It is hard to stay objective and talk about cradle-to-cradle thinking and considering long term effects, “the end of the end”, and other assertions from our book, when there is a major effect on one of our national treasures, The Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the US. We have a personal affinity toward the river since one of our EarthPM principles spent 11 days in the area doing what is affectionately called “combat fly fishing.” In other words, 11 days were spent fly fishing as many rivers and streams in Montana, Idaho , and Wyoming that is humanly possible fishing from dawn to dark, while passing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the back seat to the front during the breaks between fishing and fishing called “racing to a new spot.” A few hours sleep and right back at it. But of all the waters fished, the Yellowstone was one of the most incredible fisheries, to say nothing of the beauty.
Of course, the river was nothing like it is right now (see picture above of how it was when we fished it), with gigantic flows spilling over the banks, running between 25,000 and 35,000 cubic feet per second. The normal rate is around 8,000 cfs. That’s good news and bad news. The good news is that there is lots of water to dilute the oil. And, while this oil spill is relatively small compared to some of the oil spills of the past, 42,000 gallons, or approximately 1000 barrels, is enough. What is disconcerting is not the short-term effects, but rather the long term-effects on both wildlife and property. Sound familiar. We assert that we can no longer take the short term view. We were not involved in Exxon Mobil’s decision making process when someone thought it was a good idea to bury a pipeline under one of the premier trout waters in America, we can only hope that they did consider what would happen not only if there should be a breach in the pipe, but also the life cycle assessment of that oil should it be unleashed on the ecosystem.
The bad news is that the long term effects of a spill of this nature are virtually unknown. Add to that, the high water has pushed the oil up onto surrounding properties where it is pooling. It is likely that the pooled oil will seep into the ground possible contaminating area water wells. While Yellowstone National Park and the areas where we fished are not threatened, because the spill is approximately 110 miles downstream, it still affects a “fly fishing and bird watching” area. “Montana Audubon — a nonprofit that specializes in wildlife conservation, especially birds — fears for the health of the American white pelican, a top-of-the-food chain species that dines on critters in the river. “We may get lucky with the short-term effects” because birds weren’t using their normal river habitat due to the high water, said Darcie Vallant, director of the Audubon Conservation Education Center in Billings, which is just 10 miles from the spill. “But the concern is long-term effects,” especially with the pelicans, she added. Montana had some 7,000 breeding pairs in 2010, and that was a decline from the previous year, she said.”
The high water has also made it impossible to assess what’s happening to that ecosystem. How the bug population that the trout rely upon for food is affected is another unknown. There is also a concern about the back channels that hold fish eggs and recently hatched fish being contaminated.
Montana State University researchers will be among those monitoring the river, but it could take months before they have a sense of the recovery’s pace. “In the weeks and months ahead, we will be looking for any unusual changes in the river’s natural environment and any impacts on the species of fish we would expect to find at this time of year,” said MSU ecology professor Al Zale. “Some species or ages of fish may be more susceptible to this type of pollution than others.”
Cathy Williams, who raises livestock, wheat, alfalfa and hay with her husband near Laurel, said high water washed oil across much of their 800 acres. “It was the night the river peaked, so the river water was flooded all over the place, and that brought oil all over both ranches,” she said. “All of our grasslands have just thick, black crude stuck to all the grass, trees, low lands.” Williams said their spring wheat crop and alfalfa are both in need of irrigation, but farmers in the area were advised not to take water from the river for the time being. Drinking supplies also are in limbo, she said. “We get all our drinking water from our wells and for our animals,” Williams said. “All the groundwater, I assume, is probably contaminated. We just don’t know.”
