Coalition would enforce coastal protection laws

BOSTON — A coalition of environmental groups announced Thursday that they have joined forces to push for tougher enforcement of coastal protections along the New England shoreline.

The New England Coastal Campaign plans to ask elected officials and candidates to take the “coastal pledge,” promising to support laws and programs that control growth, prevent oil spills, reduce waste and improve sewage treatment. The group also released a report on coastal growth and development.

“Seventeen years ago, environmentalists won passage of the Clean Water Act,” said Peter Lavigne, co-chairman of the New England Coastal Campaign, and a member of the Massachusetts Coastal Resources Advisory Board. “This law promised us fishable, swimmable waters by 1983.”

But today, “people cannot swim in many of our rivers. Industries are still illegally discharging toxics into our waters,” Lavigne said.

The national groups Clean Water Action and Friends of the Earth have joined local coastal groups up and down the coast to launch the campaign.

The group’s report targets coastal development as the main root of pollution problems from Maine to Connecticut. “Adverse effects from development include habitat losses, runoff pollution and direct discharges to coastal waters,” the report said.

Coastal areas have experienced greater population growth than urban areas. Boston’s growth rate for the period 1970 to 1988, for example, was a negative 10 percent, according to the report. Meanwhile, the Cape Cod region of Massachusetts experienced growth of 45.9 percent.

The report links shellfish bed closings to an increase in population growth along the coastline. Maine, for example, has experienced a 21 percent jump in population between 1970 and 1988, while shellfish bed closures have increased from 14.8 percent of total waters to the present level of 35 percent, according to the report.