فك يو
went to go observe a court case for local environmental stuff today; we thought it would be a couple hours and it ended up being almost eight hours so i am wiped af and will be useless for the rest of tonight
فك يو
tags and finalizing ac stuff tomorrow
Jay
oof
فك يو
also we lost so lmao they're going to jetplow a powerline through our bay and destroy a shitton of habitats and oyster farms 
Many Birds
D:
Commenterri
Did they discuss what mitigation measures they're taking in the case?
Commenterri
I'm assuming this was a NEPA case?
Commenterri
Suing to block them over insufficient mitigation for one of the resource categories or failure to consider alternatives?
فك يو
this was kind of a last-ditch effort from what i understand, unfortunately :\ but afaik it's not NEPA-related (at least not primarily); today's thing was a local organization called the Conservation Law Foundation vs. the power company
Commenterri
Do you remember the gist of the arguments? I'm really curious!
فك يو
might come back to this tomorrow when i'm less braindead, but our side's main argument was that wildlife both in and around the bay would be disrupted, oyster farming would be disrupted, toxins/pollutants that have settled to the bottom of the bay (and in many cases been covered up by natural sediments) will be stirred up and reintroduced into the
فك يو
environment because they want to dig iiiii think to a depth of 42 inches
فك يو
here is a good tl;dr summary of what's been going on!
فك يو
their main arguments (and i'll admit that i'm 100% biased here tbh, and also not at all an expert) seemed to basically be a lot of quibbling over terminology ("what does 'irreparable damage' really mean tho"
, denying that the jetplowing will have significant negative consequences as well as denying that the bay and its habitats are really all that
, denying that the jetplowing will have significant negative consequences as well as denying that the bay and its habitats are really all that
فك يو
significant, and at one point straight up admitting that even if they were given an order to stay the project, they'd probably just go ahead anyway because they have a schedule and they can afford to pay any resulting fines
فك يو
(there's also some other issues related to this, including increasing the size/power of utility poles even though the easements that they're on only allow for maintenance work and not for upgrading them, and permanently placing hundreds of feet of concrete mattresses along the wetland shoreline - but the jetplowing was today's Big Thing)
فك يو
this is a good, less tl;dr summary
Commenterri
This is very interesting. Going through the permit, it looks like their mitigation is $350K contribution to a state in-lieu fee program. (I'm not too familiar with NH environmental programs.) At least for their Army Corps permits.
Commenterri
I'm wiped, but I'll nose around for the EIR document associated with this project tomorrow.
فك يو
this too even though it's tl;dr, bc i love her and she's been jerked around a lot by this shit
فك يو
yeah, it's interesting, if v. complicated and overwhelming (at least to me, who has no experience or expertise in any of this)
Commenterri
These sorts of large-scale, controversial projects are always that way!
Commenterri
There are a LOT of moving parts and people with very different priorities. And how you select your alternatives is SUPPOSED to be about the least environmentally damaging option that's feasible. Costs aren't supposed to factor in, but they invariably do.
Commenterri
And that screws a lot of things up.
Commenterri
I'm very curious about their proposed alternatives and if they did anything to minimize how much wetland they're traveling through in others.
Commenterri
Because that's usually the preferred option for resource agencies.
Commenterri
Avoid avoid avoid
فك يو
my understanding is that at least two alternatives were provided, and some sort of initial agreement said that the company could only reject those alternatives if they a) were not technologically feasible, and/or 
would cause more environmental damage than going through the bay
would cause more environmental damage than going through the bay
فك يو
instead they rejected those alternatives purely for being too expensive, and somehow they were allowed to get away with that?? idefk
فك يو
(this wasn't today, this was a while ago)
فك يو
they're also a gigantic company with many many billions of dollars, so make of that what you will
Commenterri
Yeah.
فك يو
like their 2018 earnings, not their full net worth, were over a billion dollars
Commenterri
That's really unfortunate.
Commenterri
In California we have the Coastal Act and the California Coastal Commission whose sole objective is to enforce that Act. They're notorious for being one of the most difficult agencies to work with and please on coastal development projects.
Commenterri
And while they're frustrating from a consultant perspective, they're very good at what they do.
Commenterri
And preventing that sort of thing from happening.
Commenterri
Refusing to give approval for project permits until they get the mitigation they want.
فك يو
having something like that would be lovely 8( instead we have a super-conservative governor who is all for this, and towns that are essentially being bought off
فك يو
i went to a town meeting about this several months ago and the town councilor basically went
فك يو
"we don't want this, no one wants this, but we're pretty sure they're going to be able to ram it through anyway regardless of what we do, and they're offering us X amount of money if we stop fighting them, and we feel it's in our best interests to accept that now rather than continue to fight, lose, and get nothing"
فك يو
so the town is out (as well as a bunch of other surrounding towns who made the same decision), and it's really down to local orgs and individuals
فك يو
they've been wanting to do this since 2012/2013 at least, but only really started ramping it up in the last few years; i have a theory that they want to get it done before 2020 out of fear that the state and/or federal government will flip around and we'll have less of a "hey let's just let big businesses do whatever the hell they want, okay?" climate