Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
Ebola: 11-month-old girl becomes second to die in Congo amid fears of new wave – After more than seven weeks without any recorded cases, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has now seen two deaths in recent days, with the latest victim being an 11-month-old girl, the World Health Organisation said on Sunday. The country had been due to mark the official end of the second-deadliest outbreak of the virus on record, but on Friday a 26-year-old electrician in the eastern city of Beni was found to have the disease. The 11-month-old girl had been treated at the same health centre as the electrician, Boubacar Diallo, deputy incident manager for the WHO’s Ebola response, told Reuters. Officials say it is not yet clear how the electrician contracted Ebola. He had no known contacts with other Ebola patients and was not a survivor of the virus who could have relapsed, the government said on Friday. Flare-ups or one-off transmissions are common towards the end of Ebola outbreaks, and a new case does not necessarily mean that the virus will spread out of control again. The Ebola virus causes fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhoea and spreads among humans through bodily fluids. The current outbreak has killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018 in an area of the country where militia violence hobbled efforts to contain it. During this outbreak it has killed about two thirds of those infected. .
EPA Evades Public Comment Period, Allows Cancer-Causing Pesticide – In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that soybean farmers in 25 states are allowed to spray Alite 27, a cancer-causing weedkiller known to drift 1,000 feet from where it was sprayed, according to The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.To approve new use for the herbicide, which has the chemical name isoxaflutole and is manufactured by German-chemical giant BASF, the EPA had to skirt around the usual public comment period for the decision. The registration for isoxaflutole was opened for public comment, but it was never listed in the federal register. Agencies almost always provide notice that they are considering a new rule in the federal register, according to to The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.”The press release caught everyone off guard, we were just waiting for the EPA to open the comment period, and we never saw it,” said Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, referring to an EPA press release, as the AP reported.The spray, which is already used on corn in 33 states, can be sprayed on crops that have been genetically engineered to resist the herbicide. Commodity farmers praised the decision and touted the weedkiller as an indispensable tool in their arsenal of supplies to push back against new “super weeds” that have grown resistant to several types of herbicides, including glyphosate, or RoundUp, the most commonly used herbicide in the U.S., as to The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting reported. “One of the biggest challenges growers face is resistant weeds, and the soybean market needed a new residual active ingredient to help fight against them,” said Darren Unland, Technical Marketing Manager, BASF Agricultural Solutions, in a company press release. “Alite 27 herbicide will provide growers with another pre-emergent herbicide option to layer into their herbicide program for effective, season-long control.” Comments like Unland’s were the only ones that appeared in the public register. In fact, there were 54 comments in the public register and all of them were in praise of Alite 27, neglecting that it is a known carcinogen and that the drift of the herbicide is potentially harmful to nearby farms and farmers. “Clearly no one from the public health community knew about this because no one commented,” Donley said, as The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting noted. “Yet there was all these industry comments, all these positive comments. Someone was tipped off that this docket had been opened. One side was able to comment, the other wasn’t.”
A Second, Larger Wave of Locusts Invades East Africa Amid Pandemic – While much of the world focuses on the coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 1.6 million people across the globe, East Africa is battling the worst invasion of desert locusts in decades – a months-long “scourge of biblical proportions” that experts warn could get worse with a larger second wave already arriving in parts of the region. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, which is shepherding the global response to the region’s locust crisis, “estimates that locust numbers could grow another 20 times during the upcoming rainy season unless control activities are stepped up,” U.N. News reported Thursday. A Wednesday update from FAO’s Locust Watch service warned: The current situation in East Africa remains extremely alarming as hopper bands and an increasing number of new swarms form in northern and central Kenya, southern Ethiopia, and Somalia. This represents an unprecedented threat to food security and livelihoods because it coincides with the beginning of the long rains and the planting season. Although ground and aerial control operations are in progress, widespread rains that fell in late March will allow the new swarms to mostly remain, mature and lay eggs while a few swarms could move from Kenya to Uganda, South Sudan and Ethiopia. During May, the eggs will hatch into hopper bands that will form new swarms in late June and July, which coincides with the start of the harvest. The massive swarms have affected Djibouti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The pests have also been spotted in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan and India.
Ancient Olive Trees Across Europe Dying From Disease – A deadly pathogen is spreading across olive trees in Europe and may cause over $20 billion in losses and increase the price of olive oil, according to the BBC. The bacteria, Xylella fastidiosa, is spread by sap-sucking insects known as spittlebugs. It is considered to be one of the most dangerous plant pathogens in the world, and it has already created huge problems in Italy and Spain where it has decimated entire groves of ancient olive trees, as The Independent reported.According to experts, the bacterium is capable of destroying not only olive trees, but it also preys upon more than 300 species including lavender, rosemary, almond, plum and cherry trees. There is no cure for a Xylella infection, according to the BBC.A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the infection could cost Italy over $5 billion over the next half century. Already, the bacterium has wiped out more than 1 million trees in Italy. Spain could suffer over $17 billion in losses and Greece will face another $2 billion in losses. That is assuming the infection continues unabated and replanting is impossible, as The Guardian reported. Together, Spain, Italy and Greece account for 95 percent of Europe’s olive oil production.”The damage to the olives also causes a depreciation of the value of the land, and to the touristic attractiveness of this region,” said Dr. Maria Saponari, from the CNR Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Italy, as the BBC reported.”It’s had a severe impact on the local economy and jobs connected with agriculture.” In 2019, Italy saw a 57 percent decrease in its olive harvest, which scientists attributed to the climate crisis, as The Guardian reported at the time. The Xyllela infection restricts the tree’s ability to move water and nutrients and over time it withers and dies, according to the BBC.
Deadly olive tree disease across Europe ‘could costs billions’ – BBC – Researchers say the economic costs of a deadly pathogen affecting olive trees in Europe could run to over €20 billion. They’ve modelled the future worst impacts of the Xylella fastidiosa pathogen which has killed swathes of trees in Italy. Spread by insects, the bacterium now poses a potential threat to olive plantations in Spain and Greece. The disease could increase the costs of olive oil for consumers. Xylella is considered to be one of the most dangerous pathogens for plants anywhere in the world. At present there is no cure for the infection. It can infect cherry, almond and plum trees as well as olives. It has become closely associated with olives after a strain was discovered in trees in Puglia in Italy in 2013. The organism is transmitted by sap-sucking insects such as spittlebugs. The infection limits the tree’s ability to move water and nutrients and over time it withers and dies.In Italy, the consequences of the spread of the disease have been devastating, with an estimated 60% decline in crop yields since the first discovery in 2013. “The damage to the olives also causes a depreciation of the value of the land, and to the touristic attractiveness of this region,” said Dr Maria Saponari, from the CNR Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection in Italy. “It’s had a severe impact on the local economy and jobs connected with agriculture.” As well as in Italy, the Xylella bacterium has now been found in Spain, France and Portugal.
