The Center for Biological Diversity on May 14 filed a lawsuit against the federal Environmental Protection Agency in U.S. District Court in Seattle claiming the agency should have included ocean waters off the Washington coast on a list of impaired waters due to carbon-dioxide caused acidification. Here's the CBD press release on the lawsuit: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2009/ocean-acidification-05-14-2009.html.
The lawsuit was brought under the federal Clean Water Act, which requires states to list bodies of water that fail to meet quality standards. The CBD lawsuit claims that carbon dioxide in Washington's ocean waters has caused the pH level of those waters to decline (become more acidic) than permissible under CWA standards and, therefore, should have been listed as impaired.
Washington was one of several states that the CBD in 2007 requested to make "impairment" listings. The CBD also requested listings for Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, New York, and New Jersey. In addition, the CBD had filed petitions with various California Regional Water Quality Boards regarding ocean waters in California. http://www.californiagreensolutions.com/cgi-bin/gt/tpl.h,content=235.
Using the Clean Water Act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from industrial sources such as power plants, refineries, cement kilns and factories is a novel approach since the bulk of climate change attention has been on air emissions. But as a parallel track to the EPA's proposed rulemaking under the Clean Air Act that CO2endangers human health and the environment, the CWA lawsuit and petitions could end up being a significant one-two punch.
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