Lay of the Land

No New Oil Drilling in our Oceans

Photo from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

Labor Day represents the end of summer-- and nothing says summer quite like a trip to the beach. At the beginning of summer, my family spent a few wonderful days exploring the beaches lining a small South Carolina coastal town.  Enjoying the catch of the day at a local crab shack, we gazed at a sign across the road at a grocery store that pleaded "Don't ruin our ocean with sonic cannons."  As we talked to long -time residents, we were struck by the deep concern they have that drilling for oil offshore would kill this community’s tradition of great seafood, clean beaches, and sea turtle nesting.  

Recently the Obama administration opened up the waters off the Atlantic coast to seismic testing, the first step towards offshore drilling. Opening up pristine areas of the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans for drilling is being proposed  in the Obama Administration's new five year Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program. New offshore drilling not only threatens our communities and beaches, it also severely undercuts President Obama's plans to fight climate disruption.  

The planet is heating up, from the burning of fossil fuels like oil and gas. Though President Obama and this Administration have done more to combat climate disruption than any other president, true progress can't be made if offshore drilling is expanded.  If we are serious about avoiding the catastrophic impacts of climate disruption, we have to keep dirty fuels like oil and gas in the ground and scrap any plans that would allow new offshore drilling off of our coasts.

Oil and gas from new offshore drilling dumps more carbon pollution into the air, increasing sea level rise that destroys coastal communities and beaches. More major cities such as New York will flood – as we saw during super storm Sandy -- as well as other cities such as Miami, Norfolk, New Orleans, and Boston. The Everglades and the marshes of Louisiana will melt into the Gulf of Mexico. The Florida Keys, North Carolina’s Outer Banks, barrier islands from New Jersey to Florida, and beaches across America could simply disappear. Some communities, like those in Norfolk, are already dealing with increased flooding from rising seas.

New offshore drilling threatens our coastal economies. Every summer millions of Americans vacation at our coasts and beaches. They spend time with their families, and spend billions of dollars supporting coastal economies that create millions of jobs.  Those jobs depend on clean, healthy beaches that could be lost to a single accident.

Image from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

Drilling means spilling. True recovery after a devastating oil spill is a myth spun by Big Oil.  The Gulf of Mexico has still not recovered from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster; oil continues to wash ashore on Gulf beaches; commercial fisheries and marine populations have not rebounded.  

Opening new areas such as the South Atlantic for offshore drilling sets us up for more devastating oil spills and ties our nation into the dirty energy of the past.

Currently, there is no offshore drilling infrastructure on the east coast of the United States. Even if new leases are issued as early as 2017, it will take at least 15 years to develop the facilities - first exploratory rigs that are replaced by permanent drilling rigs, pipelines, support vessels and ports, etc. – to exploit any commercially recoverable oil or natural gas. That will mean that development of fossil fuels off the coast of Virginia or South Carolina would lock us into dirty fuels for the next twenty years and likely much longer.

This is not the legacy that the President, or we as Americans, should leave behind. New fuel economy standards and cleaner power plant rules are important and positive steps towards cleaning up our energy and combating climate disruption. However, to truly combat climate disruption, the President must also protect our coasts and beaches from oil drilling. Put the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans off-limits to offshore drilling and leave those dirty fuels in the ground.

-- Dan Chu, director of the Sierra Club Our Wild America campaign

Wilderness Wednesday: Virginia's First Wilderness

Bordered by the Thunder Ridge Wilderness, Blue Ridge Parkway, and Petites Gap Road in the south; and the James River in the northeast, the James River Face Wilderness is Virginia’s first designated wilderness with a total of 8,886 acres. Located in west central Virginia, one of the area’s important characteristics is its sheer scenic beauty that is visible on any one of its 32 miles of trails—11 of which are part of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. To get a wider view of James River Face, visitors can climb one of the numerous bluffs and cliffs in the wilderness area, where elevation can range from 650 feet at the James River to Highcock Knob at 3,073 feet. Where the James River cuts through the Blue Ridge Mountains, a beautiful gorge is visible offering distant views; perfect for a picture.

James River Face Wilderness, Steve Boutcher, wilderness.net

Restoring our Urban Waters: A Spotlight on New Orleans’ Bayou Bienvenue

When you hear the word 'bayou' it is hard not to think of the American Gulf Coast. These unique swampy ecosystems have come to define the region, especially in Louisiana. In fact, the word 'bayou' is believed to have originated in Louisiana. Healthy bayous are not only teeming with biodiversity, but can also protect inland areas from tropical storms and hurricanes. These are just a sampling of reasons why protecting coastal wetlands are so crucial.

The Louisiana coast has lost 1,900 square miles of marshes and wetlands over the last 85 years as the Gulf of Mexico continues to encroach further inland. Louisiana's wetlands and the communities that surround them are in trouble, but there is a solution: Restoration.

For the Delta Chapter of the Sierra Club, stopping coastal erosion and degradation has been a major priority. With the help of thousands of active Louisiana Sierrans along with like-minded local organizations, projects have been underway to promote nearby nature by bringing back the wetlands that once were and protecting the wetlands that remain. One area that has been a chief concern for the Delta Chapter is New Orleans' Bayou Bienvenue. While the biological health of this area is highly threatened, the efforts that are taking place there have given residents a new hope. 