Chinese dams held back Mekong waters during drought, study finds – (Reuters) – China’s Mekong River dams held back large amounts of water during a damaging drought in downstream countries last year despite China having higher-than-average water levels upstream, a U.S. research company said in a study. FILE PHOTO: A general view of the future site of the Luang Prabang dam is seen on the Mekong River outskirt of Luang Prabang province, Laos, February 5, 2020. REUTERS/Panu Wongcha-um/File Photo China’s government disputed the findings, saying there was low rainfall during last year’s monsoon season on its portion of the 4,350-km (2,700-mile) river. The findings by Eyes on Earth Inc., a research and consulting company specialising in water, published in a U.S.-government funded study, could complicate tricky discussions between China and other Mekong countries on how to manage the river that supports 60 million people as it flows past Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and through Cambodia and Vietnam. Last year’s drought, which saw the Lower Mekong at its lowest levels in more than 50 years, devastated farmers and fishermen and saw the massive river recede to expose sandbanks along some stretches and at others turned from its usual murky brown to bright blue here because waters were so shallow and lacking in sediment. “If the Chinese are stating that they were not contributing to the drought, the data does not support that position,” said Alan Basist, a meteorologist and president of Eyes on Earth, which conducted the study with funding from the U.S. State Department’s Lower Mekong Initiative. Instead, satellite measurements of “surface wetness” in China’s Yunnan province, through which the Upper Mekong flows, suggest the region in 2019 actually had slightly above-average combined rainfall and snowmelt during the May to October wet season. But water levels measured downstream from China along the Thai-Lao border were at times up to 3 metres (10 feet) lower than they should have been, the group said in the study. That suggests China is “not letting the water out during the wet season, even when the restriction of water from China has a severe impact of the drought experienced downstream”, Basist said.
NASA Satellite Data Show 30 Percent Drop In Air Pollution Over Northeast U.S. – NASA -Over the past several weeks, NASA satellite measurements have revealed significant reductions in air pollution over the major metropolitan areas of the Northeast United States. Similar reductions have been observed in other regions of the world. These recent improvements in air quality have come at a high cost, as communities grapple with widespread lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders as a result of the spread of COVID-19. Nitrogen dioxide, primarily emitted from burning fossil fuels for transportation and electricity generation, can be used as an indicator of changes in human activity. The images below show average concentrations of atmospheric nitrogen dioxide as measured by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite, as processed by a team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. The left image in the slider shows the average concentration in March of 2015-19, while the right image in the slider shows the average concentration measured in March of this year. Though variations in weather from year to year cause variations in the monthly means for individual years, March 2020 shows the lowest monthly atmospheric nitrogen dioxide levels of any March during the OMI data record, which spans 2005 to the present. In fact, the data indicate that the nitrogen dioxide levels in March 2020 are about 30% lower on average across the region of the I-95 corridor from Washington, DC to Boston than when compared to the March mean of 2015-19. Further analysis will be required to rigorously quantify the amount of the change in nitrogen dioxide levels associated with changes in emissions versus natural variations in weather. If processed and interpreted carefully, nitrogen dioxide levels observed from space serve as an effective proxy for nitrogen dioxide levels at Earth’s surface, though there will likely be differences in the measurements from space and those made at ground level. It is also important to note that satellites that measure nitrogen dioxide cannot see through clouds, so all data shown is for days with low cloudiness. Such nuances in the data make long-term records vital in understanding changes like those shown in this image.
Coronavirus shutdown leads to ‘alpine’ air in polluted cities – A bittersweet silver lining to the COVID-19 virus is how clean the air in some of the world’s most polluted cities has become. New Delhi is one of many megacities around the world reporting much fresher air for the first time in years since the virus forced people inside two weeks ago. Members of a Delhi Whatsapp group exchanged screenshots of the daily air quality index last week, not believing their eyes when they saw that a green banner had replaced the familiar ominous red banner, indicating the conditions were “good.” “It’s positively alpine,” one person wrote, according to the Guardian. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, a Delhi politician and environmentalist, called the improved air quality a wake-up call. “The blissful sight of blue skies and the joy of breathing clean air provides just the contrast to illustrate what we are doing to ourselves the rest of the time,” Tharoor said. “Today the typical Delhi AQI hovers around 30 and one blissful afternoon, after a spurt of rain, it dropped to seven.” Cities like Bangkok, Beijing, Sao Paulo and Bogota, which all have some type of stay-at-home order in place, are reporting unprecedented levels of clean air. The sad irony is, few can enjoy the blue skies and fresh air since most everyone has to stay inside. The drop in pollution shows how deadly a role cars play in India’s pollution, said Delhi environmentalist Sunita Narain. Narain stressed environmentalists aren’t “celebrating” the virus that has ravaged many cities. “We have to make sure we take this breath of fresh air and think about the serious efforts we need to deal with pollution in Delhi.”
Hospital Visits Declined After Sulfur Dioxide Reductions from Louisville-Area Coal Plants – – By taking advantage of a “natural experiment” brought on by the closure of one coal-fired power plant and the addition of new pollution controls at others in the area, health researchers have documented how lowering air pollution improves the lives of asthma patients. Led by Columbia University’s Joan A. Casey, an environmental health sciences professor, the team calculated a 55 percent reduction in the amount of lung-irritating pollutants in the air over Louisville beginning in the spring of 2015. The reduction came after the closure of Louisville Gas and Electric’s Cane Run facility and the installation of sulfur dioxide scrubbers at its Mill Creek plant and another, separately owned plant in Rockport, Indiana. The researchers found that there were nearly 400 fewer hospital admissions or emergency room visits for asthma attacks in Louisville in the year following the closure and the addition of pollution controls. The findings come at a time when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been attacking the science used to establish federal air pollution regulations that have helped cities like Louisville clean up their historically dirty and deadly air quality. The research also has implications for the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which amounts to another “natural experiment” where air quality has been suddenly improved – this time, because large sectors of the global economy have shut down.
