could be the vision here in Charleston County. It is truly unfortunate that the SCDOT's preferred alternative does not reflect this emerging vision."

DeScherer said that SCDOT's failure to include alternatives along the lines of the "New Way to Work" concept is legally flawed, since federal law requires agencies to consider all reasonable alternatives that meet the need and purpose of the project. Instead, SCDOT and the other agencies have only considered differently routed and designed highways, and used a computer model showing traffic results for those, refusing to use a different model that would account for the traffic benefits of the conservation groups' proposal.

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The Coastal Conservation League is a grassroots non-profit conservation organization, founded in 1989 to protect the natural environment of the South Carolina coastal plain and to enhance the quality of life of our coastal communities. The League works with individuals, businesses, and government to ensure balanced solutions.  WEB: www.coastalconservationleague.org
Facebook Fan Page: Coastal Conservation League
TWITTER: http://www.twitter/scccl

The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC's team of 40 legal experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use.
WEB: www.SouthernEnvironment.org
FACEBOOK: http://www.fanofselc.org
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/selc_org

In a ruling issued Friday evening (see PDF file here), Administrative Law Judge Ronit Walker said EPD failed to follow proper procedure for interbasin transfers in allowing Power4Georgians, LLC to withdraw an average of 13.5 million gallons per day from the Oconee River for use at the plant, located in the Ogeechee River watershed, and return only 11 percent of that water to the Oconee. 

On the wastewater permit, the judge ruled that EPD erred in allowing pollutants to be monitored and regulated within the facility, rather than at the point of discharge into the Oconee River as required by the Clean Water Act.  Chlorine, chromium and zinc are among the pollutants of concern from the coal plant.

Plant Washington is a project of Power4Georgians, a company organized by Cobb Electrical Membership Corporation and four other electric cooperatives.

In the challenges to the state water permits, GreenLaw and the Southern Environmental Law Center are representing the Altamaha Riverkeeper, the Fall-line Alliance for a Clean Environment, and Sierra Club's Georgia Chapter.

"Exactly how valuable our water resources are has been brought home to Georgians in recent years," said Brian Gist, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. "For all of us who rely on the ready availability of clean water, it's critical that large industrial users comply with laws meant to protect shared water resources and ensure fair, efficient use."

"This decision will have a profound impact on water use in Georgia.  We must engage in growth that is based on the resources we actually have, not the resources we wish we had.  No longer can one water user take water from one basin and use it in another basin without considering whether or not there is better use of those water resources in the basin," said Justine Thompson, executive director of GreenLaw.

"Downstream communities like Dublin, local farms, and wildlife all depend on clean water and a healthy flow in the Oconee River system," said Deborah Sheppard, executive director of the Altamaha Riverkeeper. "We're very encouraged that the judge looked closely at these issues and ruled in our favor."

"Withdrawing millions and millions of gallons of water will devastate this river ecosystem over time. We have to make smarter choices about managing our water resources, including how we get and use electricity," said Katherine Cummings, board member of the Fall-line Alliance for a Clean Environment.

"We are grateful that the Judge ruled against this attempt to take water from the Oconee River Basin and use it to build an expensive and unnecessary dirty coal plant in the Ogeechee River Basin.  It is time for Cobb EMC and the other co-ops to stop pushing this coal plant on rural Georgia, and time to start saving money through water and energy conservation measures. Efficiency can meet our water and energy needs," said Erin Glynn, Associate Field Organizer for the Georgia Sierra Club. 

The order addressed a number of issues pending before the court.  Any appeals must be filed within thirty days. 

