I grew up in a small city in southwestern Ohio. My father’s father worked in a steel mill in Pittsburgh, and my mother’s father worked in a paint factory in Cincinnati. Those working class roots grew into a commitment to working for environmental and social justice. I’ve found a home at NRDC, where I litigate to stop pollution that shortens lives and harms our iconic wild places like the Great Lakes.
Posted September 9, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
The Army Corps announced today the release of three separate reports related to the ongoing Asian carp invasion of Lake Michigan, as I blogged about here. The report that is likely to get the least public attention out of the...continued→
Posted September 9, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
The Army Corps announced today the release of three separate reports related to the ongoing Asian carp invasion of Lake Michigan. Much of the Corps’ announcement contained familiar refrains, most notably the Corps’ continued emphatic assertion that its electric fish...continued→
Posted August 3, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
The state and federal agencies who collectively participate in the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee have all gone fishin’ this week. It may be August, but this isn’t a pleasure trip: they are looking for live Asian carp in Lake...continued→
Posted July 25, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
On Friday, we won another legal battle in the fight to bring protective ballast water standards to the Great Lakes! The federal appeals court in Washington, DC denied a legal challenge by ports and shipping interests to U.S. EPA’s Clean...continued→
Posted July 20, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Today I discovered that the Army Corps this week posted on its web site new environmental DNA (or “eDNA”) test results detecting the presence of Asian carp near Lake Michigan. The results reported are from eDNA tests done this summer,...continued→
Posted May 11, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Last week the Army Corps finally released the original draft of its report showing that its electric fish fence does not appear to stop small Asian carp from swimming past it and into the Chicago waterway system – and,...continued→
Posted April 7, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
The Army Corps of Engineers announced today that they have turned on the juice for the third component of its electric fish fence in the Chicago Area Waterway System (CAWS), the so-called “Barrier IIB,” that is meant to deter...continued→
Posted March 29, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
It isn’t fourth down, but U.S. EPA has sent its punt team on the field. Yesterday, U.S. EPA released a proposal for reducing fish kills from power plants’ cooling water intakes, as has been required by the Clean Water Act...continued→
Posted February 28, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, U.S. Law and Policy
UPDATE: Last week, within 48 hours of my filing an appeal of the Army Corps’ denial of Prairie Rivers Network’s FOIA request, I got a call from an attorney for the Army Corps saying that the Corps had decided to...continued→
Posted February 23, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, U.S. Law and Policy
I’ve written here repeatedly about the Army Corps’ refusal to admit that its electric fish fence is not an adequate or reliable defense against Asian carp threatening to colonize the Great Lakes by moving through the Chicago Waterway System into...continued→
Posted February 15, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
The unfortunate truth these days is that there are few issues on which both Republicans and Democrats agree, especially when it comes to the environment. Great Lakes restoration has been an exception; but now even Great Lakes restoration funding is...continued→
Posted February 1, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Much like the invasive fish itself, hearings on the Army Corps’ multi-year study of potential solutions to the threat of Asian carp and other aquatic nuisance species moving between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds are spreading rapidly. In...continued→
Posted January 17, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Last week I got a chance to meet Bill Schuette, Michigan’s new Attorney General, and talk with him about Asian carp. Recently elected, Schuette inherits the lawsuit filed by his predecessor, Mike Cox, which seeks immediate action to keep the...continued→
Posted January 5, 2011 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
The work of the University of Notre Dame research team showing an ongoing Asian carp invasion of Lake Michigan got a big validation today with their publication in Conservation Letters, a peer-reviewed journal. This publication lends further support to eDNA...continued→
Posted December 8, 2010 by Thom Cmar in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Living Sustainably, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Is it impossible to prevent Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan… because the Chicago River is too dirty? Richard Lanyon, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), seems to think so. Lanyon thinks that Chicago experiences too many...continued→
Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit NRDC.org.