AIR POLLUTION: Trump’s soot proposal bucks advice of EPA career staff — EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is proposing to leave the agency’s existing soot standards in place for years to come – delivering a win for industry over the conclusions of agency career staff. Those particles, technically known as PM2.5, are associated with a variety of respiratory and cardiovascular ailments; in a study released last week, Harvard University researchers tentatively linked long-term exposure to even slightly higher levels of fine particles to sharply increased odds of death from COVID-19. Under the Clean Air Act, particulate matter is one of a half-dozen pollutants for which EPA must periodically review its National Ambient Air Quality Standards in light of the latest research into their health and environmental effects.Business groups like the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, oppose any change to the status quo for the soot standard. In a draft report last year, EPA air staffers had found that the existing limits may be allowing thousands of premature deaths each year. They tentatively concluded that the evidence warranted a significant tightening of the annual average exposure threshold, currently set at 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (E&E News PM, Sept. 5, 2019).An EPA advisory panel mostly made up of Wheeler appointees later rejected those staff findings on the grounds that the underlying research was unconvincing. The panel, known as the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, recommended that both the annual standard and the 24-hour limit of 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air be left in place (Greenwire, Dec. 4, 2019). In an unprecedented step,Wheeler in late 2018 fired a group of mostly academic experts charged with providing added know-how to the committee, usually known by its acronym CASAC (Greenwire, Oct. 12, 2018).Those experts then unofficially regrouped under the auspices of the Union of Concerned Scientists to produce a report calling both for stricter annual and 24-hour PM2.5 limits (Greenwire, Dec. 4, 2019). Wheeler, meanwhile, appointed an alternative group of consultants to aid in the review. As E&E News previously reported, the bulk of those consultants have ties either to CASAC members or to groups with a stake in the rule’s outcome (Greenwire, Feb. 8). PM2.5, often dubbed soot, refers to particles that are no more than 2.5 microns in diameter, or one-thirtieth the width of a human hair. Assuming that EPA meets its self-imposed December deadline for completing the review, the standards will remain in place for at least five years unless a federal court rules otherwise. Whatever the review’s ultimate outcome, a legal challenge is likely.
Chernobyl Wildfires Could Spread Radioactive Particles –Firefighters are battling to contain larger-than-usual wildfires in the Chernobyl exclusion zone as radiation levels spike at their center.The fires, which started April 3 in the west of the zone, then spread to forests in the area with higher radiation levels, Reuters reported. High winds Saturday risked pushing the blaze towards the abandoned plant and equipment used to clean up the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, acting leader of the agency that manages the area Kateryna Pavlova told The New York Times.”We have been working all night digging firebreaks around the plant to protect it from fire,” Pavlova said. The wind had been blowing the smoke towards rural parts of Russia and Belarus most of the week, but shifted Friday towards the Ukranian capital of Kyiv, home to around three million people. However, authorities said the radiation levels in the city remained normal. Contaminated smoke was expected to reach Kyiv over the weekend, but authorities said radiation levels in the air once the smoke had dispersed would be safe.The risk posed by the fires is that people might inhale radioactive particles with the smoke.”Wind can raise hot particles in the air together with the ash and blow it toward populated areas,” air pollution expert with environmental group Ecodiya Olena Miskun told The New York Times.However, Ukraine is currently on lockdown to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, and Miskun said this was an unexpected blessing.”We are lucky to have quarantine measures in place now,” she said. “People stay at home, walk less and wear masks.”The explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power station in April 1986 was the worst nuclear accident in history, Reuters explained. Afterwards, people were evacuated from a 19-mile exclusion zone around the plant that is tightly controlled to this day.Wildfires are common in the exclusion zone, but these are unusually large and follow a warm, dry winter, The New York Times reported. As of Saturday, they had consumed more than 8,600 acres and required the work of around 400 firefighters, 100 fire engines and several helicopters. “At the moment, we cannot say the fire is contained,” Pavlova told The New York Times.
Ukraine: wildfires draw dangerously close to Chernobyl site – Wildfires in Ukraine have spread to just over a mile from the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power plant and a disposal site for radioactive waste, according to activists, as more than 300 firefighters work to contain the blaze. A video posted by a Chernobyl tour operator showed flames and a cloud of smoke rising within sight of the protective shelter over the carcass of Chernobyl’s Unit 4 nuclear reactor, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history. The tour operator, Yaroslav Yemelianenko, wrote that the fire had reached the abandoned city of Pripyat and was just 2km (1.24 miles) away from the nuclear power plant and the Pidlisny radioactive waste disposal site. “The situation is critical. The zone is burning,” he wrote in a Facebook post accompanied by a video of the blaze. Yemelianenko, a member of a public advisory board to Ukraine’s emergency service, also accused the government of covering up the severity of the fires. Ukraine’s emergency service on Monday said the fire was “difficult” but called for calm, saying all radiation levels in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, were normal and urging people not to listen to “apocalyptic messages”. “The main thing we can say is that there is no threat to the nuclear power station, the spent fuel storage, and to other critical sites in the exclusion zone,” the agency said. The agency said 310 firefighters and dozens of fire trucks, as well as three aircraft and three helicopters, had been deployed to extinguish the fire. The agency did not say exactly how far the fire was from the site of the former reactor or other sensitive sites. On Monday, a member of Greenpeace’s Russia branch told Reuters that the fires were larger than Ukraine’s official estimates and could pose a health risk. “A fire approaching a nuclear or hazardous radiation facility is always a risk,” Rashid Alimov, head of energy projects at Greenpeace Russia, told the agency. Fires have been burning since 4 April in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, the 30-kilometre (18.6-mile) area around the former nuclear reactor where authorities have barred people from living.
Chernobyl guides say worst wildfires in area’s history are out of control -Guides who offer tours of Chernobyl have warned that wildfires close to the former nuclear power station are out of control and have accused Ukrainian authorities of concealing the scale of the problem, which they said now threatens to destroy many of the sites in the area. Firefighters have been struggling for 10 days to extinguish several fires burning inside the 18-mile “Exclusion Zone” that surrounds the station, which was the scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986. The fires are the largest ever to hit the area according to locals, and despite the deployment of hundreds more firefighters this week they have continued to grow.On Monday, Yaroslav Yemelianenko, the head of the Association of Chernobyl Tour Operators, said the fires were now only a kilometer from the station itself and around 2 kilometers from a site containing radioactive waste. He said the fires had also approached Pripyat, the famous ghost city built for the power station, abandoned since its entire population was evacuated following the accident. “I have two possibilities for what’s going on: either the Cabinet is not being told the real situation or they’ve chosen the Soviet policy of hushing it up, as they did in ’86,” Yemelianenko wrote. Ukraine’s state emergency service said last week that a slight rise in radiation levels had been detected at the heart of the fires, but that levels remained normal further away from them and that background radiation has not risen in Ukraine’s capital, about 60 miles to the south of Chernobyl.
Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest Has Become the Wild West for Illegal Gold Miners — From the skies above Creporizao, a remote town in the south of the Brazilian Amazon, the surrounding area looks like a vast blanket of dark green rainforest. But along the dirt roads and rivers that run through it like arteries are telling patches of muddy brown: illegal gold mines. Wildcat miners come to the area seeking their fortune. Every day, hundreds of laborers embark on long journeys up and down the Crepori river to reach the gold pits, while others fly in on small planes that land on makeshift airstrips. Such scenes have become common across the world’s largest rainforest, and are being held up as the cause of widespread destruction. Jose Maria, a miner from the state of Maranhao, is waiting on the river banks for a ride. “We’re here to do honest work and earn a living,” he said. “I don’t see what the problem is.” But the pits where Jose Maria and fellow miners work are located on the more than two million-hectare territory of the Munduruku, one of the largest indigenous tribes in the Amazon, whose mineral-rich lands are protected under Brazil’s 1988 Constitution. A 2019 survey by polling institute Datafolha showed 86% of Brazilians oppose mining on indigenous territory, yet it has been encouraged by Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s controversial bill, which calls for the legalization of commercial mining on indigenous land. Submitted to Brazil’s Congress in early February, the bill has yet to be put to a vote. A planned ballot was pushed back with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Maia, telling Congress it was “not the right moment.” But he also stressed that the bill was “not unconstitutional.”Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy told DW it was planning to “regulate activities” on indigenous land, adding that the process would require “consultation with the indigenous communities,” which would be able to participate in mining activity.While some in the Munduruku have been won over by the allure of riches, and allow gold extraction on their land in exchange for money, the majority remain opposed to illegal mining.
3rd environmental activist killed this year in Mexico (AP) – The U.N. human rights office in Mexico issued a statement Monday condemning the killing of an environmental activist in the violent Gulf coast state of Veracruz. The office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Adfln Vez Lira was shot to death on April 8 while he rode his motorcycle in the township of Actopan. Vez Lira was a longtime supporter and organizer at the La Mancha bird-watching reserve on the sparsely populated stretch of coast north of the Veracruz state capital. “Adfln Vez Lira was a recognized environmental activists whose voice and leadership had played a notable role in several environmental defense causes in Actopan,” the office said. Mourners who posted messages on the reserve’s Facebook page said he also was active in opposing mines and preserving wetlands. The area is noted for its tropical forest and coastal lagoons. He was at least the third environmentalist killed in Mexico this year.
Wild Bears ‘Having a Party’ in Coronavirus-Closed Yosemite National Park — Wild bears in Yosemite National Park are coming out of the woodwork in what park officials are calling a “party” following the park’s March 20 closure in response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.The wildly popular park is visited by millions of people every year, and at the same time hundreds of bears call the Rhode Island-sized park home, said Ranger Katie, a wildlife biologist who has worked with black bears in Yosemite National Park for more than a decade, in a Facebook live streaming over the weekend. “For the most part, I think [the bears] are having a party,” said Ranger Katie. “This time of year is difficult for the animals here. There can be literally walls of cars, stop-and-go traffic, or people in the park.” Ranger Katie is a part of the park’s human-bear management program, whose role is to mitigate conflict between humans and bears. In the video, the park ranger uses a tracking device to show a young male bear heading towards the visitor’s center, which would normally be packed with people during the warm, sunny spring. “Bears are these amazingly powerful and intelligent animals that we make our homes alongside. Because they have those characteristics and they’re very food-motivated, bears can wrack up a huge amount of property damage or even injure somebody in their pursuit of food,” said the biologist. Identified bears who have developed a taste for human food or are habituated will be captured, tagged and outfitted with a transmitter for future observations. A worker at Yosemite’s Ahwahnee Hotel told the Los Angeles Times that not only has the bear population “quadrupled,” but that he and his coworkers have also seen more coyotes and bobcats near their living quarters. “It’s not like they aren’t usually here,” said Dane Peterson. “It’s that they usually hang back at the edges, or move in the shadows.” Ranger Katie says that the meandering bears could be an issue when people return to the park. Bears that live in Yosemite Valley “key in” on triggers of people being around and tend to start to avoid places when humans become more frequent. It will take a “little bit of a learning curve,” she adds, and newer bears will be on a “steep learning curve about where they can be and when.”
Sea Shepherd Suspends Efforts to Protect Endangered Vaquitas Due to Coronavirus – Marine conservation group Sea Shepherd has made the difficult decision to suspend its campaign to protect the critically endangered vaquita porpoise in Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California. “We haven’t had much choice because we’re dependent upon getting fuel from the Mexican government to do the patrols, and we weren’t able to get the fuel,” Captain Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd, told Mongabay. “We have to send the vessels back to Mazatlfln, and once we get there, of course, then we’re not allowed to leave because of the [COVID-19] quarantine.”Vaquitas (Phocoena sinus), which are endemic to the Sea of Cortez in the Upper Gulf of California, are on the brink of extinction, although there are different estimates of how many are left. A recent study calculated there to be fewer than 19 vaquitas left as of the summer of 2018. Another report, conducted by the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita (CIRVA), suggested only about 10 individuals remain, although it also stated that there’s a 95 percent chance that 6 to 22 individuals continue to exist.The biggest threat to the vaquitas is the illegal fishing of totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi), which, like the vaquita, is classified as a critically endangered species by the IUCN. The totoaba’s swim bladder is believed to have special medicinal qualities in traditional Asian medicine, despite there being no scientific evidence to support this. The bladders, which are used to make a “curative” soup, can fetch prices up to $14,000 USD, according to the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), and they’re regularly trafficked in the global wildlife trade.Since totoabas are about the same size as vaquitas, vaquitas easily get caught in the gillnets meant to capture totoabas. Gillnets are also used to catch shrimp in the Sea of Cortez, which wreaked further havoc on the vaquita population.In 2015, the Mexican government placed a two-year ban on gillnet fishing in the Sea of Cortez, and in 2016, it announced a total ban on gillnet fishing. Despite these legislative efforts, fishing has continued in the area. During a patrol in October 2019, Sea Shepherd reported seeing more than 70 fishing boats in the vaquita’s critical habitat.
