June 13- National Wildlife Federation, whose mission is to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future, is pleased to announce a new partnership with FamilyFun magazine, a trusted, go-to source for travel recommendations and family activities for more than 20 years.

FamilyFun magazine has released a special “Get Outdoors” themed issue this month to help families spend more time in nature. The “Let’s Get Outdoors!” feature story appears in the June/July issue of the magazine, on newsstands June 5, and includes dozens of ideas ranging from mapping the neighborhood’s natural wonders to going on a photo safari.

Learn more about NWF’s outdoor programs for kids!

Tar Balls Cannot Be the ‘New Normal’

June 11- BP announced on Monday that the U.S. Coast Guard is ending active cleanup operations in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and that the three states are expected to complete the transition back to the National Response Center (NRC) reporting system by mid-June 2013.

David White, director of the National Wildlife Federation’s Gulf of Mexico Restoration Campaign, said in response:

“As much as one million barrels of oil from the disaster remains unaccounted for, and tar mats and tar balls from the spill continue to wash up on the coast. Regardless of how our shorelines are monitored, BP must be held accountable for the cleanup. We cannot just accept oiled material on our beaches and in our marshes as the ‘new normal.’ In particular, we need be sure that there is a rapid and proactive assessment and cleanup of our shorelines in the aftermath of storms.”

Take action and demand justice for Gulf wildlife.

Senate Poised to Pass a Strong Farm Bill

June 10- National Wildlife Federation applauds the final Farm bill and the leadership of Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-MS), for crafting a bill that maintains adequate funding for conservation, includes a national Sodsaver provision, and re-links conservation compliance provision to crop insurance premium subsidies. The bill also authorizes funding for an innovative regional partnership program which would target conservation funding to as many as eight priority conservation regions.

“We are very pleased with the Senate’s version of the farm bill and congratulate the Senate Agriculture Committee and Senate leadership for all their hard work,” said Julie Sibbing, director of Agriculture and Forestry Programs for National Wildlife Federation. “In the present climate of kicking the can down the road and paralyzing lack of compromise in Congress, it is refreshing to see members on both sides of the aisle roll up their sleeves and pass a balanced farm bill that ensures a robust safety net for farmers and for natural resources. The House should follow the example.”

For more information visit our Farm Bill webpage.

And now here are highlights from NWF in the news:

• CNN.com: Coast Guard, BP end Gulf cleanup in 3 states
• Baltimore Sun : Program gets kids off the couch and into the tent
• New York Times:  Debate on environment grows as drought tests Texas rivers
• Politico.com: Obama climate rollout may come in July
• The Food Channel: Great American Backyard Campout
• Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Butterfly enthusiasts fear few Monarch sightings
• Seattle’s Child: Old-Fashioned Fun at the Great American Backyard Campout
• Yahoo!News: Proposed Legislation Would Strengthen Protections Against Invasive Animal Species
• Dr. Green.com: What is this Great American Backyard Campout?

For more visit www.nwf.org/news

Mt. Wonalancet, NH, not far from the route of the Portland-Montreal Pipeline (photo: Chris Schoenboem)

Fighting back against Big Oil

Fortunately, New Englanders aren’t known to let themselves get trampled on. Local conservation groups, public health experts and many others has been fighting back against Exxon, bringing widespread attention to the project — enough that we have the support of nearly the entire Congressional delegation from those three states (Senator Ayotte, we’re still waiting on ya). We even managed to get 1,500 people to a rally in Portland back in frigid January, the biggest gathering of any kind in 25 years. Suffice to say, New Englanders care, and we don’t want this dangerous substance pumped through our rivers and forests, threatening species like moose and black bears and contributing to climate change.

The problem is, the US State Department (which is tasked with overseeing the pipeline) doesn’t necessarily notice anything amiss and hasn’t the told the company it can’t proceed without a new permit. The State Department needs to make it clear: if Exxon wants to bring poisonous, climate-wrecking tar sands across Northern New England, the impacts are going to be given a hard look and approval is going to needed. It’s a common sense requirement, just making sure we know the threats and the particulars before giving the green light to Exxon, but State hasn’t gotten involved yet because the company hasn’t made a formal proposal.

And that’s the catch-22: unless the State Department tells them to formalize their plans, Exxon might never get around to filing the paperwork — and they’ve already told regional officials they don’t have to. They’re more than happy to act like the cartoon cat burping up feathers, shrugging its shoulders when you ask what happened to Tweety Bird. But this is real life, and New Englanders want to protect their region and wildlife from spills and climate change.  All risk and no reward does not interest New Hampshire, or Vermont or Maine for that matter.

