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Grassroots Action Helps Protect the Delaware River Basin
Food & Water Watch
Because of the more than 3,000 Food & Water Watch supporters who took action, the Delaware River Basin Commission voted unanimously to postpone a vote on Exxon Mobil's permit request to take up to 250,000 gallons of water a day from a tributary to the Delaware River.
It’s become clearer every day that hydraulic fracturing is not the solution to our energy problems. From New York to Pennsylvania to Arkansas, citizens and elected officials are taking a stand against fracking.
Even Chesapeake Energy, the second-largest natural gas producer in the country, has decided to suspend fracking in the state of Pennsylvania until they can figure out what caused a recent blowout.
Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," injects millions of gallons of fracking fluids, a mixture of nearly 600 chemicals, water and sand, into a well to create pressure that cracks open rocks underground, releasing natural gas.
There are many problems with the toxic wastewater that results, and few solutions to the water contamination that can happen as a result of fracking.
You can help build support for a fracking ban in your community by signing up to get a fracking activist toolkit. For more information visit Food & Water Watch.
International Year of Forests 2011
Sierra Club of Delaware
The United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.
Celebrate by encouraging all of Delaware’s local governments to develop urban forest management plans to protect, preserve and restore forests for future generations.
Trees provide many environmental benefits for urban communities. Trees absorb rainwater, reduce runoff and flooding, lower stormwater facility costs and prevent water pollution. By removing pollutants from the air, including greenhouse gases and other contaminants dangerous to human health, trees improve air quality. Shade moderates temperatures and reduces the urban heat-island effect.
Social benefits are also a part of a healthy urban forest, including increased property values, enhanced economic viability, improved quality of life, and reduced stress, crime and demand for social services.
Learn more about protecting and promoting our healthy urban forests at the Delaware Center for Horticulture website at www.thedch.org and participate in the Cool Cities program to encourage every town in Delaware to develop an urban forest management plan.
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Tell the EPA to Stop Unlimited Toxic Mercury Pollution
Last week, bowing to pressure from big polluters and their allies in congress, the EPA announced that it would extend for 30 days its comment period on the proposed mercury rule, the most important Clean Air Act update in over 20 years. Polluters are doing everything they can to force delay after delay at the EPA - but we can't let them.
Mercury pollution in small amounts leads to birth defects, neurological dysfunction and premature death. But every year, coal-fired power plants alone pump nearly 50 tons of this potent neurotoxin into our air.
Mercury exposure is so widespread in this country that as many as 1 in 6 women of childbearing age has mercury levels in her blood high enough to put a baby at risk of mercury poisoning.
Coal-fired power plants are the biggest source of mercury pollution in this country, yet incredibly, mercury pollution from power plants has been totally unregulated until now. That needs to change, but we'll need a massive show of support for the EPA's rule.
Tell the EPA to stop unlimited toxic mercury pollution from power plants. Submit a public comment now.
For decades, Big Coal and electric utilities have successfully fought requirements to reduce their toxic air pollution. They've kept releasing mercury into the air, where it finds its way into the vast majority of our lakes and waterways, into our fish, and then into our bodies, where the poison accumulates, causing deadly disease and impairing fundamental brain functions like the ability to walk, talk, read, write and learn.
According to the EPA, reduced emissions from this new air toxics rule - which will regulate mercury, arsenic, lead, acid gasse, and six dozen other unregulated toxic chemicals - will save as many as 17,000 American lives every year by 2015, and will prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma.
The health benefits of this rule will provide tremendous monetary benefits of between $60 billion to $140 billion annually, at a substantially lower cost of less than $11 billion for the polluters. With no sense of irony, polluters claim this is too expensive a cost for them to bear - as they reap billions of dollars in profit and heap substantially higher health costs onto the public.
But the cost of the new regulations is a bargain, and the requirements are very reasonable: power plants have four years to install or upgrade to technology that already exists and is in use at many power plants nationwide.
Yet polluters are doing everything they can to remain totally unaccountable for their toxic pollution. And so far, they have been extremely successful in pressuring the EPA to delay. Already this year the EPA has delayed major rules to regulate toxic coal ash from power plants, climate pollution from oil and gas refineries and new power plants. The EPA announced yet another delay to a rule to cut toxic air pollution from industrial factories.
The EPA hasn't delayed the release of the Mercury Rule yet, but extending the public comment period is not a positive sign. We need a massive display of support to encourage the EPA to stand up to polluters, and to implement this rule without delay.
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Celebrates 25th Anniversary
Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
On February 1, 1986, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (RTC) opened its doors. For the last 25 years, they have made it their business to protect our past and transform our future through the use, development and advocacy of rail-trails.
Then, there were fewer than 200 known rail-trails. Today, you'll find more than 1,600 rail-trails across the country, totally nearly 20,000 miles.
Over the years, they have won some major victories, fought some tough battles and helped build a legacy of trails for generations to come.
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