North Atlantic’s capacity to absorb CO2 overestimated, study suggests – The North Atlantic may be a weaker climate ally than previously believed, according to a study that suggests the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide has been overestimated. A first-ever winter and spring sampling of plankton in the western North Atlantic showed cell sizes were considerably smaller than scientists assumed, which means the carbon they absorb does not sink as deep or as fast, nor does it stay in the depths for as long. This discovery is likely to force a negative revision of global climate calculations, say the authors of the Nasa-backed study, though it is unclear by how much. “We have found a misconception. It will definitely impact the model of carbon flows,” said Oregon State University microbiologist Steve Giovannoni. “It will require more than just a small tweak.” Researchers say the spring phytoplankton bloom in the North Atlantic is probably the largest annual biological carbon sequestration mechanism on the planet. Like a vast forest of tiny plants in the sunlight upper part of the ocean, they draw down carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. The bigger the plankton, the higher the chance they will sink into the deep mesopelagic zone of the ocean, where carbon can be trapped for more than 1,000 years. Until now, climate models have assumed that diatoms – one of the biggest types of plankton – were dominant. But the study, published in theInternational Society for Microbial Ecology Journal, reveals they are a very minor share of biomass when compared with much smaller cyanobacteria, picophytoeukaryotes and nanophytoeukaryotes. This was expected in winter, but the research team found that even in spring – shortly before the annual bloom – there were far fewer diatoms in the western North Atlantic than assumed. Although the findings of this study of one part of the North Atlantic – much of it carried out in fierce gales – do not necessarily apply to all oceans, Giovannoni said they highlight how little is understood of marine biology, as well as the need for close-up study.
As Sea Level Rise Threatens Their Ancestral Village, a Louisiana Tribe Fights to Stay Put | NRDC – Ten years ago, as news of the BP oil disaster reached Louisiana’s Grand Bayou Indian Village, Rosina Philippe dispatched her brother Maurice Phillips on a reconnaissance mission. Phillips pointed his flatboat toward the Gulf of Mexico and motored through a series of canals and inlets until he reached a fertile fishing ground called Bay Jimmy, eight miles from home. He returned with a passenger: a brown pelican, alive but slathered in petroleum. Philippe and her brother belong to the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha Tribe. They live in their ancestral village, an hour’s drive south of New Orleans near the town of Port Sulphur. Most of the tribe’s estimated 400 members live elsewhere, but a remnant remains in Grand Bayou, a community that has shrunk over the years as its land has slowly slipped into the surrounding waters. The village consists of 14 homes and a nondenominational church. Surrounded by water, most of the buildings sit atop wooden pilings, and there are no roads to connect them. The houses line the bayou and can be reached only by boat. For generations, the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha have relied on the fertility of the Mississippi River Delta. They catch seafood and forage for wild celery, green onions, and a leafy green called morelle noire. They used to forage for persimmons, too. They trapped muskrats, packing the meat in salt and preserving it in oak barrels. They hunted for deer and rabbits – and still hunt ducks – and grew vegetables in large backyard gardens. In recent decades, however, these resources have contracted. The tribe has withstood one environmental assault after another, standing its ground in a disappearing wetland. The Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting 87-day oil spill proved catastrophic for Grand Bayou. The community had just rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the area in 2005, and residents had returned in time for the 2010 commercial shrimping season. “A lot of guys, what little bit of cash they had, they invested into making repairs on their boats because they envisioned the seafood to come,” says Philippe, a tribal elder. The springtime waters brimmed with shrimp. “So, it was almost like the anticipation of Christmas morning.” Except that Christmas never came. The oil spewing from BP’s open well about 5,000 feet below the Gulf’s surface shut down the nearby fisheries for months. Grand Bayou’s fleet remained docked long after officials insisted that Gulf seafood posed no health risk. The fishermen didn’t agree. “As long as they believed that it was unsafe to eat,” Philippe says, “they refused to go out and catch it, even though they were in dire straits financially.” Now, on the 10th anniversary of the explosion, the tribe is clear on two points. First, the BP disaster cannot be viewed in a vacuum. It is part of a litany of stresses that Grand Bayou has survived for decades, including the loss of more than 5,000 acres of fertile Delta land. And, second: They have no plans to leave.
Earth’s Second Warmest March, Second Warmest Year to Date -Even without an assist from El Niño, this year is giving 2016 a run for its money as the warmest year on record. In its monthly global climate summary for March, released on Monday, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) reported that last month was the second warmest March in record going back to 1880. The month came in only 0.15°C (0.27°F) behind March 2016.Last month also saw the third largest departure from the 20th-century average for any of the 1683 months on record, behind only February and March 2016.NASA concurred with NOAA, as did the Japan Meteorological Agency, with both ranking last month as the second warmest in their respective databases. Meanwhile, Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service found March 2020 to be the fourth-warmest March on record, but it was within 0.04 degrees of the second- and third-warmest Marches from 2017 and 2019. Such differences in rankings can stem from variations in how research groups analyze global temperature, including how they account for data-sparse areas such as the Arctic. The crucial difference between this year and 2016 is that one of the strongest El Niño events on record was peaking in late 2015 and early 2016. As it spreads warm water across the surface of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, El Niño can send vast amounts of stored oceanic heat into the atmosphere. Most of the recent record-warm spikes atop longer-term global warming from human-produced greenhouse gases have occurred during El Niño, so to get a March this warm without El Niño is truly noteworthy.
Decades of Science Denial Related to Climate Change Has Led to Denial of the Coronavirus Pandemic – Decades of climate denial now appear to have paved the way for denial of Covid-19 by many on the right, according to experts on climate politics. After the fossil fuel industry spent hundreds of millions of dollars attacking climate scientists and accentuating the supposed uncertainty of climate science, it isn’t hard to understand how that happened. President Trump, who denies climate change, has brushed off Covid-19’s seriousness until recently by relying on many of the same arguments he uses to dismiss global warming, such as ignoring government scientists or blaming China. Climate deniers have long attacked climate scientists, and Covid-19 deniers recently launched a smear campaign against Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in part because he corrected the President’s inaccurate statements about the pandemic.The radio host and staunch Trump supporter Bill Mitchell offered a glimpse of how some conservatives see the pandemic as part of a continuum of dubious science when he tweeted that the novel coronavirus is “a minor infection” and the worries about it were “climate change 2.0.” “It’s this sense of deja vu. This is what climate denialism looked like,” said Jerry Taylor, president of the bipartisan, pro-climate action think tank Niskanen Center and himself a former skeptic of climate science. “The peril here is the reality of what’s about to follow. You can’t gaslight it. You’re not going to be able to deny the reality of the deaths. That will be the wages of dismissing what the technocratic and scientific elites have been telling us for months.”
