welcome to reality trivia
environment
The environment is everything that isn't me.
Albert Einstein
february 14, 2019
Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Henry David Thoreau
*articles*
*From paradise to landfill: beloved California beach covered in trash
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EPA Wants To Free Uranium Miners To Pollute Western Groundwater
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EVERY DOLPHIN, WHALE AND SEAL IN THIS STUDY WERE CONTAMINATED WITH MICROPLASTICS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Elephant seals take over California beach during U.S. shutdown
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Factory Farms Pollute the Environment and Poison Drinking Water
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump conflates global warming and weather despite dire climate impacts across the country
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Recalls of ‘potentially lethal’ US meat and poultry nearly double since 2013
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*For Trump’s EPA, 5,800 Square Miles Of Dead Gulf Of Mexico Isn’t Enough
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Chesapeake Bay health worsened in 2018 for the first time in a decade, report says
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*Like Fruit, Vegetables, and Almonds? Scientists Have Bad News.
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*California's coastal habitats face existential threat from rising seas
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*Trump EPA says limits on mercury emissions from coal plants not necessary
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*BEE DEATH: SCIENTISTS WARN COMMON WEED KILLER GLYPHOSATE IS KILLING HONEYBEES
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*Scientists Are Fighting Climate Change by Making Their Own Snow
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*Coal Ash Dumps Are Contaminating Groundwater in 22 States
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*40 Million Americans Depend on the Colorado River. It’s Drying Up.
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*EPA’S OWN DATA REFUTES JUSTIFICATION FOR CLEAN WATER ACT ROLLBACK
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*PROPERTY DEVELOPERS, GOLF COURSE OWNERS, FARMERS TO BENEFIT FROM TRUMP ROLLBACK OF WATER PROTECTIONS
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*TRUMP’S ATTACK ON THE CLEAN WATER ACT WILL FUEL DESTRUCTIVE PIPELINE BOOM
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*Airlines ignoring efficient planes in blow to carbon targets – study
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*EPA’S NEW WATER RULE WILL GUT THE CLEAN WATER ACT
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cartoons(at the end)
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From paradise to landfill: beloved California beach covered in trash
Shopping carts, traffic cones and Styrofoam among the piles of debris that littered Seal Beach after a trio of winter storms
Katherine Gammon in Los Angeles
the guardian
Fri 8 Feb 2019 06.00 EST
Trash is strewn along the sand south of the San Gabriel river in Seal Beach on 4 February 2019. Photograph: Jeff Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
Beachgoers hoping to stretch their legs on southern California’s famous Seal Beach were surprised to find a mountain of trash instead of sand and surf this week.
After a trio of winter storms dropped inches of rain on the area, the beach looked more like a landfill than a pristine paradise. Shopping carts, traffic cones and Styrofoam were among the piles of debris that littered the stretch of beach.
That’s because Seal Beach lies at the mouth of the San Gabriel river, which drains runoff from more than 50 cities in the Los Angeles river basin, said Eben Schwartz, the outreach manager at the California Coastal Commission, a state agency with regulatory oversight over land use and public access in the California coastal zone. “This is one of the most highly urbanized areas in the United States, and Seal Beach is basically the recipient of the outflow of all of those communities.”
Schwartz says that during coastal cleanup days, the coastal commission finds that about 80% of the trash that enters the ocean in California actually starts on land.
“We have an effective transportation system for trash: our creeks, rivers and storm water systems, all of which eventually empty out into the ocean through one process or another,” he said.
Southern California cities are starting to install special inserts into storm drains – basically screens that filter out anything larger than a pea – to filter out trash before it reaches beaches. Cities also use devices called full capture, massive pits with a turbine at the top that help separate out trash from water. The problem? “They are very expensive to maintain,” says Schwartz. “And in a massive rain event like what we saw in California, even the best of the systems can be overwhelmed.”
Cleanup efforts on Seal Beach have already begun in an effort to clear the area before the debris is carried out into the ocean. But keeping plastic out of the storm drains starts with reducing the amount of plastic being created and consumed. “It’s always stunning to see a big event that brings plastic and trash down to the beach all at once,” says Trent Hodges, who leads the plastic pollution initiative at the Surfrider Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to protect beaches and oceans. “But we are constantly loading plastic into the ocean just though the proliferation of single-use plastics in commerce today.”
Hodges says people think of marine pollution as a giant garbage patch, but it’s more like a soup. “As the plastic breaks up it absorbs different chemicals and toxins, and it is really hard to manage,” he says. “The best solution is to do source reduction: to look at everyday single-use plastic and think about redesigning plastic so we don’t waste a resource.”
Tina Treude, the director of the marine center at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, says that California is far ahead of most places when it comes to political actions like banning single-use plastic bags statewide. But it’s far from enough.
Biodegradable plastic bags, too, make their way into the ocean, and Treude is skeptical about their ability to break down. When she and a student buriedtypical plastic polyethylene plastic bags and biodegradable plastic bags in sediment in their lab in 2016, they didn’t see any change in either set of bags after 100 days. Biodegradable plastic bags may break down in landfills where the temperatures get high, but the natural conditions in the ocean don’t appear to help degrade the plastic microbially, she explained.
“It’s something we need to consider: whatever we put into the ocean may stay there for a long time,” she said.
After a trio of winter storms dropped inches of rain on the area, the beach looked more like a landfill than a pristine paradise. Shopping carts, traffic cones and Styrofoam were among the piles of debris that littered the stretch of beach.
That’s because Seal Beach lies at the mouth of the San Gabriel river, which drains runoff from more than 50 cities in the Los Angeles river basin, said Eben Schwartz, the outreach manager at the California Coastal Commission, a state agency with regulatory oversight over land use and public access in the California coastal zone. “This is one of the most highly urbanized areas in the United States, and Seal Beach is basically the recipient of the outflow of all of those communities.”
Schwartz says that during coastal cleanup days, the coastal commission finds that about 80% of the trash that enters the ocean in California actually starts on land.
“We have an effective transportation system for trash: our creeks, rivers and storm water systems, all of which eventually empty out into the ocean through one process or another,” he said.
Southern California cities are starting to install special inserts into storm drains – basically screens that filter out anything larger than a pea – to filter out trash before it reaches beaches. Cities also use devices called full capture, massive pits with a turbine at the top that help separate out trash from water. The problem? “They are very expensive to maintain,” says Schwartz. “And in a massive rain event like what we saw in California, even the best of the systems can be overwhelmed.”
Cleanup efforts on Seal Beach have already begun in an effort to clear the area before the debris is carried out into the ocean. But keeping plastic out of the storm drains starts with reducing the amount of plastic being created and consumed. “It’s always stunning to see a big event that brings plastic and trash down to the beach all at once,” says Trent Hodges, who leads the plastic pollution initiative at the Surfrider Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to protect beaches and oceans. “But we are constantly loading plastic into the ocean just though the proliferation of single-use plastics in commerce today.”
Hodges says people think of marine pollution as a giant garbage patch, but it’s more like a soup. “As the plastic breaks up it absorbs different chemicals and toxins, and it is really hard to manage,” he says. “The best solution is to do source reduction: to look at everyday single-use plastic and think about redesigning plastic so we don’t waste a resource.”
Tina Treude, the director of the marine center at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, says that California is far ahead of most places when it comes to political actions like banning single-use plastic bags statewide. But it’s far from enough.
Biodegradable plastic bags, too, make their way into the ocean, and Treude is skeptical about their ability to break down. When she and a student buriedtypical plastic polyethylene plastic bags and biodegradable plastic bags in sediment in their lab in 2016, they didn’t see any change in either set of bags after 100 days. Biodegradable plastic bags may break down in landfills where the temperatures get high, but the natural conditions in the ocean don’t appear to help degrade the plastic microbially, she explained.
“It’s something we need to consider: whatever we put into the ocean may stay there for a long time,” she said.
EPA Wants To Free Uranium Miners To Pollute Western Groundwater
Industry Says Current, Tougher Pollution Rules Are ‘Impossible to Meet’
By Sarah Okeson - dc report
2/7/19
Our nation’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is dominated by Trump appointees, is asking for suggestions about regulating a type of uranium mining after EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler, who once lobbied for a uranium miner, junked more stringent mining rules.
Mining uranium could pollute groundwater our western states might later need during droughts. The way to mine uranium most used today, in situ uranium recovery, pumps an oxygen-enriched solution into the ground to dissolve uranium deposits. More chemicals are used to remove the liquid uranium.
Mining companies are supposed to repair damage from uranium mining, but Thomas Borch, an environmental chemistry professor at Colorado State University, led a study that found uranium levels in water at a Wyoming well were more than 70 times higher after mining.
Rules proposed by the EPA in 2015 would have required ISR uranium mining companies to monitor groundwater for up to 30 years. The proposed rules were revised in 2017 after opposition from mining companies.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and two fellow senators, John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), opposed the proposed EPA regulations. All three are from states with uranium mines.
Paul Goranson, the chief operating officer of Energy Fuels, said in March 2017 interview with Platts NuclearFuel that the water quality standards in the proposed EPA regulations would be “essentially impossible to meet.”
In October, Wheeler, the acting EPA administrator who once lobbied for Energy Fuels, withdrew the proposed EPA regulations, saying the public health and environmental benefits of the proposed rules are limited.
Wheeler worked for Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting in 2017 before Trump nominated him to become deputy administrator of the EPA. Energy Fuels paid Faegre Baker Daniels $40,000 in 2017.
Law professor Richard Painter said Wheeler’s actions were legal and common.
“He’s a shill for industry,” said Painter, the former chief ethics attorney for former President George W. Bush.
Trump nominated Wheeler to succeed Scott Pruitt. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works voted 11-10 along party lines to advance his nomination.
Trump has appointed three of the five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He named Kristine Svinicki as the chair. She has been on the commission since 2008.
David Wright ran an energy consulting business. Annie Caputo worked for Barrasso. She also is a former lobbyist for AREVA Inc., a nuclear industry products and services company. The term of Stephen Burns, the former chairman of the commission, ends in June.
Mining uranium could pollute groundwater our western states might later need during droughts. The way to mine uranium most used today, in situ uranium recovery, pumps an oxygen-enriched solution into the ground to dissolve uranium deposits. More chemicals are used to remove the liquid uranium.
Mining companies are supposed to repair damage from uranium mining, but Thomas Borch, an environmental chemistry professor at Colorado State University, led a study that found uranium levels in water at a Wyoming well were more than 70 times higher after mining.
Rules proposed by the EPA in 2015 would have required ISR uranium mining companies to monitor groundwater for up to 30 years. The proposed rules were revised in 2017 after opposition from mining companies.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and two fellow senators, John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), opposed the proposed EPA regulations. All three are from states with uranium mines.
Paul Goranson, the chief operating officer of Energy Fuels, said in March 2017 interview with Platts NuclearFuel that the water quality standards in the proposed EPA regulations would be “essentially impossible to meet.”
In October, Wheeler, the acting EPA administrator who once lobbied for Energy Fuels, withdrew the proposed EPA regulations, saying the public health and environmental benefits of the proposed rules are limited.
Wheeler worked for Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting in 2017 before Trump nominated him to become deputy administrator of the EPA. Energy Fuels paid Faegre Baker Daniels $40,000 in 2017.
Law professor Richard Painter said Wheeler’s actions were legal and common.
“He’s a shill for industry,” said Painter, the former chief ethics attorney for former President George W. Bush.
Trump nominated Wheeler to succeed Scott Pruitt. The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works voted 11-10 along party lines to advance his nomination.
Trump has appointed three of the five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He named Kristine Svinicki as the chair. She has been on the commission since 2008.
David Wright ran an energy consulting business. Annie Caputo worked for Barrasso. She also is a former lobbyist for AREVA Inc., a nuclear industry products and services company. The term of Stephen Burns, the former chairman of the commission, ends in June.
EVERY DOLPHIN, WHALE AND SEAL IN THIS STUDY WERE CONTAMINATED WITH MICROPLASTICS
BY KASHMIRA GANDER - newsweek
ON 1/31/19 AT 10:13 AM
Scientists looking for microplastics in the digestive systems of sea animals stranded off the coast of the U.K. discovered the material in every creature they tested, according to a study.
A team analyzed a total of 50 animals across 10 species for their research published in the journal Scientific Reports. Microplastics were defined in the study as fragments measuring up to 5 millimeters (0.2 inches).
The samples used in the study were taken from 50 animals by members of the Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme (SMASS) and the Cetacean Stranding Investigation Programme. Both projects are based in the U.K.
Of the plastics found in the sea creatures, 84 percent were synthetic fibres which generally originate from products such as clothing and fishing nets. The remainder of the contaminants were what the scientists described as fragments, likely to come from food and drink packaging.
The animals who died of an infection contained marginally higher levels of microplastics than those who perished due to different causes. However it was unclear whether microplastics were a contributing factor to infections, the authors from the University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory wrote.
Brendan Godley, professor of conservation science at the University of Exeter, told Newsweek the study “highlights the magnitude of plastic pollution. We expected to find plastics but were somewhat surprised when we found fibers in every single animal of all species."
However, he said the team were relieved that the plastics appeared to pass through the animals, as animals contained 5.5 particles on average, which is considered relatively low.
Dr. Penelope Lindeque, head of the marine plastics research group at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, commented in a statement: "We don't yet know the effects of these particles on marine mammals. Their small size means they may easily be expelled, but while microplastics are unlikely to be the main threat to these species, we are still concerned by the impact of the bacteria, viruses and contaminants carried on the plastic."
Godley said the work could be expanded upon in future research using a larger sample of animals and across a range of geographic locations.
“I am particularly concerned for filter feeding whales,” he said. Past research has suggested that these animals, which ingest hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of water each day in order to feed off plankton, are at particular risk from ocean pollution.
The take-home message, said Godley, is that plastic appears to be so ubiquitous in the environment that all marine wildlife may be affected. “This should act as a canary in the coalmine for what we are doing to the environment on which we all depend." He said avoiding single use plastic is “clearly a first step” to tackling the problem.
“But in time, it is likely that we will need to look very hard at all aspects of our relationship with plastics," he argued. "With regard to the fibers found in our study animals, what polymers we use in our clothes and how we wash them and minimize environmental spillage would be two questions to address. Plastics are very useful, it is our current way of managing them that is the problem.”
The study is the latest to investigate the levels of tiny plastic particles present in sea animals, in the hope of furthering our understanding of the potential harms they pose. A separate piece of research by scientists at the University of Plymouth, U.K., found billions of nanoparticles contaminated shellfish exposed after six hours. The research was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
A team analyzed a total of 50 animals across 10 species for their research published in the journal Scientific Reports. Microplastics were defined in the study as fragments measuring up to 5 millimeters (0.2 inches).
The samples used in the study were taken from 50 animals by members of the Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme (SMASS) and the Cetacean Stranding Investigation Programme. Both projects are based in the U.K.
Of the plastics found in the sea creatures, 84 percent were synthetic fibres which generally originate from products such as clothing and fishing nets. The remainder of the contaminants were what the scientists described as fragments, likely to come from food and drink packaging.
The animals who died of an infection contained marginally higher levels of microplastics than those who perished due to different causes. However it was unclear whether microplastics were a contributing factor to infections, the authors from the University of Exeter and Plymouth Marine Laboratory wrote.
Brendan Godley, professor of conservation science at the University of Exeter, told Newsweek the study “highlights the magnitude of plastic pollution. We expected to find plastics but were somewhat surprised when we found fibers in every single animal of all species."
However, he said the team were relieved that the plastics appeared to pass through the animals, as animals contained 5.5 particles on average, which is considered relatively low.
Dr. Penelope Lindeque, head of the marine plastics research group at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, commented in a statement: "We don't yet know the effects of these particles on marine mammals. Their small size means they may easily be expelled, but while microplastics are unlikely to be the main threat to these species, we are still concerned by the impact of the bacteria, viruses and contaminants carried on the plastic."
Godley said the work could be expanded upon in future research using a larger sample of animals and across a range of geographic locations.
“I am particularly concerned for filter feeding whales,” he said. Past research has suggested that these animals, which ingest hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of water each day in order to feed off plankton, are at particular risk from ocean pollution.
The take-home message, said Godley, is that plastic appears to be so ubiquitous in the environment that all marine wildlife may be affected. “This should act as a canary in the coalmine for what we are doing to the environment on which we all depend." He said avoiding single use plastic is “clearly a first step” to tackling the problem.
“But in time, it is likely that we will need to look very hard at all aspects of our relationship with plastics," he argued. "With regard to the fibers found in our study animals, what polymers we use in our clothes and how we wash them and minimize environmental spillage would be two questions to address. Plastics are very useful, it is our current way of managing them that is the problem.”
The study is the latest to investigate the levels of tiny plastic particles present in sea animals, in the hope of furthering our understanding of the potential harms they pose. A separate piece of research by scientists at the University of Plymouth, U.K., found billions of nanoparticles contaminated shellfish exposed after six hours. The research was published last year in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Elephant seals take over California beach during U.S. shutdown
Reuters - raw story
31 JAN 2019 AT 06:02 ET
A herd of elephant seals are seen along the Drakes Beach, which was closed during partial federal government shutdown, in Drakes Beach, California, U.S., in this recent photo released on January 30, 2019. Courtesy Point Reyes National Seashore/NPS/Handout via REUTERS
A herd of elephant seals took over a popular California beach while it was closed during the federal government shutdown and the animals show no sign of wanting to leave.
A storm and high tides inundated the seals’ usual habitat about 32 miles (51.5 km) northwest of San Francisco, encouraging them to seek safe haven nearby.
“Since Drakes Beach was closed during part of the shutdown, and there were no Park Rangers and no members of the public, that aided in the colonization of the beach,” said John Dell’Osso, a spokesman for Point Reyes National Seashore park, where Drakes Beach is located.
Females have given birth to more than 35 pups in the last two weeks, swelling the herd’s size to around 100.
Two bull seals, which can weigh up to 2.5 tons, knocked down a fence and moved into the beach parking lot, using the visitors center’s wheelchair access ramp to lounge on, Dell’Osso said.
Though the park reopened on Sunday, the road to the beach, and its car park, have remained closed while rangers work out how to mix humans and seals.
GROWING POPULATION
Rangers plan to start allowing small groups of visitors to go to the beach this weekend to view the seals from around 30-40 yards (27-37 meters) away, Dell’Osso said.
The herd is part of the area’s growing elephant seal population, which currently numbers between 1,500 and 2,000.
Hunted to the point of extinction for their oil-rich blubber, the seals have made a comeback since the early 20th century and now number an estimated 150,000 worldwide.
The animals usually only come on land to give birth, breed and molt. They spend most of their lives in the open ocean feeding.
The Drakes Beach seals are likely to stick around until April when the pups will be weaned from their mothers. At that point, Dell’Oso expects them to leave of their own accord.
And if they come back?
“We haven’t put our heads around the long-term issue with these seals yet,” said Dell’Osso.
A storm and high tides inundated the seals’ usual habitat about 32 miles (51.5 km) northwest of San Francisco, encouraging them to seek safe haven nearby.
“Since Drakes Beach was closed during part of the shutdown, and there were no Park Rangers and no members of the public, that aided in the colonization of the beach,” said John Dell’Osso, a spokesman for Point Reyes National Seashore park, where Drakes Beach is located.
Females have given birth to more than 35 pups in the last two weeks, swelling the herd’s size to around 100.
Two bull seals, which can weigh up to 2.5 tons, knocked down a fence and moved into the beach parking lot, using the visitors center’s wheelchair access ramp to lounge on, Dell’Osso said.
Though the park reopened on Sunday, the road to the beach, and its car park, have remained closed while rangers work out how to mix humans and seals.
GROWING POPULATION
Rangers plan to start allowing small groups of visitors to go to the beach this weekend to view the seals from around 30-40 yards (27-37 meters) away, Dell’Osso said.
The herd is part of the area’s growing elephant seal population, which currently numbers between 1,500 and 2,000.
Hunted to the point of extinction for their oil-rich blubber, the seals have made a comeback since the early 20th century and now number an estimated 150,000 worldwide.
The animals usually only come on land to give birth, breed and molt. They spend most of their lives in the open ocean feeding.
The Drakes Beach seals are likely to stick around until April when the pups will be weaned from their mothers. At that point, Dell’Oso expects them to leave of their own accord.
And if they come back?
“We haven’t put our heads around the long-term issue with these seals yet,” said Dell’Osso.
Factory Farms Pollute the Environment and Poison Drinking Water
BY
Daniel Ross, Truthout
PUBLISHED
January 29, 2019
Hurricane Florence, which battered the US East Coast last September, left a trail of ruin and destruction estimated to costbetween $17 billion and $22 billion. Some of the damage was all too visible — smashed homes and livelihoods. But other damage was less so, like the long-term environmental impacts in North Carolina from hog waste that spilled out over large open-air lagoons saturated in the rains.
Hog waste can contain potentially dangerous pathogens, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. According to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, as of early October, nearly 100 such lagoons were damaged, breached, or were very close to being so, the effluent from which can seep into waterways and drinking water supplies.
Rather than an isolated problem, however, the story of North Carolina’s failure to properly manage its hog waste opens a door to what critics say is a much wider national and global issue: the increasingly extensive and varied impacts on our water resources, air and soils from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
“The big problem with this model is the waste management problem that it creates, generating so much waste in such high concentration,” said Will Hendrick, staff attorney with the Waterkeeper Alliance, a network of organizations monitoring US waterways. “We haven’t really improved the technologies for managing this waste beyond what we were using centuries ago.”
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
In recent decades, livestock numbers have soared in the US, while the number of actual farms has shrunk — a dynamic fueled in part by the government’s acquiescence to industrial farming megamergers. In 2015, for example, just four companies accounted for 85 percent of the nation’s beef packing industry. This has given rise to what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls CAFOs, livestock operations where animals — primarily cows, pigs and chickens — are kept and raised in confined spaces.
The amount of animal feces and urine produced in these facilities is staggering — more than 40 times the waste generated in wastewater treatment plants. Most CAFO waste is spread over farmland as fertilizer. But unlike strictly regulated human waste, the waste generated by CAFOs isn’t held to the same standard and is largely untreated. “The basic legal theory, which is basic legal fiction, is that the waste will be kept on site and applied to adjacent cropland and [will] never enter our water-bodies,” said Hendrick.
