Let’s walk through what the National Environmental Policy Act is, why it’s so important, and why the National Wildlife Federation is rallying to protect it.

What is the National Environmental Policy Act?

The National Environmental Policy Act is one of the most important laws ever passed for protecting wildlife habitat, public health, and public input into projects in their communities. It guides decisions on the construction of highways, the permitting of pipelines, construction of federal water projects, the management of public lands and waters, and the consideration of climate change. We teach our children to “look before you leap” – this act sensibly requires our government to do the same.

Simply put: NEPA safeguards your voice and the voices of communities and everyday Americans who want a say in the decisions that affect their water, land, and air — as well as wildlife. Without this law, policymakers would lose the information and perspectives they need to make the best-informed decisions.

The legislation was part of a wave of landmark environmental changes passed in the wake of the air, water and public health crises that drew national attention during the 1960s. The desire for protection and public input embodied by NEPA were fueled in particular by federal highway projects cutting up American communities and wildlife habitat, as well as the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill that devastated seabirds, dolphins, elephant seals and sea lions. The National Environment Policy Act passed into law with an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress and was signed by President Nixon on January 1, 1970.

At the heart of this review process is the common sense directive to look before you leap with the support of information provided by members of the public and experts. It gives you the right to participate in government decisions that affect the environment and your health and safety.

What Does NEPA Protect?

NEPA success stories are as numerous as they are varied – from the construction of the Hoover Dam Bypass to the redevelopment of the country’s largest brownfield site in Atlanta to the continued preservation of Giant Sequoia National Monument, to the protection of 50,000 acres of wetlands that constitute the last connection between the Mississippi River and its natural floodplain in the state of Missouri. Thanks to this law, hundreds of millions of Americans have participated in important federal decisions.

Public input is important to ensure all relevant information is considered, resulting in better projects. A thorough vetting of alternatives and accounting for varying stakeholder views leads to money better spent, conflicts avoided, and a more strategic approach toward major federal investments and decisions.

“Public involvement and careful consideration of alternatives has produced better outcomes – for the agencies themselves, for the nation, and for the human environment,” said the late Russell Train, former Republican CEQ Chair, Environmental Protection Agency head and NWF’s 1975 Conservationist of the Year

Some other notable successes:

• Mississippi River Delta Restoration: As we confront an unprecedented restoration opportunity in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP oil spill settlement, NEPA is a critical tool in ensuring that all stakeholders, from industry to local communities, have a say in how the work of restoration unfolds in a manner that protects communities, a massive array of migratory seabirds, fish and wildlife, and their habitat.
• Colorado’s Canyon of the Ancients National Monument: Citizens groups in southwestern Colorado were able to use the National Environmental Policy Act to work with the Bureau of Land Management to design an oil & gas exploration project that enabled lessees to obtain the seismic information they needed while avoiding the land’s most significant cultural features and fragile habitats that support mule deer, bobcats, and dozens of species of birds.
• Protecting the Pearl River: The One River, No Lake Coalition opposes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ attempt to dredge, widen and dam the Pearl River in Jackson, MS. The National Environmental Policy Act has ensured thoughtful public input that so far has kept the project on the shelf. The Pearl River is home to more than a hundred species, including the threatened Gulf sturgeon and ringed sawback turtle.
• New Hampshire & Maine’s Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge: Moose, white-tailed deer, river otters, and beavers are among the many wildlife that call Umbagog home, and a truly incredible 229 bird species have been seen there. With more people living near the refuge leading to more desire for public access, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service used the National Environmental Policy Act to engage local communities on how they wanted to enjoy their public lands. The refuge’s new master plan balances conservation and public use – including dog-sledding, horseback riding, expanded turkey hunting, bicycling, and increased boat access – while also identifying areas for expansion.

Natural Resources Defense Council has a list of NEPA success stories in every U.S. state and territory.

What Cuts Are Possible?

We’re still learning details of the Trump administration’s plans, but here are some likely avenues of attack:

• Restrictions on public input: The administration is considering limiting the public’s ability to participate in decisions in their communities by limiting the scope of NEPA reviews, the types of harms considered, and the amount of time the public has to provide comments.
• Limiting consideration of reasonable alternatives: The administration is considering rolling back the requirement for agencies to look for reasonable alternatives to a project that may cost less, have fewer impacts on wildlife and the environment, or show that the project may be unnecessary and unwise.
• Prioritizing Speed Over Accuracy: What the administration is considering could impose extremely short and strict hard deadlines for project approval, regardless of project size, complexity, and potential harm to wildlife or the degree of public controversy over a proposal.

