Rosemere | Rosemere Neighborhood Association

National Marine Fisheries Service Says Clark County’s Stormwater Plan is Deficient and Will Harm Salmon

June 23, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

Under a lopsided deal reached in early January 2010, the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) agreed to allow Clark County to retain inadequate stormwater standards for new development in exchange for a promise to implement county-funded stormwater mitigation projects. In February 2010, Rosemere Neighborhood Association, along with Columbia Riverkeeper, and Northwest Environmental Defense Center, appealed Ecology’s special deal with Clark County to the State Pollution Control Hearings Board in an attempt to repeal Clark County’s faulty stormwater management plan. The three conservation groups also filed a 60-day Notice of Intent to Sue Clark County in federal court for violations of the Clean Water Act. Earthjustice, a public interest law firm, represents the three conservation groups in these legal challenges.

Local residents and clean water advocates argue Washington State authorized inadequate development standards in Clark County’s stormwater permit that will generate illegal stormwater pollution, and that the stormwater pollution will also harm endangered species of salmon and their habitats.

Clark County’s Phase I municipal stormwater permit is issued under the National Pollutant Discharge & Elimination System program (NPDES) and is administered by the US Environmental Protection Agency. In turn, EPA defers management and enforcement of the federal stormwater management permit to Ecology. In the appeal, Rosemere et al cite that Ecology is not properly enforcing the federal stormwater permit.

In June 2010, The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) issued public comments on Clark County’s alternative municipal Phase I stormwater permit. Clark County is home to 15 endangered species of salmon, steelhead, smelt and sturgeon. NMFS states that Clark County’s stormwater plan will not meet required goals to protect these fisheries and concludes that “adverse effects to listed (endangered) salmon will be significantly increased.” Stephen W. Landino, the Washington State Director for Habitat Conservation, states that NMFS “strongly encourage(s) the EPA to object to the issuance of this (Clark County) permit.”

To read the NMFS comment letter, please click here. [Read More...]
Agency Civil Rights Office Shuffle Replaces Director With Ex-Interim Head (reprinted with permission from Inside Washington Publishers)

June 23, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on June 18, 2010. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2010. No further distribution is permitted.

Click here to view article (pdf format):

Agency Civil Rights Office Shuffle Replaces Director EPA 06-10
Columbia River Crossing Project Environmental Impact Analysis

May 31, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

I-5 Interstate Bridge Over Columbia River

In Summer 2008, a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) was released on the Columbia River Crossing Project, and various environmental organizations, including Rosemere Neighborhood Association, submitted public comment to show that the draft document was incomplete and full of data gaps. Concerns were also raised regarding the draft’s compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act.

Since the release of the DEIS, Rosemere has met several times with Columbia River Crossing (CRC) staff and has raised concerns regarding the project’s impact on the environment, including the aquifer system that provides Clark County residents with drinking water and local streams within the construction footprint.

In 2005, Rosemere submitted a petition to EPA requesting that agency to designate the Troutdale and Unconsolidated Alluvium Aquifer System in Clark County, Washington, as a Sole Source Aquifer. The EPA defines the Sole Source Aquifer Program as a tool used to protect drinking water supplies in areas with few or no alternative sources to groundwater resources, and where such an aquifer is vulnerable to contamination. Sole Source designation requires at least a 50% dependence on an aquifer for its potable water supply. Factual analysis provided by Rosemere and its partners shows that 99.4% of the potable water used in Clark County is obtained from groundwater. In August, 2006, EPA officially granted Rosemere’s petition and designated Clark County’s Troutdale Aquifer System as a federally protected Sole Source Aquifer. One of Rosemere’s goals was to ensure adequate environmental review of the CRC project under the federal Sole Source Aquifer program. [Read More...]
Video: Dvija Michael Bertish Interview with Jake Thomas on the Portland Observer Hour

May 13, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

Please click on the arrow to begin the video.

Dvija Michael Bertish recently sat down with Jake Thomas, Web Editor & News Reporter of the Portland Observer on Portland Observer Hour, and discussed the history of Rosemere Neighborhood Association’s landmark environmental justice case as well as our dedicated work for environmental protection and improving the status of environmental justice communities. [Read More...]
Coalition Urges US Energy Secretary Chu to Withdraw Decision to Use Hanford as a National Radioactive Waste Dump

May 6, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

Arial view of Hanford Nuclear Reservation & Columbia River

On April 29, 2010, a coalition of Northwest environmental and public health groups, including the Rosemere Neighborhood Association, sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, urging him to withdraw the Department of Energy’s decisions to use Hanford, WA, as a national radioactive waste dump.