What actually happens is that potentially toxic chemicals, drugs and bacteria in untreated animal wastes drain off or leach through the soils, making their way into the nation’s rivers, streams, groundwater and drinking water at alarming rates, directly impacting communities. Iowa’s largest municipal water utility provider, for example, recently sued a number of upstream drainage districts for excessive drinking water nitrate levels caused by farmland runoff. The lawsuit, however, was subsequently dismissed, the judge ruling it a problem for the state legislatures to tackle.
CAFO wastes are regulated to some extent. Under the Clean Water Act, for example, operators must file a nutrient management plan with their state environmental agencies. “Whether spread next to the CAFO or on neighboring fields, that manure spreading is done only after a careful analysis of both the manure itself and the land it’s applied to. There are legal penalties attached to violating those plans,” said Will Rodger, a spokesperson for the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), in an email. The bureau is a powerful lobbying organization that has championed efforts to weaken the Clean Water Act.
Enforcement of these management plans, however, varies from state to state, said Tom Pelton, spokesperson for the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit environmental watchdog. “In reality, there’s not much enforcement, and they’re also difficult to enforce,” he added.
Soil Oversaturated With Animal Manure
The prevalence of veterinary drug use in industrial farming, and the associated health risks when humans are exposed to these drugs, is another factor that critics highlight. Antibiotics, for example, make their way through the waste-streams at these facilities and out into the environment, leading to fears of increased antibiotic resistance in humans, not to mention their damaging impacts on sensitive ecosystems.
There’s also the question of what to do with excess animal waste when the available agricultural land surrounding CAFOs is limited, leading to oversaturation of soils with animal manure. “There are still some states that have not banned applying this waste on frozen ground,” said Patty Lovera, assistant director at Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy organization that has called for an end to factory farms. “That’s not about growing crops. That’s about disposal.”
Animal waste doesn’t only impact valuable water resources. Industrial livestock production generates huge quantities of methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas. According to the EPA, all national agricultural processes, including livestock production, accounted for 9 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization pins the percentage share from livestock production on overall anthropogenic global greenhouse emissions much higher — at 14.5 percent.
Despite the fact that the EPA has long known about high levels of CAFO-produced air pollution, the agency is seeking to exempt these facilities from having to report toxic air emissions like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide under a federal right-to-know law, though a group of environmental organizations filed a lawsuit last year to halt that proposed rule.
Air quality issues from industrial farming can also be more locally felt. In North Carolina, for example, neighbors of a hog farm operated by Murphy-Brown filed a lawsuit in 2014 against the owners complaining of nuisance noises and odors, worsening their quality of life. Theirs was one of a number of lawsuits against Smithfield Foods, Murphy-Brown’s parent company. The plaintiffs from that particular suit were recently awarded $473.5 million. But the state legislature also passed a lawlimiting the legal action that residents can now take against neighboring CAFOs.
Agricultural Chemicals
More animals, of course, means that more crops must be grown to feed them, which leads to broader industrial farming impacts, including runoff from agricultural chemicals like those found in fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. What kinds of impacts do these chemicals have? A recent study out of New Zealand finds that certain bacteria develop antibiotic resistance up to 100,000 times faster when exposed to common herbicides like Roundup and Kamba. Agricultural runoff also helps feed harmful algae blooms.
According to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of data from 2014 and 2015, the drinking water in 1,700 individual systems (affecting approximately 7 million people) contained nitrogen at levels higher than 5 parts per million (ppm), an amount the National Cancer Institute says increases the risk of colon, kidney, ovarian and bladder cancers. The EWG also found that nearly 32,000 Americans received drinking water containing nitrogen at levels exceeding the EPA’s threshold of 10 ppm — a limit set more than 55 years ago.
Nor is it cheap for consumers to filter out chemicals like nitrates themselves, explained Anne Weir Schechinger, EWG’s senior economic analyst. As an example, the Iowan utility tackling elevated drinking water nitrate levels is reportedly spending $15 million to expand its filtration technology. “That’s why we want to make sure our audience has more [information] resources so they can protect themselves if the EPA isn’t going to,” Weir Schechinger said, pointing to EWG’s drinking water database.
The American Farm Bureau Federation disputes EWG’s findings, and points to what it regards as “inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity” in drinking water. “We are not impressed with this effort, nor the quality of EWG’s reports across the board,” said Will Rodger in an email. In response, Weir Schechinger explained how for decades, “peer-reviewed studies have shown a clear link between an increased risk of cancer and nitrate levels in tap water that are lower than EPA’s legal limit — and no amount of lobbying from special interest groups will change the science.”
Indeed, the health risks associated with living in close proximity to CAFOs is becoming increasingly clearer. A recent study out of Duke University found that North Carolinians who live near hog farms have higher death rates from a variety of health issues — including anemia, kidney disease, septicemia, tuberculosis and infant mortality — compared to those who live further away from such facilities. And who are the people most affected? CAFOs disproportionately impact low-income rural communities, African Americans, Latino Americans and Native Americans.
What Can Be Done?
The regulatory framework exists — in federal laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act — to force CAFO operators to properly dispose of their waste, said Sacoby Wilson, associate professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. The problem is, “They [CAFO operators] have a very strong hook in the legislature,” he said, pointing to the political clout that large agricultural organizations wield. That’s why CAFO operators have for so long circumvented more stringent waste disposal laws, according to Wilson.
But Wilson stressed that in the event CAFOs are held to tougher laws in the future, the costs associated with modernizing these facilities should be absorbed by the large conglomerates driving the CAFO industry, rather than the smaller farm operators, many of whom struggle financially. “In the process of compliance, there would have to be some modifications made to make sure the costs are internalized by the corporations,” said Wilson. “We’re not anti-farmers, we’re pro-farmers. We’re not anti-development, we are pro-sustainable development.”
Experts point to other things that CAFO operators can do to minimize their environmental footprint. Greater use of cover crops would promote healthier soils and reduce erosion. Buffer strips and terraces — natural devices that intercept pollutants — help reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff. But other proposed changes are more controversial. Methane digesters might sound like a good way of transforming methane emissions into renewable energy, but critics pick holes in such technologies, arguing that they do little to nothing to tackle the sheer volume of animal waste generated. More broadly, critics highlight ethical issues inherent in CAFOs, pointing to instances of animal abuse and cramped living conditions.
At the end of the day, though CAFOs are the “dominant model of agriculture,” said Lovera, “we didn’t vote” for this system. “If I could wave the magic wand, everybody would be using different agricultural techniques, but it’s going to take some steps to get us there.”
Hog waste can contain potentially dangerous pathogens, pharmaceuticals and chemicals. According to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, as of early October, nearly 100 such lagoons were damaged, breached, or were very close to being so, the effluent from which can seep into waterways and drinking water supplies.
Rather than an isolated problem, however, the story of North Carolina’s failure to properly manage its hog waste opens a door to what critics say is a much wider national and global issue: the increasingly extensive and varied impacts on our water resources, air and soils from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs).
“The big problem with this model is the waste management problem that it creates, generating so much waste in such high concentration,” said Will Hendrick, staff attorney with the Waterkeeper Alliance, a network of organizations monitoring US waterways. “We haven’t really improved the technologies for managing this waste beyond what we were using centuries ago.”
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations
In recent decades, livestock numbers have soared in the US, while the number of actual farms has shrunk — a dynamic fueled in part by the government’s acquiescence to industrial farming megamergers. In 2015, for example, just four companies accounted for 85 percent of the nation’s beef packing industry. This has given rise to what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) calls CAFOs, livestock operations where animals — primarily cows, pigs and chickens — are kept and raised in confined spaces.
The amount of animal feces and urine produced in these facilities is staggering — more than 40 times the waste generated in wastewater treatment plants. Most CAFO waste is spread over farmland as fertilizer. But unlike strictly regulated human waste, the waste generated by CAFOs isn’t held to the same standard and is largely untreated. “The basic legal theory, which is basic legal fiction, is that the waste will be kept on site and applied to adjacent cropland and [will] never enter our water-bodies,” said Hendrick.
What actually happens is that potentially toxic chemicals, drugs and bacteria in untreated animal wastes drain off or leach through the soils, making their way into the nation’s rivers, streams, groundwater and drinking water at alarming rates, directly impacting communities. Iowa’s largest municipal water utility provider, for example, recently sued a number of upstream drainage districts for excessive drinking water nitrate levels caused by farmland runoff. The lawsuit, however, was subsequently dismissed, the judge ruling it a problem for the state legislatures to tackle.
CAFO wastes are regulated to some extent. Under the Clean Water Act, for example, operators must file a nutrient management plan with their state environmental agencies. “Whether spread next to the CAFO or on neighboring fields, that manure spreading is done only after a careful analysis of both the manure itself and the land it’s applied to. There are legal penalties attached to violating those plans,” said Will Rodger, a spokesperson for the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), in an email. The bureau is a powerful lobbying organization that has championed efforts to weaken the Clean Water Act.
Enforcement of these management plans, however, varies from state to state, said Tom Pelton, spokesperson for the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit environmental watchdog. “In reality, there’s not much enforcement, and they’re also difficult to enforce,” he added.
Soil Oversaturated With Animal Manure
The prevalence of veterinary drug use in industrial farming, and the associated health risks when humans are exposed to these drugs, is another factor that critics highlight. Antibiotics, for example, make their way through the waste-streams at these facilities and out into the environment, leading to fears of increased antibiotic resistance in humans, not to mention their damaging impacts on sensitive ecosystems.
There’s also the question of what to do with excess animal waste when the available agricultural land surrounding CAFOs is limited, leading to oversaturation of soils with animal manure. “There are still some states that have not banned applying this waste on frozen ground,” said Patty Lovera, assistant director at Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy organization that has called for an end to factory farms. “That’s not about growing crops. That’s about disposal.”
Animal waste doesn’t only impact valuable water resources. Industrial livestock production generates huge quantities of methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas. According to the EPA, all national agricultural processes, including livestock production, accounted for 9 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization pins the percentage share from livestock production on overall anthropogenic global greenhouse emissions much higher — at 14.5 percent.
Despite the fact that the EPA has long known about high levels of CAFO-produced air pollution, the agency is seeking to exempt these facilities from having to report toxic air emissions like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide under a federal right-to-know law, though a group of environmental organizations filed a lawsuit last year to halt that proposed rule.
Air quality issues from industrial farming can also be more locally felt. In North Carolina, for example, neighbors of a hog farm operated by Murphy-Brown filed a lawsuit in 2014 against the owners complaining of nuisance noises and odors, worsening their quality of life. Theirs was one of a number of lawsuits against Smithfield Foods, Murphy-Brown’s parent company. The plaintiffs from that particular suit were recently awarded $473.5 million. But the state legislature also passed a lawlimiting the legal action that residents can now take against neighboring CAFOs.
Agricultural Chemicals
More animals, of course, means that more crops must be grown to feed them, which leads to broader industrial farming impacts, including runoff from agricultural chemicals like those found in fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides. What kinds of impacts do these chemicals have? A recent study out of New Zealand finds that certain bacteria develop antibiotic resistance up to 100,000 times faster when exposed to common herbicides like Roundup and Kamba. Agricultural runoff also helps feed harmful algae blooms.
According to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of data from 2014 and 2015, the drinking water in 1,700 individual systems (affecting approximately 7 million people) contained nitrogen at levels higher than 5 parts per million (ppm), an amount the National Cancer Institute says increases the risk of colon, kidney, ovarian and bladder cancers. The EWG also found that nearly 32,000 Americans received drinking water containing nitrogen at levels exceeding the EPA’s threshold of 10 ppm — a limit set more than 55 years ago.
Nor is it cheap for consumers to filter out chemicals like nitrates themselves, explained Anne Weir Schechinger, EWG’s senior economic analyst. As an example, the Iowan utility tackling elevated drinking water nitrate levels is reportedly spending $15 million to expand its filtration technology. “That’s why we want to make sure our audience has more [information] resources so they can protect themselves if the EPA isn’t going to,” Weir Schechinger said, pointing to EWG’s drinking water database.
The American Farm Bureau Federation disputes EWG’s findings, and points to what it regards as “inadequate evidence of carcinogenicity” in drinking water. “We are not impressed with this effort, nor the quality of EWG’s reports across the board,” said Will Rodger in an email. In response, Weir Schechinger explained how for decades, “peer-reviewed studies have shown a clear link between an increased risk of cancer and nitrate levels in tap water that are lower than EPA’s legal limit — and no amount of lobbying from special interest groups will change the science.”
Indeed, the health risks associated with living in close proximity to CAFOs is becoming increasingly clearer. A recent study out of Duke University found that North Carolinians who live near hog farms have higher death rates from a variety of health issues — including anemia, kidney disease, septicemia, tuberculosis and infant mortality — compared to those who live further away from such facilities. And who are the people most affected? CAFOs disproportionately impact low-income rural communities, African Americans, Latino Americans and Native Americans.
What Can Be Done?
The regulatory framework exists — in federal laws like the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act — to force CAFO operators to properly dispose of their waste, said Sacoby Wilson, associate professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. The problem is, “They [CAFO operators] have a very strong hook in the legislature,” he said, pointing to the political clout that large agricultural organizations wield. That’s why CAFO operators have for so long circumvented more stringent waste disposal laws, according to Wilson.
But Wilson stressed that in the event CAFOs are held to tougher laws in the future, the costs associated with modernizing these facilities should be absorbed by the large conglomerates driving the CAFO industry, rather than the smaller farm operators, many of whom struggle financially. “In the process of compliance, there would have to be some modifications made to make sure the costs are internalized by the corporations,” said Wilson. “We’re not anti-farmers, we’re pro-farmers. We’re not anti-development, we are pro-sustainable development.”
Experts point to other things that CAFO operators can do to minimize their environmental footprint. Greater use of cover crops would promote healthier soils and reduce erosion. Buffer strips and terraces — natural devices that intercept pollutants — help reduce nitrogen and phosphorus runoff. But other proposed changes are more controversial. Methane digesters might sound like a good way of transforming methane emissions into renewable energy, but critics pick holes in such technologies, arguing that they do little to nothing to tackle the sheer volume of animal waste generated. More broadly, critics highlight ethical issues inherent in CAFOs, pointing to instances of animal abuse and cramped living conditions.
At the end of the day, though CAFOs are the “dominant model of agriculture,” said Lovera, “we didn’t vote” for this system. “If I could wave the magic wand, everybody would be using different agricultural techniques, but it’s going to take some steps to get us there.”
CARTOON TWEETED OUT BY NOAA SCIENTISTS TUESDAY MORNING. CREDIT: NOAA.
the musings of a fool!!!
Trump conflates global warming and weather despite dire climate impacts across the country
Researchers have speculated the polar vortex could actually be connected to climate change.
E.A. CRUNDEN - thinkprogress
JAN 21, 2019, 11:12 AM
Despite a year of dire climate impacts across the United States, Pissident Donald Trump once again conflated weather with climate change in a holiday weekend tweet, touting a debunked argument rebutting global warming by citing cold weather.
In an early morning tweet on Sunday, the president referenced a major cold front playing out across parts of the country, implying the frosty weather offered a rebuttal to the phenomenon of climate change — an incorrect claim he has repeated several times in the past whenever there has been a snow storm.
“Be careful and try staying in your house. Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold,” wrote Trump. “Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”
It is true that large swathes of the country are enduring bone-chilling temperatures right now. More than 100 million people are under winter weather alerts nationally. Those include warnings associated with Winter Storm Indra, which is bringing blankets of snow and ice as it moves from the Mountain West over across the Midwest and over to the east.
A polar vortex from the Arctic has also sent temperatures tumbling well below freezing in the Northeast, submerging the nation’s capital and surrounding areas into temperatures as low as -10 degrees Fahrenheit.
But climate refers to the extended behavior of the atmosphere, while weather itself is really just what happens in the atmosphere at any one moment in time. And weather experts say that the current bitterly cold scenario could actually be connected to warming in the Arctic.
Polar vortexes are increasingly becoming a seasonal tradition in the United States, as the circular wind bands break down and send cold air tumbling south. Some climate researchers have linked that uptick to rapidly-melting sea ice in the Arctic. When the ice absorbs extra heat from the sun, as is happening with greater frequency, hot spots and changes in the jet stream react with the bands of wind that typically keep cold weather locked in place up north. That helps the polar vortex to break — causing brutally cold air to descend on many parts of the world.
The president has long denied the science on climate change. And this isn’t the first time that he has incorrectly conflated weather and climate change. Last winter during another cold spell, Trump similarly tweeted that “we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming.”
Climate science is accepted as fact by virtually all experts, but Trump has said he will withdraw the country from the Paris climate agreement and has overseen the mass-rollback of environmental safeguards meant to mitigate global warming. And while the president continues to confuse weather and climate change, the government’s own science has shown that climate change is in fact impacting the weather, in addition to sparking more extreme weather events.
Released last November, the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) found that climate impacts are already playing out across the country. Authored by hundreds of scientists, the report found an alarming uptick in natural disasters, including wildfires in the West and worsening hurricanes in the Southeast, among others, while the Northeast is seeing winters that come later and end earlier, as is the case this year.
Trump, however, has also downplayed the link between climate change and natural disasters, including taking aim multiple times at California’s struggles with worsening wildfires. Despite warnings from scientists that hotter weather is helping the naturally-occurring wildfires to worsen, Trump has instead pointed to forest management, arguing that West Coast officials are alone to blame for the problem.
Worsening fires and more prevalent cold snaps aren’t the only looming problem for the country. The NCA also found that more rain is becoming a trend on the East Coast, exacerbating floods and wreaking havoc on infrastructure. Those findings came in lock-step with grim weather milestones — 2018 was the wettest year on record for a number of cities, including Baltimore and Philadelphia, along with Wilmington, North Carolina, which saw severe impacts from Hurricane Florence.
The mid-Atlantic and parts of the Southeast were the worst-hit by rain last year, and, so far, that trend is continuing into this year in some areas.
In Washington, D.C., where the president spends much of his time, more than 61 inches of rain fell last year, shattering the city’s record for wettest in history. And while it’s hard to connect any one weather event to climate change, the NCA found that the capital city is likely to see shorter winters, hotter summers, and increasing amounts of rain on a yearly basis.
Like much of the country, D.C. is beginning this week experiencing the fallout from the polar vortex. But according to the forecast, that won’t last long — by Wednesday, the city is projected to see more rain.
In an early morning tweet on Sunday, the president referenced a major cold front playing out across parts of the country, implying the frosty weather offered a rebuttal to the phenomenon of climate change — an incorrect claim he has repeated several times in the past whenever there has been a snow storm.
“Be careful and try staying in your house. Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold,” wrote Trump. “Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”
It is true that large swathes of the country are enduring bone-chilling temperatures right now. More than 100 million people are under winter weather alerts nationally. Those include warnings associated with Winter Storm Indra, which is bringing blankets of snow and ice as it moves from the Mountain West over across the Midwest and over to the east.
A polar vortex from the Arctic has also sent temperatures tumbling well below freezing in the Northeast, submerging the nation’s capital and surrounding areas into temperatures as low as -10 degrees Fahrenheit.
But climate refers to the extended behavior of the atmosphere, while weather itself is really just what happens in the atmosphere at any one moment in time. And weather experts say that the current bitterly cold scenario could actually be connected to warming in the Arctic.
Polar vortexes are increasingly becoming a seasonal tradition in the United States, as the circular wind bands break down and send cold air tumbling south. Some climate researchers have linked that uptick to rapidly-melting sea ice in the Arctic. When the ice absorbs extra heat from the sun, as is happening with greater frequency, hot spots and changes in the jet stream react with the bands of wind that typically keep cold weather locked in place up north. That helps the polar vortex to break — causing brutally cold air to descend on many parts of the world.
The president has long denied the science on climate change. And this isn’t the first time that he has incorrectly conflated weather and climate change. Last winter during another cold spell, Trump similarly tweeted that “we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming.”
Climate science is accepted as fact by virtually all experts, but Trump has said he will withdraw the country from the Paris climate agreement and has overseen the mass-rollback of environmental safeguards meant to mitigate global warming. And while the president continues to confuse weather and climate change, the government’s own science has shown that climate change is in fact impacting the weather, in addition to sparking more extreme weather events.
Released last November, the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) found that climate impacts are already playing out across the country. Authored by hundreds of scientists, the report found an alarming uptick in natural disasters, including wildfires in the West and worsening hurricanes in the Southeast, among others, while the Northeast is seeing winters that come later and end earlier, as is the case this year.
Trump, however, has also downplayed the link between climate change and natural disasters, including taking aim multiple times at California’s struggles with worsening wildfires. Despite warnings from scientists that hotter weather is helping the naturally-occurring wildfires to worsen, Trump has instead pointed to forest management, arguing that West Coast officials are alone to blame for the problem.
Worsening fires and more prevalent cold snaps aren’t the only looming problem for the country. The NCA also found that more rain is becoming a trend on the East Coast, exacerbating floods and wreaking havoc on infrastructure. Those findings came in lock-step with grim weather milestones — 2018 was the wettest year on record for a number of cities, including Baltimore and Philadelphia, along with Wilmington, North Carolina, which saw severe impacts from Hurricane Florence.
The mid-Atlantic and parts of the Southeast were the worst-hit by rain last year, and, so far, that trend is continuing into this year in some areas.
In Washington, D.C., where the president spends much of his time, more than 61 inches of rain fell last year, shattering the city’s record for wettest in history. And while it’s hard to connect any one weather event to climate change, the NCA found that the capital city is likely to see shorter winters, hotter summers, and increasing amounts of rain on a yearly basis.
Like much of the country, D.C. is beginning this week experiencing the fallout from the polar vortex. But according to the forecast, that won’t last long — by Wednesday, the city is projected to see more rain.
