EARTHJUSTICE, FOR THE RECORD: The court gets it right for wolves, Bees and other insects are disappearing at an alarming rate, Migrant children detention center nightmare, Wheeler’s EPA keeps brain-damaging pesticide in our food, for now, Nowhere left for polar bears 24FEB19

With a team of more than 100 legal experts on staff and more than 400 active cases, Earthjustice is holding accountable those who threaten to harm our environment and break our bedrock environmental laws.

The court gets it right for wolves A judge upheld California’s endangered species protections for wolves, but one lone wolf’s journey across state lines shows that federal protections are necessary for their continued survival. READ MORE   BEES ARE IN PERIL — HELP US PROTECT THEM! Bees and other insects are disappearing at an alarming rate. Earthjustice is going to the root of the problem and fighting in court to ban toxic pesticides. Help fund our legal battle today! DONATE NOW     Bees and other insects are disappearing at an alarming rateMillions of insects are dying, and the consequences could be catastrophic. One of the reasons for this sudden collapse? Pesticides. A new report shows how toxic chemicals are contributing to this unprecedented loss. Find out what we’re doing to protect bees and other beneficial insects. READ MORE Migrant children detention center nightmareDocuments that Earthjustice and its clients have uncovered show how a proposed migrant detention center for children will be built on a former Air Force landfill site riddled with chemicals. READ MORE Wheeler’s EPA keeps brain-damaging pesticide in our food, for nowEven though the EPA’s own scientists have said that chlorpyrifos, a chemical originally used for warfare, is harmful, Acting Administrator Wheeler is asking to rehear the case and reverse the ban. We will see him in court. READ MORE Nowhere left for polar bearsWhen their home on Arctic ice melts, polar bears retreat to the remote shores of the Arctic Refuge. If an army of oil industry workers invades their new home in the dead of winter, things are not going to end well. READ MORE   “The President’s cynical political spectacle is creating enormous suffering for thousands of real people whose lives are at stake. We must stand in solidarity with border communities. And we must be prepared to use the full power of the law to do so.” — Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen on President Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency to build additional miles of wall at the border READ MORE HOW YOU CAN HELP Keep neuro-poisons like mercury and arsenic out of our air, water, and food chain Under the leadership of a former coal lobbyist, the EPA is making a mockery of its mission to protect public health by gutting the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. These critical protections prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 asthma attacks every year. TAKE ACTION A former coal lobbyist should not lead the EPA The EPA is in danger of being taken over by a friend of corporate polluters. Again. Tell your senators: Reject former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler as EPA chief. TAKE ACTION

The Earth needs a good lawyer. And in this dark hour, Earthjustice has 130. We’re the lawyers for the environment, and the law is on our side. Learn more.

EPA PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD TILL 11MAR16: End the oil and gas industry's free pass to spew dangerous chemicals into the air we breathe

Earth Justice

Shale deposits with potential for gas fracking are shown here in blue. Actual fracking sites appear as orange, heaviest in the Pennsylvania/New York region featured in Promised Land.
BENZENE is just one of the extremely hazardous chemicals released in the air by fracking and oil and gas drilling operations. The EPA is asking for public comments on their proposed regulations eliminating the loopholes that have allowed this level of air pollution to continue unabated. The last day to comment is 11 MAR 16, click the link to submit your comments to the EPA. This from +Earthjustice ...

TAKE ACTION! End the oil and gas industry’s free pass to spew dangerous chemicals into the air we breathe TAKE ACTION

Fracking and other oil and gas operations emit chemicals that cause cancer, brain damage and birth defects—often with little or no oversight. Tell the EPA we need stronger protections from hazardous air pollution now.

