Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
The lawsuit centers around the EDF and SELC's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for communications between the EPA and the Heartland Institute in August and October of 2017, respectively.
The requests were made after Heartland Institute Communications Director Jim Lakely said last July, "The White House and the Environmental Protection Agency have reached out to the Heartland Institute to help identify scientists who could constitute a red team, and we've been happy to oblige."
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier who has close ties to the fossil fuel industry, has long insisted on a nationally publicized "red team-blue team" debate that would pit climate skeptics against scientists who accept the facts about global warming. However, news emerged this week that White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly has reportedly put a stop to Pruitt's plan.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, the EPA acknowledged both requests and asked for some initial clarification, but has subsequently stopped communicating with SELC and provided vague responses to EDF's outreach that do not indicate any expectation of near-term progress on EDF's FOIA request.
There certainly appears to be some—and even extensive—contact between the EPA and the Heartland Institute. As seen below, the complaint states that the EPA's own search for correspondence between agency employees and Heartland yielded between 200 and 600 records.
Under the law, all federal agencies are required to respond to a FOIA request within 20 business days.
"EPA's efforts to promote climate change deniers and undermine peer-reviewed science behind closed doors is not only a failure of its mission, it is illegal," Kym Hunter, an attorney for the SELC, said in a statement. "The public has a clear and protected right to know what the EPA is doing and with whom they are communicating, including those pushing a climate-denier agenda."
The Heartland Institute has been labeled as "the primary American organization pushing climate change skepticism." Frontline reported that the think tank sent out 25,000 copies of its book, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming, and an accompanying 10-minute DVD to 25,000 science teachers.
Just last week, the EPA sent out a press release that touted an op-ed written by Heartland Institute president Tim Huelskamp for The Hill titled, "Scott Pruitt is leading the EPA towards Greatness."
"Even as Americans face growing risks from climate change, Scott Pruitt continues to stonewall common-sense solutions and deny decades of mounting scientific evidence that the problem is real and serious," said Ben Levitan, an attorney for the EDF, in a statement. "Americans have a right to know who is influencing Pruitt's decisions, and who is shaping the agenda at the agency in charge of protecting our health and safety."
Pruitt’s Climate Change Debates Nixed by Kelly https://t.co/bQ6K1JyGQk @ewg @EnvAm @EnvDefenseFund @greenpeaceusa… https://t.co/JY8SSTpAZ0— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)1520865040.0
But a new report by the Public Accountability Initiative documents in one place the company's extensive, revolving door relationships with the very regulators charged with issuing permits for this controversial, $5 billion fracked-gas project.
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a joint venture of Dominion, Duke Energy and Southern Company, but Dominion is the leading owner and will operate the pipeline if it goes ahead.
The project, which would source fracked gas from West Virginia, plans to traverse the Allegheny Highlands bordering West Virginia and Virginia, cut a large swath through Virginia to the Hampton Roads area, and branch south into North Carolina.
The new report details how Dominion's influence penetrates every level of state government, from Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) officials, through General Assembly members on both sides of the aisle, to the governor's mansion.
These relationships are fundamental to the fate of the pipeline.
While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is expected to rubber stamp the pipeline's federal permit, states retain the right under the Clean Water Act to protect their water resources—the project will cross hundreds of water bodies in the state—and deny permits for such projects if they are deemed a threat.
The Cuomo Administration in New York State has recently denied two such permits for gas pipelines. In Virginia, Governor McAuliffe's Department of Environmental Quality has the authority to do the same, but both the governor and the regulators who report to him have shown far greater interest in smoothing Dominion's path through the regulatory system.
The report sheds light on possible reasons why.
Gov. McAuliffe, who stood with Dominion CEO Thomas Farrell in 2014 as he unveiled plans for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, has received tens of thousands of dollars in political funding from Dominion. He received $35,000 from Dominion PAC shortly before his election in November 2013, and Dominion Virginia Power gave $50,000 to his inaugural committee shortly afterwards. More recently in 2016, Dominion PAC gave $25,000 to McAuliffe's PAC, Common Good VA, and Dominion CEO Tom Farrell gave $7,500.
The DEQ, the key agency charged with reviewing the pipeline's water quality permit, is mired in conflicting interests linked to Dominion. For example, the DEQ's longstanding director, David K. Paylor, received gifts from Dominion including a trip to the 2013 PGA Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, and a $1,200 dinner for Paylor and nine of his associates.
In 2015, Dominion's philanthropic foundation donated $45,000 to the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, an organization whose Virginia chapter is headed by Nissa Dean, who sits on the Virginia DEQ's seven-member Water Control Board, which must sign off on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline's water permit.
DEQ's Water Permitting Division Director, Melanie Davenport, appears to have previously served as an attorney for Dominion, according to the report. Davenport also sits on the board of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center with Joe Tannery, who is Dominion's energy technology advisor.
Pamela Faggert, Dominion's chief environmental officer and senior vice president of sustainability, served for nearly eight years as director of the air division of the Virginia DEQ in the late eighties and early nineties. The pipeline also has to receive regulatory approval from the air division. Furthermore, Faggert has donated over $10,000 to Virginia politicians, including supporters of the ACP.
Given the extensive revolving door between Dominion and DEQ, it is perhaps no surprise that DEQ recently came under fierce criticism over relinquishing partial oversight of water quality permits related to the pipeline to the Army Corps of Engineers' national permitting system.
As one commentator noted last month, this means that Dominion can use the "corps' blanket permit, instead of having to get one for each river, stream and wetland the pipelines cross."
Greg Buppert, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center's Virginia office, has expressed concerns: "That process does not involve site-specific analyses and we have no confidence that the corps' permit will be sufficient for such a complex project across the state's steepest mountains."
Atlantic Coast Pipeline Would Require Extensive Mountaintop Removal https://t.co/TyQjmptiei @GreenpeaceUK @globalactplan— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)1493463635.0
Dominion is also used to getting its way with state legislators in Virginia. State politicians in Virginia and North Carolina "who have been publicly vocal about their support for the pipeline have been some of the biggest recipients of donations from its corporate backers," argued the report.
General Assembly leaders alone have received nearly $400,000 since 2007 from the company. Some of this money is redistributed by the leadership to less powerful elected officials, ensuring compliance with Dominion's agenda down the chain of command.
Five leading state representatives from Virginia, along with eleven elected officials from West Virginia and North Carolina who co-signed a letter to FERC declaring their support for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, "rank among the highest recipients of donations from Dominion over the past decade."
Ultimately, when it comes to state authority over pipeline permits, the buck stops with the state's chief executive—currently McAuliffe—to ensure a fair and thorough review process that's free of polluter influence.
McAuliffe was recently labelled a climate hypocrite after announcing he was moving forward on the Paris agreement principles, but at the same time being a vociferous supporter of offshore drilling and fracked gas pipelines in Virginia.
As Oil Change International's own analysis has shown, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline alone would cause as much greenhouse gas pollution per year as 20 coal-fired power plants.
Chesapeake Climate Action Network director Mike Tidwell, argues: "It is, frankly, hypocrisy for the governor to support both Paris and violent drilling for oil and gas in and across the state. The best thing Gov. McAuliffe could do to support Paris and oppose Trump is to drop his tragic support for offshore oil drilling and for the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast Pipelines for fracked gas."
If you look up the word "Dominion" in the dictionary you will see the word derives from the Medieval Latin word "dominium" or "dominus" which means "lord or master." And true to its name, Dominion Energy certainly seems to be master of Virginia, no matter the cost to communities and the environment.