|
Cook
Inletkeeper
Watershed
Watch Program
Environmental
Permitting
Dec 4, 2008 - Press Release
(pdf
Version)
Villages and Conservation Groups Appeal EPA’s Delegation of
Clean Water Act Authority to the State
Trustees for Alaska Files Challenge in Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals
FOR
MORE INFORMATION:
Vicki
Clark, Trustees for Alaska 907.276.4244 x110
Mike
Williams, Akiak 907.765.7426
Bob
Shavelson, Cook Inletkeeper 907.299.3277
Trustees for Alaska,
representing Native villages on Bristol Bay and the Lower
Kuskowim and several conservation organizations, has filed a
legal challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s
decision, announced in October, to give Alaska the authority to
issue and enforce permits under the Clean Water Act.
In documents filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,
Trustees for Alaska indicated that the petitioners will argue
that Alaska’s enforcement regime fails to measure up to Federal
requirements for administering the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES), the centerpiece of the Clean Water
Act.
“Alaska doesn’t have the expertise or the capacity to carry out
the goals of the NPDES program,” said Vicki Clark, Legal
Director of Trustees for Alaska. “Under the state’s enforcement
rules, ordinary citizens will have less chance to be heard, the
state will have fewer enforcement options than EPA, and Alaska’s
water quality will suffer.”
“Alaska’s rules were part of a host of rollbacks by the Frank
Murkowski Administration to favor industrial polluters,” said
Bob Shavelson, Executive Director of Cook Inletkeeper, which is
one of the petitioners challenging the delegation. “They invited
all the polluters to the table, but refused to allow Alaska
Native Tribes and ordinary citizens into the decision-making
process. As a result, the state’s enforcement program undercuts
the rights of Alaskans to ensure clean water and healthy fish
habitat.”
Native tribes are additionally concerned that handing off Clean
Water Act enforcement to
the
state will diminish the tribes’ capacity to influence decisions
vital to the survival of Bush
villages and subsistence cultures. The state doesn’t recognize
tribal sovereignty.
“Giving the NPDES program to the State of Alaska is a mistake,”
said Mike Williams, Chairman of the Alaska Inter-Tribal Council,
another of the challengers to the delegation. “The State does
not treat Alaska Tribes as governments, which means we have no
voice in determining issues. EPA has a government-to-government
relationship with the tribal governments, and that means we have
a voice in the process.”
The challenge was filed on behalf of Akiak Native Community,
Nunamta Aulukestai (an association of eight Bristol Bay Native
village corporations), Nondalton Tribal Council, Curyung Tribal
Council (in Dillingham), Cook Inletkeeper, Alaska Center for the
Environment, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, Center for
Biological Diversity, and Center for Water Advocacy.
# # #
See Inletkeeper Comments on Stream Buffer Rule
|