Mr. Smith (and a bunch more) goes to Washington

New England and DC — culture-wise — may sometimes feel like oil and water, but when actual oil and actual water are in the mix, it’s worth a trip to the nation’s capitol. On Monday, a group from Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont came down to Washington, DC to tell their stories to State Department officials in person. It wasn’t your usual DC lobby trip: Fishermen, retired oil industry lawyers, and a handful of conservationists all made the rounds of Capitol Hill, meeting with agencies and Congressional offices with a simple request: Can someone PLEASE make sure this tar sands plan is carefully reviewed?

Our hometown lobby team at the State Department (photo: Peter LaFontaine/NWF)

Pushing toxic, spill-prone tar sands through Exxon’s pipeline across Maine is an all-risk, no-reward proposition. The health of Maine people, our economy, and our way of life, depend on clean water for drinking, tourism, our fishing industry, and recreation. - Lisa Pohlmann, Natural Resources Council of Maine

We plan to keep the heat on Exxon and the State Department, and our group also got a chance to sit down with (deep breath…) the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, to talk about updating our nation’s safety standards for tar sands projects like the Northeast pipeline and Keystone XL. After Mayflower — and Kalamazoo, before that — we can’t trust the industry to operate safely, or even to tell us what they have planned for our back yards.

It can be hard to tell with federal agencies, but I think State got the message.

Tell the US State Department to protect New England’s wildlife and communities from this dangerous and polluting project. Say “NO!” to the Portland-Montreal tar sands pipeline.

Dead bird covered in oil from Bouchard spill, Buzzards Bay, MA, April 2003 (MA DEP)

The National Wildlife Federation is joining the fight for offshore wind energy because we know the climate crisis is the biggest threat to America’s wildlife this century. Properly-sited, responsibly-developed offshore wind can cut our dependence on the dirty fuels that menace wildlife in its production, burning, and most visibly, in its transportation.

A Near-Miss & a Direct Hit

America’s 3rd-largest oil spill on record happened off Nantucket in 1976 when the tanker Argo Merchant ran aground, dumping 7.7 million gallons of fuel oil. Only favorable currents and weather conditions saved the New England coast from a horrific disaster, pushing the oil away from both the coast and key fishing grounds.

The area couldn’t avoid danger a second time in 2003, when the Bouchard 120 barge carrying oil for electricity generation ran aground off Buzzards Bay. It spilled 98,000 gallons of an especially thick, heavy type of oil, fouling fishing grounds for years to come, hurting an area already suffering from high unemployment. But the impacts on birds were even more severe. Hundreds of birds, many of them endangered, were killed in the spill.

“One species that was devastated by the spill was piping plovers, small shorebirds that breed along the Atlantic Coast on sand and gravel beaches,” reported Ariel Wittenberg of the New Bedford Standard Times on the recent 10th anniversary of the spill. “The birds were already endangered before the spill coated 85 percent of the Massachusetts population with oil. The spill also doubled the number of plover eggs that did not hatch that year.”

Far from rare events, oil spills are tragically common.

Researchers from Tetra Tech EC, Inc. & University of Maine installing wildlife monitoring equipment off of Block Island, RI (Capt. Jon Grant)

Turning to Clean Energy Solutions

Today, two projects in this same region are aiming to become America’s first offshore wind energy developments. Cape Wind is hoping to begin construction in a matter of months between Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Meanwhile, Deepwater Wind is looking to build several turbines off Rhode Island’s Block Island, which currently gets its electricity from diesel oil. Not only would the projects slash pollution and create hundreds of local jobs, but Block Island would see drastically lower electricity rates.

Polluters aren’t going down without a fight. William Koch, heir to a fossil fuel fortune and owner of Cape Cod estates, is one of several coal and oil barons pouring millions into stopping offshore wind energy.

That’s why the National Wildlife Federation is speaking up for wildlife. Catherine Bowes, the National Wildlife Federation’s senior manager for new energy solutions, works to educate lawmakers in DC and up & down the Atlantic Coast on the best policies to develop wildlife-friendly offshore wind.  As a resident of New Bedford, MA, I’ve testified at two local hearings in support of offshore wind. NWF has teamed up with dozens of national, state & local conservation groups to release our Turning Point report and partnered with offshore wind developers to protect endangered right whales.