America’s ‘clean energy’ workforce projected to fall by 15% in months ahead – Over 106,000 people working in the U.S. “clean energy” sector lost their jobs in March as the industry struggled to soften the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it was claimed Wednesday. The analysis of Department of Labor data, released by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), the American Council on Renewable Energy, E4TheFuture and BW Research Partnership, paints a challenging picture for the industry. For the purposes of the analysis, the term “clean energy” encompasses a range of areas including: renewables such as solar and wind; energy storage; energy efficiency; and “clean fuels.” It shows that, last month, 106,472 people working in clean energy roles filed for unemployment benefits. Looking further ahead, the analysis projects that over 500,000 people working in clean energy – 15% of the sector’s workforce – will lose their jobs in the following months unless “quick and substantive action” is taken by both the administration of President Donald Trump and Congress. “The economic fallout from COVID-19 is historic in both size and speed,” Phil Jordan, vice president and principal at BW Research Partnership, said in a statement issued alongside the analysis. Jordan explained that activities, from the manufacture of electric vehicles to the installation of solar panels, were being impacted. “And the data pretty clearly indicate that this is just the beginning,” he added. Wednesday’s figures are a heavy blow for an industry that added over 70,000 jobs in 2019. The clean energy workforce in the U.S. grew to almost 3.4 million people at the end of last year, according to E2′s Clean Jobs America 2020 report, which was also released on Wednesday. This year looks set to pose a number of challenges for the renewables sector, many of them connected to the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused issues with supply chains and forced some factories to shut.
Ohio electric vehicle legislation pushed to back burner amid pandemic response | Energy News Network -Proposals would reduce registration fees and create sales tax credits, but prospects are uncertain in this legislative session. A set of bills aimed at promoting electric vehicles in Ohio is among the state legislation on hold across the country as lawmakers grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature has not been friendly to clean energy inrecent years. Those efforts led first to a freeze and then last year’s gutting of the state’s renewable energy and energy efficiency standards. Electric vehicle measures might fare better because of their potential to boost electric utility sales and bolster in-state auto manufacturing. However, it’s unclear when they’ll return to the agenda and whether they can be passed during this session. House Bill 546 would slash electric vehicle registration fees in half. Fees for all-electric vehicles would go from $200 to $100 per year, while fees for hybrids would drop from $100 to $50. The definition for “hybrid” vehicles would also expand to include vehicles that could run on gas and which also offer the option of plugging in.
Duke Energy warns solar producers it may cut power purchases during coronavirus crisis – Duke Energy Corp. warns independent solar producers that it may curtail contracted power purchases as low spring demand combined with reduced commercial and industrial usage during the COVID-19 crisis may create excess energy issues on the grid.Duke Energy Progress already reduced 92 megawatts of its own solar production on Friday, says spokesman Randy Wheeless. And in any situation where power must be cut back, Duke’s utilities will always start with their own utility-owned solar farms.But last week, Duke did send notice to solar producers, state regulators and other interested parties that there may be an additional need to curtail solar as spring and the emergency continues. And that may include the need to stop purchasing solar power Duke is contacted to buy under standing power-purchase agreements with independent producers.On April 9, Maura Farver, who directs distributed energy policy for Duke (NYSE: DUK), sent an email to all interested parties warning of the possible cutbacks. “Duke Energy Progress and Duke Energy Carolinas may be required to curtail energy from solar generators over the next few weeks,” she writes in the email. “This is particularly true in Duke Energy Progress. “At this time, we are not certain we will need to curtail solar or how much we will need to curtail if we need to do so,” she says. “However, we do know there is a greater probability of curtailment than normal due to the Covid19 impact on load.”
How Rick Perry bucked Congress’s clean energy mandate – – As energy secretary, Rick Perry regularly told lawmakers that he favored an all-encompassing energy policy that supported wind and solar as well as fossil fuels. But during his nearly three-year tenure, the Energy Department repeatedly hamstrung bipartisan efforts to boost spending on clean energy technology. With President Donald Trump downplaying the need to address climate change, the Energy Department under Perry delayed clean energy grants, slow-walked hiring and left staffing levels in the nation’s clean energy programs far below what they were at the end of the Obama administration, according to government records One program went unfunded for so long that the Government Accountability Office, a watchdog agency, told the department to release the money or risk violating federal law.
New York’s Power Use Crumples During Coronavirus Shutdown – New York has closed all nonessential businesses to battle the country’s worst outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, and the resulting effects on electricity demand are becoming starkly apparent. State grid operator NYISO released data Thursday showing significant drops in energy demand across the state as the lockdown entered its third week. The drop is particularly striking in New York City – down as much as 18 percent at times – where the commercial sector uses a much higher proportion of total electricity than in the state as a whole. NYISO’s data runs through April 6 and has been weather-normalized to account for temperature differences from previous years. Daily energy use across the state was down by nearly 8 percent during the last two weeks of March and into the first week of April, even after adjusting for weather, according to NYISO. That means demand has weakened since the first week of the lockdown, as the chart below indicates. “Demand across New York state is clearly impacted by COVID-19 related closures,” Rich Dewey, NYISO CEO, said in a statement. NYISO has seen drops across different parts of the state, with declines proportional to the commercial percentage of load in each region. This difference is most clear in New York City, or “Zone J” in NYISO parlance. This region, served by utility Con Edison, saw average load declines fall from about 6 percent below normal in the first days of the statewide lockdown to nearly 14 percent below normal levels as of early this week (as shown by the red line in the chart below). In terms of hour-by-hour demand in New York City, NYISO is seeing even bigger drops during the 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. hours on weekdays – the times when most office buildings and other businesses would be turning on lights, HVAC systems, elevators and other major electric loads. During those hours, demand in New York City has fallen as much as 18 percent below typical levels, while across the entire state, or the New York Control Area (NYCA), demand has fallen by as much as 12 percent. Nighttime load changes are far less pronounced, at 1 to 2 percent below typical levels.
Electricity prices pushed to new lows as coronavirus cuts New England demand with businesses closed and employees at home – With businesses and schools shut to halt the spread of the coronavirus, electricity demand in New England has dropped between 3% and 5%, resembling a weekslong snow day, according to the region’s electric grid operator. It’s pushed electricity prices to new lows, and with less power to generate, the region’s 350 power plants are spending more time protecting the safety of their 5,000 workers. Solar and wind power are pushing down electricity prices in New England, but carbon fuels still dominate » “What we’re seeing is the biggest change and disruption,” said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association. Anne C. George, vice president for external affairs and corporate communications at grid operator ISO-New England, said the drop in demand since mid-March is unprecedented.