Earthjustice has been fighting for decades in the courts and on Capitol Hill to defend the fundamental right to clean, breathable air. Along the way we’ve won major victories, but the oil and gas industry is still doing everything in its power to keep up its business-as-usual pollution. Today we need your help to close outrageous air pollution loopholes for fracking-fueled oil and gas operations. Benzene—a toxic petrochemical that actually smells “sweet”—has been linked to cancer, anemia, brain damage and birth defects, and is just one of many hazardous air pollutants produced by the oil and gas industry that needs to be reined in. In 2012 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began the job of trying to reduce toxic air pollution from the oil and gas industry. Now the agency is finally trying to finish what it started by asking the public to weigh in as it considers strengthening protections for the air we breathe. We have just days to demand strong protections from several hazardous air pollutants. Take action now before the deadline for public comment expires on March 11. Across the country, people live just a few hundred feet from oil and gas infrastructure that spews dangerous pollution like benzene freely into the air. In cities like Los Angeles and Houston, companies can even emit these carcinogenic, brain-damaging chemicals right next door to homes, schools and playgrounds. The EPA has the duty and the tools to close the loopholes that allow the oil and gas industry to blanket our communities in a fog of pollution, but the agency needs to hear from you now. Take action to end pollution loopholes for oil and gas operations, including fracking. This is the perfect opportunity to give communities relief from pollution that can cause cancer, respiratory and neurological problems, and birth defects. Sincerely,

Emma Cheuse Staff Attorney TAKE ACTION

Giant Oil Plume Found Below Surface Of Gulf 20AUG10

by Dan Charles

August 20, 2010

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Enlarge Dana Yoerger/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Sentry automated underwater vehicle, shown aboard the research vessel Endeavor at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site, was used to track the underwater oil plume.

Dana Yoerger/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The Sentry automated underwater vehicle, shown aboard the research vessel Endeavor at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site, was used to track the underwater oil plume.

Scientists have mapped out, for the first time, the underwater path that some petrochemicals took after gushing from BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. It's an important new piece in a huge scientific puzzle.
Researchers are trying to figure out where as much as half of the spilled oil has gone.
Christopher Reddy, a co-author of the study released Thursday by the journal Science, says it was a big surprise when scientists first reported that large amounts of oil and oil compounds were staying underwater rather than rising to the surface.
"If you’d asked me — and I've been studying oil spills for 15 years — whether or not you would see oil in the subsurface, I would have said, 'No — doesn't oil float?' " he said at a news conference Thursday.
The phenomenon is fascinating but also troublesome, he says, because if scientists don't know where the oil is, they also don't know what harm it may be causing.
In June, Reddy and his colleagues from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution took a research ship to the scene of the spill. They lowered a sensor deep into the water and towed it in a large circle around the blown-out well, looking for particular hydrocarbons that are easy to detect.
The sensor picked up a hydrocarbon signal southwest of the well, in a layer of water 3,000 feet below the surface.
Richard Camilli, another researcher from WHOI, says they then sent down a new device — a small unmanned submarine called Sentry.
"We had Sentry fly at a constant depth in kind of a zigzag pattern, moving out from the well site, tracking the plume," he said.

If you’d asked me -- and I've been studying oil spills for 15 years -- whether or not you would see oil in the subsurface, I would have said, 'No -- doesn't oil float?'

- Scientist Christopher Reddy

The hydrocarbons, including benzene and toluene, were highly diluted in the water. They were coming from the gushing well, but they weren't spreading out in all directions. Instead, they followed an invisible underwater channel just over a mile wide and 650 feet thick. The researchers tracked that channel southwest for 22 miles, until bad weather forced them to stop.
They looked for signs that microorganisms are feasting on those petroleum products and breaking them down, but they didn't see any. Reddy says they don't know exactly why.
"Microbes are a lot like teenagers," he says. "They work on their own time, at their own scale. They do what they want when they want."
There are many other unknowns. Reddy and his colleagues don't yet know how much of the oil from the well is in this plume. They hope to arrive at an estimate in a few months, after analyzing all of their water samples. They also don't know how toxic the plume may be to wildlife.
Yet this is the best-documented case so far of oil flowing underwater.
"This is a big piece of the puzzle," says Steven Murawski, science adviser for fisheries at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Murawski is trying to put the whole puzzle together. He is in touch with many of the research vessels — as many as seven on any given day — that are working in the Gulf of Mexico.
Murawski says additional scientific reports about oil in the deep sea around the well will be released in the coming weeks. But he'd like to see more scientists working in other places, such as on the continental shelf, the wide shallow area close to shore where most fish live. Murawski says he's drafting plans to expand such research.

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