News

For Immediate Release: April 11, 2006

Contact: Craig Engelking, 360.561.7701

Report Shows Asarco Could Shed Up to $1Billion in Pollution Liabilities, Including $45 Million in Tacoma, by Declaring Chapter 11

TACOMA—The Sierra Club today commended Senator Cantwell for her efforts to close a loophole in the nation's bankruptcy laws that allow companies with significant pollution liabilities to evade cleanup costs. A special investigative report by the Sierra Club contends that one company, the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco), could legally shift $500 million to $1 billion in cleanup responsibilities to taxpayers by reorganizing under the federal Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Code.

 "We can have clean dishes and healthy fishes"

OLYMPIA – Yesterday the state House of Representatives took a key step forward in cleaning up rivers and lakes around Washington state. The House passed HB 2322 that will eliminate phosphates in automatic dishwashing detergents to 0.5 percent or less.

“It’s a great day for the Spokane River,” said Rachael Paschal Osborn, a public interest water lawyer who heads the Sierra Club’s Spokane River Project. “Phosphorus is the culprit for dissolved oxygen. Dish soap phosphates are one of the sources that can and should be controlled.”

Uh-oh, here we go again!

Even with the extinction clock ticking loudly, the Bush Administration and some Northwest Members of Congress once again ignore years of sound science with regard to the implementation of measures that we know are still needed to save threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead of the Columbia and Snake River Basins.

Based on our successful lawsuit with allies to force the federal government to draft a scientifically credible salmon plan, which our region and the fish have been waiting many years for now, a federal judge has given the Bush Administration until October 2006 to come up with a new plan.

Healthy Fishes and Clean Dishes (Clean Water)

House Bill 2322: This bill limits the phosphorus content of automatic dish detergent. This is precedent-setting legislation and is up for a vote in the House of Representatives in the next 24-48 hours. We need calls of support to legislators. Please call or email your legislator now. Tell them you support HB2322 for Clean Dishes and Clean Water.

Contact your legislator at 1.800.562.6000 to leave a message, or visit http://www.leg.wa.gov/ and click on "find my legislator" to email all the state legislators in your district.

NEW STUDY: ONE IN FIVE WOMEN TESTED NATIONWIDE HAS UNSAFE MERCURY LEVELS

Final Results of Largest Mercury Testing Project Puts Spotlight on Proposed Coal-fired Power Plant in Kalama, WA

Washington – The results of the nation’s largest mercury hair-sampling project were released today by the Environmental Quality Institute (EQI) at the University of North Carolina-Asheville. The survey found mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s recommended limit of one microgram of mercury per gram of hair in one in five women of childbearing age tested.

The environmental community is working with Governor Gregoire to pass legislation for a Renewable Fuels Standard (House Bill SHB2738 and Senate Bill SSB6508). This bill calls for replacing 2% of our diesel with biodiesel and 2% of our gasoline with ethanol, with increases for both as in-state production capacity expands.

Legislators will be voting on this bill this week, so now is the moment when your voice makes the most difference! Please email your legislators today to support the Renewable Fuels Standard. For a quick and easy way to email your legislator, visit http://actionstudio.org/?go=1975.

In 2005, the Sierra Club of Washington State promoted several key environmental bills. When it came time for these important votes, did your legislator make the grade? Find out by visiting the Cascade Chapter's first annual online Legislative Report Card.

By publishing the Report Card mid-term in the two-year legislative cycle, we offer our representatives and senators the opportunity to make changes in their policy making and voting behavior. The Report Card examines how lawmakers voted to protect our state's environment. We encourage you to use it to praise and thank your representatives and senators for their positive actions. If your lawmakers have failed to measure up to your expectations, let them know. They'll have a second year to do better ... if we let them know we're watching!

(Note: Following is a shortened version of an Op-Ed by Nancy Peacock and Kevin Fullerton of the Seattle Group's Political Committee. The Seattle P-I has agreed to print it in December or early January. The Group is calling on city officials to explore options for replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct that do not include building a new highway along Elliott Bay.)

In pushing for one of two retrograde options to replace the failing Alaskan Way Viaduct—either a 6-lane tunnel or a rebuilt elevated structure along the Elliott Bay shoreline—Seattle's leaders are banging their heads not only against financial realities but also against urban development trends. Why has our city—purportedly a haven for progressive ideas—bullied itself into a forced decision between two highway options that place 100,000 vehicles per day on its prime waterfront property?

Overdevelopment is gobbling up Washington’s farmland and open spaces.

Front porch communities and local retailers are being replaced with sprawling, low density, car-centric subdivisions and “big box" or "strip-mall" retail centers.

According to the Sierra Club’s Sprawl Cost Us All report, sprawl is the result of over five decades of subsidies paid for by the American taxpayer.

Everyday a bigger and bigger portion of our tax dollars, are “giving” irresponsible developers the opportunity to continue this type of hopscotch development. Here are some of the ways we subsidize sprawl:

Please call and thank American heros Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray. Thank Senator Cantwell for leading the effort to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: 202-224-3441. And thank Senator Patty Murray for voting no on cloture, and, therefore, protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas drilling: 202-224-2621.

The Issue: In an against-all-odds victory for wildlife, wild places and all Americans, the Senate today rebuffed attempts to attach controversial provisions to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the Defense spending bill.