A Wetland in Crisis: A time lapse of aerial pictures of Bayou Bienvenue in 1952, 1960, and 1976. 

Wilderness Wednesday: Warriors and Film in the North Cascades

A group of intrepid veterans, now aspiring filmmakers, recently embarked on an expedition into the wilderness of Washington's North Cascades National Park for the 2014 Sierra Club Military Outdoors Adventure Film School. Months of planning, training, and pre-production, followed by six days in the mountains summiting Sahale Peak, Shark Fin Tower, and the Aquirre resulted in some amazing experiences, and truly inspirational films.

Watch their moving films and learn more about trip.

Time to Create an ECHO Across America: Every Child Healthy Outdoors

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just released the 2014 State Indicator Report on Physical Activity, and it’s bleak. The state by state analysis is a stark reminder that most kids in America are not getting enough physical activity.

According to the report, only 27.1% of youth in the United States are meeting the national physical aerobic activity guidelines, which call for 60 minutes of moderate- or vigorous- intensity physical activity daily. In some states, like Texas, less than one-fifth of young people are meeting these guidelines.

Unfortunately, these numbers are less surprising when coupled with the fact that most Americans simply do not live within walking distance of a park. According to the state by state report, only 39.2% of the U.S. population lives within a half mile of a park. If you want to see how your city fares on park access, look no further than the Trust for Public Land’s Park Score, which ranks cities on park acreage, access, investments and other metrics. The proximity and safety of parks are increasingly being recognized as a contributing factor to the overall health of a community, yet many of our children don't have basic neighborhood access.

Wilderness Wednesday: High Uintas Wilderness, Utah’s Land of the Lakes

Picture an extremely tall mountain, overlooking a clear blue lake at its foot surrounded by thick forests of Engelmann spruce, fir, pine, conifer, and apsen trees.  Next visualize this lake showing a beautiful reflection of that same mountain. Now imagine this scene happening over and over again throughout one area. While it may appear to be imaginary, these scenes are very real, combining together to make up the High Uintas Wilderness in northeastern Utah. 

Photo courtesy Cordell Anderson, Wilderness.net

One of Utah’s greatest treasures, the High Uintas Wilderness is one of the U.S.’s most outstanding wilderness areas, with evidence to prove it. As part of both Ashley and Wasatch-Cache National Forests, it is the largest wilderness area in Utah with a total of 456,705 acres.

Senators Call on President Obama to Protect Greater Canyonlands

It is an exciting time to be a conservationist. Of course, there are still plenty of uphill, grassy and rocky battles, but now is a time to be more optimistic than ever.  Just this year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary year of the Wilderness Act, a new Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks National Monument, and the pending expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, and no doubt more to come. Recent successes have stirred more and more local and national support for protection of our public lands. Next on the list?  Utah.

Photo courtesy Tim Peterson and Stephanie Smith, Grand Canyon Trust

Last week, fourteen U.S. Senators signed a letter to President Obama calling on him to use the Antiquities Act to protect the Greater Canyonlands in southern Utah. The Senators represent 13 states and more than 100 million Americans. National, regional and local communities have been working to expand Canyonlands National Park ever since it was established in 1964.  As noted in the letter:   

“Greater Canyonlands … provid(es) habitat for seven threatened and endangered species. Four rivers flow there-the Colorado, the Green, the San Rafael and the Dirty Devil, this watershed serves wildlife as well as 30 million Americans in seven states. It is a lifeline in the increasingly arid West.”

Legislation Advances to Protect Colorado’s Browns Canyon

This month, The Browns Canyon National Monument and Wilderness Act -- sponsored by U.S. Sen. Mark Udall -- was approved by the Senate National Parks Subcommittee.

The bill, which Sen. Udall proposed last year, highlights what Coloradans see as an important priority -- maintaining the legacy and beauty of our natural spaces so they may be enjoyed well into the future. The bill would protect existing legal uses of the land and ban future mining on the riverbeds, thereby protecting the river’s water supply.

The Arkansas River runs through Browns Canyon, making the region a haven for whitewater rafting, fishing, and many other kinds of recreation. The region also supports local agriculture and tourism industries.

Another step closer to earning National Monument recognition, the proposal would protect 22,000 acres of public land from future development and 10,500 acres of designated wilderness. The bill now moves on to the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

A recent poll by Conservation Colorado indicates that 77 percent of Colorado residents support the monument designation proposition. Summit Daily reports that conservationists, locals in Chaffee County, and business owners are enthusiastic about the environmental, economic, and recreational opportunities for Browns Canyon posed by this bill. In a piece for the Denver Post, Joseito Velasquez and Rigo Magaña -- representing Hispanic and religious communities in Colorado -- praised the bill and called upon the Senate to keep “encouraging stewardship of our outdoor and cultural heritage.”

“I’ve spent 18 months developing this bill side by side with Chaffee County residents and other stakeholders. I’ve held public meetings, received thousands of written comments, and my staff and I conducted over 50 meetings,” Sen. Udall said in a hearing as the Chairman of the National Parks Subcommittee. “The resulting bill is emblematic of how public lands bills should be done: from bottom up, based on what the community wants.”

 

---Stephanie Steinbrecher, Sierra Club Media Team