Recalls of ‘potentially lethal’ US meat and poultry nearly double since 2013
Products withdrawn because of serious contamination are on the rise, report finds
Erin McCormick
the guardian
Fri 18 Jan 2019 07.49 EST
The number of meat and poultry products recalled in the US for potentially life-threatening health hazards has nearly doubled since 2013, according to a report by a consumer watchdog group.
The US Department of Agriculture logged 97 meat recalls for serious health hazards in 2018, ranging from 12 million pounds of raw beef that made close to 250 people ill with salmonella to the withdrawal of 174,000 pounds of chicken wraps for possible contamination with listeria.
These “Class 1” recalls – for conditions the USDA deems “a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death” – are up from 53 in 2013, the report by the US PIRG Education Fund said.
“The most dangerous types of meat and poultry recalls are on the rise,” said Adam Garber, who co-authored the report. “Whether you like hamburger or chicken, more and more dangerous meat is reaching your house.”
Yet meat industry leaders and many food watchdog groups say that the increase in recalls may be a sign that the regulatory system is working as it should be. The report acknowledges that advances in food safety technology, such as the use of whole genome sequencing, may be making it easier to detect foodborne illness.
“This is showing that the regulatory agencies are catching things,” said Jerold Mande, a professor of nutrition science at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who served as a US deputy undersecretary of food safety during the Obama administration. “It’s a flashing red light on the dashboard that you have to look at and ask: why is that occurring?”
Mande said meat safety in the US had clearly improved since the 1990s.
But he and other experts said there was more that could be done to reduce the estimated 48 million foodborne illnesses, 128,000 hospitalisations and 3,000 deaths that are still caused by food contaminants each year, according to the US Center for Disease Control.
The report criticised the US food safety system for the fact that antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella, which sicken thousands of people each year, are not considered an adulterant in US meat products.
“Even if beef processors find salmonella in their meat, they can continue selling it until there’s a major disease outbreak,” said the group’s report.
The report called for the federal government to prohibit the sale of meat containing certain antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella. It also called for tougher enforcement of existing meat safety laws.
Eric Mittenthal, a spokesman for the North American Meat Institute which represents the meat industry, stated that salmonella is a natural bacteria and getting rid of all of it would be impossible. He said testing data indicates that meat is actually safer today than ever.
“No one wants to eliminate bacteria on meat products more than the companies who produce and sell them,” he said in a written statement. “But we also believe it is important to support policies that will work and don’t lead people to believe that ‘zero’ salmonella is possible on a raw product.”
According to Dr Douglas Powell, a former food safety professor in Canada and the US, who now publishes the food safety site barfblog, the best thing consumers can do is to use a thermometer to make sure they are heating their meat enough to kill any dangerous bacteria.
“The biggest risk is not eating at all,” he said. “The next biggest is eating too much. But food is something we should enjoy with our children – not something we should have a lot of neuroses over.”
In all, the US PIRG report found that general food recalls increased by 10% in the US between 2013 and 2018. The number of recalls of produce items and processed food, which are handled separately from meats by the Food and Drug Administration, remained fairly steady, with a 2% rise.
But some of the 2018 recalls of non-meat products have been devastating to the food industry – including the recalls of E coli-contaminated Romaine lettuce, which killed five and sickened more than 200, and Ritz Crackers that were possibly salmonella-tainted.
Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who has become famous for regularly suing food companies on behalf of food poisoning victims, said his office had been laying off lawyers in recent years – especially since there had been a reduced number of E coli cases. But he said, in 2018, there were so many problems that he had to add three lawyers and five staff members to his firm.
“If Bill Marler is hiring more lawyers that is a bad sign for the food industry,” he said.
The US Department of Agriculture logged 97 meat recalls for serious health hazards in 2018, ranging from 12 million pounds of raw beef that made close to 250 people ill with salmonella to the withdrawal of 174,000 pounds of chicken wraps for possible contamination with listeria.
These “Class 1” recalls – for conditions the USDA deems “a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death” – are up from 53 in 2013, the report by the US PIRG Education Fund said.
“The most dangerous types of meat and poultry recalls are on the rise,” said Adam Garber, who co-authored the report. “Whether you like hamburger or chicken, more and more dangerous meat is reaching your house.”
Yet meat industry leaders and many food watchdog groups say that the increase in recalls may be a sign that the regulatory system is working as it should be. The report acknowledges that advances in food safety technology, such as the use of whole genome sequencing, may be making it easier to detect foodborne illness.
“This is showing that the regulatory agencies are catching things,” said Jerold Mande, a professor of nutrition science at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who served as a US deputy undersecretary of food safety during the Obama administration. “It’s a flashing red light on the dashboard that you have to look at and ask: why is that occurring?”
Mande said meat safety in the US had clearly improved since the 1990s.
But he and other experts said there was more that could be done to reduce the estimated 48 million foodborne illnesses, 128,000 hospitalisations and 3,000 deaths that are still caused by food contaminants each year, according to the US Center for Disease Control.
The report criticised the US food safety system for the fact that antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella, which sicken thousands of people each year, are not considered an adulterant in US meat products.
“Even if beef processors find salmonella in their meat, they can continue selling it until there’s a major disease outbreak,” said the group’s report.
The report called for the federal government to prohibit the sale of meat containing certain antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella. It also called for tougher enforcement of existing meat safety laws.
Eric Mittenthal, a spokesman for the North American Meat Institute which represents the meat industry, stated that salmonella is a natural bacteria and getting rid of all of it would be impossible. He said testing data indicates that meat is actually safer today than ever.
“No one wants to eliminate bacteria on meat products more than the companies who produce and sell them,” he said in a written statement. “But we also believe it is important to support policies that will work and don’t lead people to believe that ‘zero’ salmonella is possible on a raw product.”
According to Dr Douglas Powell, a former food safety professor in Canada and the US, who now publishes the food safety site barfblog, the best thing consumers can do is to use a thermometer to make sure they are heating their meat enough to kill any dangerous bacteria.
“The biggest risk is not eating at all,” he said. “The next biggest is eating too much. But food is something we should enjoy with our children – not something we should have a lot of neuroses over.”
In all, the US PIRG report found that general food recalls increased by 10% in the US between 2013 and 2018. The number of recalls of produce items and processed food, which are handled separately from meats by the Food and Drug Administration, remained fairly steady, with a 2% rise.
But some of the 2018 recalls of non-meat products have been devastating to the food industry – including the recalls of E coli-contaminated Romaine lettuce, which killed five and sickened more than 200, and Ritz Crackers that were possibly salmonella-tainted.
Bill Marler, a food safety lawyer who has become famous for regularly suing food companies on behalf of food poisoning victims, said his office had been laying off lawyers in recent years – especially since there had been a reduced number of E coli cases. But he said, in 2018, there were so many problems that he had to add three lawyers and five staff members to his firm.
“If Bill Marler is hiring more lawyers that is a bad sign for the food industry,” he said.
For Trump’s EPA, 5,800 Square Miles Of Dead Gulf Of Mexico Isn’t Enough
The Agency Wants to Cut Water Pollution Regulations in the Region
By Sarah Okeson - dc report
1/15/19
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency has proposed cuts in water pollution regulation that would increase the 5,772-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, the area where fish and other living things must swim away or die.
Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s nominee to lead the EPA, wants to remove thousands of streams, swamps and other bodies of water from regulations approved under former President Barack Obama to curb water pollution.
Scientists think a 45% reduction in nitrate and phosphorus, much of it from fertilizer, running into the Mississippi River is needed to shrink the dead zone, which was the size of Delaware last summer. In 2008, a task force set a goal of reaching that target by 2015 which didn’t happen.
A rule published in 2015 under Obama could have restricted pollution from chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
“For the water in the rivers and lakes in our communities that flow to our drinking water to be clean, the streams and wetlands that feed them need to be clean too,” then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in 2015.
Court challenges have meant that the rule is in effect in only 22 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. One of Trump’s first actions in office was to tell the EPA chief to repeal or revise the Clean Water Rule.
An estimated 18% of streams and slightly more than half of the wetlands would not have federal protection under the proposed changes. The revised rule would exclude streams that don’t run year-round and wetlands that aren’t directly connected to larger bodies of water.
“This sickening gift to polluters will result in more dangerous toxic pollution dumped into waterways across a vast stretch of America,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Midwest has some of the nation’s highest levels of nitrates in groundwater because of fertilizers on farms. Nitrates in drinking water have been linked to blue baby syndrome, a life-threatening condition reducing the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.
The Mississippi River watershed drains about 40% of the continental United States. The average size of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico for the past five summers is 5,772 square miles, but it was smaller in 2018 at about 2,720 square miles.
Environmentalists want the EPA to set limits for pollutants in the Mississippi River watershed as the agency did on the East Coast with the Chesapeake Bay. The Mississippi River Collaborative sued the EPA in 2012 to try to force action. A federal judge ruled in 2016 that the EPA could continue to help states run voluntary programs and didn’t need to impose mandatory restrictions.
Only one state, Minnesota, of a dozen central states with waters that flow into the Mississippi, has required farmers to reduce fertilizer runoff.
In 2018, water from the dead zone flowed east, contributing to toxic algae in Florida that killed fish and shut down beaches from the Alabama-Florida border to the Florida Keys.
Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s nominee to lead the EPA, wants to remove thousands of streams, swamps and other bodies of water from regulations approved under former President Barack Obama to curb water pollution.
Scientists think a 45% reduction in nitrate and phosphorus, much of it from fertilizer, running into the Mississippi River is needed to shrink the dead zone, which was the size of Delaware last summer. In 2008, a task force set a goal of reaching that target by 2015 which didn’t happen.
A rule published in 2015 under Obama could have restricted pollution from chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
“For the water in the rivers and lakes in our communities that flow to our drinking water to be clean, the streams and wetlands that feed them need to be clean too,” then-EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in 2015.
Court challenges have meant that the rule is in effect in only 22 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. One of Trump’s first actions in office was to tell the EPA chief to repeal or revise the Clean Water Rule.
An estimated 18% of streams and slightly more than half of the wetlands would not have federal protection under the proposed changes. The revised rule would exclude streams that don’t run year-round and wetlands that aren’t directly connected to larger bodies of water.
“This sickening gift to polluters will result in more dangerous toxic pollution dumped into waterways across a vast stretch of America,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Midwest has some of the nation’s highest levels of nitrates in groundwater because of fertilizers on farms. Nitrates in drinking water have been linked to blue baby syndrome, a life-threatening condition reducing the blood’s ability to carry oxygen.
The Mississippi River watershed drains about 40% of the continental United States. The average size of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico for the past five summers is 5,772 square miles, but it was smaller in 2018 at about 2,720 square miles.
Environmentalists want the EPA to set limits for pollutants in the Mississippi River watershed as the agency did on the East Coast with the Chesapeake Bay. The Mississippi River Collaborative sued the EPA in 2012 to try to force action. A federal judge ruled in 2016 that the EPA could continue to help states run voluntary programs and didn’t need to impose mandatory restrictions.
Only one state, Minnesota, of a dozen central states with waters that flow into the Mississippi, has required farmers to reduce fertilizer runoff.
In 2018, water from the dead zone flowed east, contributing to toxic algae in Florida that killed fish and shut down beaches from the Alabama-Florida border to the Florida Keys.
thanks trump!!!
Chesapeake Bay health worsened in 2018 for the first time in a decade, report says
By Tamara Dietrich - Staff writer - virginian - pilot
Jan 8, 2019 Updated 2 hrs ago
For the first time in a decade, the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay declined, dropping from a C- to a D+ in an annual State of the Bay report issued Monday.
Culprits in the decline include increased runoff from rainstorms in 2018 that were rendered more intense by a changing climate and continued failure in some jurisdictions to curb nutrient and sediment loads.
This is especially true in Pennsylvania, which consistently fails to meet most of its bay cleanup commitments, and where the chronically polluted Susquehanna River delivers half the bay’s freshwater.
“Simply put, the bay suffered a massive assault in 2018,” Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told reporters. “The bay’s sustained improvement was reversed in 2018, exposing just how fragile the recovery is.”
Adding to the assault, Baker said, are plans by the Trump administration to roll back clean water and clean air regulations that will directly impact the watershed.
Trump plans to overturn an Obama-era rule and reduce federal oversight for vast sections of the nation’s waterways and wetlands, and also ease federal restrictions for coal-fired power plant emissions. About a third of the nitrogen that reaches the bay comes from airborne sources, said Baker, some from as far away as the Midwest.
The CBF assesses bay health every year by looking at 13 indicators in three categories — pollution, habitat and fisheries.
“While some indicators improved or stayed the same,” CBF chief scientist Beth McGee said Monday, “scores for the bay’s two systemic pollutants — nitrogen and phosphorus — decreased substantially, reflecting increased loads caused by the high rainfall in 2018 and above-average loads in 2017.”
And rain-heavy years may no longer be outliers, CBF says, but a new normal.
Nitrogen and phosphorus are dumped into the 64,000-square-mile watershed through runoff, chiefly from agricultural lands and wastewater, although Baker said the “airshed” that delivers nitrogen to the bay is about nine times that size.
“So air pollution and water pollution really need to be thought of as simply two sides of the same coin,” Baker said.
The report does include some good news: The bay is showing some surprising resilience that could help it overcome long-term damage, especially regarding underwater grasses and low-oxygen dead zones.
Scientists discovered some of that resilience last August when they visited underwater grass beds on the Susquehanna Flats and elsewhere in the watershed.
“What they were seeing is some injury around the fringes of the grass beds, but when they went to the middle, the water was clear and the grasses seemed robust,” McGee said.
Underwater grasses provide essential habitat for the bay’s iconic blue crab and other marine species, as well as improve water clarity.
Scientists also found the bay showing some surprising success in countering dead zones.
Dead zones are fueled by the nutrients in runoff. Because spring rainfall was so heavy the last two years, scientists had expected to see bigger dead zones in the summer.
Instead, the bay’s dead zone in 2017 was the second-smallest on record, while last year’s was average.
Winds could have helped reduce the size of the zones, the report states, but a recent study by the University of Maryland indicates the bay may actually be “starting to help itself.”
A change in the feedback loop in the bay’s bottom waters is apparently churning up nutrients, leaving less fuel to create dead zones and more oxygen for the marine creatures living there.
Fisheries showed a mixed bag. Rockfish and blue crabs maintained their healthy levels, while oysters and American shad populations continue to do poorly, both earning Fs in the report.
The dismal oyster score reflects a continued low in the combined wild fishery harvest in Virginia and Maryland, even as the aquaculture industry continues to thrive. Maryland’s wild harvest dropped nearly 45 percent in 2016 and 2017, although Virginia’s total harvest has remained stable for the past several years at about 600,000 bushels annually.
Shad numbers are low overall. But in Virginia, the Pamunkey River, which has been used to harvest broodstock, has seen a decline in the number of returning adults, while budget cuts and low returns have led to no shad stocking in the James for the first time in more than two decades.
The State of the Bay measures the waterway against the pristine conditions English explorer Capt. John Smith encountered in the early 1600s. It ranks indicators on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being Smith’s ideal bay.
The CBF concedes the Chesapeake will likely never hit those highs again, but considers an overall score of 70 by the year 2050 an achievable goal.
The bay’s current ranking is 33, a one-point drop from last year.
Grades in the report include:
Pollution — nitrogen, phosphorus and water clarity all Fs; dissolved oxygen C and toxics D.
Habitat — Forested buffers B; wetlands C; underwater grasses D; resource lands D+;
Fisheries — Rockfish A-; blue crabs B; oysters and shad Fs.
To read the report, go to www.cbf.org/stateofthebay.
Culprits in the decline include increased runoff from rainstorms in 2018 that were rendered more intense by a changing climate and continued failure in some jurisdictions to curb nutrient and sediment loads.
This is especially true in Pennsylvania, which consistently fails to meet most of its bay cleanup commitments, and where the chronically polluted Susquehanna River delivers half the bay’s freshwater.
“Simply put, the bay suffered a massive assault in 2018,” Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, told reporters. “The bay’s sustained improvement was reversed in 2018, exposing just how fragile the recovery is.”
Adding to the assault, Baker said, are plans by the Trump administration to roll back clean water and clean air regulations that will directly impact the watershed.
Trump plans to overturn an Obama-era rule and reduce federal oversight for vast sections of the nation’s waterways and wetlands, and also ease federal restrictions for coal-fired power plant emissions. About a third of the nitrogen that reaches the bay comes from airborne sources, said Baker, some from as far away as the Midwest.
The CBF assesses bay health every year by looking at 13 indicators in three categories — pollution, habitat and fisheries.
“While some indicators improved or stayed the same,” CBF chief scientist Beth McGee said Monday, “scores for the bay’s two systemic pollutants — nitrogen and phosphorus — decreased substantially, reflecting increased loads caused by the high rainfall in 2018 and above-average loads in 2017.”
And rain-heavy years may no longer be outliers, CBF says, but a new normal.
Nitrogen and phosphorus are dumped into the 64,000-square-mile watershed through runoff, chiefly from agricultural lands and wastewater, although Baker said the “airshed” that delivers nitrogen to the bay is about nine times that size.
“So air pollution and water pollution really need to be thought of as simply two sides of the same coin,” Baker said.
The report does include some good news: The bay is showing some surprising resilience that could help it overcome long-term damage, especially regarding underwater grasses and low-oxygen dead zones.
Scientists discovered some of that resilience last August when they visited underwater grass beds on the Susquehanna Flats and elsewhere in the watershed.
“What they were seeing is some injury around the fringes of the grass beds, but when they went to the middle, the water was clear and the grasses seemed robust,” McGee said.
Underwater grasses provide essential habitat for the bay’s iconic blue crab and other marine species, as well as improve water clarity.
Scientists also found the bay showing some surprising success in countering dead zones.
Dead zones are fueled by the nutrients in runoff. Because spring rainfall was so heavy the last two years, scientists had expected to see bigger dead zones in the summer.
Instead, the bay’s dead zone in 2017 was the second-smallest on record, while last year’s was average.
Winds could have helped reduce the size of the zones, the report states, but a recent study by the University of Maryland indicates the bay may actually be “starting to help itself.”
A change in the feedback loop in the bay’s bottom waters is apparently churning up nutrients, leaving less fuel to create dead zones and more oxygen for the marine creatures living there.
Fisheries showed a mixed bag. Rockfish and blue crabs maintained their healthy levels, while oysters and American shad populations continue to do poorly, both earning Fs in the report.
The dismal oyster score reflects a continued low in the combined wild fishery harvest in Virginia and Maryland, even as the aquaculture industry continues to thrive. Maryland’s wild harvest dropped nearly 45 percent in 2016 and 2017, although Virginia’s total harvest has remained stable for the past several years at about 600,000 bushels annually.
Shad numbers are low overall. But in Virginia, the Pamunkey River, which has been used to harvest broodstock, has seen a decline in the number of returning adults, while budget cuts and low returns have led to no shad stocking in the James for the first time in more than two decades.
The State of the Bay measures the waterway against the pristine conditions English explorer Capt. John Smith encountered in the early 1600s. It ranks indicators on a scale of 1 to 100, with 100 being Smith’s ideal bay.
The CBF concedes the Chesapeake will likely never hit those highs again, but considers an overall score of 70 by the year 2050 an achievable goal.
The bay’s current ranking is 33, a one-point drop from last year.
Grades in the report include:
Pollution — nitrogen, phosphorus and water clarity all Fs; dissolved oxygen C and toxics D.
Habitat — Forested buffers B; wetlands C; underwater grasses D; resource lands D+;
Fisheries — Rockfish A-; blue crabs B; oysters and shad Fs.
To read the report, go to www.cbf.org/stateofthebay.
Like Fruit, Vegetables, and Almonds? Scientists Have Bad News.
A new study finds that the main source of water for our fresh produce could dry up within our lifetimes.
TOM PHILPOTT - mother jones
JANUARY 1, 2019 6:00 AM
So far, this winter has brought ample snows to the Sierra Nevada, the spine of mountains that runs along California’s eastern flank. That’s good news for Californians, because the range’s melted snow provides 60 percent of the state’s water supply. Anyone in the United States who likes fruit, vegetables, and nuts should rejoice, too, because water flowing from the Sierra’s streams and rivers is the main irrigation source for farms in the arid Central Valley, which churns out nearly a quarter of the food consumed here.
But the Sierra snowpack has shown an overall declining trend for decades—most dramatically during the great California drought of 2012-2016—and will dwindle further over the next several decades, a growing body of research suggests. In the latest, published in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters journal, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers lay out what they call a “future of consistent low-to-no snowpack.” In other words, a new normal wherein the robust snowpack developing this year would be an almost unthinkable anomaly.
To get a picture of what water planners can expect in the coming decades, the team focused on the headwaters feeding 10 major reservoirs designed to capture snowmelt from the Sierra each year. Using averages from 1985 to 2005 as a baseline, they applied nine different climate models. They assumed global greenhouse gas emissions would continue rising at present rates —that is, a “business as usual” scenario with no effective global deal to cut greenhouse emissions and no major technological breakthroughs.
The results: By mid-century (2039–2059), the average annual snowpack will fall by 54.4 percent compared to the late-20th century baseline. By the time today’s teens are in their 70s, it will be 79.3 percent beneath the old standard. To analyze massive amounts of water, planners think in acre-feet—the amount needed to submerge an acre of land by one foot. At the end of the last century, the Sierra Nevada captured an average of 8.76 million acre-feet. By mid-century, they project, the average will fall to 4 million acre-feet; and by century’s end, 1.81 million acre-feet.
The Central Valley Project—a federally run network of dams, reservoirs, and canals that waters about a third California’s irrigated farmland and provides water and electricity to millions of urban users, all from snow melt—could become a what economists called a “stranded asset” in such a scenario: a multi-billion dollar public investment that lacks sufficient water to perform its tasks.
As the authors note, these dire projections are roughly consistent with recent research from other scientists using different models and assumptions: see here, here, here, and here. And they also dovetail with the findings of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, released in August. “As a result of projected warming, Sierra Nevada snowpacks will very likely be eradicated below about 6,000 feet elevation and will be much reduced by more than 60% across nearly all of the range,” the report found. The Fourth National Climate Assessment, released without fanfare by the Trump administration the day after Thanksgiving, offered similar warning about fast-vanishing snowpacks in the west.