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About GreenLaw
GreenLaw is dedicated to preventing air and water pollution that endangers human health and degrades Georgia's natural resources. GreenLaw achieves these goals by providing free high quality legal and technical assistance to environmental organizations and community groups throughout Georgia. www.green-law.org
http://www.twitter.com/grrrlaw

About the Southern Environmental Law Center
The Southern Environmental Law Center is the only regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC's team of 40 legal experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use.
WEB: www.SouthernEnvironment.org
FACEBOOK: http://www.fanofselc.org
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/selc_org

About Altamaha Riverkeeper
The Altamaha Riverkeeper is working to protect and restore the habitat, water quality, and flow of the mighty Altamaha from its headwaters in the Oconee, Ocmulgee, and Ohoopee Rivers to its terminus at the Atlantic Coast. Website: www.altamahariverkeeper.org
For more information contact: Deborah Sheppard, executive director, (912) 230-3119

About Fall-line Alliance for a Clean Environment
Fall-line Alliance for a Clean Environment (FACE) brings together citizens and community to protect and preserve our air, water and land from pollution so that we may live and grow in the beautiful hills and farmland of Georgia. www.facenvironment.org
For more information contact: Katherine Cummings, FACE board member  (478) 232-8010

About Sierra Club
Sierra Club, the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States, has over 20,000 members and supporters in the state of Georgia. www.sierraclub.org/coal
For more information contact: Erin Glynn, regional conservation organizer, (770) 598-6814
 

Burning woody materials, grasses and other biomass can be a significant component of the effort to achieve climate benefits by shifting America away from fossil fuels-but only if the biomass is sourced and accounted for properly-so that the carbon emitted when biomass is burned equals or is less than the carbon taken up by new plant growth.  Recent studies show that combusting some kinds of biomass as fuel can actually increase the amount of climate change pollutants.  For example, burning whole trees in mature forests is much less likely to be carbon-neutral than combusting undergrowth and trimmings from plantation stands.

Last month, EPA issued what is commonly called the "tailoring" rule, which establishes the agency's framework for evaluating and limiting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Clean Air Act permits for large stationary sources. The agency declined to give all biomass combustion greenhouse gas emissions a blanket exemption from complying with the Act, as was sought by the forest products industry and others.  The environmental groups' filing supports EPA's decision to reject the idea that all biomass is inherently "carbon-neutral."  This careful approach avoids making the climate problem worse in the short term and allows for additional study.

The rule is being challenged by industry interests and several members of Congress in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (Southeastern Legal Foundation, et al. v. US EPA).  Late yesterday, Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and Clean Air Task Force (CATF) attorneys filed a motion to intervene in defense of this aspect of EPA's rule on behalf of Georgia ForestWatch and Wild Virginia, represented by SELC, and  the Conservation Law Foundation and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, represented by CATF.

>>Click here for the groups' motion to intervene (pdf)

"The South is already considered the 'fiber basket' of the country, with much of our land producing paper and other forest products. While generating some of our energy from biomass will help the South's rural economies and help shift to cleaner energy, we should look before we leap.  In particular, we must ensure a regulatory system that sustains the clean water, the wildlife habitat, the carbon-capturing capacity and the other benefits we get from healthy forests," said Frank Rambo, Senior Attorney with the SELC, who represents Georgia ForestWatch and Wild Virginia. 

"It is obviously of utmost importance that in trying to fix the climate problem, EPA should not take steps that actually make it worse," said Ann Weeks, Senior Counsel for CATF, and the attorney for Conservation Law Foundation and Natural Resources  Council of Maine.  "EPA did not bend to pressure from industry to create incentives to burn more biomass for energy generation, which can potentially be more harmful for climate than the fossil fuel it replaces."    We have a strong interest making that decision stick, by defending this aspect of the rule, at least until the science on biomass emissions allows a more comprehensive understanding of the various direct and indirect impacts that bioenergy has on climate."

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The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC's team of 40 legal experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use. www.SouthernEnvironment.org

Clean Air Task Force is a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 dedicated to reducing atmospheric pollution through research, advocacy and private sector collaboration. For more information, please visit us at www.catf.us.

Prior to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the groups had raised concerns about serious harm to the coastal communities, economy and environment in these areas from potential oil and gas drilling as proposed by the Obama Administration on March 31. The ongoing crisis in the Gulf, caused in part by the utter failure of federal oversight of offshore drilling that has now come to light, is a tragic example of the risks involved and the lives and livelihoods at stake with any expanded drilling.

