Statement at the Cleveland Public Hearing on October 23, 2006 by Laurel Hopwood on behalf of Sierra Club Ohio Chapter
Sierra Club, the country's largest grassroots conservation organization, opposes the firing of munitions into the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are the world's largest concentration of fresh surface water and the drinking water supply for more than 42 million people. The addition of hazardous chemicals from munitions into the Great Lakes is an unnecessary stress on an already beleaguered environment, given that the Great Lakes are also a sink for other persistent and toxic chemicals originating from municipalities, industry and agriculture.
The Coast Guard would become one of the largest sources of the toxic metal lead entering the Great Lakes if it goes through with its plan. The Coast Guard acknowledges that close to 7,000 pounds of lead compounds would be added to the lakes annually. That's nearly DOUBLE the amount of lead discharged to surface waters from the entire state of Ohio in a year. That is an unacceptable risk.
(Per EPA Toxics Release Inventory, 4,332 pounds of lead and lead compounds are released annually to Ohio's surface waters. See: www.epa.state.oh.us/dapc/tri/04tri/appa04.pdf)
The Coast Guard study acknowledges that lead, a carcinogen and neurotoxin, will likely "dissolve into the sediment port water or adsorb to the surrounding sediment. Plants and animals that exist at the bottom of the food chain might ingest and be directly exposed to the metals in the sediment." The bioaccumulative effect of heavy metals would be passed up the food chain, which could jeopardize public health and safety. Ingesting lead can cause brain damage, reproductive problems and cancer in humans, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
The proposed rule ignores the following Acts:
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)
Clean Water Act (CWA)
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA):
According to the proposed rule, the Coast Guard has made a preliminary determination that the rule is excluded from environmental review. Through careful wording, the Coast Guard attempts to qualify for a categorical exclusion to which it is not entitled. The proposed rule states that it proposes to establish "safety zones throughout the Great Lakes" that are "intended to restrict vessels from portions of the Great Lakes during live fire gun exercises that will be conducted by Coast Guard cutters and small boats. These safety zones are necessary to protect the public from the hazards associated with the firing of weapons." The wording of the rule is misleading in that it attempts to convince the public that they are merely creating safety zones when, in fact, it purports to establish permanent firing zones where live fire exercises would be conducted, which would naturally require safety zones.
The Clean Water Act (CWA):
The CWA makes it unlawful for any person to discharge pollutants from any point source into navigable waters of the United States without obtaining a pollution discharge permit and complying with its terms. The proposed rule is a violation of the Clean Water Act because they are and will continue to discharge a pollutant from a point source into navigable waters without a permit.
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA):
The lead from bullets falling naturally to the ground as a result of Coast Guard's shooting turn a site into a hazardous waste facility, that lead is thereby released into the environment, and that the resulting accumulation of lead and the mere passage of time constitutes a disposal of hazardous waste. Lead in any amount is a hazardous substance. The lead shot from a single shotgun shell or the lead bullet from a single round of ammunition meets the definition of a hazardous substance for purposes of the CERCLA.
The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA):
RCRA is a comprehensive environmental statute that governs the treatment, storage and disposal of solid and hazardous waste. The RCRA prohibits open dumping which includes the disposal of solid waste. Solid waste includes any garbage, refuse or other discarded material resulting from commercial operations or community activities. The phrase other discarded material has been interpreted to include material that has been disposed of, thrown away or abandoned, such as lead shot. Disposal means the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of any solid or hazardous waste into or on any land or water so that such solid or hazardous waste or any constituent thereof may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into any waters, including ground waters. Proposed rule is a violation of RCRA, because the lead bullets are and will continue to be is disposed into the lake bottom.
The proposed rule also ignores compliance with other laws and requirements, such as the Migratory Birds Treaty Act, because the study fails to account for migratory bird patterns or seasons. The proposed rule also ignores factors such as critical habitat, special-status species or potable water intakes.
More environmental analysis is needed before this proposed rule becomes THE rule.