Why Attack NEPA?

If the National Environmental Policy Act is such a useful tool for ensuring public engagement and smart federal decision-making, why would anyone want to change it? Because ultimately, this act empowers local communities to protect themselves and their environment from dangerous, rushed, or poorly planned federal projects. As the saying goes, time is money, and proponents don’t want to see their projects delayed or killed, no matter the reason.

The National Environmental Policy Act guards against shortcuts that may save project proponents money by exploiting public resources for private gain. For example, digging up nearby wetlands to use the soil sure can save truckloads of money on construction materials! But that costs us all in lost fish and wildlife habitat and degraded stormwater management.

There’s also a political component here. NEPA opponents are testing the waters right now, seeing how far they can go to cut environmental and public voice protections without a massive backlash.

That’s why it’s so critical that we speak up – now and loud – to oppose any cuts to NEPA protections.

What Can We Do?

The National Wildlife Federation, from our DC-based National Advocacy Center to our regional centers to our state and territorial affiliates, is working to defend strong NEPA protections.

“The National Environmental Policy Act has led to better, smarter projects nationwide and has saved taxpayers money time and time again. Our rivers are healthier, our air is cleaner and our communities are safer thanks to this historic piece of legislation,” says Jim Murphy, the National Wildlife Federation’s senior counsel. “Citizen input has changed a great many projects for the better and has stopped a handful of unwise projects from ever being built. Without NEPA at its full strength, our nation’s quality of life and wildlife heritage will suffer.”

We’ll be working to educate our elected officials and policymakers in DC, and to tell the story in towns, cities and states across the country of how this act benefits our communities and wildlife by protecting our natural resources and our ability to weigh in on decisions that affect our lives.

You can donate now to support the National Wildlife Federation’s work, and contact your members of Congress directly and ask them to protect the National Environmental Policy Act.

1. Red Knots

The act will establish a first-ever basin-wide strategy for conserving the resources of an area that supplies drinking water to 15 million people and contains national parks, historic sites, and a globally important refuge for migrating shorebirds such as the Red Knot. The red knot depends on horseshoe crab eggs to survive and the Delaware River Basin Conservation Act will help better conserve the precious shorelines on which the horseshoe crab relies.

So as the red knot makes its 9,300 mile migration, it can be sure its favorite way-station, the Delaware Bay, is safe and protected.

2. Bald Eagle

Like the bald eagle that depends on the Delaware River, this law is as American as apple pie. Led by Democrats such as Delaware Senators Chris Coons and Tom Carper and Republicans like Pennsylvania Congressmen Ryan Costello, Charlie Dent, and Pat Meehan, it’s a model of how legislators from both sides of the aisle can work together to protect and water.

3. Red Fox

The river and its tributaries flow through nearly a dozen National Parks and historic sites from the Delaware Water Gap to Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, and provides world-class recreational opportunities. Whether you want to float through Dingman’s Ferry, visit the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, or photograph the salt marshes in the Delaware refuges, the DRBCA will help keep our public lands healthy for wildlife like the red foxes seen at Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge.

4. Bog Turtle

Our friends at the US Fish and Wildlife Service will take the lead in bringing together businesses, non-governmental and governmental agencies, and scientists from across the region, and the cutest endangered – technically Threatened – specie in country that calls the region home, the bog turtle, will benefit from increased attention to the watershed from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

5. Bobcat

While bobcats will benefit, everyone knows that cats don’t get excited about anything.

6. American Shad

   

Fish are excited too! America’s founding fish that saved the revolution at Valley Forge, the American Shad, needs our help to get around the dams that dot the Delaware’s tributaries. The DRBCA sets up a grant and technical assistance program that could bring federal money into the region for the first time to help implement local projects that can help boost the numbers of migrating fish, such as the American Shad.

7. River Otters

A few years ago a visiting river otter made a splash along the Christina River waterfront in Wilmington. We look forward to a day when otters of generations to come will make regular appearances at waterfronts across the region. Senator Tom Carper agrees: “The Delaware River Basin is an ecological and economic powerhouse for Delaware and our neighboring states. The basin is a vital watershed that contributes $25 billion to our region’s economy and fuels our local communities by supporting jobs in the maritime, agriculture, tourism, hunting, fishing and wildlife industries. This legislation will improve coordination among federal, state, and local partners who work to protect and preserve the basin, and ensure that partners can work together to protect the health of this vital resource for generations to come.”