Hope for the Future

A letter to the editor from New Bedford’s Allan Duarte on the anniversary of the Bouchard 120 spill summed up the case for New England clean energy:

I hope everyone in opposition to possible future wind farms and solar farms read the “Black Monday” story over and over and realize in their heart and mind that wind and solar farms will mean greener and better future for our children and grand children. I hope they read and realize that an oil spill can take place again anytime, anyplace. The longer we stay depending on oil, the more disasters we must face.

Some worry about spoiling the scenery from solar panels around them, while others study long-term effects from wind turbines. None could compare at all to the long-term effects such as the Bouchard oil spill.

We just don’t get it, do we? To get something in return, we must give something. With wind and solar farms as a solution, we won’t be giving up very much in comparison to oil tankers in the horizon, or smoke stacks in the sky. I would rather see solar panels in the fields, and wind turbines in the sky. Makes so much more sense.

The National Wildlife Federation will keep fighting polluters and we need your help to do it. If you live in southeastern New England, sign up to testify at a local hearing on offshore wind.

Donate today and help NWF continue to fight for wildlife-friendly clean energy

Fortunately for Viking residents and the area’s wildlife, it appears that this accident was contained before it became a full-blown disaster like the one in Arkansas: even so, around 600 gallons of oil are estimated to have contaminated the area. The line that burst goes by the boring-by-design name “Line 2,” but the adjoining “Alberta Clipper” pipeline is also a crucial element of this story. DeSmogBlog has more:

The Viking pump station also receives oil from the Alberta Clipper (aka Line 67 pipeline) that carries heavy crude oil and tar sands bitumen from the Alberta tar sands region south from Hardisty to Superior, Wisconsin and refineries in the midwestern United States. It is unclear whether the product that spilled was tar sands-derived diluted bitumen.

Animal rehabilitation workers clean oil from a goose’s wings after the 2010 Enbridge spill (Photo: US Fish & Wildlife Service/MI DNRE)

The Alberta Clipper is already enormous — carrying nearly 20 million gallons daily to Midwest refineries — but it’s currently under review for a truly giant expansion that would double its capacity and make it the biggest tar sands pipeline in the United States. That’s right — bigger than Keystone 1, Keystone XL, or the Northeast pipeline, capable of pumping 37 million gallons of tar sands oil every day through the Great Lakes region.

You may be asking yourself, “Enbridge, huh? Why is that name so familiar?” Let’s just say this isn’t the company’s first brush with fame: while producing our report Importing Disaster, we discovered that Enbridge was responsible for more than 800 spills in the US and Canada between 1999 and 2010, totaling almost seven million gallons of oil. The biggest of these, of course, was the Kalamazoo River disaster in 2010, when a pipeline linked to the Alberta Clipper burst and sent over a million gallons of tar sands coursing through the community of Marshall, Michigan. That cleanup effort has taken almost three years and nearly a billion dollars, but the Environmental Protection Agency says that it’s still not finished and recently told Enbridge to get back to work to dredge more oil out of the river.

As NWF’s Beth Wallace has detailed, Enbridge isn’t particularly interested in improving its safety record:

Rather than focus on safety and cleanup, Enbridge is recklessly moving ahead with plans to expand their pipeline network in the Great Lakes region and the Northeast, and to double down on high carbon fuel that is proving nearly impossible to clean from Michigan’s waters.

With this latest leak on their resume, it’s fair to ask what more the company can do to earn anything but a slap on the wrist. A good first step would be for the US State Department (the agency in charge of the Alberta Clipper permit) to broaden their study to Enbridge’s entire Great Lakes pipeline system, because expanding Alberta Clipper means that whole system will be exposed to a massive increase in oil volumes — and with it, an even higher chance of disaster.

Hundreds of species were imperiled the last time an Enbridge pipeline burst in the Great Lakes, and we can’t afford a repeat. Speak up for wildlife threatened by Enbridge’s Midwest expansion plans — tell the State Department to stop Alberta Clipper!

Learn more about the Enbridge pipeline boom at NWF.org.

Bike billboards are circulating in DC to show that over 1 million comments were generated against Keystone XL. Photo: League of Conservation Voters

KXL Opponents Make Voices Heard

Following the close of the 45-day public comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, more than one million comments—including  nearly 100,000 from National Wildlife Federation supporters—were delivered to the U.S. State Department. These messages came from Americans from all across the country and all walks of life, but they carried one common message: that this risky and unnecessary project puts our wildlife, water, land, and communities in jeopardy, and President Obama and Secretary Kerry should reject it.