The letter requests:

“that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) withdraw its 2000 and 2004 Records of Decision selecting Hanford as a disposal site for large volumes of radioactive low-level waste (LLW) and mixed low-level waste (MLLW) from across the Nation. The Department’s own draft Tank Closure and Waste Management Environmental Impact Statement (TC&WM EIS) clearly demonstrates that importing and burying off-site waste at Hanford poses serious human health and environmental impacts. [Read More...]
Coal Free Washington Town Hall Meeting Held in Vancouver

April 27, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

TransAlta Coal Plant, Centralia , WA (image: Sierra Club)

In the fall of 2007, the Rosemere Neighborhood Association, along with five other Northwest environmental groups including Columbia Riverkeeper, Willapa Audubon Society, Washington Environmental Council, Sierra Club’s Cascade Chapter and Northwest Energy Coalition were granted the legal status to intervene in the permitting process for Energy Northwest’s proposed 680-megawatt coal-fueled Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) power plant in Kalama, Washington. The intervention was successful, and Energy Northwest withdrew its application to build the coal fired power plant. Environmental groups provided testimony regarding the contamination caused by coal fired power plants, and the public was mobilized to object to Energy Northwest’s plans that would have polluted the Columbia River and would have impacted the health of local residents.

In an effort to make Washington State a coal-free state, conservation groups are now focusing on the aged TransAlta coal fired power plant in Centralia. During the week of Earth Day, a coalition of organizations sponsored Town Hall meetings in Western Washington to discuss the environmental and public health impacts caused by coal plants, and to mobilize efforts to shut down the TransAlta plant, the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, mercury pollution, and coal haze that that invades 12 wilderness areas in Washington State.

A study published in Open Atmospheric Science Journal by a group of ten scientists from the United States (including NASA), the United Kingdom and France argue that a prompt moratorium on new coal use and a complete phase out of existing coal emissions is needed by 2030 to avert environmental catastrophe. The report concludes: “The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis.”

Rosemere attended the Town Hall meeting in Vancouver, April 21, 2010, sponsored by the Sierra Club. Panelists included Maye Thompson from Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Doug Howell of the Sierra Club, and Ted Nace, author of the book Climate Hope: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal. The Sierra Club has formed the Coal Free campaign with a chapter working in Washington State. [Read More...]
New EPA Data On Civil Rights Backlog May Help Reshape Equity Agenda (reprinted with permission from Inside Washington Publishers)

April 13, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on April 9, 2010. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2010. No further distribution is permitted.

Click here to view article (pdf format):

Rosemere New EPA Data IEPA 04-10

Click here to view the EPA Spreadsheet (pdf format):

Updated Title VI Spreadsheet April 2010
Landmark Pact Could Speed EPA Review Of Stalled Civil Rights Complaints (reprinted with permission from Inside Washington Publishers)

March 26, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

This article originally appeared in Inside EPA Weekly Report on March 26, 2010. It is reprinted here with permission of the publisher, Inside Washington Publishers. Copyright 2010. No further distribution is permitted.

Click here to view article (pdf format):

Rosemere Landmark Pact IEPA 03-10
Rosemere Settles Landmark Environmental Justice Case Against EPA

March 23, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off

PRESS RELEASE****PRESS RELEASE****PRESS RELEASE

ROSEMERE NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION SETTLES LANDMARK ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE CASE AGAINST EPA’S OFFICE OF CIVIL RIGHTS

Contact: Ralph Bloemers, Crag Law Center Tel. (503) 525-2727
Contact: Dvija Michael Bertish, Rosemere Neighborhood Association, Tel. (360) 281-4747
www.crag.org , www.rosemerena.org

(March 22, 2010) Judge Benjamin H. Settle, US District Court of Washington, entered a Stipulated Judgment in favor of the Rosemere Neighborhood Association on March 19, 2010. Rosemere is a non-profit community organization based in Clark County, Washington dedicated to environmental protection and improving the status of environmental justice communities. In entering the judgment, Judge Settle approved the final Settlement Agreement between Rosemere and EPA that concludes a seven year stretch of administrative Title VI complaints and litigation.

In February 2003, Rosemere first filed a Title VI administrative complaint with EPA’s Office of Civil Rights (”OCR”) alleging that the City of Vancouver, WA had discriminated in the provision of municipal services in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Rosemere alleged that Vancouver failed to use EPA funds to address fairly long-standing problems in low-income and minority neighborhoods in West Vancouver.

Soon after, the city of Vancouver began an investigation into the internal operations of Rosemere and then revoked Rosemere’s status as a “recognized” neighborhood association. The city also stripped the neighborhood of its historical name, actions later deemed “suspicious” by EPA in an investigative report. Rosemere filed a second Title VI complaint with the EPA in December 2003 alleging retaliation by the city of Vancouver. Rosemere filed suit against EPA on two separate occasions citing EPA’s failure to accept, investigate, and issue findings on Rosemere’s complaints. Each time, EPA responded to Rosemere only after the litigation was filed and EPA sought to dismiss the cases as “moot.”