The bad news is piling up at a time when Central Valley farmers (egged on by the Trump administration) are already fighting with state managers for larger annual allocations of snowmelt, at least some of which has to flow into the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and to the Pacific. According to the Water Education Foundation, “80 percent of the state’s commercial fishery species live in or migrate through the Delta, and at least half of its Pacific Flyway migratory water birds rely on the region’s wetlands.” Its ecosystem already teeters near collapse, driven in part by relentless shunting of water to farm interests in the Central Valley.
As the recent drought showed, farmers respond to lower allotments of snowmelt by reverting to the pump—dropping wells to tap in to the Central Valley’s underground aquifers. But that practice quickly led to a host of problems, from dry wells serving poor communities to rapid land subsidence, which snarls up roads, bridges, and aqueducts. Farmers were grabbing groundwater so fast that in 2014, the California legislature passed a law requiring that groundwater basins achieve “balance”—the rate at which water is taken out can’t exceed the rate at which water goes in—by 2040. By then, if climate change proceeds apace, farmers will be caught between tough groundwater rules and a vanishing snowpack.
But the Sierra snowpack has shown an overall declining trend for decades—most dramatically during the great California drought of 2012-2016—and will dwindle further over the next several decades, a growing body of research suggests. In the latest, published in the peer-reviewed Geophysical Research Letters journal, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers lay out what they call a “future of consistent low-to-no snowpack.” In other words, a new normal wherein the robust snowpack developing this year would be an almost unthinkable anomaly.
To get a picture of what water planners can expect in the coming decades, the team focused on the headwaters feeding 10 major reservoirs designed to capture snowmelt from the Sierra each year. Using averages from 1985 to 2005 as a baseline, they applied nine different climate models. They assumed global greenhouse gas emissions would continue rising at present rates —that is, a “business as usual” scenario with no effective global deal to cut greenhouse emissions and no major technological breakthroughs.
The results: By mid-century (2039–2059), the average annual snowpack will fall by 54.4 percent compared to the late-20th century baseline. By the time today’s teens are in their 70s, it will be 79.3 percent beneath the old standard. To analyze massive amounts of water, planners think in acre-feet—the amount needed to submerge an acre of land by one foot. At the end of the last century, the Sierra Nevada captured an average of 8.76 million acre-feet. By mid-century, they project, the average will fall to 4 million acre-feet; and by century’s end, 1.81 million acre-feet.
The Central Valley Project—a federally run network of dams, reservoirs, and canals that waters about a third California’s irrigated farmland and provides water and electricity to millions of urban users, all from snow melt—could become a what economists called a “stranded asset” in such a scenario: a multi-billion dollar public investment that lacks sufficient water to perform its tasks.
As the authors note, these dire projections are roughly consistent with recent research from other scientists using different models and assumptions: see here, here, here, and here. And they also dovetail with the findings of California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, released in August. “As a result of projected warming, Sierra Nevada snowpacks will very likely be eradicated below about 6,000 feet elevation and will be much reduced by more than 60% across nearly all of the range,” the report found. The Fourth National Climate Assessment, released without fanfare by the Trump administration the day after Thanksgiving, offered similar warning about fast-vanishing snowpacks in the west.
The bad news is piling up at a time when Central Valley farmers (egged on by the Trump administration) are already fighting with state managers for larger annual allocations of snowmelt, at least some of which has to flow into the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and to the Pacific. According to the Water Education Foundation, “80 percent of the state’s commercial fishery species live in or migrate through the Delta, and at least half of its Pacific Flyway migratory water birds rely on the region’s wetlands.” Its ecosystem already teeters near collapse, driven in part by relentless shunting of water to farm interests in the Central Valley.
As the recent drought showed, farmers respond to lower allotments of snowmelt by reverting to the pump—dropping wells to tap in to the Central Valley’s underground aquifers. But that practice quickly led to a host of problems, from dry wells serving poor communities to rapid land subsidence, which snarls up roads, bridges, and aqueducts. Farmers were grabbing groundwater so fast that in 2014, the California legislature passed a law requiring that groundwater basins achieve “balance”—the rate at which water is taken out can’t exceed the rate at which water goes in—by 2040. By then, if climate change proceeds apace, farmers will be caught between tough groundwater rules and a vanishing snowpack.
go east!!!: the solution is obvious, but the people in charge are stupid!!!
California's coastal habitats face existential threat from rising seas
Emily Holden in Moss Landing, California
the guardian
Mon 31 Dec 2018 06.00 EST
The sea otters of Elkhorn Slough float by on their backs, greeting the occasional kayaker with unwanted socializing that can tip a boat. Chubby harbor seals lounge on large rocks and a great blue heron stands tall among hundreds of birds on a sliver of land.
This Monterey Bay estuary south of San Francisco hosts about 20,000 migratory shorebirds a year and is a nursery habitat for fish and shellfish. It’s notable for having bolstered the waning population of the curious southern sea otters, which now exceed 100 and are webcast live daily.
California is one of the most biodiverse states and its coast hosts most of its native species. Estuaries like Elkhorn Slough, where saltwater and freshwater meet, also filter pollution, reduce flooding and erosion and trap greenhouse gases.
But as the seas encroach due to climate change and rising water levels, governments and conservationists are asking themselves: where will the coastal habitats go?
If they retreat farther inland, they will meet cliffs, condos and farms. With intensive planning, minimally undeveloped land could be conserved to accommodate them. Without it, the west coast of the United States could lose a significant number of its unique ecosystems.
“The coast of California that we know today is not going to be the coast of California of the future,” says Walter Heady, a coastal marine scientist for the Nature Conservancy.
More than two-thirds of Californians live in coastal counties, and manmade pressures from development and pollution make it hard enough to protect coastal habitats, Heady said. Sea-level rise will only increase the challenge.
The Nature Conservancy partnered with a state agency, the California State Coastal Conservancy, to assess how a sea-level rise of 5ft (1.5 metres) would threaten the 3,427 miles where land meets water along the coast in the state.
In total, 59% of California’s coastal habitat is at risk, according to the group’s study of 40 different types of habitats, including estuaries, as well as beaches, tide pools and terrestrial areas.
Reserving minimally developed land for those habitats to move into could spare more than half the losses, the assessment concludes.
“We’re not trying to land-grab here, and it’s not my idea that all agriculture or golf courses or minimally developed lands should become habitat,” Heady said. “It’s a really small proportion of that human land use, and it could mitigate 61% of our losses.”
Four state agencies, two regional groups, four counties and two cities have signed on to conservation commitments spurred by the assessment.
“To my mind, this was an incredibly important tool that we need to acknowledge and to take into account and think through in all of our decision-making,” said Deborah Halberstadt, executive director of one of the state agencies, the California Ocean Protection Council.
Halberstadt said until recently ocean and coastal issues have not been a primary focus in the climate change advocacy world. Estuaries in particular tend to be “some of the least-funded geographies”, she said. Halberstadt’s agency advises the governor and legislature on coastal matters and is looking to fund work focused on estuaries.
“The more we can do now, the less expensive it will be in the future because we will have addressed some of the issues, but it’s sometimes harder to get funding prospectively,” she said.
Experts say that is the key problem with conserving coastal habitats: it’s hard to get people to proactively protect the places where those habitats will need to move as the seas rise.
“If you’re a farmer who’s got very productive land, at what point do you pull the ripcord?” said Mark Silberstein, the executive director of the Elkhorn Slough Foundation.
Silberstein has worked with nearby farms to retire their less productive acres of land that were using millions of gallons of water that would otherwise be buffering aquifers from salt water intrusion.
In Oxnard, a city west of Los Angeles, farmland is likely to become wetlands. Farmers are not allowed to sell their land for development, said Carmen Ramirez, mayor pro tem of the city.
“You can’t really farm on land that’s underwater, particularly saltwater. So it’s little by little going to be converted to wetlands anyway, like it or not,” Ramirez said.
As sea-level rise quickens, local governments can have trouble keeping up.
The state now recommends considering the possibility that if greenhouse gas levels are very high and ice melt increases, seas could rise 10ft by 2100. That would be 30 to 40 times faster than in the last century. While that is an extreme, California guidance says governments can’t afford to not plan for the worst-case scenario.
In Santa Cruz, the projections are looking worse and worse for West Cliff Drive, a seafront street on a bluff that may have to be narrowed or abandoned.
Tiffany Wise-West, sustainability manager for Santa Cruz, said the city will plan based on the state figures, its own vulnerability findings and the Nature Conservancy’s assessment.
“This is the first time we’ve actually had an understanding of which habitats are vulnerable to climate change impacts,” Wise-West said.
This Monterey Bay estuary south of San Francisco hosts about 20,000 migratory shorebirds a year and is a nursery habitat for fish and shellfish. It’s notable for having bolstered the waning population of the curious southern sea otters, which now exceed 100 and are webcast live daily.
California is one of the most biodiverse states and its coast hosts most of its native species. Estuaries like Elkhorn Slough, where saltwater and freshwater meet, also filter pollution, reduce flooding and erosion and trap greenhouse gases.
But as the seas encroach due to climate change and rising water levels, governments and conservationists are asking themselves: where will the coastal habitats go?
If they retreat farther inland, they will meet cliffs, condos and farms. With intensive planning, minimally undeveloped land could be conserved to accommodate them. Without it, the west coast of the United States could lose a significant number of its unique ecosystems.
“The coast of California that we know today is not going to be the coast of California of the future,” says Walter Heady, a coastal marine scientist for the Nature Conservancy.
More than two-thirds of Californians live in coastal counties, and manmade pressures from development and pollution make it hard enough to protect coastal habitats, Heady said. Sea-level rise will only increase the challenge.
The Nature Conservancy partnered with a state agency, the California State Coastal Conservancy, to assess how a sea-level rise of 5ft (1.5 metres) would threaten the 3,427 miles where land meets water along the coast in the state.
In total, 59% of California’s coastal habitat is at risk, according to the group’s study of 40 different types of habitats, including estuaries, as well as beaches, tide pools and terrestrial areas.
Reserving minimally developed land for those habitats to move into could spare more than half the losses, the assessment concludes.
“We’re not trying to land-grab here, and it’s not my idea that all agriculture or golf courses or minimally developed lands should become habitat,” Heady said. “It’s a really small proportion of that human land use, and it could mitigate 61% of our losses.”
Four state agencies, two regional groups, four counties and two cities have signed on to conservation commitments spurred by the assessment.
“To my mind, this was an incredibly important tool that we need to acknowledge and to take into account and think through in all of our decision-making,” said Deborah Halberstadt, executive director of one of the state agencies, the California Ocean Protection Council.
Halberstadt said until recently ocean and coastal issues have not been a primary focus in the climate change advocacy world. Estuaries in particular tend to be “some of the least-funded geographies”, she said. Halberstadt’s agency advises the governor and legislature on coastal matters and is looking to fund work focused on estuaries.
“The more we can do now, the less expensive it will be in the future because we will have addressed some of the issues, but it’s sometimes harder to get funding prospectively,” she said.
Experts say that is the key problem with conserving coastal habitats: it’s hard to get people to proactively protect the places where those habitats will need to move as the seas rise.
“If you’re a farmer who’s got very productive land, at what point do you pull the ripcord?” said Mark Silberstein, the executive director of the Elkhorn Slough Foundation.
Silberstein has worked with nearby farms to retire their less productive acres of land that were using millions of gallons of water that would otherwise be buffering aquifers from salt water intrusion.
In Oxnard, a city west of Los Angeles, farmland is likely to become wetlands. Farmers are not allowed to sell their land for development, said Carmen Ramirez, mayor pro tem of the city.
“You can’t really farm on land that’s underwater, particularly saltwater. So it’s little by little going to be converted to wetlands anyway, like it or not,” Ramirez said.
As sea-level rise quickens, local governments can have trouble keeping up.
The state now recommends considering the possibility that if greenhouse gas levels are very high and ice melt increases, seas could rise 10ft by 2100. That would be 30 to 40 times faster than in the last century. While that is an extreme, California guidance says governments can’t afford to not plan for the worst-case scenario.
In Santa Cruz, the projections are looking worse and worse for West Cliff Drive, a seafront street on a bluff that may have to be narrowed or abandoned.
Tiffany Wise-West, sustainability manager for Santa Cruz, said the city will plan based on the state figures, its own vulnerability findings and the Nature Conservancy’s assessment.
“This is the first time we’ve actually had an understanding of which habitats are vulnerable to climate change impacts,” Wise-West said.
profit vs POLLUTING children!!!
Trump EPA says limits on mercury emissions from coal plants not necessary
By Reuters Staff
12/28/18
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Friday said limits on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants were no longer necessary as their costs outweighed the benefits, a move environmentalists said was favorable for the coal industry and could increase health hazards.
Under the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards, or MATS, enacted under former President Barack Obama, coal plants have been forced to install expensive equipment to cut output of mercury, which can harm pregnant women and put infants and children at risk of developmental problems.
Since August, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been reconsidering the justification for the rule.
Electric utilities have pushed back on the potential loosening of requirements, saying they have already invested in technology to cut emissions of the dangerous pollutant.
In a statement issued on Friday during a partial government shutdown, the EPA said the emission standards of the MATS rule would remain in place. But it proposed to withdraw the justification for the requirements.
"EPA is proposing that it is not 'appropriate and necessary' to regulate HAP emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants . . . because the costs of such regulation grossly outweigh the quantified HAP benefits," it said.
The industry had challenged a 2016 conclusion by Obama's EPA that the rule was justified because savings to U.S. consumers on healthcare costs would exceed compliance costs. The calculations accounted for how pollution-control equipment would reduce emissions of other harmful substances in addition to mercury.
Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has targeted rolling back Obama-era environmental and climate protections to maximize production of domestic fossil fuels, including crude oil. U.S. oil production is the highest in the world, above Saudi Arabia and Russia, after a boom that was triggered more than a decade ago by improved drilling technology.
Under the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards, or MATS, enacted under former President Barack Obama, coal plants have been forced to install expensive equipment to cut output of mercury, which can harm pregnant women and put infants and children at risk of developmental problems.
Since August, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been reconsidering the justification for the rule.
Electric utilities have pushed back on the potential loosening of requirements, saying they have already invested in technology to cut emissions of the dangerous pollutant.
In a statement issued on Friday during a partial government shutdown, the EPA said the emission standards of the MATS rule would remain in place. But it proposed to withdraw the justification for the requirements.
"EPA is proposing that it is not 'appropriate and necessary' to regulate HAP emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants . . . because the costs of such regulation grossly outweigh the quantified HAP benefits," it said.
The industry had challenged a 2016 conclusion by Obama's EPA that the rule was justified because savings to U.S. consumers on healthcare costs would exceed compliance costs. The calculations accounted for how pollution-control equipment would reduce emissions of other harmful substances in addition to mercury.
Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has targeted rolling back Obama-era environmental and climate protections to maximize production of domestic fossil fuels, including crude oil. U.S. oil production is the highest in the world, above Saudi Arabia and Russia, after a boom that was triggered more than a decade ago by improved drilling technology.
BEE DEATH: SCIENTISTS WARN COMMON WEED KILLER GLYPHOSATE IS KILLING HONEYBEES
BY KASHMIRA GANDER - newsweek
ON 9/25/18 AT 8:30 AM
A commonly used weed killer could be wiping out bee populations around the world, scientists have warned.
Glyphosate appears to destroy the so-called good bacteria in honey bees’ guts, leaving the insects more prone to infection and even death, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
The weed killer works by attacking an enzyme in a special pathway found in plants and some microorganisms, but is not believed to harm animals such as bees.
However, in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers hypothesized that as glyphosate can kill microorganisms, it would also likely damage a bee's microbiome. Microbiome is the term used to describe the bacteria which populate the inside and outside of living organisms, including humans, and is believed to play a vital role in maintaining health.
The authors of the study urged policymakers to draw up better guidelines for glyphosate use, and called on those who use products containing the chemical—from farmers to amateur gardeners—to stop with plants which bees might collect nectar from.
Erick Motta, a graduate student who led the study, told Newsweek: "Honey bees rely on these bacteria for food processing, regulation of host immune system, and protection against pathogens.
"So, changes in this microbial community may favor the spread of opportunistic bacteria, usually found at very low abundances in the bee gut. This spread can result in disease and bee death, based on our experiments."
To investigate the role the weed killer plays in the depletion of bee populations, researchers collected honey bees with established gut microbiota. They dosed the insects with glyphosate at levels equal to those found in crops, and labeled them so they could be tracked and found again. They repeated their experiments on bees from a different hive.
The scientists drew DNA samples from the bees' guts. After three days, the researchers found glyphosate had killed off good bacteria in the bees’ digestive systems. That included Snodgrassella alvi, which the authors described as the “core bee gut species.”
While bees with healthy microbiomes could fight off Serratia marcescens, a common pathogen which infects bees, those with depleted good bacteria were at greater risk of dying when they came in contact, the researchers found. Half of the healthy bees survived after exposure to the pathogen, compared with a tenth of bees given glyphosate.
Dr. Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex, commented that the study is well-conducted, but asked how bees could ever become exposed to the herbicide in the real world.
"Glyphosate kills plants, so contaminated flowers will soon be dead and of no interest to bees. Nonetheless, glyphosate is sometimes found in bee food stores, at concentrations similar to those used in this study."
He added that scientists who have studied bees have long concluded that colony health is adversely affected by a number of stressors, "including exposure to cocktails of insecticides and fungicides, impacts of pathogens, and effects of poor nutrition."
"It now seems that we have to add glyphosate to the list of problems that they face. This study is also further evidence that the landscape-scale application of large quantities of pesticides has negative consequences that are often hard to predict," Goulson said.
This is the latest study to attempt to answer why bee populations are dying, a trend which could devastate worldwide crop production. For instance, between 2016 and 2017, U.S. beekeepers lost 33 percent of their honey bee populations, according to the University of Maryland and Bee Informed. And in the past decade, beekeepers and scientists have been grappling to understand a condition known as Colony Collapse Disorder.
Motta told Newsweek: "Understanding how environmental stressors affect honey bee health may be crucial to reverse or to control the high mortality rate of bees observed in colonies in many places in the last decade."
In April 2018, the European Union banned the use of neonicotinoids, a pesticide known to be harmful to bees. The European Food Safety Authority arrived at this conclusion following an analysis of over 1,500 studies which suggest neonicotinoids are harmful to bees, even when they are not sprayed on the crops which the animals feed off.
At the time, Nigel Raine, a professor at Canada's University of Guelph who specializes in pollinator conservation, told Newsweek: “Increasingly, there is evidence that when bees are exposed, [the pesticide] can affect their normal behavior, learning and memory, including their ability to choose flowers, how effective they are in pollinating and how effective they are in reproducing.”
Commenting on the role the general public can play in protecting bees, Motta said we must be cautious when spraying any kind of pesticide on flowering plants, where bees are likely to be present.
"And we should appreciate the role of microorganisms in the lives of animals and plants. Many bacteria have beneficial ecological roles, so chemicals that affect bacteria can also affect their hosts."
He warned: "We rely on bees for pollination of flowering plants, which includes many crops, so maximizing their health is in our interest."
Glyphosate appears to destroy the so-called good bacteria in honey bees’ guts, leaving the insects more prone to infection and even death, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
The weed killer works by attacking an enzyme in a special pathway found in plants and some microorganisms, but is not believed to harm animals such as bees.
However, in a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers hypothesized that as glyphosate can kill microorganisms, it would also likely damage a bee's microbiome. Microbiome is the term used to describe the bacteria which populate the inside and outside of living organisms, including humans, and is believed to play a vital role in maintaining health.
The authors of the study urged policymakers to draw up better guidelines for glyphosate use, and called on those who use products containing the chemical—from farmers to amateur gardeners—to stop with plants which bees might collect nectar from.
Erick Motta, a graduate student who led the study, told Newsweek: "Honey bees rely on these bacteria for food processing, regulation of host immune system, and protection against pathogens.
"So, changes in this microbial community may favor the spread of opportunistic bacteria, usually found at very low abundances in the bee gut. This spread can result in disease and bee death, based on our experiments."
To investigate the role the weed killer plays in the depletion of bee populations, researchers collected honey bees with established gut microbiota. They dosed the insects with glyphosate at levels equal to those found in crops, and labeled them so they could be tracked and found again. They repeated their experiments on bees from a different hive.
The scientists drew DNA samples from the bees' guts. After three days, the researchers found glyphosate had killed off good bacteria in the bees’ digestive systems. That included Snodgrassella alvi, which the authors described as the “core bee gut species.”
While bees with healthy microbiomes could fight off Serratia marcescens, a common pathogen which infects bees, those with depleted good bacteria were at greater risk of dying when they came in contact, the researchers found. Half of the healthy bees survived after exposure to the pathogen, compared with a tenth of bees given glyphosate.
Dr. Dave Goulson, professor of biology at the University of Sussex, commented that the study is well-conducted, but asked how bees could ever become exposed to the herbicide in the real world.
"Glyphosate kills plants, so contaminated flowers will soon be dead and of no interest to bees. Nonetheless, glyphosate is sometimes found in bee food stores, at concentrations similar to those used in this study."
He added that scientists who have studied bees have long concluded that colony health is adversely affected by a number of stressors, "including exposure to cocktails of insecticides and fungicides, impacts of pathogens, and effects of poor nutrition."
"It now seems that we have to add glyphosate to the list of problems that they face. This study is also further evidence that the landscape-scale application of large quantities of pesticides has negative consequences that are often hard to predict," Goulson said.
This is the latest study to attempt to answer why bee populations are dying, a trend which could devastate worldwide crop production. For instance, between 2016 and 2017, U.S. beekeepers lost 33 percent of their honey bee populations, according to the University of Maryland and Bee Informed. And in the past decade, beekeepers and scientists have been grappling to understand a condition known as Colony Collapse Disorder.
Motta told Newsweek: "Understanding how environmental stressors affect honey bee health may be crucial to reverse or to control the high mortality rate of bees observed in colonies in many places in the last decade."