This impressive total follows hundreds of opponents that testified—including ranchers, farmers and landowners who would be directly impacted by the pipeline—at the State Department’s lone public hearing last week in Grand Island, Nebraska, despite a spring storm that brought sleet and snow. And earlier this year, more than 40,000 people descended on our nation’s capital to call for bold action by President Obama to tackle the climate crisis and reject Keystone XL.

The EPA Weighs In

Echoing these same serious concerns, yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its own comments on the DEIS, giving the project a score of 2—meaning “insufficient” – and rating the environmental impact of Keystone XL as “environmentally objectionable.” In a letter to the State Department, the EPA urged State to conduct a more thorough analysis of oil spill risks and alternative pipeline routes, as well as greenhouse gas emissions that will result from increased tar sands production.

Oiled duck from Mayflower Ark. oil spill. Photo by Lauren Ray.

Just earlier this month, the pipeline rupture in Arkansas that spilled at least 210,000 gallons of tar sands oil—forcing evacuations, and leaving wildlife coated in toxic oil and struggling to survive—raised new concerns about pipeline safety and the risks associated with transporting corrosive tar sands oil. The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would carry almost nine times as much tar sands oil per day as the pipeline that burst in Arkansas.

What’s Next

Now, the State Department will incorporate comments from the public and federal agencies and release their final environmental report this summer, at which point President Obama will have 90 days to determine whether or not Keystone XL is in the national interest.

While momentum is on our side, the fight doesn’t stop here. Keep an eye out for upcoming opportunities to speak up against the Keystone XL pipeline this summer, as well as more ways you can take action to protect wildlife from dangerous tar sands oil.

Tweet it! 45 days, 1 million comments, 1 movement. The message #NoKXL couldn’t be clearer to @barackobama: Reject #KeystoneXL!

Coming on Earth Day, it’s welcome news that the agency is trying to protect Americans and wildlife from a huge mistake.

A blue heron covered in tar sands oil from the Kalamazoo River pipeline disaster (Photo: Michigan DEQ)

This isn’t a new position for EPA — at several key points during the Keystone XL saga, officials have made it clear that their colleagues at the State Department need to go back to the drawing board. Partly, this is due to the fact that State isn’t used to leading big environmental studies; it’s only a quirk of the system that put them in charge of Keystone. But with a decision this important, with so much riding on a thorough analysis, we can’t afford growing pains.

Americans speak out

In addition to the environmental review, the government is also conducting something called a “National Interest Determination,” which will help decide whether or not Keystone is a good idea, based not just on environmental factors but also on things like diplomacy, energy security, and jobs (or lack thereof). Americans are already letting the White House know what they think: on Tuesday, a coalition of conservation groups, indigenous peoples, public health advocates and landowners along the pipeline route will deliver over a million comments from the public opposing construction of this risky project.

As NWF’s Jim Murphy put it in the Los Angeles Times:

“The Environmental Protection Agency’s letter shows that despite multiple tries, the State Department is incapable of doing a proper analysis of the climate, wildlife, clean water, safety and other impacts of this disastrous and unneeded project. President Obama has more than enough information to determine the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is not in America’s national interest and he should reject it.”

President Obama gets to make the ultimate decision, but John Kerry (the U.S. Secretary of State) is a long-time champion against climate change, and could still sway his agency’s ultimate recognition. A million anti-Keystone comments, plus a timely assist from EPA, could tilt the balance in our favor.

Your donations make a big difference in our efforts to protect wildlife from habitat loss and the effects of global warming.

To learn more about Keystone XL and how you can help, visit NWF.org/tarsands

One of six beavers caught in an oil spill at a Utah state park rests at a wildlife center. Photo by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah.

Unfortunately, the dams couldn’t protect the beavers. The diesel flowing from a break in a pipeline covered beavers, including a mother and her two kits. Volunteers and staffers at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah are working to save six of the animals caught in the spill discovered March 18 in wetlands at Willard Bay State Park. All the beavers are improving, although two yearlings exposed to the oil for days are still in rough shape.

“Wildlife officials… had to dismantle the large lodge ‘stick by stick’ to gain access to the chamber where the mother and her two kits were hiding. The environment of the chamber was heavy with fuel vapors and all three beavers were covered in the toxic liquid,’’ according to staff at the wildlife center. The animals inhaled and ingested diesel, said DaLyn Erickson-Marthaler, the center’s executive director and wildlife specialist. Some of the beavers lost a lot of their fur and have abcesses.