In September 2009, the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s ruling to dismiss Rosemere, citing EPA’s “consistent pattern of delay.” The appellate court substantiated the claim that Rosemere is in “realistic danger of sustaining a direct injury as a result of the agency’s [EPA's'] disregard of its own regulations.” Chris Winter, an attorney with the Crag Law Center, a Portland-based public interest law firm, represented Rosemere in all three cases against the EPA. “For years, EPA’s Office of Civil Rights ignored civil rights complaints from all across the country. This case sheds light on a long-standing national struggle for justice.”

Dvija Michael Bertish, Rosemere’s Director of Environment and Conservation, said “We will continue to push the Office of Civil Rights to do the job it was supposed to do years ago, and insist that EPA clean up its act.” In the Settlement Agreement, EPA’s Office of Civil Rights admits that its actions were unlawful when it failed to process Rosemere’s complaint of retaliation against the City of Vancouver. The Stipulated Judgment and Settlement Agreement require the EPA to take action on any additional Title VI complaints submitted by Rosemere over the next five years in accordance with regulatory timelines. The Stipulated Judgment and Settlement Agreement also require EPA to report quarterly to the Rosemere Neighborhood Association for the next five years and specifically track the status of all Title VI administrative complaints submitted to and investigated by EPA.

To view documents, click on these links:
Stipulated Judgment Rosemere v EPA
Signed Settlement Agmt Rosemere v EPA
Ninth Circuit Court Decision Rosemere v EPA
EPA Moves Forward With Site Inspection of Camp Bonneville for Consideration to List as Superfund Site

March 6, 2010 Author: admin
Comments Off
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 10 Office has announced the results of its Preliminary Assessment of Camp Bonneville, the former US Military installation in Clark County, Washington.

In a letter dated March 1, 2010, EPA informed Camp Bonneville cleanup contractors and the Washington State Department of Ecology that based on the information gathered in the Preliminary Assessment Report, “additional investigation is warranted” of the Camp Bonneville Site under CERCLA [Superfund*].

According to the EPA’s report,
“the objectives of a Preliminary Assessment are:
- To determine whether the site is releasing or has the potential to release hazardous constituents into the environment;
- Identify potential public health and/or environmental threats posed by the site;
- Assess the need for additional investigation and/or response action at the site; and
- Determine the potential for placement of the site on the National Priorities List (NPL).”
The report states the Preliminary Assessment was conducted in response to a formal Preliminary Assessment Petition dated February 3, 2009, submitted by the Rosemere Neighborhood Association and Columbia Riverkeeper under Section 105(d) of CERCLA.

EPA is directing its own contractor, Ecology and Environment, Inc., of Seattle, Washington, to arrange the followup investigations, also known as Site Inspection:

From the EPA website:

“The Site Inspection program identifies potential cleanup sites that have a high probability of qualifying for the National Priorities List (Superfund), and provides the data needed for Hazard Ranking System scoring and documentation. Site Inspection investigators typically collect samples to determine what hazardous substances are present at a site, and whether they are being released into the environment.”

EPA Preliminary Assessment Report of Camp Bonneville finds

“the sources that appear most likely to contribute current or future contamination at the site are the firing target area, the Central Impact Target Area, the OB/OD area and Landfill4.”

The firing target area is of concern because of “previous detections of heavy metals in the soil and because UXO [unexploded ordinance] has historically been present in these areas….there is still the possibility that people may wander outside of the cleared areas and encounter UXO.” There is “confirmed presence of lead and RDX contaminated soil” in the Central Impact Target Area and “it is possible that contamination may migrate from this source through ground water or surface water runoff to Lacamas Creek….The OBD/OD area is of concern due to the presence of historic RDX and arsenic contaminated soil. Landfill 4 is of concern due to the continued presence of perchlorate in the ground water.” Ground water sampling has found “a perchlorate ground water plume is present at the site in the area surrounding Landfill4/Demolition Area 1.”

The report recommends more “robust” modeling and testing of groundwater flow and transport to determine the impact on the Troutdale Sole Source Aquifer.

You can view EPA’s Preliminary Assessment report by clicking on the following links (pdf format):

EPA Preliminary Assessment Report – Camp Bonneville

Tables & Maps for EPA Preliminary Assessment Report

You can view Rosemere Neighborhood Association’s Preliminary Assessment Petition from February 3, 2009, by clicking on the following links (pdf format):

Preliminary Assessment Petition – Camp Bonneville

Tables & Maps for Preliminary Assessment Petition – Camp Bonneville

Here is a snapshot of the Summary and Conclusions, Section 4, (which can be found on Pages 79 & 80) from EPA Preliminary Assessment Report:

*CERCLA is The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), amended in 1986 by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act, (SARA), commonly known as Superfund. For more information on CERCLA and Superfund designations go to the EPA website at http://epa.gov/superfund/policy/cercla.htm.