In April 2018, the European Union banned the use of neonicotinoids, a pesticide known to be harmful to bees. The European Food Safety Authority arrived at this conclusion following an analysis of over 1,500 studies which suggest neonicotinoids are harmful to bees, even when they are not sprayed on the crops which the animals feed off.
At the time, Nigel Raine, a professor at Canada's University of Guelph who specializes in pollinator conservation, told Newsweek: “Increasingly, there is evidence that when bees are exposed, [the pesticide] can affect their normal behavior, learning and memory, including their ability to choose flowers, how effective they are in pollinating and how effective they are in reproducing.”
Commenting on the role the general public can play in protecting bees, Motta said we must be cautious when spraying any kind of pesticide on flowering plants, where bees are likely to be present.
"And we should appreciate the role of microorganisms in the lives of animals and plants. Many bacteria have beneficial ecological roles, so chemicals that affect bacteria can also affect their hosts."
He warned: "We rely on bees for pollination of flowering plants, which includes many crops, so maximizing their health is in our interest."
Scientists Are Fighting Climate Change by Making Their Own Snow
“Every little bit helps.”
AMY THOMSON - mother jones
DECEMBER 24, 2018 6:00 AM
Winter descended early on Colorado this year, bringing snow to the state’s tallest peaks days after Labor Day. But dry conditions continue to haunt the state’s ranchers: Last winter, the San Juan Mountains received just 50 percent of their normal snowpack. By the time summer rolled around, grazing pasture was scarce, and some ranchers were forced to sell cattle they couldn’t afford to feed. “To see them be loaded on the truck just brings tears,” La Plata County rancher Barbara Jefferies told a reporter in June.
Snow that accumulates on mountaintops across the Western United States in the winter flows into the region’s irrigation systems and reservoirs during the rest of the year, and supplies drinking water to much of the region. This resource is taking a hit from climate change: Between the 1980s and the 2000s, the amount of water in the snowpack declined by 10 to 20 percent
annually. Research published in the journal Nature Communications last year projects an additional loss of up to 60 percent before 2050.
Some municipalities are now hoping to coax more snow from the sky through a process called cloud seeding. There are now cloud seeding programs in at least nine states across the Western United States and 50 countries worldwide, including Australia, India, and Saudi Arabia. Though controlling the weather may seem like the stuff of science fiction, the technology has been around for decades.
In 1946, chemist and General Electric researcher Vincent Schaefer discovered through a lab experiment that dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) caused moisture to crystallize earlier than normal. Flying in a plane over the mountains of Massachusetts, he injected 6 pounds of dry ice pellets into the clouds and initiated the world’s firstartificial snowfall. That same year, his colleague Bernard Vonnegut—brother of novelist Kurt—discovered that silver iodide, particles of silver so small they’re difficult to see under a microscope, caused “explosive ice growth” by jump-starting the crystal formation process. Bernard’s discovery reportedly inspired the fictional science of Ice-Nine, a form of water that could freeze entire oceans upon contact, in his brother’s novel Cat’s Cradle.
Ice usually doesn’t form until the temperature drops to at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit, but cloud seeding can cause moisture to latch onto the silver iodide and make snow particles form as early as 20 degrees. “It’s like a false start,” says Jeffrey R. French, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Wyoming and lead on the first research demonstrating the physical evidence of how precipitation forms during cloud seeding.
Following Bernard’s discovery, scientists soon began putting silver iodide particles into clouds projected to storm—either by releasing flares full of the chemical from airplanes or shooting the flares thousands of feet into the sky from the ground. By the 1970s, the United States was spending as much as $20 million annually on weather modification research.
Researchers have shown that cloud seeding can encourage at least some additional snowfall: In one well-known study, the Wyoming Water Development Commission measured seeded storms’ precipitation rates from 2008 to 2014 and found that the silver iodide increased the likelihood of added precipitation by 5 to 15 percent. The strategy can also make hail smaller, reducing crop damage to farms. Cloud seeding can even force a predicted rainstorm to fall early—which is how the Chinese governmentkept the stadium dry during the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Despite the technology’s promises, most of the federal funding for cloud seeding in the United States fizzled out in the late ’80s. The tools used to measure its effectiveness just weren’t accurate enough to justify funding programs or research, French explains. And a widely distributed 2003 National Research Council report found a lack of “convincing scientific proof of the efficacy of intentional weather modification.”
That could soon change. In January, a group of scientists, funded mainly by the Idaho Power Company, an energy provider, published research that for the first time demonstrated exactly how snow is created through cloud seeding. Flying in and out of the clouds just north of Boise, Idaho, French and his team, including scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Idaho Power Company, observed and measured the growth of ice crystals after seeding clouds. (Before this, studies had only been able to statistically analyze the amount of rainfall in a cloud-seeded region, which isn’t direct proof that the silver iodide created any precipitation.)
The report created new momentum for the technology, says David Raff, science adviser for the Bureau of Reclamation, the national department that manages water in the West. Now, the bureau is “interested in exploring pilot activities to explore snow pack generation,” he says.
But there are some pretty significant questions that need to be answered before the bureau would prioritize funding weather modification, he continues, like exploring liabilities, such as unexpected flooding, that could arise. (A 2010 federal review of available research found that the concentration of silver in the water supply within range of seeding projects is minimal—0.1 micrograms per liter or less—and poses no health risks.)
Cloud seeding has some obvious drawbacks. It can be expensive. And it doesn’t work well during drought years: “The idea of cloud seeding is to squeeze more moisture out of the atmosphere for human use,” says Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, a global water think tank. The technology can’t create moisture out of thin air, but relies on clouds to provide the precipitation it pulls from the sky. In drought years—which are projected to become more frequent and severe in the future—cloud seeding would offer little help to replenish the reservoirs. “You can’t seed clouds if you don’t have any,” Gleick says. And there are other options that are “far more clearly proven” to conserve water, he argues, like smart washing machines and leak detection systems.
But several local water departments see promise in French’s research. “It’s what’s always been wanted for cloud seeding—looking at actual physical evidence of changes in cloud properties,” says Barry Lawrence, deputy director of planning in the Wyoming Water Development Office.
Last winter, Lawrence’s team seeded clouds in the mountains of Wyoming that nourished the Colorado River Basin, which has lost nearly 20 percent of its volume since 2000 due to a lack of rain and snow. The program was funded to the tune of $400,000 by four of the seven states who benefit from the river’s supply. After seeding 18 storms, it was deemed successful, and the states are planning to repeat the program this winter. Colorado’s Water Enhancement Authority, a coalition of public utilities, ski resorts, and irrigation companies, has also funded small cloud seeding projects for around $40,000 annually. “Even if three out of five of your opportunities work, it pays for itself,” says the group’s treasurer, Mark Ritterbush, who also works as Grand Junction’s water services manager.
Cloud seeding is “not a quick fix,” Lawrence argues, but rather a long-term water strategy. “Snowpack in the mountains is the biggest reservoir we have,” he says. As he sees it: “Every little bit helps.”
Snow that accumulates on mountaintops across the Western United States in the winter flows into the region’s irrigation systems and reservoirs during the rest of the year, and supplies drinking water to much of the region. This resource is taking a hit from climate change: Between the 1980s and the 2000s, the amount of water in the snowpack declined by 10 to 20 percent
annually. Research published in the journal Nature Communications last year projects an additional loss of up to 60 percent before 2050.
Some municipalities are now hoping to coax more snow from the sky through a process called cloud seeding. There are now cloud seeding programs in at least nine states across the Western United States and 50 countries worldwide, including Australia, India, and Saudi Arabia. Though controlling the weather may seem like the stuff of science fiction, the technology has been around for decades.
In 1946, chemist and General Electric researcher Vincent Schaefer discovered through a lab experiment that dry ice (solid carbon dioxide) caused moisture to crystallize earlier than normal. Flying in a plane over the mountains of Massachusetts, he injected 6 pounds of dry ice pellets into the clouds and initiated the world’s firstartificial snowfall. That same year, his colleague Bernard Vonnegut—brother of novelist Kurt—discovered that silver iodide, particles of silver so small they’re difficult to see under a microscope, caused “explosive ice growth” by jump-starting the crystal formation process. Bernard’s discovery reportedly inspired the fictional science of Ice-Nine, a form of water that could freeze entire oceans upon contact, in his brother’s novel Cat’s Cradle.
Ice usually doesn’t form until the temperature drops to at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit, but cloud seeding can cause moisture to latch onto the silver iodide and make snow particles form as early as 20 degrees. “It’s like a false start,” says Jeffrey R. French, an atmospheric science professor at the University of Wyoming and lead on the first research demonstrating the physical evidence of how precipitation forms during cloud seeding.
Following Bernard’s discovery, scientists soon began putting silver iodide particles into clouds projected to storm—either by releasing flares full of the chemical from airplanes or shooting the flares thousands of feet into the sky from the ground. By the 1970s, the United States was spending as much as $20 million annually on weather modification research.
Researchers have shown that cloud seeding can encourage at least some additional snowfall: In one well-known study, the Wyoming Water Development Commission measured seeded storms’ precipitation rates from 2008 to 2014 and found that the silver iodide increased the likelihood of added precipitation by 5 to 15 percent. The strategy can also make hail smaller, reducing crop damage to farms. Cloud seeding can even force a predicted rainstorm to fall early—which is how the Chinese governmentkept the stadium dry during the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Despite the technology’s promises, most of the federal funding for cloud seeding in the United States fizzled out in the late ’80s. The tools used to measure its effectiveness just weren’t accurate enough to justify funding programs or research, French explains. And a widely distributed 2003 National Research Council report found a lack of “convincing scientific proof of the efficacy of intentional weather modification.”
That could soon change. In January, a group of scientists, funded mainly by the Idaho Power Company, an energy provider, published research that for the first time demonstrated exactly how snow is created through cloud seeding. Flying in and out of the clouds just north of Boise, Idaho, French and his team, including scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the Idaho Power Company, observed and measured the growth of ice crystals after seeding clouds. (Before this, studies had only been able to statistically analyze the amount of rainfall in a cloud-seeded region, which isn’t direct proof that the silver iodide created any precipitation.)
The report created new momentum for the technology, says David Raff, science adviser for the Bureau of Reclamation, the national department that manages water in the West. Now, the bureau is “interested in exploring pilot activities to explore snow pack generation,” he says.
But there are some pretty significant questions that need to be answered before the bureau would prioritize funding weather modification, he continues, like exploring liabilities, such as unexpected flooding, that could arise. (A 2010 federal review of available research found that the concentration of silver in the water supply within range of seeding projects is minimal—0.1 micrograms per liter or less—and poses no health risks.)
Cloud seeding has some obvious drawbacks. It can be expensive. And it doesn’t work well during drought years: “The idea of cloud seeding is to squeeze more moisture out of the atmosphere for human use,” says Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, a global water think tank. The technology can’t create moisture out of thin air, but relies on clouds to provide the precipitation it pulls from the sky. In drought years—which are projected to become more frequent and severe in the future—cloud seeding would offer little help to replenish the reservoirs. “You can’t seed clouds if you don’t have any,” Gleick says. And there are other options that are “far more clearly proven” to conserve water, he argues, like smart washing machines and leak detection systems.
But several local water departments see promise in French’s research. “It’s what’s always been wanted for cloud seeding—looking at actual physical evidence of changes in cloud properties,” says Barry Lawrence, deputy director of planning in the Wyoming Water Development Office.
Last winter, Lawrence’s team seeded clouds in the mountains of Wyoming that nourished the Colorado River Basin, which has lost nearly 20 percent of its volume since 2000 due to a lack of rain and snow. The program was funded to the tune of $400,000 by four of the seven states who benefit from the river’s supply. After seeding 18 storms, it was deemed successful, and the states are planning to repeat the program this winter. Colorado’s Water Enhancement Authority, a coalition of public utilities, ski resorts, and irrigation companies, has also funded small cloud seeding projects for around $40,000 annually. “Even if three out of five of your opportunities work, it pays for itself,” says the group’s treasurer, Mark Ritterbush, who also works as Grand Junction’s water services manager.
Cloud seeding is “not a quick fix,” Lawrence argues, but rather a long-term water strategy. “Snowpack in the mountains is the biggest reservoir we have,” he says. As he sees it: “Every little bit helps.”
Coal Ash Dumps Are Contaminating Groundwater in 22 States
BY
Mike Ludwig, Truthout
PUBLISHED
December 22, 2018
Ten years ago today, the earthen wall of a coal ash impoundment in Kingston, Tennessee, ruptured, sending 1.1 billion gallons of coal ash slurry rushing across the countryside, destroying homes and chocking streams and wetlands with the toxic leftovers from burning coal for electricity. Luckily, no one died in the flood, but more than 30 workers have died after cleaning up the spill. Another 200 workers are now sick or dying from blood cancer and other illnesses linked to heavy metals such as arsenic, selenium and mercury that are found in coal ash. A ceremony and memorial to honor the workers is being held today in Harriman, Tennessee, and a class action lawsuit against an environmental contractor who hired the cleanup workers is windingthrough the courts.
The Kingston disaster was the worst coal ash spill in United States history and inspired environmentalists to push for tighter regulations over the past decade, but pollution from coal ash remains a widespread and ongoing problem. Across the country, coal ash, boiler slag and other combustion waste from power plants is stored in open air pits and impoundments, where rainfall creates a toxic slurry full of heavy metals. At least 67 coal ash dumps in 22 states are currently leaking harmful chemicals into groundwater and will require cleanup efforts in the coming year, according to recent data posted by power companies and compiled by environmental groups, who expect that additional leaking pits have yet to be publicly identified.
Lessons From the Kingston Coal Ash Spill
The Kingston coal ash spill’s impacts were felt far beyond Tennessee. Coal ash from the spill was scraped from the rural landscape and loaded onto trains bound for a landfill in Uniontown, Alabama. The arrival of coal at Uniontown set off a long-running dispute between landfill operators and members of the rural, majority-Black community living nearby over whether the expanding landfill was damaging a historic cemetery and making people sick. Uniontown residents took their fight to the federal level and became well known in the movement for environmental justice, where activists fight back against polluting industries that habitually place their facilities near low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
The Kingston spill is not the only coal ash disaster in recent memory. In 2014, a Duke Energy coal sludge pond in North Carolina leaked thousands of tons of coal ash and millions of gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River, turning the water and ominous grey and compromising drinking water and ecosystems for miles. Environmental groups have tussled with Duke Energy in courtrooms for years over leaky coal ash pits the company maintains across North Carolina and were on guard as Hurricane Florence ravaged the state this September. Environmentalists say at least one Duke coal ash pond overflowed during the storm and contaminated the Cape Fear River with heavy metals, although the company has disputed the extent of the pollution in statements to Truthout and other outlets.
Despite Health Risks and Climate Change, Trump Is Still Pushing Coal
Coal continues to power many nations, despite alarming reports about climate disruption and a worldwide movement to thwart its worst impacts. The continued prevalence of coal-based power is due in part to right-wing politicians like President Trump in the United States and Andrzej Duda in Poland. Coal is a major source of electricity in both countries (as well as in China and much of the developing world), and US and Polish representatives promoted coal power at the recent UN climate change conference in the Polish city of Katowice. The host country was not shy about its dependence on coal and literally decked the halls of the conference with piles of the dirtiest fossil fuel we burn.
Back home, the Trump administration is working to fulfill a central campaign promise and buoy the coal industry by systematically rolling back Obama-era regulations that would force power utilities either to turn away from coal or burn it in a much cleaner fashion. At the helm of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry who shares Trump’s zeal for keeping coal central to the US energy portfolio. Wheeler’s most recent targets for elimination include limits on carbon dioxide from new and modified power plants and rules reducing air emissions of mercury — a potent neurotoxin and a danger to public health.
The regulations the Trump administration is working to weaken were established during the Obama administration, which came under mounting pressure to clean up or shut down coal-burning power plants as concerns about climate disruption grew and coal ash contamination was documented across the country. A rule on coal ash disposal finally came in 2015, but environmentalists were disappointed. The EPA refused to classify coal ash as “hazardous waste” that requires strict federal oversight, and exempted coal ash dumps at retired power plants from new rules requiring liners to prevent toxins from leaching into the groundwater. Jennifer Peters, the water program director at Clean Water Action, said unlined coal ash dumps threaten waterways across the country.
“A lot of these coal ash ponds are sited in the groundwater table, or they are directly next to a river, or both, in a lot of cases,” Peters said in an interview.
The 2015 rules do require utility companies to monitor groundwater around their coal ash dumps and report the results to the public when problems are found. After digging through lengthy reports issued by utilities across the country, Peters and other advocates determined that 67 coal ash dumps in Illinois, North Carolina, Arizona, Montana and 18 other states are leaking heavy and even radioactive metals including arsenic, lithium, mercury and radium 226 into the water table. This came as little surprise to environmentalists who have been studying coal ash since the Kingston spill; the vast majority of the leaky pits are unlined, allowing the waste to sit in direct contact with the ground. In Joliet, Illinois, for example, the plume of pollution spreading from an old quarry-turned coal ash dump threatens rivers, schools and residential areas, according to environmental groups.
“Groundwater is not only a drinking water source for many people — it also often flows directly into waterways,” said Larissa Liebmann, staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance, in a statement. “Now that these companies finally admitted they are causing this contamination, they need to take action immediately to clean up their toxic messes.”
Environmental groups filed a lawsuit arguing that the 2015 coal ash rules did not go far enough to prevent water contamination, and in August a federal court agreed, citing the disasters in Tennessee and North Carolina and the growing concern over unlined ash dumps. This has sent the EPA back to the drawing board to draw up new rules for the future of the roughly 1,300 coal ash dumps across the country, including those next to power plants that have switched to burning natural gas or shut down altogether. However, just weeks before the court ruling, the Trump administration further weakened the rule by extending a deadline for cleaning up leaky coal ash pits and loosening requirements for groundwater monitoring. Environmental groups are now challengingthat rollback as well.
“If we hadn’t gotten a Trump administration and we had a Clinton administration, and they let the Obama rules go through, all the sites that had proven damage and leakage would have to be closed completely by April 2019,” Peters said, adding that utilities can further delay cleanup thanks to Trump’s pro-industry agenda.
The disaster in Kingston stunned the nation and sparked public outrage, and many observers thought it was the beginning of the end for storing coal ash sludge in open, unlined ponds, impoundments and pits. A decade later, little has changed in many communities where coal is burned for electricity, even after the Dan River was chocked with coal ash in 2015. Monitoring has improved, and for the first time, utilities must inform the public when they discover their coal ash dumps are leaking and make a plan to fix them. Finding a permanent solution for coal ash is expensive; it could involve retrofitting existing dumps with liners, or moving the sludge and slurry into a new, lined dump altogether. Some power companies — including Duke Energy, which faced heavy backlash after the Dan River spill — have started this process, but others are still kicking the can down the road. So far, our elected officials have let them do just that.
The Kingston disaster was the worst coal ash spill in United States history and inspired environmentalists to push for tighter regulations over the past decade, but pollution from coal ash remains a widespread and ongoing problem. Across the country, coal ash, boiler slag and other combustion waste from power plants is stored in open air pits and impoundments, where rainfall creates a toxic slurry full of heavy metals. At least 67 coal ash dumps in 22 states are currently leaking harmful chemicals into groundwater and will require cleanup efforts in the coming year, according to recent data posted by power companies and compiled by environmental groups, who expect that additional leaking pits have yet to be publicly identified.
Lessons From the Kingston Coal Ash Spill
The Kingston coal ash spill’s impacts were felt far beyond Tennessee. Coal ash from the spill was scraped from the rural landscape and loaded onto trains bound for a landfill in Uniontown, Alabama. The arrival of coal at Uniontown set off a long-running dispute between landfill operators and members of the rural, majority-Black community living nearby over whether the expanding landfill was damaging a historic cemetery and making people sick. Uniontown residents took their fight to the federal level and became well known in the movement for environmental justice, where activists fight back against polluting industries that habitually place their facilities near low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
The Kingston spill is not the only coal ash disaster in recent memory. In 2014, a Duke Energy coal sludge pond in North Carolina leaked thousands of tons of coal ash and millions of gallons of contaminated water into the Dan River, turning the water and ominous grey and compromising drinking water and ecosystems for miles. Environmental groups have tussled with Duke Energy in courtrooms for years over leaky coal ash pits the company maintains across North Carolina and were on guard as Hurricane Florence ravaged the state this September. Environmentalists say at least one Duke coal ash pond overflowed during the storm and contaminated the Cape Fear River with heavy metals, although the company has disputed the extent of the pollution in statements to Truthout and other outlets.
Despite Health Risks and Climate Change, Trump Is Still Pushing Coal
Coal continues to power many nations, despite alarming reports about climate disruption and a worldwide movement to thwart its worst impacts. The continued prevalence of coal-based power is due in part to right-wing politicians like President Trump in the United States and Andrzej Duda in Poland. Coal is a major source of electricity in both countries (as well as in China and much of the developing world), and US and Polish representatives promoted coal power at the recent UN climate change conference in the Polish city of Katowice. The host country was not shy about its dependence on coal and literally decked the halls of the conference with piles of the dirtiest fossil fuel we burn.
Back home, the Trump administration is working to fulfill a central campaign promise and buoy the coal industry by systematically rolling back Obama-era regulations that would force power utilities either to turn away from coal or burn it in a much cleaner fashion. At the helm of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry who shares Trump’s zeal for keeping coal central to the US energy portfolio. Wheeler’s most recent targets for elimination include limits on carbon dioxide from new and modified power plants and rules reducing air emissions of mercury — a potent neurotoxin and a danger to public health.
The regulations the Trump administration is working to weaken were established during the Obama administration, which came under mounting pressure to clean up or shut down coal-burning power plants as concerns about climate disruption grew and coal ash contamination was documented across the country. A rule on coal ash disposal finally came in 2015, but environmentalists were disappointed. The EPA refused to classify coal ash as “hazardous waste” that requires strict federal oversight, and exempted coal ash dumps at retired power plants from new rules requiring liners to prevent toxins from leaching into the groundwater. Jennifer Peters, the water program director at Clean Water Action, said unlined coal ash dumps threaten waterways across the country.