At least 21,000 gallons of diesel have spilled from the Chevron pipeline that runs from Salt Lake City refineries to Spokane, Wash. Media reports indicate this is Chevron’s third oil pipeline spill in Utah in fewer than three years. Utah isn’t the only place where wildlife is suffering or facing threats because of oil and gas spills and leaks.

In Arkansas

Meanwhile, nearly 1,500 miles to the east, another oil spill is taking its toll on wildlife and their two-legged neighbors. The National Wildlife Federation’s Miles Grant and Geralyn Hoey have provided frontline reports about the tar sands oil spill from  Exxon Mobil’s Pegasus pipeline in Mayflower, Ark.  As of April 8, 139 creatures had been recovered.

Speak up for wildlife at risk from tar sands — Tell the White House to say NO! to Keystone XL.

In Colorado

Staffers at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah tends to one of the beavers caught in an oil spill. Photo by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah.

The contamination is near Parachute Creek, which supplies irrigation water and eventually runs into the Colorado River – a major source of water for communities, fish and wildlife. So far, state and federal environmental experts say the contamination hasn’t been found in the creek. Oil spills in 2006 and 2011 in Spring Creek, a tributary of the North Platte River in Colorado’s North Park area, have poisoned the creek bed, according to state and federal records. Colorado-based Lone Pine Gas Inc. has a permit allowing it to discharge hundreds of thousands of gallons of treated liquid waste into the creek. North Park is highly prized by hunters and anglers for its gold-medal fisheries and abundant wildlife, including mule deer, pronghorns, moose and greater sage-grouse. It’s home to the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge.

Isn’t this supposed to be refuge?

One of the six beavers soaked in an oil spill rests against the side of a bathtub while the water runs. Photo by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah.

When drilling and the location of pipelines are considered, when oil and gas regulations are written and updated, wildlife must be factored in. It’s clear that what’s good for wildlife and the environment is also good for people. Just think of those beaver dams.

“The irony of it all is the beavers’ dam absolutely contained the oil spill and saved the bay,”  Erickson-Marthaler. “But they’ve certainly paid a heavy price.”

Speak up for wildlife TODAY by urging President Obama to stop the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all. And watch our new video on the impacts tar sands oil poses to wildlife from Canada to the Gulf coast of Texas and beyond.

President Obama is expected to make a final decision on Keystone XL this year, and right now, we have a critical opportunity to stop this project. The U.S. State Department’s public comment period for their environmental review of Keystone XL ends April 22nd, and it’s crucial they hear widespread opposition to the risks this project poses to wildlife.

Speak up for wildlife TODAY by urging President Obama to stop the Keystone XL pipeline once and for all.

 
WATCH OUR NEW VIDEO on the impacts tar sands oil poses to wildlife from Canada to the Gulf coast of Texas and beyond:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sportsmen Share Priorities With New Interior Chief

April 10 – A national sportsmen’s coalition looks forward to working with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on continuing the important job of restoring balance to public-lands management and implementing oil and gas leasing reforms started by her predecessor.

Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development congratulated Jewell on her confirmation by the U.S. Senate Wednesday and urged her to provide strong leadership to conserve clean air and water, fish and wildlife habitat and preserve the public-lands legacy that has helped shape the nation’s economy and identity.

“SFRED and millions of sportsmen believe in responsible development of energy resources on our multiple use public lands. We are not, however, willing to sacrifice fish and wildlife habitat, populations, water resources, and recreational opportunities to poorly planned development,” the CEOs and presidents of the coalition’s three lead partners wrote in an April 10 letter to Jewell.

The letter lists the coalition’s top six priorities and was signed by Larry Schweiger of the National Wildlife Federation, Whit Fosburgh of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Chris Wood of Trout Unlimited.

NWF: EPA’s McCarthy Deserves Fair Hearing, Clean Confirmation

April 10 – With the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee set to hold a hearing on the nomination of Gina McCarthy as Environmental Protection Agency Administrator on Thursday, the National Wildlife Federation urges a fair hearing and clean up-or-down confirmation vote.

“The Environmental Protection Agency will need her leadership as it continues working to confront the climate crisis,” said Larry Schweiger, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. “While President Obama has made clear that he prefers to work with Congress to find bipartisan compromise on climate action, in the face of Congress’ continued failure to act meaningfully on climate change, it’s essential that the Environmental Protection Agency uses its Clean Air Act authority to finalize and implement limits on industrial carbon pollution.”