8. Black Bear

“When water flows down a stream or comes out the tap, it doesn’t distinguish between Democrats or Republicans” Collin O’Mara, National Wildlife Federation President and CEO said about the DRBCA. “All Americans, regardless of background or zip code, have a right to expect clean drinking water to flow from our faucets, and we want the waterways that provide our drinking water to be healthy and thriving.”

The basin provides drinking water to over 15 million people (5% of the U.S. population), and even America’s number one threat, bears, deserve clean water according to O’Mara. So as they sleepily awake from their winter’s nap prepared to pillage our nation’s pic-a-nic baskets, perhaps we can offer them a cold, clean glass of water to satiate their appetite.

9. Wild Trout

Some of the best fly-fishing in the world can be found in the northern stretches of this watershed. The Upper Delaware’s pristine waters will benefit from more coordination and a renewed emphasis on creating sustainable jobs such as the recreational fishing industry. The basin provides $21 billion worth of ecosystem goods and services each year, and we can create more wealth through this act.

10. Ranger Rick

I asked. He’s really excited.

With all this excited wildlife, what’s a human to do? You can make a difference! The elected officials that championed the DRBCA need to hear from you. Without funding, the program may have an impact, but not the kind of impact that will make Ranger Rick hop up and down. We need these leaders to take the next step and fund the restoration program that will keep wildlife healthy and happy.

So take five minutes to reach out to your Congressional Members and let them know how much you care about clean water for wildlife in the Delaware River and waterways.

Bighorn sheep rut in Yellowstone

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Scenes from the Yellowstone Elk Rut

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Pacific chorus frogs at Gaylor Lake in Yosemite

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If you need some more animal cuteness this week, meet Winkelhimer, the painting squirrel. Or watch this crow snowboarding.

Help protect otters and other wildlife. Send a message to the Obama Administration, urging them to act now to restore Clean Water Act protections to small streams and wetlands.

Here is a little boy at the San Diego Zoo who definitely found a way to communicate with a curious river otter.

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Find out how you can connect your kids to nature — right in your own backyard!

With the holidays right around the corner, House Republican leaders are scrambling to fulfill the last-minute wish lists of their good friends, big polluters.

Knowing that Congress must pass the federal spending bills before year’s end in order to continue funding the government, some members are scheming to push through anti-wildlife measures that would otherwise never make it into law.

A whopping 51 anti-environmental “riders”–so called because they ride along appropriations bills while having nothing to do with spending–are being considered, making it one of the most aggressive assaults in our nation’s history to wildlife, clean air, and clean water.

At risk are cuts to programs in the Endangered Species Act, National Wildlife Refuge System, and State and Tribal Wildlife Grants Program, which have been essential to protecting and restoring our wildlife and natural resources. In addition, some of the most egregious riders attempt to:

• Block the EPA and U.S. Army Corps from clarifying the scope of the Clean Water Act, leaving 60% of our nation’s rivers and streams and over 20 million acres of wetlands–which provide crucial habitat for river otters–at risk.
• Force approval of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline and remove the President’s authority to make a final decision on the project. Bypassing much-needed environmental review and turning Congress into a permitting body on this dangerous project would undermine the entire process and put wildlife–including the endangered whooping crane–and water supplies at risk of toxic oil spills.
• Block EPA from reducing mercury and other toxic air pollutants from power plants, industrial boilers or cement kilns, which already causes suffering for common loons.

Passing a spending bill should not be an opportunity to force through unrelated matters that have not received proper consideration or public scrutiny. We can responsibly and successfully fund the federal government in a way that protects our nation’s wildlife, natural resources, and public health.

Urge your members of Congress to stand firm against anti-wildlife riders in the federal spending bill.

Many people might take these endearing, iconic North American inhabitants for granted, but they were once nearly wiped out in many portions of the United States. And now, given recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions that may reinterpret what U.S. waters are protected under the Clean Water Act, they are potentially once again at risk.

Clean Water Paws-itively Necessary for Otters

Otters are good indicators of water quality. As predators, they are high up on the food chain. Scientists have found pollutants such as PCBs and mercury accumulate in otters’ tissues over time, as the animals consume fish, frogs, crayfish, mollusks and other invertebrates, which have in turn also ingested pollutants from their own foods.