Southern Environmental Law Center, a regional non-profit advocacy organization, submitted formal comments on behalf of the groups to the Department of Interior today detailing the multiple reasons why the agency must permanently withdraw the Mid- and South Atlantic and eastern Gulf from its proposed 5-year (2012-2017) offshore drilling plan. The deadline for public comments is today.

See the comments here (pdf).

"Opening these areas to oil and gas drilling would be reckless in the extreme. We are witnessing the dire consequences the oil spill is having in the fragile ecosystems of the central Gulf. A spill would be just as devastating in the Mid- or South Atlantic or the eastern Gulf. In fact, the government ranks the shorelines of these areas as more environmentally sensitive to oil spills than the central Gulf," said SELC attorney Marirose Pratt.

The Mid- and South Atlantic and eastern Gulf rank just above the central Gulf as the Outer Continental Shelf regions whose coastal habitats are most environmentally sensitive to oil spills due to their extensive coastal lowlands made up of wetlands, marshes, swamps and other sensitive shoreline features, according to recent analyses by the Interior Department cited in the groups' comment letter.

The coastal and marine resources of the Mid- and South Atlantic and eastern Gulf support the region's substantial fishing and tourism economies. In 2008, there were $262.8 million worth of commercial fish landings in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, according to NOAA. Tourism provides 30,000 jobs on North Carolina's Outer Banks. In Virginia, the 18 cities and counties of the Chesapeake Bay and coast brought in $4.25 billion in tourism revenue in 2007.

Yet, the three Outer Continental Shelf regions hold just a little over seven months of oil and 15 months of natural gas at current rates of U.S. consumption, according to government estimates.

"The calculation is crystal clear - risking the long-term sustainability of the South's fisheries and coastal economies is not worth the short-term gain in oil and gas. Far from it," said SELC attorney Deborah Murray. "With families and businesses in the Gulf suffering and more wildlife dying every day, we can not afford to delay immediate action to shift to clean, sustainable energy."

In their comments, the groups note that federal law requires Minerals Management Service (now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcment) to consider alternatives as part of the environmental review of its proposed 5-year plan. So far, the only alternatives the agency has identified are simply changing the number or frequency of lease sales, limiting leasing areas, and including coastal buffers. The groups contend MMS must rigorously explore alternatives to oil and gas drilling in the first place, including meeting energy needs through efficiency programs and renewable sources.

Virginia was on track to be the first on the Atlantic with offshore oil and drilling until Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar suspended the leasing process on May 27; however, the lease sale remains in the proposed 5-year plan. Much of the 3 million acre lease area overlaps with areas used by the Navy for training operations based mostly out of the Norfolk Naval Base - the world's largest and an economic mainstay of Hampton Roads. The Department of Defense has consistently opposed oil and gas drilling in Virginia due to concerns of conflicts with its operations; the agency reiterated those concerns earlier this year.

Organizations on the letter:

Alabama Rivers Alliance Altamaha Riverkeeper & Altamaha Coastkeeper (GA)
Center for a Sustainable Coast (GA)
Choctawhatchee Riverkeeper (AL)
Coastal Conservation League (SC)
Conservation Alabama
Conservation Council of North Carolina
Conservation Voters of South Carolina
Defenders of Wildlife
Environment Florida
Environment Georga 
Environment New Jersey
Environment North Carolina
Environment Virginia
Georgia Conservancy
Glynn Environmental Coalition (GA)
Hurricane Creekkeeper, Friends of Hurricane Creek (AL)
Mobile Baykeeper
North Carolina Coastal Federation
North Carolina Conservation Network
North Carolina Native Plant Society, Southeast Coast Chapter
Oceana
Ogeechee Riverkeeper (GA)
Pamlico-Tar River Foundation (NC)
PenderWatch & Conservancy (NC)
Savannah Riverkeeper
Sierra Club, North Carolina Chapter
Sierra Club, South Carolina Chapter
Sierra Club, Virginia Chapter
Southern Environmental Law Center
Virginia League of Conservation Voters
 

The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC's team of 40 legal experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use.

WEB: www.SouthernEnvironment.org
FACEBOOK: http://www.fanofselc.org
TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/selc_org