The National Wildlife Federation began an online campaign in key states on Monday urging U.S. Senate to support the clean water concerns of sportsmen and confirm McCarthy, part of a coalition campaign going online in 11 states. The ads read:

Clean water matters to [state]. It drives our economy and defines our values. No wonder 79% of sportsmen support the Clean Water Act. Tell Senator XX to stand strong for sportsmen and support Gina McCarthy for EPA.

• Click here to learn more about NWF’s efforts to advocate for wildlife-friendly renewable energy.

Water Bill Guts Environmental Review of Corps Projects

April 9 -  Fifty law professors from across the country have signed onto a letter asking for the removal of two provisions in the current version of the Water Resources Development Act that prevent effective environmental reviews of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposals.

“I have always considered Senator Boxer a friend to the environment and I’m shocked she would put her name on this bill,” said Holly Doremus, a professor of Environmental Regulation at the University of California–Berkeley School of Law. “The bill as it stands would allow the Corps to do an end-run around careful environmental review.”

This bill was co-sponsored by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator David Vitter (R-LA). The almost 300-page bill was introduced just three weeks ago on a Friday evening and voted on by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee the following Wednesday. The full Senate could vote on the bill as early as Thursday.

“The history of the Corps water program has all too often been a story of taxpayer dollars being poured into projects with greatly exaggerated benefits and massively underestimated costs,” said Zygmunt J.B. Plater, a law professor at Boston College. “As written, this bill puts the fox in charge of the hen house. If the bill passes, we’ll see even more taxpayer dollars sunk into dysfunctional projects that hurt the national interest.”

• Read the full letter here.

And now here are highlights from NWF in the news:

• Associated Press- Group: Dolphin, turtle deaths a sign of sick Gulf
• First Business News- Interview with Sara Gonzalez-Rothi
• Roll Call- Oil Pipeline Break Refocuses Keystone Debate on Risks of Spills
• The Hill- Green group ads urge vulnerable lawmakers to back EPA pick
• The Christian Science Monitor- What is killing California sea lion pups?
• Hawaii News Nows- Let Your Kids Have Fun in the Sun (and Rain)
• Baton Rouge Advocate – 3 years later, oil leak effects still unfolding
• Houston Chronicle’s Fuel Fix – Dolphin deaths still high after Gulf oil spill, environmentalists say Examiner.com Dolphins and turtles still in peril three years after BP oil spill and Louisiana coast frenetically eroding three years after spill
• Discovery News – Record Dolphin, Sea Turtle Deaths Since Gulf Spill
• New Orleans Times-Picayune – National Wildlife Federation says environmental effects of BP spill far from over

For more information, visit www.nwf.org/news

Oiled duck from Mayflower Ark. oil spill. Photo by Lauren Ray.

On Monday, I spoke again with Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) for an update and they shared the following information with me. The main body of Lake Conway has NOT been impacted, only the adjacent cove/wetland. AGFC estimates approximately 15 acres has been impacted.

AGFC stated that Exxon acknowledged that they didn’t think there would be as much impact on wildlife and were thus not prepared to deal with the wildlife recovery until Tuesday April 2nd. A wildlife recovery center has been set up and the wildlife impact numbers are below (these are of course only the numbers of wildlife actually recovered – as we know from previous spills, most wildlife victims may never be found).  The public recovered numerous ducks the first few days and the HAWK Center took the majority of those.  Tuesday (2nd) they were all transported to the official recovery center to be treated.

Here’s a list of (this is not a comprehensive list but the total of 139 is current as of April 8th). 139 Total individual wildlife recovered

• 139 wildlife recovered
• 37 dead on arrival (23 birds, 5 turtles, 1 muskrat)
• 46 water moccasins euthanized on site due to safety concerns
• 2 raccoons
• 1 beaver
• 1 skunk
• 2 armadillos
• 22 total wildlife cleaned

The first release of recovered animals took place on Monday. Ten turtles and two raccoons were released at the nearby Bell Slough Wildlife Management Area.

How far down the size scale is the tar sands spill hitting? A Mayflower beekeeper had to move her hive after finding several dead bees covered in tar sands oil.

Previous coverage of the Exxon tar sands spill in Arkansas:

• Exxon Tar Sands Pipeline Ruptures in Arkansas, Forcing Evacuations and Threatening Wildlife
• As Arkansas Community Reels from Tar Sands Oil Spill, Wildlife Remain in Peril

Speak Up to Protect Wildlife from Tar Sands

It’s time for America to take a stand against tar sands oil –  the risks to our wildlife, communities and clean water are just too great. Please take a moment now to ask President Obama to say no to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.