Ecology Law Currents is the online-only publication of Ecology Law Quarterly, one of the nation's most respected and widely read environmental law journals. Currents features short-form commentary and analysis on timely environmental law and policy issues.
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Sulfuric acid mist, also known as H2SO4
or SO3,[1]
is one of the least publicized air pollutants associated with emissions from
coal-fired power plants. Long overshadowed by nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide,
and carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid mist is typically not emitted in the
boundary-crossing and globe-altering quantities of the more frequently
discussed air pollutants. In the whirlwind of the United States Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent air regulations of coal-fired power plants
including the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards for power plants (MATS), the New
Source Performance Standards and the Tailoring Rule for greenhouse gases, and
the recently vacated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, sulfuric acid mist has
remained relatively untouched.[2]
But EPA’s regulations, which have imposed dramatic new emission limits on
sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, greenhouse gases, mercury, and hydrochloric
acid, are likely to have a significant impact on sulfuric acid mist emission
control strategies at coal-fired power plants.[3]
Sulfuric acid mist emissions from coal-fired power plants, which creates tell-tale blue plumes (not pictured here), has increasingly been under scrutiny by the EPA over the past decade. Photo credit to ribarnica.
Hydraulic fracturing is a process whereby chemical additives, sand, and water are pumped into underground source rocks at high pressures in order to release natural gas and oil for fuel production.[1] There are a number of potential environmental impacts associated with this process, including risks of groundwater contamination, the mishandling of wastewater, and the potential migration of gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals to the surface.[2] Despite these concerns, the Safe Water Drinking Act currently provides an exemption for the oil and natural gas industry and excludes the process known as hydraulic fracturing from regulatory efforts of underground injection controls.[3] This lack of regulation, coupled with the recent rise in domestic oil and natural gas production in the United States, has led to intense debate surrounding this controversial extraction process.[4]
Click here for videos of all sessions or on each session for its video.
All review authors attended the 2012 Water Law Symposium hosted at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law on January 21, 2012. The panel reviews are based on their own observations and reflections. No citations should be attributed directly to the panelists themselves.
The following articles are student responses and observations of a selected few panels at Berkeley Law’s 2010 Symposium “Empowered Partnerships: Participatory Action Research for Environmental Justice” hosted by the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice and co-sponsored by Students for Economic and Environmental Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law; the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment; Communities for a Better Environment; Asian Pacific Environmental Network; West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project; ¡PODER! - People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights; California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.; Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice; The Pacific Institute; Environmental Studies Institute at Santa Clara University; Cal Corps at UC Berkeley; La Raza Law Students Association at UC Berkeley School of Law; Berkeley La Raza Law Journal; Ecology Law Quarterly; Central Valley Air Quality Coalition; California Law Review; California Environmental Justice Alliance; and the Women of Color Collective at UC Berkeley School of Law.
The forum discussion on February 16, entitled “The Environmental Justice Movement: History & Skills Every Lawyer Should Know,” was a great kick off to the Sixth Annual Environmental Justice Symposium. For aspiring lawyers with very little experience or background in Environmental Justice (EJ) this introductory forum was the perfect place to learn more about the movement. The forum explored the EJ attorney’s role as an advocate.
Sometimes procedural rulings allow courts to avoid important
decisions that would otherwise make social and ethical declarations about the
duality of American values with respect to animals. Stark evidence of that
comes with the recent Ninth Circuit opinion in Levine v. Vilsack.[1]
The Ninth Circuit ruled only that plaintiffs had no standing to sue because
they did not meet the “redressability” requirement of standing under Article
III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.[2] With
this holding, the opinion may signal a new hurdle for plaintiffs to clear. The
opinion also leaves in place a federal policy that has mandated the humane
treatment of animals before they are slaughtered for food for over fifty years,
but applies it to only one out of every ten animals who reach the
slaughterhouse. The opinion thus delivers two unfortunate messages. As a
nation, we care about animals—but not 90 percent of them. And if you are
working to protect animals in the courts, that work could become more
difficult.
California is not unique among states by virtue of having both a sizable urban fishing population and environmental pollution leading to fish contamination. Nor is it alone when it comes to having both highly diverse communities actively engaged in fishing and a political and social tradition of elitist decision making about both protecting fish populations and the people eating the fish. In many ways consumption of contaminated fish in California is an example of a confluence of contemporary social and ecological problems, for which there is no adequate statutory or regulatory framework. I describe here a case study of contaminated fish consumption that reflects many of the environmental, social, and political conditions experienced by poor and disenfranchised communities in California and the United States.
Food justice is the notion that everyone deserves healthy
food and that the benefits and risks associated with food should be shared
fairly. The concept borrows its distributional equity framework from the
environmental justice movement, its focus on access to food from the community
food security movement, and its interest in food environments from research in
the public health and food systems fields.[1]
Unfortunately, disparities in access and health mean that food justice is
currently an aspiration rather than a reality in many low-income communities.
This article examines the food retail landscape in Los
Angeles and briefly summarizes some programs that could increase food access
and quality in underserved communities. In describing these opportunities, this
article shows how L.A. residents, advocates, and policy makers have begun and
can continue to survey their food environments, attract more supermarkets and
hold food retail firms accountable; partner with corner stores to offer more
healthy choices; limit fast food restaurants and improve nutrition information
at chain restaurants; promote healthy mobile food vending; and establish
farmers’ markets and re-envision these markets as hubs for local food
distribution. Some of these efforts have been underway for years, while others
are new experiments. Together they comprise a diverse set of interconnected
measures to promote food justice by improving food retail in low-income areas.