“A lot of these coal ash ponds are sited in the groundwater table, or they are directly next to a river, or both, in a lot of cases,” Peters said in an interview.
The 2015 rules do require utility companies to monitor groundwater around their coal ash dumps and report the results to the public when problems are found. After digging through lengthy reports issued by utilities across the country, Peters and other advocates determined that 67 coal ash dumps in Illinois, North Carolina, Arizona, Montana and 18 other states are leaking heavy and even radioactive metals including arsenic, lithium, mercury and radium 226 into the water table. This came as little surprise to environmentalists who have been studying coal ash since the Kingston spill; the vast majority of the leaky pits are unlined, allowing the waste to sit in direct contact with the ground. In Joliet, Illinois, for example, the plume of pollution spreading from an old quarry-turned coal ash dump threatens rivers, schools and residential areas, according to environmental groups.
“Groundwater is not only a drinking water source for many people — it also often flows directly into waterways,” said Larissa Liebmann, staff attorney at Waterkeeper Alliance, in a statement. “Now that these companies finally admitted they are causing this contamination, they need to take action immediately to clean up their toxic messes.”
Environmental groups filed a lawsuit arguing that the 2015 coal ash rules did not go far enough to prevent water contamination, and in August a federal court agreed, citing the disasters in Tennessee and North Carolina and the growing concern over unlined ash dumps. This has sent the EPA back to the drawing board to draw up new rules for the future of the roughly 1,300 coal ash dumps across the country, including those next to power plants that have switched to burning natural gas or shut down altogether. However, just weeks before the court ruling, the Trump administration further weakened the rule by extending a deadline for cleaning up leaky coal ash pits and loosening requirements for groundwater monitoring. Environmental groups are now challengingthat rollback as well.
“If we hadn’t gotten a Trump administration and we had a Clinton administration, and they let the Obama rules go through, all the sites that had proven damage and leakage would have to be closed completely by April 2019,” Peters said, adding that utilities can further delay cleanup thanks to Trump’s pro-industry agenda.
The disaster in Kingston stunned the nation and sparked public outrage, and many observers thought it was the beginning of the end for storing coal ash sludge in open, unlined ponds, impoundments and pits. A decade later, little has changed in many communities where coal is burned for electricity, even after the Dan River was chocked with coal ash in 2015. Monitoring has improved, and for the first time, utilities must inform the public when they discover their coal ash dumps are leaking and make a plan to fix them. Finding a permanent solution for coal ash is expensive; it could involve retrofitting existing dumps with liners, or moving the sludge and slurry into a new, lined dump altogether. Some power companies — including Duke Energy, which faced heavy backlash after the Dan River spill — have started this process, but others are still kicking the can down the road. So far, our elected officials have let them do just that.
40 Million Americans Depend on the Colorado River. It’s Drying Up.
The region could not exist in its current form without it.
ERIC HOLTHAUS - mother jones
DECEMBER 17, 2018 6:00 AM
Prompted by years of drought and mismanagement, a series of urgent multi-state meetings are currently underway in Las Vegas to renegotiate the use of the Colorado River. Seven states and the federal government are close to a deal, with a powerful group of farmers in Arizona being the lone holdouts.
The stakes are almost impossibly high: The Colorado River provides water to 1 in 8 Americans, and irrigates 15 percent of the country’s agricultural products. The nearly 40 million people who depend on it live in cities from Los Angeles to Denver. The river supports native nations and industry across the vast desert Southwest—including 90 percent of US-grown winter vegetables. Simply put: The region could not exist in its current form without it.
Decades of warming temperatures have finally forced a confrontation with an inescapable truth: There’s no longer enough water to go around. This past winter was a preview of what the future will look like: A very low amount of snow fell across the mountains that feed the river, so water levels have plummeted to near-record low levels in vast Lake Mead and Lake Powell—the two mega-reservoirs that are used to regulate water resources during hard times.
Since then, the news has only gotten worse.
Water managers project that Lake Powell, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border, is on pace to lose 15 percent of its volume within the next 12 months. Lake Mead, which feeds hydroelectricity turbines at the Hoover Dam and is the region’s most important reservoir, will fare even worse—falling 22 percent in the next two years, below a critical cutoff point to trigger mandatory water rationing.
“Within Arizona, we must agree to share the pain,” Gov. Doug Ducey said at a meeting of state water managers in Phoenix this week. For many reasons, Arizona is going to suffer first. The state relies on the river for 40 percent of its water—and some cities, like Tucson, are entirely dependent on it. The prospect of near-term shortfalls, according to Ducey, means there’s “no time to spare.”
In a dystopian twist, Las Vegas has already been planning for the worst-case scenario: Three years ago, the city completed a three-mile long tunnel to suck water from directly below Lake Mead. The tunnel will provide last-resort access to every drop of water—long after the reservoir falls an additional 125 feet, below the point that renders the Hoover Dam obsolete. At the current pace, that could happen within years.
Losing the river’s carbon-free hydropower will create electricity shortages. Unpredictable legal challenges, and perhaps interstate fighting, would escalate to the Supreme Court. Since agriculture currently consumes about 80 percent of the river’s water, it’s the obvious first place that urban areas are going to look to shore up their own supplies.
In the plans currently being discussed, within months, southwestern farmers will have to abandon some of their irrigated cropland. That will kick off an inevitable decline of the region’s economy that could eventually reshape the entire country’s food distribution system.
Under the current rules, federal water managers project a 52 percent chance that an official water shortage will be declared in fall of 2019, with mandatory cutbacks beginning in 2020. A shortage is more than 99 percent certain the following year. The problem is, due to systematic overuse, even those cutbacks won’t be enough to prevent the river from falling still lower, so the multi-month series of meetings this year have centered around agreeing on deep cuts starting right away.
To be clear: There is no remaining scenario that does not include mandatory cutbacks in water usage along the Colorado River within the next few years. The long-awaited judgement day for the Southwest is finally here.
The stakes are almost impossibly high: The Colorado River provides water to 1 in 8 Americans, and irrigates 15 percent of the country’s agricultural products. The nearly 40 million people who depend on it live in cities from Los Angeles to Denver. The river supports native nations and industry across the vast desert Southwest—including 90 percent of US-grown winter vegetables. Simply put: The region could not exist in its current form without it.
Decades of warming temperatures have finally forced a confrontation with an inescapable truth: There’s no longer enough water to go around. This past winter was a preview of what the future will look like: A very low amount of snow fell across the mountains that feed the river, so water levels have plummeted to near-record low levels in vast Lake Mead and Lake Powell—the two mega-reservoirs that are used to regulate water resources during hard times.
Since then, the news has only gotten worse.
Water managers project that Lake Powell, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border, is on pace to lose 15 percent of its volume within the next 12 months. Lake Mead, which feeds hydroelectricity turbines at the Hoover Dam and is the region’s most important reservoir, will fare even worse—falling 22 percent in the next two years, below a critical cutoff point to trigger mandatory water rationing.
“Within Arizona, we must agree to share the pain,” Gov. Doug Ducey said at a meeting of state water managers in Phoenix this week. For many reasons, Arizona is going to suffer first. The state relies on the river for 40 percent of its water—and some cities, like Tucson, are entirely dependent on it. The prospect of near-term shortfalls, according to Ducey, means there’s “no time to spare.”
In a dystopian twist, Las Vegas has already been planning for the worst-case scenario: Three years ago, the city completed a three-mile long tunnel to suck water from directly below Lake Mead. The tunnel will provide last-resort access to every drop of water—long after the reservoir falls an additional 125 feet, below the point that renders the Hoover Dam obsolete. At the current pace, that could happen within years.
Losing the river’s carbon-free hydropower will create electricity shortages. Unpredictable legal challenges, and perhaps interstate fighting, would escalate to the Supreme Court. Since agriculture currently consumes about 80 percent of the river’s water, it’s the obvious first place that urban areas are going to look to shore up their own supplies.
In the plans currently being discussed, within months, southwestern farmers will have to abandon some of their irrigated cropland. That will kick off an inevitable decline of the region’s economy that could eventually reshape the entire country’s food distribution system.
Under the current rules, federal water managers project a 52 percent chance that an official water shortage will be declared in fall of 2019, with mandatory cutbacks beginning in 2020. A shortage is more than 99 percent certain the following year. The problem is, due to systematic overuse, even those cutbacks won’t be enough to prevent the river from falling still lower, so the multi-month series of meetings this year have centered around agreeing on deep cuts starting right away.
To be clear: There is no remaining scenario that does not include mandatory cutbacks in water usage along the Colorado River within the next few years. The long-awaited judgement day for the Southwest is finally here.
EPA’S OWN DATA REFUTES JUSTIFICATION FOR CLEAN WATER ACT ROLLBACK
Sharon Lerner - the intercept
December 15 2018, 6:00 a.m.
WHILE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler was introducing the new rule that will vastly scale back federal water protections, Matthew Starr was preparing to take water samples from the Neuse River.
Starr, one of two official keepers of the North Carolina river, already has a hard job. As a protector of the Neuse, a body of water that has been judged “most endangered” and the nation’s seventh-most polluted river by the environmental group American Rivers, Starr contends daily with pollution from human and animal waste, chemicals, real estate development, storm runoff, coal ash, and wastewater treatment plants. Climate change, which has resulted in more intense and frequent storms, has intensified the river’s challenges.
With the new water rule, which the EPA released on Tuesday, Starr’s job of measuring and cleaning up water contamination in the Neuse is about to get exponentially harder.
Consider what he calls the “poop side of the problem.” In the past few months, Starr has spent much of his time measuring E. coli levels that have increased after raw human feces and urine was released into the Neuse from wastewater treatment plants and sanitary sewers after Hurricane Florence.
“The storm also dumped a tremendous amount of swine and poultry waste into our water,” said Starr, as he drove his beat-up blue Chevy pickup truck past rows of identical hog barns. It’s easy to see how the liquefied waste of the river basin’s 1.4 million hogs, which is stored in 640 hog waste lagoons, could make its way into the river, which is sometimes just dozens of feet away from the hog farms. Using machines that look like giant metal paint rollers, the farmers spray the waste onto the nearby fields, many of which are cut through by small streams and ditches.
Some of those waterways, which swell and multiply after rainfalls, will no longer be subject to the Clean Water Act when the new rule takes effect. And that means that when Starr finds elevated levels of pollutants, he will have no recourse. Just figuring out which waterways are still covered by the federal law may soon add significantly to his burden.
Wheeler promised that the new water rule, which will replace water protections that the Obama administration put in place in 2015, would simplify water regulation. “Property owners should be able to stand on their property and be able to tell if a water is federal or not without hiring outside professionals,” he said at a press call on Monday.
But the idea that the new rule will be simple to implement is one of several Trump administration narratives about its latest rollback that have begun to unravel in the days since the rollback’s announcement.
Starr and others who work directly with rivers and streams say the EPA’s new definition of Waters of the United States will make it harder rather than easier to tell which waterways are regulated. The new rule takes protections under the federal Clean Water Act away from all ephemeral streams, which depend on rainwater, while likely leaving in place protections for some but not all “intermittent” streams, which flow during only part of the year.
“The idea that people who aren’t scientists can figure out which streams are ephemeral and which are intermittent is laughable,” said Starr. “This is not a simple you walk out and look at it. There’s a lot of science that goes into it. When does the stream have flow? What kinds of flora and fauna does it have? What’s the topography? Does it have a bank or a clear, defined channel?”
Indeed, the similarity of the two types of water bodies is underscored by the EPA’s own documents. A 2008 report from the agency on the hydrological significance of intermittent and ephemeral streams notes the overlapping roles of both kinds of waterways.
“They perform the same critical hydrologic functions as perennial streams: they move water, sediment, nutrients, and debris through the stream network and provide connectivity within the watershed,” the report noted, going on to warn of the dangers of harming these critical components of our water system. “The disturbance or loss of ephemeral and intermittent streams has dramatic physical,
biological, and chemical impacts, which are evident from the uplands to the riparian areas and stream courses of the watershed.”
The difficulty of distinguishing between these two types of waterways was further underscored by the agency’s own slides, which the EPA released in response to FOIA request from E&E News. While Wheeler told reporters on a press phone call hours earlier that it was impossible to calculate the impact of the new rule because the “data doesn’t tell the difference between intermittent and ephemeral streams,” the slides showed that the EPA had already crunched those numbers. According to its analysis, 18 percent of streams nationwide are ephemeral and 52 percent are intermittent. The agency pointed out in a footnote that because many ephemeral streams are “classified as intermittent or are not mapped,” that figure likely underestimates the true number of intermittent streams.
In addition, the new rule would lift federal protections from “isolated” lakes and ponds, which are not directly connected by permanent water to navigable rivers. And depending on the feedback it receives during an upcoming 60-day waiting period, the new rule may wind up stripping protections from intermittent streams and even some stretches of perennial waterways.
An economic analysis of the rule released by the Army and the EPA this week undermines another fiction the agency has put forward about the water rule: that states will protect waterways that the federal government abandons. Wheeler and other proponents of the EPA’s rollback of the water rule put in place in 2015 have celebrated the proposed language as returning water regulation to the states. But, as the report notes, 13 states, including North Carolina, have laws in place that make it impossible for states to pass water regulations stricter than federal ones. Twenty-three other states have laws making it difficult to adopt water regulations that are stricter than the federal law.
Even states where more protective laws remain on the books may not have the funding or political will to enforce them. The difficulties tracking and holding powerful polluters accountable is a large part of the reason that most waterways that have been assessed (including more than 70 percent of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs) already violate water quality standards.
In North Carolina, which has repeatedly slashed funding for its Department of Environmental Quality, the state is already struggling to hold polluters accountable for violations of water laws.
“We have to do a lot of the enforcement work ourselves,” said Starr, as he drove his pickup past a stretch of Lick Creek on a recent Tuesday. Recognizing the muddy flow as the result of sediment pollution, which can threaten fish and drinking water, Starr pulled over so that he could call in the problem to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.
Starr regularly finds himself doing environmental policing and had even called the state twice before about this particular creek, which is near the site of a large residential development. The state fined a company working on the nearby construction site $210 last year. And, when he called, a representative of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality told Starr that the agency was “working with the company on the problem.” But the sedimentation, which can threaten fish and drinking water there, has remained.
“And this is a regulated waterway,” said Starr. “What will happen when they’re not regulated?”
The question of enforcement under the new rule is baffling some legal experts, who point out that in many instances it will be extremely difficult to punish polluters even when they release contamination into waterways that retain federal protections.
“Even if it’s technically true that you could hold someone responsible for discharging into a ditch that wouldn’t be a water of the U.S., the argument is that you could nail them when those pollutants flow from the ditch into a regulated water,” said Daniel Estrin, general counsel and advocacy director of the Waterkeeper Alliance. “But that ignores practical realities. Most often that pollution is going to flow miles past many landowners before it gets there. And the idea that you could ever hope to prove where the pollutants entered the stream is a practical impossibility.”
The challenges that the new rule poses to enforcement may explain why so many water-polluting industries pushed so hard for it. The Waters Advocacy Coalition, an umbrella group that spent more than $1 million lobbying to limit federal water protections and had 48 trade group members — including the National Pork Producers Council and the Fertilizer Institute — as of 2017, lobbied for the new rule. Other industry associations that lobbied for it, too, include the National Renderers Association, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau, the National Turkey Federation, and the Commercial Real Estate Development Association.
The corporate interest belies yet another myth about the water rollback: that it was intended to bring relief to the small farmer. While the Trump administration worked hand in hand with the beef lobby to assail the 2015 water rule as an assault on small farmers, the rule didn’t actually affect how they operate.
“The Clean Water Act has very clear exemptions for agricultural activities and that wasn’t changed by 2015 rule,” said Betsy Southerland, an environmental scientist who served as director of science and technology, among other positions, during the three decades she worked at EPA. “This is one of those situations where the American Farm Bureau has fostered a false narrative that has scared farmers about the implications of the 2015 rule.”
Now that the new rule has been introduced, it’s environmentalists who are scared.
“It’s hard to overstate how bad this will be for our waters,” said Starr. He is now awaiting the results from the latest round of testing he did on water from the Neuse River. “Though, when the protections go away, the samples will mean jack shit.”
Starr, one of two official keepers of the North Carolina river, already has a hard job. As a protector of the Neuse, a body of water that has been judged “most endangered” and the nation’s seventh-most polluted river by the environmental group American Rivers, Starr contends daily with pollution from human and animal waste, chemicals, real estate development, storm runoff, coal ash, and wastewater treatment plants. Climate change, which has resulted in more intense and frequent storms, has intensified the river’s challenges.
With the new water rule, which the EPA released on Tuesday, Starr’s job of measuring and cleaning up water contamination in the Neuse is about to get exponentially harder.
Consider what he calls the “poop side of the problem.” In the past few months, Starr has spent much of his time measuring E. coli levels that have increased after raw human feces and urine was released into the Neuse from wastewater treatment plants and sanitary sewers after Hurricane Florence.
“The storm also dumped a tremendous amount of swine and poultry waste into our water,” said Starr, as he drove his beat-up blue Chevy pickup truck past rows of identical hog barns. It’s easy to see how the liquefied waste of the river basin’s 1.4 million hogs, which is stored in 640 hog waste lagoons, could make its way into the river, which is sometimes just dozens of feet away from the hog farms. Using machines that look like giant metal paint rollers, the farmers spray the waste onto the nearby fields, many of which are cut through by small streams and ditches.
Some of those waterways, which swell and multiply after rainfalls, will no longer be subject to the Clean Water Act when the new rule takes effect. And that means that when Starr finds elevated levels of pollutants, he will have no recourse. Just figuring out which waterways are still covered by the federal law may soon add significantly to his burden.
Wheeler promised that the new water rule, which will replace water protections that the Obama administration put in place in 2015, would simplify water regulation. “Property owners should be able to stand on their property and be able to tell if a water is federal or not without hiring outside professionals,” he said at a press call on Monday.
But the idea that the new rule will be simple to implement is one of several Trump administration narratives about its latest rollback that have begun to unravel in the days since the rollback’s announcement.
Starr and others who work directly with rivers and streams say the EPA’s new definition of Waters of the United States will make it harder rather than easier to tell which waterways are regulated. The new rule takes protections under the federal Clean Water Act away from all ephemeral streams, which depend on rainwater, while likely leaving in place protections for some but not all “intermittent” streams, which flow during only part of the year.
“The idea that people who aren’t scientists can figure out which streams are ephemeral and which are intermittent is laughable,” said Starr. “This is not a simple you walk out and look at it. There’s a lot of science that goes into it. When does the stream have flow? What kinds of flora and fauna does it have? What’s the topography? Does it have a bank or a clear, defined channel?”
Indeed, the similarity of the two types of water bodies is underscored by the EPA’s own documents. A 2008 report from the agency on the hydrological significance of intermittent and ephemeral streams notes the overlapping roles of both kinds of waterways.
“They perform the same critical hydrologic functions as perennial streams: they move water, sediment, nutrients, and debris through the stream network and provide connectivity within the watershed,” the report noted, going on to warn of the dangers of harming these critical components of our water system. “The disturbance or loss of ephemeral and intermittent streams has dramatic physical,
biological, and chemical impacts, which are evident from the uplands to the riparian areas and stream courses of the watershed.”
The difficulty of distinguishing between these two types of waterways was further underscored by the agency’s own slides, which the EPA released in response to FOIA request from E&E News. While Wheeler told reporters on a press phone call hours earlier that it was impossible to calculate the impact of the new rule because the “data doesn’t tell the difference between intermittent and ephemeral streams,” the slides showed that the EPA had already crunched those numbers. According to its analysis, 18 percent of streams nationwide are ephemeral and 52 percent are intermittent. The agency pointed out in a footnote that because many ephemeral streams are “classified as intermittent or are not mapped,” that figure likely underestimates the true number of intermittent streams.
In addition, the new rule would lift federal protections from “isolated” lakes and ponds, which are not directly connected by permanent water to navigable rivers. And depending on the feedback it receives during an upcoming 60-day waiting period, the new rule may wind up stripping protections from intermittent streams and even some stretches of perennial waterways.
An economic analysis of the rule released by the Army and the EPA this week undermines another fiction the agency has put forward about the water rule: that states will protect waterways that the federal government abandons. Wheeler and other proponents of the EPA’s rollback of the water rule put in place in 2015 have celebrated the proposed language as returning water regulation to the states. But, as the report notes, 13 states, including North Carolina, have laws in place that make it impossible for states to pass water regulations stricter than federal ones. Twenty-three other states have laws making it difficult to adopt water regulations that are stricter than the federal law.
Even states where more protective laws remain on the books may not have the funding or political will to enforce them. The difficulties tracking and holding powerful polluters accountable is a large part of the reason that most waterways that have been assessed (including more than 70 percent of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs) already violate water quality standards.
In North Carolina, which has repeatedly slashed funding for its Department of Environmental Quality, the state is already struggling to hold polluters accountable for violations of water laws.
“We have to do a lot of the enforcement work ourselves,” said Starr, as he drove his pickup past a stretch of Lick Creek on a recent Tuesday. Recognizing the muddy flow as the result of sediment pollution, which can threaten fish and drinking water, Starr pulled over so that he could call in the problem to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.
Starr regularly finds himself doing environmental policing and had even called the state twice before about this particular creek, which is near the site of a large residential development. The state fined a company working on the nearby construction site $210 last year. And, when he called, a representative of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality told Starr that the agency was “working with the company on the problem.” But the sedimentation, which can threaten fish and drinking water there, has remained.
“And this is a regulated waterway,” said Starr. “What will happen when they’re not regulated?”
The question of enforcement under the new rule is baffling some legal experts, who point out that in many instances it will be extremely difficult to punish polluters even when they release contamination into waterways that retain federal protections.
“Even if it’s technically true that you could hold someone responsible for discharging into a ditch that wouldn’t be a water of the U.S., the argument is that you could nail them when those pollutants flow from the ditch into a regulated water,” said Daniel Estrin, general counsel and advocacy director of the Waterkeeper Alliance. “But that ignores practical realities. Most often that pollution is going to flow miles past many landowners before it gets there. And the idea that you could ever hope to prove where the pollutants entered the stream is a practical impossibility.”