To survive, otters need clean water in relatively specific, undisturbed environments. This and their small numbers spread across wide ranges have made them extremely vulnerable to pollution, habitat destruction and historical, unregulated trapping. By the mid-1970s, the North American otter had severely declined and disappeared throughout portions of central United States. This prompted 22 states to initiate programs that reintroduced more than 4,000 otters back into their natural range.

Tom Serfass, a leading river otter researcher and professor of wildlife ecology at Frostburg State University in Maryland has been studying the animals since he was a graduate student in 1979. “I’ve always enjoyed the antics of the otter.” Serfass has been involved in river otter reintroduction programs in Pennsylvania, New York and New Mexico. He says he has seen a rebound of U.S. otter populations as a result of such programs, more informed management and improvements in their aquatic habitats from regulations such as the Clean Water Act. Today, the North American river otter, one of 13 otter species worldwide, is once again found in every continental U.S. state.

Recent Supreme Court decisions, however, have caused confusion over which waterways are protected under the Clean Water Act. The Court’s interpretation of the law says only “navigable waters” or those closely connected to them are protected, leaving some lakes, more than half of the nations’ stream miles and millions of acres of wetlands at risk. In addition to affecting much of our own sources of water for drinking, fishing and farming, this may undermine more than three decades of recovery efforts for river otters.

Serfass led the 1982 reintroduction project of 153 otters into seven river drainages in Pennsylvania. The resident otter populations had declined as a result of unregulated trapping and degraded aquatic habitats. This included the Casselman River and its tributaries in western Maryland and southwestern Pennsylvania.

Beginning in the late 1800s, seepage from local coal mine operations into these waterways eventually made the river water so acidic that it could no longer support aquatic life. Government and private conservation organizations, including angling groups, banded together in the 1990s to stop the drainage from the mines and the river habitat rebounded. Serfass and his team were able to reintroduce otters to the river habitat about 10 years ago and otters continue to thrive in the area.

Not Out of Danger

While the reintroduction of the North American otter is a great conservation success story, these animals have not yet been able to recolonize all of their former historic range. In some cases, this has been related to severe water quality issues, but other U.S. populations may just need more time. For example, only recently have otters begun to move into North Dakota from nearby Minnesota, a healthy native population.

Meanwhile, those populations that are considered stable are not necessarily out of danger. For instance, Serfass says, “The majority of otters used in the reintroduction projects were obtained from coastal Louisiana, the very same area that has been impacted by the recent oil spill. We don’t know the impact of the oil spill on otters, but this event indicates how quickly a thriving population could potentially be impacted by an unexpected event.” In addition, development is continuously shrinking coastal and other habitats the otters need to survive.

What we have done for the otter was to put proper protections of its aquatic habitats in place that allowed these reintroductions to succeed. Weakening the Clean Water Act would be detrimental not just for the otter but the great variety of species that depend on healthy waterways, including ourselves. NWF attorney Jim Murphy told National Wildlife magazine in its April/May issue that “the Clean Water Act has been one of the most successful environmental laws we’ve ever had. … Until we restore [it], many areas are going to find themselves with polluted water.”

In 2009, the Clean Water Restoration Act was introduced to remove the word “navigable” and restore the law to its original 1972 mandates.  The Obama Administration recently took a first step to restore Clean Water Act protections to many of the waters that were protected prior to the Supreme Court’s rulings. On Wednesday, April 27, 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers released draft Clean Water Act guidance. While the Administration must act within the bounds of these Court decisions, successful administration action will restore and clarify protections for millions of wetland acres and stream miles, placing these restored protections on a much more secure legal and scientific foundation.

This would be a simple fix to what could be a very messy problem for all of us, including the North American river otter. And who would want to be visiting their favorite woodland river, wetland or coastal area and have to ask, “Where are the clowns?”

Speak Up for River Otters

Protect river otters’ precious streams and wetlands! >>

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Credit: Sadie Stevens, Department of Environmental Conservation, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Now scientists say their numbers are falling for new reasons that aren’t fully understood:

“This year was an alarming number of white shark attacks that we identified,” says Dr. Michael Murray, a Monterey Bay Aquarium veterinarian. “I think the jury’s still out on, ‘a’ what it means and ‘b’ why it happens.”

It’s puzzling because the sharks don’t eat the otters, but one bite is enough to kill the furry creatures. It’s one reason for a worrying decline in the number of California sea otters.

The latest count of this threatened species shows their population dropped to just 2,711, a decline of 3.6 percent. The number of sea otter pups, which represent the future of the species, is down 11 percent.

