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By Marie Dolicini
Courts Rule for Rockies, Songbirds, Sea Turtles
To protect the environment, Club activists often turn to the
courts. The Sierra Club Environmental Law Program supports
grassroots legal action by bringing the national clout and
extensive resources of the Club to bear on issues locally -
and internationally. The following examples demonstrate how
effective these efforts can be in the fight for
environmental protection.
Clearing Colorado Skies
In Colorado, a citizen's suit initiated by the Sierra Club's
Trappers Lake Group has garnered one of the largest
financial penalties ever levied against a polluter. But the
real news is that the air over the Rocky Mountains is about
to become cleaner.
In settlement of the suit, the owners of one of the dirtiest
coal-fired power plants in the western United States agreed
to spend $130 million to control pollution resulting in acid
rain and snow in the nearby Mount Zirkel Wilderness Area.
Mount Zirkel's snowpack, the deepest in Colorado, is
contaminated with the highest levels of acid precipitation
ever recorded west of the Mississippi. The 28-year-old
Hayden power plant, located just 30 miles upwind of Mount
Zirkel, was built with few pollution controls. When the
utility's own monitoring equipment had recorded more than
17,000 emissions violations over a five-year period and the
Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Health
Department took no legal action to force a cleanup, local
Club activists filled the void. "We used the Clean Air Act's
citizen suit provisions to take Hayden's owners to court and
win this remarkable victory," said lead volunteer Joan
Hoffman.
Under terms of the settlement, Hayden must either install
pollution reduction controls by 1999 to cut sulfur dioxide,
nitrogen oxide and particulate emissions or convert to
cleaner-burning natural gas by 1998. "Such pollution
controls should eliminate 20,000 tons of emissions
annually," said Hoffman. In addition, Hayden's owners must
pay a $2 million penalty plus another $2 million toward land
conservation in the Yampa River Valley, where the plant is
located.
"It's a historic day," said Tom Quinn, Rocky Mountain
Chapter legal committee chair. "Our winning argument was
that the Hayden power plant had violated emissions limits
and it allowed us to push for a settlement that will protect
wilderness."
Saving Appalachia's Songbirds
The good news isn't limited to the West. In the Southeast,
legal activists have helped make this a historic year.
Volunteers in Georgia have ensured that the sounds of
songbirds won't be cut short by power saws in the
Chattahoochee National Forest this summer - and their
success may have national implications.
Three years ago, Club activists sought to protect the rich
biodiversity of the Chattahoochee and the Southern
Appalachians by bringing suit against the Forest Service for
its failure to protect migratory songbirds under the
Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Originally passed by Congress in
1918 and signed by Canada, Great Britain, Mexico, Japan and
the Soviet Union, the act makes it unlawful to kill
migratory birds.
This May, a federal judge ruled in Atlanta that logging and
roadbuilding in the state's national forests during the
April-to-August songbird nesting season was in clear
violation of the 78-year-old law.
"The timing couldn't be more crucial," said RenŽ Voss of the
Georgia Chapter and national Lands Management Committee.
"This was the first ruling under the treaty to actually stop
logging in its tracks for six months." Also in Georgia, the
Sierra Club won a suit that will force the EPA and the state
to set total pollution limits for the state's rivers and lakes.
[See May Planet, page 7.]
These rulings are just a sample of the impressive victories
racked up by the Club's Environmental Law Program in recent
months.
And the successes aren't solely domestic. Program staff and
volunteers have recently obtained worldwide protection for
highly endangered sea turtles. In a suit brought by the
Sierra Club, Earth Island Institute and other groups, a
federal court ruled that the U.S. law banning shrimp imports
from countries whose fishing fleets use large nets without
"turtle excluder devices," or TEDs, was not being enforced.
While U.S. shrimpers are already required to use TEDs, the
U.S. government was enforcing the tough turtle-protective
law against only 14 of the more than 70 nations with turtle-
endangering shrimp fleets. The Sierra Club was instrumental
in obtaining a court order this spring forcing the United
States to commence full, worldwide implementation of the
law.
"This is a stunning victory," said Law Program Director Alex
Levinson. "Shrimp nets used without the devices needlessly
cause the deaths of over 100,000 endangered turtles each
year."
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