The challenges that the new rule poses to enforcement may explain why so many water-polluting industries pushed so hard for it. The Waters Advocacy Coalition, an umbrella group that spent more than $1 million lobbying to limit federal water protections and had 48 trade group members — including the National Pork Producers Council and the Fertilizer Institute — as of 2017, lobbied for the new rule. Other industry associations that lobbied for it, too, include the National Renderers Association, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the American Farm Bureau, the National Turkey Federation, and the Commercial Real Estate Development Association.
The corporate interest belies yet another myth about the water rollback: that it was intended to bring relief to the small farmer. While the Trump administration worked hand in hand with the beef lobby to assail the 2015 water rule as an assault on small farmers, the rule didn’t actually affect how they operate.
“The Clean Water Act has very clear exemptions for agricultural activities and that wasn’t changed by 2015 rule,” said Betsy Southerland, an environmental scientist who served as director of science and technology, among other positions, during the three decades she worked at EPA. “This is one of those situations where the American Farm Bureau has fostered a false narrative that has scared farmers about the implications of the 2015 rule.”
Now that the new rule has been introduced, it’s environmentalists who are scared.
“It’s hard to overstate how bad this will be for our waters,” said Starr. He is now awaiting the results from the latest round of testing he did on water from the Neuse River. “Though, when the protections go away, the samples will mean jack shit.”
Property developers, golf course owners, farmers to benefit from Trump rollback of water protections
One Republican approvingly declared the EPA to be "the Environmental Farm Protection Agency" for its
favoring of agriculture over water rules.
E.A. CRUNDEN - thinkprogress
DEC 11, 2018, 5:21 PM
Farmers, real estate developers, and golf course owners — all industries that have long lobbied against clean water rules — are cheering President Donald Trump’s plan to massively roll back water protections on Tuesday, while climate advocates and environmentalists have already expressed dismay and horror.
In a long-anticipated move, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers announced this week the Trump administration’s proposed withdrawal of water protections for thousands of wetlands and waterways across the country.
That change to the Obama-era “waters of the United States” rule (WOTUS) is a massive shift from both the Obama administration’s interpretation of U.S. water protections as well as from historical enforcement of the 1972 Clean Water Act more generally.
Under the new plan, waters that only occur during rains or snow melts — such as seasonal streams and rivers — would not be considered federally protected; nor would wetlands not connected to other federally protected waterways.
“For the first time, we are clearly defining the difference between federally protected waterways and state protected waterways,” said acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler in a statement, calling the proposed changes “simpler and clearer” and designed to help landowners.
The rollback makes good on a long-standing Trump promise. Upon entering office, the president swiftly launched an attack on WOTUS, directing then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to unravel the policy in February 2017.
The EPA’s shift in definition and loosening of WOTUS more broadly has implications for farmers and rural landowners. Under the Obama rule, both planting practices and the use of certain fertilizers and chemicals were steeply curtailed in order to avoid contaminating nearby waters.
Those groups have battled against WOTUS and are welcoming the rollback. In attendance at Tuesday’s proposal signing in Washington, D.C. were reportedly representatives from state Farm Bureaus in addition to the American Farm Bureau and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The National Mining Association and the National Association of Manufacturers have also offered support.
Officials present at Tuesday’s announcement appeared to welcome the farm and business interests represented. Journalists in the crowd noted on Twitter that the supporters of the rollback offered a heavily white and male picture, one largely at odds with the often low-income communities and people of color typically impacted by loose water protections.
But the speakers themselves repeatedly took aim at WOTUS and offered support for businesses who have argued that Obama-era protections have negatively impacted their industries. Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts (R) joked to the crowd that the EPA has become a “four letter word”: “the Environmental Farm Protection Agency,” something he deemed “a good thing.”
Other business interests are also cheering the news. Both real estate developers and golf course owners have historically opposed WOTUS; those are industries in which the president has been heavily involved throughout his career and which stand to benefit from the rollback.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) welcomed the Trump administration’s two-year delay of WOTUS in January and greeted Tuesday’s rollback on Twitter.
“By bringing clarity to which waters fall under federal oversight, this proposal should help accelerate the permitting process so home builders can more easily provide safe and affordable housing,” said NAHB Chairman Randy Noel.
The National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA), meanwhile, has similarly supported the Trump administration’s WOTUS decisions. And industry support has also been reflected in lobbying: the Professional Golfers’ Association of America has spent at least $90,000 lobbying on WOTUS in 2018, according to filings. Meanwhile Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying on the issue this year.
But environmental groups swiftly expressed condemnation on Tuesday.
“Even a child understands that small streams flow into large streams and lakes – which provide drinking water for so many Americans,” said Craig Cox of the Environmental Working Group in a statement. “By removing safeguards and allowing industry to dump pollutants into these water sources, Trump’s EPA is ensuring more contamination challenges for utilities and dirtier water for their customers.”
Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters, called the move a “despicable attack” on clean water in the midst of ongoing water crises across the country, including in Flint, Michigan, and in Florida. Other groups expressed similar sentiments and many indicated that they would fight the rollback.
The administration will now accept comments from the public on the plan over the course of the next 60 days. Analysts have indicated they believe the proposal will generate wide-scale legal action.
The WOTUS announcement continues an ongoing slog of environmental regulation rollbacks. The Trump administration has sought to empower fossil fuels like coal and oil while weakening the environmental protections meant to safeguard wildlife and public health.
Under Ryan Zinke, the Interior Department has also reduced public lands and eyed opening up federal waters to oil and gas drilling and exploration. Zinke was notably present at the WOTUS announcement on Tuesday, although the Interior Department has no oversight over the rule.
While WOTUS opponents celebrated the rollback, supporters of the rule are eyeing the new year. The Trump administration has enjoyed majorities in the House and Senate to support its efforts, come January that situation is set to change when Democrats take over the lower chamber.
In a long-anticipated move, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers announced this week the Trump administration’s proposed withdrawal of water protections for thousands of wetlands and waterways across the country.
That change to the Obama-era “waters of the United States” rule (WOTUS) is a massive shift from both the Obama administration’s interpretation of U.S. water protections as well as from historical enforcement of the 1972 Clean Water Act more generally.
Under the new plan, waters that only occur during rains or snow melts — such as seasonal streams and rivers — would not be considered federally protected; nor would wetlands not connected to other federally protected waterways.
“For the first time, we are clearly defining the difference between federally protected waterways and state protected waterways,” said acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler in a statement, calling the proposed changes “simpler and clearer” and designed to help landowners.
The rollback makes good on a long-standing Trump promise. Upon entering office, the president swiftly launched an attack on WOTUS, directing then-EPA administrator Scott Pruitt to unravel the policy in February 2017.
The EPA’s shift in definition and loosening of WOTUS more broadly has implications for farmers and rural landowners. Under the Obama rule, both planting practices and the use of certain fertilizers and chemicals were steeply curtailed in order to avoid contaminating nearby waters.
Those groups have battled against WOTUS and are welcoming the rollback. In attendance at Tuesday’s proposal signing in Washington, D.C. were reportedly representatives from state Farm Bureaus in addition to the American Farm Bureau and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The National Mining Association and the National Association of Manufacturers have also offered support.
Officials present at Tuesday’s announcement appeared to welcome the farm and business interests represented. Journalists in the crowd noted on Twitter that the supporters of the rollback offered a heavily white and male picture, one largely at odds with the often low-income communities and people of color typically impacted by loose water protections.
But the speakers themselves repeatedly took aim at WOTUS and offered support for businesses who have argued that Obama-era protections have negatively impacted their industries. Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts (R) joked to the crowd that the EPA has become a “four letter word”: “the Environmental Farm Protection Agency,” something he deemed “a good thing.”
Other business interests are also cheering the news. Both real estate developers and golf course owners have historically opposed WOTUS; those are industries in which the president has been heavily involved throughout his career and which stand to benefit from the rollback.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) welcomed the Trump administration’s two-year delay of WOTUS in January and greeted Tuesday’s rollback on Twitter.
“By bringing clarity to which waters fall under federal oversight, this proposal should help accelerate the permitting process so home builders can more easily provide safe and affordable housing,” said NAHB Chairman Randy Noel.
The National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA), meanwhile, has similarly supported the Trump administration’s WOTUS decisions. And industry support has also been reflected in lobbying: the Professional Golfers’ Association of America has spent at least $90,000 lobbying on WOTUS in 2018, according to filings. Meanwhile Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying on the issue this year.
But environmental groups swiftly expressed condemnation on Tuesday.
“Even a child understands that small streams flow into large streams and lakes – which provide drinking water for so many Americans,” said Craig Cox of the Environmental Working Group in a statement. “By removing safeguards and allowing industry to dump pollutants into these water sources, Trump’s EPA is ensuring more contamination challenges for utilities and dirtier water for their customers.”
Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters, called the move a “despicable attack” on clean water in the midst of ongoing water crises across the country, including in Flint, Michigan, and in Florida. Other groups expressed similar sentiments and many indicated that they would fight the rollback.
The administration will now accept comments from the public on the plan over the course of the next 60 days. Analysts have indicated they believe the proposal will generate wide-scale legal action.
The WOTUS announcement continues an ongoing slog of environmental regulation rollbacks. The Trump administration has sought to empower fossil fuels like coal and oil while weakening the environmental protections meant to safeguard wildlife and public health.
Under Ryan Zinke, the Interior Department has also reduced public lands and eyed opening up federal waters to oil and gas drilling and exploration. Zinke was notably present at the WOTUS announcement on Tuesday, although the Interior Department has no oversight over the rule.
While WOTUS opponents celebrated the rollback, supporters of the rule are eyeing the new year. The Trump administration has enjoyed majorities in the House and Senate to support its efforts, come January that situation is set to change when Democrats take over the lower chamber.
TRUMP’S ATTACK ON THE CLEAN WATER ACT WILL FUEL DESTRUCTIVE PIPELINE BOOM
Sharon Lerner - the intercept
December 9 2018, 6:00 a.m
A NEW WATER RULE that will strip federal protections from an estimated 60-90 percent of U.S. waterways will dramatically ease restrictions on how polluting industries do business.
According to the rule, which is due out next week, streams that don’t run year-round and many wetlands will no longer be subject to the Clean Water Act. As a result, a wide range of industries — including agriculture, mining, waste management, chemical companies, real estate development, and road construction — will be free to pollute, reroute, and pave over these waterways as they see fit.
But oil and gas transport companies may benefit most from the imminent shift.
When the rule takes effect, pipeline construction projects that are currently required to undergo months, or even years, of scrutiny from water experts in order to minimize their environmental impact will be allowed to speed forward. For energy companies that have been pushing for exactly these changes for years, the new rule may be well worth the wait.
A Pipeline Bonanza
The energy company ONEOK should have applied for permits to work on its Arbuckle II pipeline by now. The $1.3 billion project, which will transport natural gas liquids 530 miles from the company’s supply basins in Velma, Oklahoma, to its storage facilities on the Gulf Coast of Texas, will cross dozens of waterways in both states. According to factsheets onits website, ONEOK was supposed to have begun construction in both Texas and Oklahoma and has submitted applications for water permits required for this work during 2018.
As of Friday, however, the company hadn’t submitted any applications for the permits required to build its pipeline across waterways, according to the Army Corps of Engineers offices in Tulsa, Fort Worth, and Galveston, which are responsible for permitting pipelines under the Clean Water Act.
Brad Borror, a communications manager at ONEOK, said the company was not delaying its projects. “We’re still going to go through that process and confident in our timeline,” said Borror.
But if ONEOK and other companies currently constructing pipelines do fall behind on their permits, they may ultimately come out ahead. The Trump administration rollback of water regulations will allow ONEOK and other companies involved in the energy pipeline boom now underway to simply bulldoze through waterways that are currently protected without any environmental scrutiny at all.
The Trump administration’s rule will replace an Obama-era regulation known as the Waters of the United States rule. According to leaked talking points about the replacement rule, it will exempt seasonal waterways and wetlands that are not connected by surface water to permanent water bodies from regulation. The change will allow the Arbuckle II and other pipelines now in the works to advance more quickly — and with far fewer environmental protections.
The oil and gas industries have been pushing for years for these same changes. The Waters Advocacy Coalition, an umbrella organization of 48 industry trade groups, has spent more than $1 million since 2007 lobbying to limit federal water protections. The group’s members include the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, the American Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, according to comments that the group filed with the EPA in 2017.
The 2015 WOTUS rule aimed to settle long-standing conflicts between industry and regulators over which waterways are protected by the Clean Water Act. Almost since that federal statute went into effect in 1972, industries have been fighting to limit its reach. Still, for decades, the law was widely seen as protecting the great majority of the country’s waterways, both big and small.
That began to change after a 2001 Supreme Court case that dealt with whether ponds on an abandoned mining site were subject to federal water protections, said Jon Devine, director of federal water policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The decision was narrow, about whether certain isolated water bodies could be protected based on their use by water fowl, but there was a lot of language that expressed doubt about the proper scope of the law,” said Devine. “And industries jumped on that, and challenges sprang up across the country.”
Though some environmentalists felt it didn’t go far enough to protect water, the 2015 rule pushed back slightly against some of the incursions that industry campaigns had made on federal water protections. Now in effect in 22 states, and held up by court challenges in the others, the rule increased the waters covered by the Clean Water Act by 3-5 percent and clarified that rivers, streams, and wetlands are protected by the Clean Water Act even if they run for part of the year or depend on rain to flow.
The Trump rule, which will be subject to public comment before it’s finalized, will reverse those expansions in federal water protections and go further by stripping protections from many wetlands. The change will likely have the most dramatic effect in Alaska and the arid west, which, depending on the wording of the rule, may see up to 90 percent of its waterways lose federal protection.
A Sledgehammer to Clean Water Act
Pipeline companies are currently required to either get approval for the crossing of every waterway, or in cases when they can show that a project will have only minimal impact on the environment, apply for a nationwide permit that allows them to avoid scrutiny of each individual crossing.
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will carry fracked natural gas 600 miles from the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia through Virginia to North Carolina, recently had its national permit suspended due to concerns about its impact on a West Virginia waterway. The new regulations will likely cut the number of permits required for the project in half, according to an analysis by the Southern Environmental Law Center.
A joint effort of Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, and Southern Company Gas, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (together with a much shorter pipeline that will supply natural gas to customers) will cross waterways in 1,699 places. At least half those waterways flow only during the wet seasons or after rainstorms and therefore would no longer require permits after the new rule is in place.
The new rule will increase the environmental threats posed by the Atlantic Coast and other pipeline projects, according to Geoff Gisler, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has filed numerous challenges to the pipeline.
“This is a sledgehammer to the Clean Water Act,” Gisler said of the new rule. “Out of all the anti-environmental attacks we have seen from this administration, this may be the most far-reaching and destructive.”
Dozens of other pipelines now in the planning phase could also see the number of permits required for their projects reduced. Fifty-four natural gas pipeline projects, including the Atlantic Coast, were approved in U.S. in the past two years, and 36 more projects are currently pending, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Three new oil pipeline projects have recently been announced, and five, including the Keystone XL, are in development.
Many of the companies building these pipelines may be putting off applying for their permits until the industry-friendly rule is in place, according to Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “Going through the permitting process can take years, so waiting for the final rule is still going to be shorter than applying for a permit that can have a ton of impact,” said Bennett, who described the companies as “salivating over the new rule.”
For the Arbuckle II pipeline, which runs through semi-arid areas, far fewer permits will likely be required under the new rule, which will ultimately speed up the construction process. “If they end up saying they’re crossing the Red River, and if they only have to get a couple of crossings versus 100 crossings, then the permit process is going to be way, way quicker,” said Bennett, a scientist and attorney who worked on wetlands management at the EPA before joining the environmental group. “I think they’re poised to apply for the permits the minute the new rule comes out.”
The permitting process typically involves pipeline companies meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, and the Fish and Wildlife Service to discuss the project’s impact on the environment. The federal agencies then devise plans to minimize the environmental damage of construction.
“They might require them to tunnel underneath a stream or work when a stream is dry,” said Amy Mall, senior advocate at the NRDC.
“Every single site is unique.” Without these environmental protections, sediment and erosion can pollute the waterways, which can impact species living there.
Disruption of waterways by pipeline construction can also result in drinking water contamination, as it has in the case of the Mariner East 2 pipeline in Pennsylvania.
“You can have long term or permanent damage,” said Mall.
While some states may continue to require permits for waterways once they’re not subject to the federal law, others are unlikely to safeguard their own waterways from damage caused by pipeline construction. “We have no local protections,” Ashley Nicole McCray said of Oklahoma, which is home to one of the biggest pipeline hubs in the world. McCray, who ran for a spot on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission this year, has been raising concerns about the environmental impacts of the pipelines in her state.
“Because of the construction of so many pipelines, we’re losing traditional prairie lands and grasslands,” said McCray, who is a member of the Oglala Lakota nation. “The loss of land has serious impacts. When the vegetation is gone, the insects and animals that rely on it die, too. We’re seeing animals going extinct.”
The danger to endangered species is just one of the grounds on which environmentalists are likely to sue the government over the new rule once it comes out. Legal experts say that the rule may be stayed in parts of the country while the these questions are being hashed out.
According to the rule, which is due out next week, streams that don’t run year-round and many wetlands will no longer be subject to the Clean Water Act. As a result, a wide range of industries — including agriculture, mining, waste management, chemical companies, real estate development, and road construction — will be free to pollute, reroute, and pave over these waterways as they see fit.
But oil and gas transport companies may benefit most from the imminent shift.
When the rule takes effect, pipeline construction projects that are currently required to undergo months, or even years, of scrutiny from water experts in order to minimize their environmental impact will be allowed to speed forward. For energy companies that have been pushing for exactly these changes for years, the new rule may be well worth the wait.
A Pipeline Bonanza
The energy company ONEOK should have applied for permits to work on its Arbuckle II pipeline by now. The $1.3 billion project, which will transport natural gas liquids 530 miles from the company’s supply basins in Velma, Oklahoma, to its storage facilities on the Gulf Coast of Texas, will cross dozens of waterways in both states. According to factsheets onits website, ONEOK was supposed to have begun construction in both Texas and Oklahoma and has submitted applications for water permits required for this work during 2018.
As of Friday, however, the company hadn’t submitted any applications for the permits required to build its pipeline across waterways, according to the Army Corps of Engineers offices in Tulsa, Fort Worth, and Galveston, which are responsible for permitting pipelines under the Clean Water Act.
Brad Borror, a communications manager at ONEOK, said the company was not delaying its projects. “We’re still going to go through that process and confident in our timeline,” said Borror.
But if ONEOK and other companies currently constructing pipelines do fall behind on their permits, they may ultimately come out ahead. The Trump administration rollback of water regulations will allow ONEOK and other companies involved in the energy pipeline boom now underway to simply bulldoze through waterways that are currently protected without any environmental scrutiny at all.
The Trump administration’s rule will replace an Obama-era regulation known as the Waters of the United States rule. According to leaked talking points about the replacement rule, it will exempt seasonal waterways and wetlands that are not connected by surface water to permanent water bodies from regulation. The change will allow the Arbuckle II and other pipelines now in the works to advance more quickly — and with far fewer environmental protections.
The oil and gas industries have been pushing for years for these same changes. The Waters Advocacy Coalition, an umbrella organization of 48 industry trade groups, has spent more than $1 million since 2007 lobbying to limit federal water protections. The group’s members include the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, the American Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, according to comments that the group filed with the EPA in 2017.
The 2015 WOTUS rule aimed to settle long-standing conflicts between industry and regulators over which waterways are protected by the Clean Water Act. Almost since that federal statute went into effect in 1972, industries have been fighting to limit its reach. Still, for decades, the law was widely seen as protecting the great majority of the country’s waterways, both big and small.
That began to change after a 2001 Supreme Court case that dealt with whether ponds on an abandoned mining site were subject to federal water protections, said Jon Devine, director of federal water policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The decision was narrow, about whether certain isolated water bodies could be protected based on their use by water fowl, but there was a lot of language that expressed doubt about the proper scope of the law,” said Devine. “And industries jumped on that, and challenges sprang up across the country.”
Though some environmentalists felt it didn’t go far enough to protect water, the 2015 rule pushed back slightly against some of the incursions that industry campaigns had made on federal water protections. Now in effect in 22 states, and held up by court challenges in the others, the rule increased the waters covered by the Clean Water Act by 3-5 percent and clarified that rivers, streams, and wetlands are protected by the Clean Water Act even if they run for part of the year or depend on rain to flow.
The Trump rule, which will be subject to public comment before it’s finalized, will reverse those expansions in federal water protections and go further by stripping protections from many wetlands. The change will likely have the most dramatic effect in Alaska and the arid west, which, depending on the wording of the rule, may see up to 90 percent of its waterways lose federal protection.
A Sledgehammer to Clean Water Act
Pipeline companies are currently required to either get approval for the crossing of every waterway, or in cases when they can show that a project will have only minimal impact on the environment, apply for a nationwide permit that allows them to avoid scrutiny of each individual crossing.
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which will carry fracked natural gas 600 miles from the Marcellus Shale in West Virginia through Virginia to North Carolina, recently had its national permit suspended due to concerns about its impact on a West Virginia waterway. The new regulations will likely cut the number of permits required for the project in half, according to an analysis by the Southern Environmental Law Center.
A joint effort of Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, and Southern Company Gas, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (together with a much shorter pipeline that will supply natural gas to customers) will cross waterways in 1,699 places. At least half those waterways flow only during the wet seasons or after rainstorms and therefore would no longer require permits after the new rule is in place.
The new rule will increase the environmental threats posed by the Atlantic Coast and other pipeline projects, according to Geoff Gisler, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has filed numerous challenges to the pipeline.
“This is a sledgehammer to the Clean Water Act,” Gisler said of the new rule. “Out of all the anti-environmental attacks we have seen from this administration, this may be the most far-reaching and destructive.”
