US environment groups sue EPA over alien invaders
Date: 04-Apr-01
Country: USA
"Exotic species invasions are a growing crisis for American industries and native species," Nina Bell, Executive Director of the Portland, Oregon-based Northwest Environmental Advocates (NWEA), said in a release announcing the suit.
"We have waited over two years for EPA to take action on an issue that even the agency admits is an environmental and economic disaster, and yet it refuses to do anything. We have no other recourse than to turn to the federal courts."
Live species from other countries are carried to U.S. waters in ballast water, which ships use for stabilization. The ballast water is discharged into bays, estuaries, and the Great Lakes when cargo for export is loaded.
Over 21 billion gallons (95 billion liters) of ballast water from international ports is discharged into U.S. waters each year, the groups say, adding to a national problem with exotic species which costs the United States billions of dollars each year.
The suit, filed in San Francisco federal court, charges that the EPA has hastened the destruction by declining to change it interpretation of clean water rules to prevent such ballast water dumping, allowing these species to proliferate in U.S. waters and damage the native ecosystem.
"The San Francisco Bay ecosystem has already been devastated by invasive species," said Jonathan Kaplan for San Francisco BayKeeper.
The San Francisco Bay is already host to the Asian clam, the green crab, and the Chinese mitten crab, and Kaplan estimates that exotic species represent most of the life in the bay. On average a new species establishes itself in the Bay every 14 weeks, he said.
While California this year became the first state in the nation to require ships to empty their ballast water out at sea before heading in to port, Kaplan said this was failing to stem what has become a nationwide problem.
"The voluntary and piecemeal efforts that have been put in place since we filed the petition over two years ago are simply not enough to stem the invasion," he added.
The plaintiffs are among 15 environmental, fishing, and Native American groups and water agencies that filed a petition in January 1999 asking EPA to stop exempting vessel discharge of ballast water from the federal Clean Water Act. The petition said EPA's exemption for ships is illegal because it is not authorized in the Act.
The EPA has said it is attempting to address the invasive species problem, but the agency declined to give the organizations a date by which it would respond to their petition - prompting Monday's lawsuit.