With 20/20 hindsight, and a request for consideration for future planning, there are several places in the project life cycle that greenality issues can be considered:
- Project Charter – connecting enterprise sustainability with project
- Requirements Gathering – again, connecting the enterprise’s environmental management plan(EMP) with the project’s EMP
- Stakeholder Consideration – is there a communications plan in place to notify the stakeholders if this type of issue should occur
- Risk Management – considering environmental risks
- Cost of Greenality – failure costs versus auditing costs for instance
I am sure you can think of more areas where sustainability should be considered. All in all, we are hoping for a good outcome, here. The river ha
s an incredible beauty about it. Let’s not forget that the trout fishing in Montana is a major contributor to the $300 million in revenues from the recreation industry in the state. And, the Yellowstone is also historically very significant. In late June/early July of 1876, the Far West, a specially designed river vessel, transported the wounded from the campaign against the Indians which included Custer’s Last Stand, down the Yellowstone to the Missouri River and to Bismarck in the Dakota Territories. Let’s hope for the best here and for long-term, sustainability thinking to prevail for future projects, including those that involve our rare and fragile natural resources.
Through a Sustainability Lens
As part of the “Smart from the Start” (that sounds like a good phrase for sustainability in projects, too) initiative by Secretary of Interior Salazar, there is a proposal for a 200 mile-wide wind energy corridor stretching from Canada to the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
While we don’t know yet about the other sustainable aspects being considered, we do know, at this point, that the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) will write an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). “Wind energy is crucial to our nation’s future economic and environmental security. We will do our part to facilitate development of wind energy resources, while ensuring that they are sited and designed in ways that minimize and avoid negative impacts to fish and wildlife,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “This EIS process gives us an opportunity to evaluate impacts to dozens of imperiled species at a landscape level to ensure that wind energy development occurs in the right places in the right way.”
The reasoning behind the EIS is that in order to accomplish the project, an Incidental Take Permit (ITP) needs to be granted. Section 9 of the Endangered Species Act and its implementing regulations “prohibit the take of animal species listed as endangered or threatened.” It doesn’t allow the harassment, harm, pursuit, hunting, shooting, wounding, trapping, capturing, or collecting or, an attempt to engage in those practices when it comes to endangered or threatened species. However, Under Section 10 of the Act, it allows for people to obtain an ITP as long as they are pursuing otherwise legal activities. The permittee is then provided “incidental take” authorization.
The applicant must submit a Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) containing the measures that it will take to minimize, avoid, or mitigate incidental take. The Service will then review the HCP and issue an EIS that considers the impacts. The Service will also identify “potentially significant impacts on biological resources, land use, air quality, water quality, water resources, economics, and other environmental/historical resources that may occur directly or indirectly as a result of implementing the proposed action or any of the alternatives. Various strategies for avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating the impacts of incidental take will also be considered. Sounds like risk management to me!
“The proposed Permit Area is defined as a 200-mile wide corridor determined by defining the center line of the whooping crane migration based on the database of confirmed whooping crane observations from the Cooperative Whooping Crane Tracking Program and buffering that line by 100 miles on either side. This corridor spans the Gulf Coast of Texas north to the Canadian border and encompasses such cities as Houston, TX; Oklahoma City, OK; Wichita, KS; Bismarck, ND; Grand Island, NE; and Aberdeen, SD. In addition, the permit area includes the current and a large part of the historic range of the lesser prairie-chicken which extends the covered area beyond the 200-mile wide whooping crane migration corridor to include parts of Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas.”
There are two important points here for a project manager. The first is that this will be one heck of a program, involving a huge amount of projects, wind energy projects including; the wind power generators themselves, transmission, distribution, support facilities, etc. Secondly, it involves looking at the project through a sustainability lens. In above case, a very narrow view because of regulatory issues (specifically the Endangered Species Act) one of the “drivers” in our book. There will be more and more of these opportunities for the project manager who is not only aware of sustainability issues, vocabulary, and problems and drivers, but also uses that knowledge and considers greenality* when approaching any project.
* The degree to which an organization (project manager) has considered environmental (sustainable) factors that affect its projects during the entire project life cycle and beyond.