Dozens of other pipelines now in the planning phase could also see the number of permits required for their projects reduced. Fifty-four natural gas pipeline projects, including the Atlantic Coast, were approved in U.S. in the past two years, and 36 more projects are currently pending, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Three new oil pipeline projects have recently been announced, and five, including the Keystone XL, are in development.
Many of the companies building these pipelines may be putting off applying for their permits until the industry-friendly rule is in place, according to Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “Going through the permitting process can take years, so waiting for the final rule is still going to be shorter than applying for a permit that can have a ton of impact,” said Bennett, who described the companies as “salivating over the new rule.”
For the Arbuckle II pipeline, which runs through semi-arid areas, far fewer permits will likely be required under the new rule, which will ultimately speed up the construction process. “If they end up saying they’re crossing the Red River, and if they only have to get a couple of crossings versus 100 crossings, then the permit process is going to be way, way quicker,” said Bennett, a scientist and attorney who worked on wetlands management at the EPA before joining the environmental group. “I think they’re poised to apply for the permits the minute the new rule comes out.”
The permitting process typically involves pipeline companies meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA, and the Fish and Wildlife Service to discuss the project’s impact on the environment. The federal agencies then devise plans to minimize the environmental damage of construction.
“They might require them to tunnel underneath a stream or work when a stream is dry,” said Amy Mall, senior advocate at the NRDC.
“Every single site is unique.” Without these environmental protections, sediment and erosion can pollute the waterways, which can impact species living there.
Disruption of waterways by pipeline construction can also result in drinking water contamination, as it has in the case of the Mariner East 2 pipeline in Pennsylvania.
“You can have long term or permanent damage,” said Mall.
While some states may continue to require permits for waterways once they’re not subject to the federal law, others are unlikely to safeguard their own waterways from damage caused by pipeline construction. “We have no local protections,” Ashley Nicole McCray said of Oklahoma, which is home to one of the biggest pipeline hubs in the world. McCray, who ran for a spot on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission this year, has been raising concerns about the environmental impacts of the pipelines in her state.
“Because of the construction of so many pipelines, we’re losing traditional prairie lands and grasslands,” said McCray, who is a member of the Oglala Lakota nation. “The loss of land has serious impacts. When the vegetation is gone, the insects and animals that rely on it die, too. We’re seeing animals going extinct.”
The danger to endangered species is just one of the grounds on which environmentalists are likely to sue the government over the new rule once it comes out. Legal experts say that the rule may be stayed in parts of the country while the these questions are being hashed out.
Airlines ignoring efficient planes in blow to carbon targets – study
TUI Airways comes top of 2018 Atmosfair Airline Index while Virgin Atlantic ranks 83rd
Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent
the guardian
Sat 8 Dec 2018 06.00 EST
Airlines are failing to take up the most efficient planes in sufficient numbers to make a significant dent in their carbon dioxide emissions, a new study has found.
The most efficient new aircraft models, such as the Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A350-900 and A320neo, can achieve substantial carbon savings over older models, but no airlines have invested sufficiently in the new types to reach the top levels of energy efficiency, according to a ranking by Atmosfair, a German NGO.
In the annual Atmosfair Airline Index for 2018, published on Saturday, no airlines received an A for efficiency, and only two airlines were ranked in efficiency class B.
TUI Airways, the British holiday airline, came top of the rankings for the second year running, reaching just under 80% of the possible optimum level of carbon emissions. TUI Fly, the company’s German counterpart, came in fourth.
Atmosfair also found that only one in 10 airlines worldwide were succeeding in keeping their greenhouse gas emissions constant while achieving economic growth. Among these were Thai Airways, Finnair, American Airlines and All Nippon Airlines.
Dietrich Brockhagen, executive director of Atmosfair, said: “Our results show that the efficiency improvements of the vast majority of airlines worldwide is not sufficient [to keep within the] 2C or 1.5C target [of the Paris agreement]. We need new, synthetic and CO2-neutral fuels and other more radical measures to curb CO2 emissions in the sector.”
British Airways was placed at 74th, with an efficiency rating of D, behind companies such as Aeroflot and Aeromexico. It fell behind many of Europe’s other flag carriers, including Alitalia, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM and Iberia.
British Airways said: “We are committed to reducing our carbon emissions and have improved efficiency by more than 10% since 2008. We are well on course to deliver a 25% improvement in carbon emissions reduction by 2025. British Airways is the first airline in Europe to invest in building a plant to generate renewable jet fuel from household waste, and last week we kicked off a research project with some of the UK’s leading universities to find a way to power a long-haul aircraft with 300 customers on board with zero emissions.”
The company also pointed to a commitment by its parent group IAG to invest $400m (£313.6m) on alternative sustainable fuel development over the next 20 years.
Virgin Atlantic Airways ranks 83rd in the world, behind many airlines from developing countries such as Indonesia’s Garuda, Royal Air Maroc, Air India, and Thailand’s Eva Airways. This showing comes despite the much-publicised activities of Sir Richard Branson, Virgin’s chairman, in highlighting the risks of climate change.
Branson co-founded the Carbon War Room, which since 2009 has operated as a non-profit organisation aimed at speeding up the adoption of cleaner, low-emissions technology by businesses.
Virgin took issue with the report methodology, saying it misrepresented the airline. A spokeswoman added: “We have undertaken a massive renewal programme to replace our entire fleet over a 10 year period, switching from four-engine aircraft to much more efficient two-engine aircraft. As a result we have reduced our aircraft carbon emissions by 23.7% since 2007. Our carbon emissions will continue to reduce as we take delivery of more new aircraft over the next three years.”
Carbon emissions from airlines grew by about 5% last year, while the number of kilometres flown increased by 6%, according to Atmosfair, showing that much more needs to be done to ensure aviation does not take up an unsustainable amount of the world’s remaining “carbon budget”. Biofuels are being given trials as an alternative to fossil fuels for aviation, but these carry their own difficulties, not least the threat of deforestation. Virgin recently used recycled waste to fuel a flight, a potentially more environmentally sound alternative.
“You cannot beat physics, therefore long-haul flights will not be feasible with heavy batteries and electric engines,” said Brockhagen. “But you can produce carbon neutral kerosene synthetically, using carbon extracted from the air, water and green electricity. This is ready technologically, but 10 times more expensive per gallon than fossil kerosene. Who will invest the billions to scale this technology up? If airlines grouped together they could do it, but this would require an international spirit of cooperation over competition, so far rarely seen in the industry.”
There are also ways for airlines to reduce their emissions without resorting to new fuels and planes, through adjusting their pilots’ flying practices and small tweaks to planes. Some airlines look to offset their emissions through carbon reductions elsewhere.
A spokesman for Airlines UK, which represents the industry, said: “UK airlines are making enormous efforts to reduce their carbon emissions, and are committed to a global target to cut CO2 emissions from all flights by 50% of their 2005 levels by 2050, through technology, operational efficiency improvements and the use of sustainable biofuels. On top of this, in 2016 the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation to address CO2 emissions from international aviation – a global first for any sector.”
The most efficient new aircraft models, such as the Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A350-900 and A320neo, can achieve substantial carbon savings over older models, but no airlines have invested sufficiently in the new types to reach the top levels of energy efficiency, according to a ranking by Atmosfair, a German NGO.
In the annual Atmosfair Airline Index for 2018, published on Saturday, no airlines received an A for efficiency, and only two airlines were ranked in efficiency class B.
TUI Airways, the British holiday airline, came top of the rankings for the second year running, reaching just under 80% of the possible optimum level of carbon emissions. TUI Fly, the company’s German counterpart, came in fourth.
Atmosfair also found that only one in 10 airlines worldwide were succeeding in keeping their greenhouse gas emissions constant while achieving economic growth. Among these were Thai Airways, Finnair, American Airlines and All Nippon Airlines.
Dietrich Brockhagen, executive director of Atmosfair, said: “Our results show that the efficiency improvements of the vast majority of airlines worldwide is not sufficient [to keep within the] 2C or 1.5C target [of the Paris agreement]. We need new, synthetic and CO2-neutral fuels and other more radical measures to curb CO2 emissions in the sector.”
British Airways was placed at 74th, with an efficiency rating of D, behind companies such as Aeroflot and Aeromexico. It fell behind many of Europe’s other flag carriers, including Alitalia, Lufthansa, Air France, KLM and Iberia.
British Airways said: “We are committed to reducing our carbon emissions and have improved efficiency by more than 10% since 2008. We are well on course to deliver a 25% improvement in carbon emissions reduction by 2025. British Airways is the first airline in Europe to invest in building a plant to generate renewable jet fuel from household waste, and last week we kicked off a research project with some of the UK’s leading universities to find a way to power a long-haul aircraft with 300 customers on board with zero emissions.”
The company also pointed to a commitment by its parent group IAG to invest $400m (£313.6m) on alternative sustainable fuel development over the next 20 years.
Virgin Atlantic Airways ranks 83rd in the world, behind many airlines from developing countries such as Indonesia’s Garuda, Royal Air Maroc, Air India, and Thailand’s Eva Airways. This showing comes despite the much-publicised activities of Sir Richard Branson, Virgin’s chairman, in highlighting the risks of climate change.
Branson co-founded the Carbon War Room, which since 2009 has operated as a non-profit organisation aimed at speeding up the adoption of cleaner, low-emissions technology by businesses.
Virgin took issue with the report methodology, saying it misrepresented the airline. A spokeswoman added: “We have undertaken a massive renewal programme to replace our entire fleet over a 10 year period, switching from four-engine aircraft to much more efficient two-engine aircraft. As a result we have reduced our aircraft carbon emissions by 23.7% since 2007. Our carbon emissions will continue to reduce as we take delivery of more new aircraft over the next three years.”
Carbon emissions from airlines grew by about 5% last year, while the number of kilometres flown increased by 6%, according to Atmosfair, showing that much more needs to be done to ensure aviation does not take up an unsustainable amount of the world’s remaining “carbon budget”. Biofuels are being given trials as an alternative to fossil fuels for aviation, but these carry their own difficulties, not least the threat of deforestation. Virgin recently used recycled waste to fuel a flight, a potentially more environmentally sound alternative.
“You cannot beat physics, therefore long-haul flights will not be feasible with heavy batteries and electric engines,” said Brockhagen. “But you can produce carbon neutral kerosene synthetically, using carbon extracted from the air, water and green electricity. This is ready technologically, but 10 times more expensive per gallon than fossil kerosene. Who will invest the billions to scale this technology up? If airlines grouped together they could do it, but this would require an international spirit of cooperation over competition, so far rarely seen in the industry.”
There are also ways for airlines to reduce their emissions without resorting to new fuels and planes, through adjusting their pilots’ flying practices and small tweaks to planes. Some airlines look to offset their emissions through carbon reductions elsewhere.
A spokesman for Airlines UK, which represents the industry, said: “UK airlines are making enormous efforts to reduce their carbon emissions, and are committed to a global target to cut CO2 emissions from all flights by 50% of their 2005 levels by 2050, through technology, operational efficiency improvements and the use of sustainable biofuels. On top of this, in 2016 the International Civil Aviation Organization adopted the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation to address CO2 emissions from international aviation – a global first for any sector.”
EPA’S NEW WATER RULE WILL GUT THE CLEAN WATER ACT
Sharon Lerner - the intercept
December 7 2018, 9:01 a.m.
A NEW WATER rule will greatly reduce federal water protections, imperiling drinking water, endangered species, and ecosystems across the country. According to the rule that the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release next week — some details of which were leaked Thursday — streams that are dependent on rainfall and wetlands not physically connected to year-round waterways will no longer be covered by the Clean Water Act.
As a result of the change, an estimated 60-90 percent of U.S. waterways could lose federal protections that currently shield them from pollution and development, according to Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Alaska and the arid west will be hit particularly hard by the new rule, which will be subject to a comment period before it is finalized.
Environmentalists are bracing for what they predict will be disastrous consequences for our nation’s waterways. “For some parts of the country, it’s a complete wiping away of the Clean Water Act,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
By removing water quality standards and permitting requirements, the rule will open these streams, rivers, and wetlands to being paved over, filled in, or polluted. The result, environmentalists say, may take us back to the days of river fires. “You’ll be able to dump as much crap into them as you want,” Hartl said of our nation’s waterways. “Anyone will be free to destroy them as they see fit.”
Rivers of Fire
Jane Goodman had just graduated from high school when the Cuyahoga River caught fire in June 1969. The river fire focused attention on the extent to which Americans had fouled their waterways and is widely seen as the final indignity that spurred Congress to pass the Clean Water Act.
But for Goodman, who grew up in a suburb of Akron, Ohio, not far from the Cuyahoga, the blaze barely registered. She had always known the river, which flows north from Akron into Cleveland and from there into Lake Erie, to be coated with a slick of oil and floating debris. Heavy pollution was the norm back then. The water, which made downtown Cleveland smell like a giant septic tank, was often the color of whatever paint the Sherwin-Williams company happened to be cleaning out of its tanks. The Cuyahoga had caught fire at least nine times before that day, which explains why Goodman hadn’t thought much of the 1969 fire. She couldn’t remember the river when it wasn’t flammable.
Yet something about that particular moment turned into a national environmental turning point. Just months after a Time magazine story about the fire described the Cuyahoga as a giant cesspool — “chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases” — Americans reached a collective limit when it came to abusing their waterways. The next year saw the founding of the EPA and the country’s first Earth Day. Two years after that, Congress overrode President Richard Nixon’s veto to pass the Clean Water Act. For the first time, the country had national water quality standards and significant restrictions on what industry could dump into rivers and streams.
The new Trump administration rule imposes the most substantial restrictions on the Clean Water Act since its passage in 1972. Over the last decades, the law has succeeded in removing the most offensive pollution from the nation’s waterways. The floating human excrement is mostlygone, as are the putrid stenches, and rivers rarely flow in day-glow colors or with so much industrial waste that they pose fire hazards. PCBs and DDT are no longer freely dumped into rivers and streams, as they were before the law took effect.
But many of the less obvious water problems remain. “You only see the surface,” said Goodman, who is now the executive director of Cuyahoga River Restoration and has spent the past 12 years fighting to improve that waterway. “River restoration is like an onion,” said Goodman. “As soon as you fix those problems, that peels away the top layer. But then underneath it is a different layer.”
Indeed, there are many areas in which the law was not so successful. The drafters of the Clean Water Act set the goal of stopping all pollution discharges by 1985 and making all waterways fishable and swimmable. “It’s completely failed in that area,” said Daniel Estrin, general counsel and advocacy director at Waterkeeper Alliance.
To make matters worse, the number of contaminants in water has ballooned in the intervening years. The Environmental Working Group recently surveyed states and found 267 contaminants in drinking water across the country, 93 of which were associated with cancer risk. Many more chemicals that end up in water, including certain members of the class known as PFAS, have yet to be identified, let alone regulated.
The result is a water pollution crisis that is still dire, if less visible. Today, the Cuyahoga is one of 43 contaminated sites deemed official areas of concern in the Great Lakes basin alone. Among the environmental threats it faces are bacteria, storm water runoff, hazardous waste disposal sites, sewer overflows, and warming due to climate change.
While the Cuyahoga, along with all other navigable waterways and their tributaries, will still be protected by federal law, any wetlands not directly connected to them by surface waters will not be.
“Just about all of our tributary streams have wetlands that serve them by holding and filtering the water before it gets to the stream,” said Goodman. “Now, if someone wants to build something between the wetland and the receiving stream, there’s nothing to stop them.”
Goodman said that by lifting the protections for certain waterways, the administration was disregarding the science that shows their interconnectedness. “It’s like keeping protections for your kitchen sink and the sewer in the street and taking them away from all the plumbing in between.”
Ohio currently has its own water protections in place that may continue to protect the Cuyahoga. But with the removal of federal protections and the recent election of a Republican governor, Goodman worries that the state may no longer be as committed to protecting water. “We don’t know if local communities are going to protect their piece of the watershed or if they’ll be able to,” she said.
Even before the new rule goes into effect, more than half of the waterways in the U.S. are officially impaired, according to EPA data. The majority of the more than 1 million miles of rivers and streams that have been assessed violate federal water quality standards — as do more than 70 percent of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs, and almost 80 percent of the bays and estuaries that have been assessed. Of the 4,460 miles of monitored Great Lakes shoreline, 98 percent is contaminated, as are virtually all the Great Lakes’ open waters, which now contain PCBs, dioxin, mercury, pesticides, and other pollutants.
Yet by easing the public’s concerns about water quality, the visible improvements made possible by the Clean Water Act have ironically paved the way for the new rule that will further increase pollution.
“The Clean Water Act succeeded just enough to doom itself,” said Estrin, whose organization helps people across the country contend with coal ash leaks, chemical spills, algal blooms, drinking water contamination, and all matter of water crises. “The rollback will take us backward. And most people don’t remember just how bad that was.”
As a result of the change, an estimated 60-90 percent of U.S. waterways could lose federal protections that currently shield them from pollution and development, according to Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Alaska and the arid west will be hit particularly hard by the new rule, which will be subject to a comment period before it is finalized.
Environmentalists are bracing for what they predict will be disastrous consequences for our nation’s waterways. “For some parts of the country, it’s a complete wiping away of the Clean Water Act,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
By removing water quality standards and permitting requirements, the rule will open these streams, rivers, and wetlands to being paved over, filled in, or polluted. The result, environmentalists say, may take us back to the days of river fires. “You’ll be able to dump as much crap into them as you want,” Hartl said of our nation’s waterways. “Anyone will be free to destroy them as they see fit.”
Rivers of Fire
Jane Goodman had just graduated from high school when the Cuyahoga River caught fire in June 1969. The river fire focused attention on the extent to which Americans had fouled their waterways and is widely seen as the final indignity that spurred Congress to pass the Clean Water Act.
But for Goodman, who grew up in a suburb of Akron, Ohio, not far from the Cuyahoga, the blaze barely registered. She had always known the river, which flows north from Akron into Cleveland and from there into Lake Erie, to be coated with a slick of oil and floating debris. Heavy pollution was the norm back then. The water, which made downtown Cleveland smell like a giant septic tank, was often the color of whatever paint the Sherwin-Williams company happened to be cleaning out of its tanks. The Cuyahoga had caught fire at least nine times before that day, which explains why Goodman hadn’t thought much of the 1969 fire. She couldn’t remember the river when it wasn’t flammable.
Yet something about that particular moment turned into a national environmental turning point. Just months after a Time magazine story about the fire described the Cuyahoga as a giant cesspool — “chocolate-brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases” — Americans reached a collective limit when it came to abusing their waterways. The next year saw the founding of the EPA and the country’s first Earth Day. Two years after that, Congress overrode President Richard Nixon’s veto to pass the Clean Water Act. For the first time, the country had national water quality standards and significant restrictions on what industry could dump into rivers and streams.
The new Trump administration rule imposes the most substantial restrictions on the Clean Water Act since its passage in 1972. Over the last decades, the law has succeeded in removing the most offensive pollution from the nation’s waterways. The floating human excrement is mostlygone, as are the putrid stenches, and rivers rarely flow in day-glow colors or with so much industrial waste that they pose fire hazards. PCBs and DDT are no longer freely dumped into rivers and streams, as they were before the law took effect.
But many of the less obvious water problems remain. “You only see the surface,” said Goodman, who is now the executive director of Cuyahoga River Restoration and has spent the past 12 years fighting to improve that waterway. “River restoration is like an onion,” said Goodman. “As soon as you fix those problems, that peels away the top layer. But then underneath it is a different layer.”
Indeed, there are many areas in which the law was not so successful. The drafters of the Clean Water Act set the goal of stopping all pollution discharges by 1985 and making all waterways fishable and swimmable. “It’s completely failed in that area,” said Daniel Estrin, general counsel and advocacy director at Waterkeeper Alliance.
To make matters worse, the number of contaminants in water has ballooned in the intervening years. The Environmental Working Group recently surveyed states and found 267 contaminants in drinking water across the country, 93 of which were associated with cancer risk. Many more chemicals that end up in water, including certain members of the class known as PFAS, have yet to be identified, let alone regulated.
The result is a water pollution crisis that is still dire, if less visible. Today, the Cuyahoga is one of 43 contaminated sites deemed official areas of concern in the Great Lakes basin alone. Among the environmental threats it faces are bacteria, storm water runoff, hazardous waste disposal sites, sewer overflows, and warming due to climate change.
While the Cuyahoga, along with all other navigable waterways and their tributaries, will still be protected by federal law, any wetlands not directly connected to them by surface waters will not be.
“Just about all of our tributary streams have wetlands that serve them by holding and filtering the water before it gets to the stream,” said Goodman. “Now, if someone wants to build something between the wetland and the receiving stream, there’s nothing to stop them.”
Goodman said that by lifting the protections for certain waterways, the administration was disregarding the science that shows their interconnectedness. “It’s like keeping protections for your kitchen sink and the sewer in the street and taking them away from all the plumbing in between.”
Ohio currently has its own water protections in place that may continue to protect the Cuyahoga. But with the removal of federal protections and the recent election of a Republican governor, Goodman worries that the state may no longer be as committed to protecting water. “We don’t know if local communities are going to protect their piece of the watershed or if they’ll be able to,” she said.
Even before the new rule goes into effect, more than half of the waterways in the U.S. are officially impaired, according to EPA data. The majority of the more than 1 million miles of rivers and streams that have been assessed violate federal water quality standards — as do more than 70 percent of ponds, lakes, and reservoirs, and almost 80 percent of the bays and estuaries that have been assessed. Of the 4,460 miles of monitored Great Lakes shoreline, 98 percent is contaminated, as are virtually all the Great Lakes’ open waters, which now contain PCBs, dioxin, mercury, pesticides, and other pollutants.
Yet by easing the public’s concerns about water quality, the visible improvements made possible by the Clean Water Act have ironically paved the way for the new rule that will further increase pollution.
“The Clean Water Act succeeded just enough to doom itself,” said Estrin, whose organization helps people across the country contend with coal ash leaks, chemical spills, algal blooms, drinking water contamination, and all matter of water crises. “The rollback will take us backward. And most people don’t remember just how bad that was.”
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