How coronavirus is changing electricity usage, in 3 charts | Grist – As hundreds of millions of Americans change their lifestyles to flatten the COVID-19 infection curve, they’re inadvertently shifting energy supply and demand curves too. On a typical, non-pandemic day, people use a lot of electricity in the mornings before they leave home for work and school, and even more when they return home in the evenings. To match that constantly shifting demand, power operators adjust how much power from conventional sources like coal, natural gas, and pumped hydropower goes onto the grid throughout the day. Plotted on a graph, the amount of power operators need to add to the grid forms a shape called a “camel curve,” with two gentle humps in the morning and evening and a midday dip between. But when an electric grid gets a lot of power from solar energy, that graph of how much energy needs to be supplied from other sources over the course of the day forms the shape of a duck. Its tail covers the morning, its belly stretches over midday and afternoon, and its neck and head rise abruptly in the evening. That’s because the sun provides a lot of energy at a time when few people need it. In the middle of the day, when sunshine abounds and demand is low, power can be so cheap that suppliers will give it away to prevent overload. When the duck rears its head in the evening, right when the sun is going down, those round-the-clock energy sources like hydroelectric, natural gas, and coal pick up the slack. The “duck curve” is common in areas with lots of renewables, like California, which uses wind and solar for 23 percent of its electricity. Thanks to shuttered businesses and stay-at-home orders, camel curves appear to have less defined humps, while solar-heavy, duck-shaped grids, like California’s, seem to have developed a rather shapeless tail and a shorter neck.
Utility Case Timelines Not Immune To Effects Of COVID-19; Uncertainty Abounds | S&P Global Market Intelligence – Owing to the expanding impact of COVID-19 on the way business is conducted in the U.S., state utility commissions continue to impose procedural schedule changes in many pending electric and natural gas rate cases. Schedule adjustments have been adopted in prominent rate proceedings in about a dozen jurisdictions. Several key rate cases that are in their latter stages have been affected and numerous other cases could be affected if the pandemic strengthens its grip on commerce and public health in the coming weeks. Regulatory Research Associates, a group within S&P Global Market Intelligence, provided key details on March 17 pertaining to initial measures that were taken by some commissions and utilities across the U.S. to respond to the rapidly-changing situation and on March 26 gave an assessment of several pending rate proceedings that have been delayed. The information provided in these articles and below are intended to draw attention to some noteworthy details that address the industry’s response to the pandemic. RRA expects additional developments to occur and will disseminate relevant details in a timely manner. On March 31, RRA highlighted important regulatory developments that are expected to occur during April. (details on utility rate cases that have been extended or delayed in over a dozen states)
Columbus energy benchmarking ordinance is a first for Ohio – Even while most Ohio businesses are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, officials in Columbus are getting ready to help building owners comply with the state’s first energy benchmarking ordinance.“We’ve got a tremendous amount of growth going on in the city of Columbus. And with that comes an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and other negative effects of that growth,” said Anthony Celebreeze, assistant director of the city’s Department of Building and Zoning Services. The City Council passed the benchmarking ordinance in March. It will require building owners to report data on building size, energy usage and utility bills. An EPA energy manager program will then provide Energy Star scores for energy and water usage.The results will show building owners “where they’re out in front on clean energy [and] conserving energy, or whether they’re not doing as well as they probably would like,” Celebreeze said.“The building sector alone accounts for the majority of carbon emissions in Columbus,” at 58%, said Stefan Schaffer, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s city strategist for the American Cities Climate Challenge. “We’re looking at a 3% to 4% reduction in annual carbon emissions, just by reporting,” he added.That estimate is at the low end of the 3% to 8% range of reductions in total energy consumption or energy intensity that a team at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found for most cities two to four years after adopting a benchmarking policy. A report from Minneapolis earlier this year noted a 5.5% drop in that city’s energy intensity over the course of four years.
Union accuses FirstEnergy of endangering workers with nonemergency work during pandemic – The president of the major U.S. utility workers union accused the Ohio-based, investor-owned utility FirstEnergy of endangering workers and the public during the coronavirus outbreak by requiring nonemergency work to continue. While a vast majority of companies are taking the necessary precautions to stop the virus’ spread, FirstEnergy is “treating it almost like a normal day,” James Slevin, national president of the Utility Workers Union of America, said in an interview. For example, Slevin said, the utility, which serves 6 million customers across six states, is still conducting normal meter reading and other work that isn’t an immediate priority. Many other utilities are putting off nonemergency work, he added. “It kind of angers me,” Slevin said, adding such decisions are “reckless.” Slevin also said the union received a call that FirstEnergy is running out of sanitizer and is looking into getting a distillery to supply it. And while workers in the field may have personal protective equipment (PPE) and are using masks, “doing this nonessential work puts people in the Cleveland area unnecessarily at risk,” he added. “It’s also a risk to the healthcare industry, where the need for PPE is critical.”
Judge sides with CMP corridor opponents, allowing anti-powerline referendum on ballot – A Kennebec County Superior Court judge sided with opponents of Central Maine Power’s proposed powerline project Monday by allowing a referendum aimed at defeating the project to continue despite proof that some signatures were gathered illegally. The decision deals a serious blow to supporters of the $1 billion project, who are likely to appeal the ruling. CMP-funded political action committee Clean Energy Matters director Jon Breed said Monday the group is reviewing the decision before taking next steps.It is the latest development in a court effort by CMP to defeat the November referendum that poses a threat to the project as it makes its way through the regulatory process. In addition, two groups backed by stakeholders in the project have spent a combined $9.5 million this year in advertising against the referendum.Former CMP employee Delbert Reed has argued the referendum should be invalidated because paid notaries engaged in other activities for the campaign, a violation of state law. He charged that those signatures, combined with duplicates submitted by grassroots group Say No to NECEC, would knock enough signatures off the nearly 70,000 submitted to invalidate the effort. He was represented by attorneys who also represent Clean Energy Matters. Secretary of State Matt Dunlap disagreed. He found a total of 16,332 signatures were ultimately not valid earlier this month, leaving the referendum with over 66,000 signatures – enough to clear the threshold of about 63,000 signatures needed to get on the November ballot. He had previously certified the effort in March.