But sharks are only part of the problem. Otters are also dying of heart failure:

Heart disease could be linked to the otter’s voracious appetite that makes it vulnerable to toxic runoff from land, says Tim Tinker of the U.S. Geological Survey, who tracks the otters’ food supply.

“Disease causing parasites are going to end up in the ocean there. And sea otters are at the top of the food chain,” Tinker said.

Pollution is only the most recent threat to sea otters posed by humans. They were hunted to near-extinction by the early 20th century before an international ban on hunting, conservation efforts, and reintroduction programs allowed sea otters to rebound.

Learn more about sea otters at NWF’s Ranger Rick.

Over at The New Republic’s The Vine, Brad Plumer discusses how sea otters make the case for capping carbon pollution & allowing trading of pollution permits:

Let’s say Congress enacted a cap-and-trade system and pollution permits were selling for about $20 a ton. If [scientist Chris] Wilmers is right and a healthy sea otter population could sequester ten million tons of carbon, that’d be worth $200 million. So polluters might decide that it’s cheaper to fund sea otter preservation programs than cut power use (at least in the short term), and new offset projects could get approved. Voila: There’s suddenly money to try this sea otter strategy. (Obviously you’d need to have regulators make sure these offset projects are actually working.)

On the other hand, if your national energy policy just consists of a bunch of flat regulations and subsidies for different energy sources, then this whole sea otter business is going to get ignored. Sure, maybe Congress will decide that sea otter preservation is something worth funding directly, but waiting for the legislature to bankroll worthwhile carbon-reduction projects is an awfully sluggish and inflexible way to do business. (Plus, who knows, maybe the urchin lobby steps into the fray.) Right now, Congress is leaning toward this regulation-and-subsidy approach to energy. But there’s an excellent case for a more flexible market-based system. Just ask the otters.

You really otter act now (sorry, had to say it) & tell your senators we need clean energy legislation with a cap on carbon pollution.

Photo via Flickr’s MikeBaird

“Beaver” Out, “Blog” In

Ironically, the word “wren” was removed not long ago from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. In fact, the newest edition of this prominent children’s learning tool no longer defines more than 30 nature words, including “dandelion,” “otter,” “acorn” and “beaver.” In their place, a child will now find definitions for such terms as “MP3 player,” “blog” and “cut and paste.”

Though the latest edition was published in 2007, no one seemed to notice the changes until late last year when an outraged woman told a reporter about the additions and omissions.

According to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Lisa Saunders, a mother of four in Northern Ireland, was helping her son with his homework when she realized that words such as “moss” and “fern” were not in his dictionary. Certain Christian terms, including “chapel” and “saint,” also were gone.

When it was published online last December, the Telegraph article drew hundreds of vitriolic comments from readers. Bloggers took it from there, and outrage spread across the Atlantic. Which leads us to another irony: The Internet had become a tool for protesting the saturation of digital technology into all aspects of modern life—especially children’s education.

In response to the criticism, Oxford University Press released an official statement: The dictionary “is not designed for children to use as they progress higher up the school years, and should be regarded as an introduction to language and the practice of using dictionaries.” The words included in it, the statement continues, are selected based on the “language children will commonly come across at home and at school.” The books also must include words “covering the main religious faiths” and must now pay special attention to computer-related words. These concerns, says the company, must be balanced with keeping the book small enough to be accessible for children between the ages of 8 and 11.

For many naturalists and educators, however, the omissions raise a different set of concerns.

“Making room in the junior dictionary for a new lexicon of technology and communications may be a good thing for children, provided they are not also denied definitions as basic as that of the flower growing on their own lawn,” says Kevin Coyle, NWF vice president for education and training. “Several of the words removed to facilitate participation in the virtual world were cut at the expense of some creatures such as the otter that have been struggling for survival in the real world.”

Kids Know More Pokémon Characters Than Plants and Animals

The revised book could be viewed as another example of adults contributing to the growing disconnection between children and the natural world—a trend that was identified by a study conducted a few years ago by two zoologists at Cambridge University. Reporting in the journal Science, the researchers revealed that a typical 8-year-old could name 78 percent of the 150 characters in the popular video game Pokémon, but could identify less than half of the common British plants and animals in pictures.

Which brings us to one final irony: The concept of the Pokémon universe stems from the hobby of insect collecting, a popular pastime of the game’s inventor when he was a child in Japan.

Need a wildlife reference? Check out NWF’s Wildlife Library >>