Reckless coal plant demolition covers Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood in dust amid coronavirus lockdown – The demolition of a 96-year old coal plant Saturday caused dust to coat the surrounding Chicago neighborhood of Little Village. The city issued the permit for demolition just 11 days before, in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic which has infected nearly 17,000 people and killed 630 in the city and surrounding Cook County. The dust cloud spread over a three-quarter-mile radius forcing residents to stay indoors. Those living closest to the demolition reported dust entering through cracks in the door and windows of their homes. Residents told theWorld Socialist Web Site they were only given a one-day notice of the planned demolition and some reported being given no notice at all. The city is under an official stay-at-home order and only essential businesses are supposed to be operating. Why the city approved the demolition taking place under these conditions remains to be answered. On a community Facebook page, resident Jazmine Barrera remarked, “Did they really have to do this with COVID-19 going on. It’s been shut down all these [years] and just now they decided.” Another added, “We knew this was coming… they don’t give a shit about us.” The coal plant was shuttered in 2012, after decades of polluting the surrounding neighborhood. City inspectors and developer Hilco Redevelopment Partners claimed that asbestos removal was completed on the site and the demolition posed no threat to public health. However, there is little reason to believe the job was done right. What toxic chemicals, if any, were in the dust that coated the area remains to be seen. Fernando Cantú, a 78-year-old man who lived less than a half mile away from the coal plant, died within hours of the implosion. Cantu, who had suffered from asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), had been outside that afternoon and was dead by 3 a.m. the next day.
Mayor, city officials furious over demolition in Little Village – Chicago Sun-Times – Mayor Lori Lightfoot joined Ald. Michael Rodriguez (22nd) and other city officials Sunday to express their frustration with Hilco Redevelopment Partners’ handling of Saturday’s implosion of a smokestack at the former Crawford Power Generating Station in Little Village. On Saturday morning, during the latest stage of the Crawford Power Generating Station demolition, an implosion sent clouds of dust particles cascading through the Southwest Side neighborhood. Once she was made aware of what happen, the mayor said she took several actions to “remediate the impact of Saturday’s event” and prevent similar events in the future, including issuing a stop-work order, initiating investigations into the city’s regulatory approval process and ordering Hilco to conduct a full clean-up and removal of dust in the surrounding neighborhood. “The fear and anxiety that residents feel about COVID-19 have only been exacerbated with this situation,” Rodriguez said. Before Saturday’s demolition, the alderman said Hilco told him it would make sure no dust would leave the site and said it would mail nearby residents notice of the demolition ahead of time; it did not, he said. While Hilco did receive the proper permitting to conduct the implosion, the promised precautions taken by the company were not enough to contain the spread of dust, the mayor said. “They were supposed to have huge water cannons on site to spray down the smoke stack before, during and after,” Lightfoot said. “The videos I’ve seen don’t suggest that there were any of these high-powered water cannons on site that would contain the dust.” Hilco has been issued a citation from the city that will result in a fine, and the Chicago Department of Public Health will be providing residents in the immediate area with masks.
Trump’s EPA Weakens Justification for Life-Saving Mercury Pollution Rule –As many Americans fight for their lives in the midst of a respiratory pandemic, the Trump administration Thursday axed the justification for a mercury pollution rule that saves more than 10,000 lives and prevents as many as 130,000 asthma attacks each year.The new rollback leaves mercury emission standards in place for now, but changes how their benefits are calculated so that the economic cost takes precedence over public health gains, The New York Times reported. The move provides a legal opening to challenge other pollution controls even as evidence suggests that exposure to air pollution might increase one’s chances of dying from the new coronavirus.”This is an absolute abomination,” former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head under Obama andNatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) president Gina McCarthy said in a statement. “This final rule will increase the risk of more kids with asthma and brain damage, and more people with cancer. Undermining these vital safeguards now also directly threatens the people hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, making it even harder to breathe and putting people with respiratory illnesses at even higher risk.”The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), first passed in 2011 when McCarthy headed the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, were the first of their kind to limit toxic emissions like mercury and lead from coal-fired power plants. These metals are particularly harmful to pregnant women and the brains of children. Between 2006, when states first began controlling mercury, and 2016, when the MATS took full effect, mercury emissions declined 85 percent, The Washington Post pointed out. At the center of Thursday’s decision is not the standards themselves, however, but how they were justified. The Obama administration argued that, while the standards would cost the industry as much as $9.6 billion a year, the country as a whole would save between $37 billion and $90 billion in public health costs. However, these calculations considered co-benefits of the mercury rule such as a decline in soot and smog-causing pollution.In the rule released Thursday, the EPA said it was not appropriate to consider these side benefits.”We have put in place an honest accounting mechanism,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters Thursday, as The Washington Post reported.According to the EPA’s new accounting mechanism, the rule would cost industry $7.4 to $9.6 billion a year and only generate annual savings of $4 to $6 million in mercury-specific health costs, Reuters pointed out. “One would not say it is even rational, never mind appropriate, to impose billions in economic cost in return for a few dollars in health benefits,” Wheeler said, according to The Washington Post.
Republican Senators Want to Help Coal Get U.S. Bailout Money – A group of powerful Republican senators wants to make sure the bailout program being administered by BlackRock Inc. on behalf of the federal government won’t leave fossil-fuel companies behind. The U.S. government tapped BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to become the buyer of corporate bonds as part of a $454 billion effort to bail out companies hit by the coronavirus lockdown. That triggered a letter from Greenpeace, Sierra Club, 350.org and other environmental organizations on March 27 urging Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to weigh climate risk in its guidelines for BlackRock as it decides what sectors of the economy get financial support. Now, in a letter sent Tuesday, a group of 17 Republican senators, including James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Ted Cruz of Texas, are asking Powell and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to ensure that fossil-fuel companies aren’t excluded from the bailout program being administered by BlackRock. The pandemic has created an unprecedented upheaval in the global economy. With governments around the world pouring huge sums of money into propping up struggling companies, climate advocates see an opportunity to speed up the transition to clean energy and make entire industries as green as possible. Republican lawmakers have opposed this encroachment from environmental groups, pushing back and largely succeeding so far in separating stimulus spending from climate concerns.Led by Kevin Cramer, Senator from North Dakota, the group of Republican lawmakers seeking to safeguard fossil-fuel companies in the bailout draws heavily from states with concentrations of coal, oil, and gas extraction. Wyoming Senator John Barrasso, who also signed the letter, heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The letter calls for the Fed to ensure the relief program is “broad and flexible” and asserts that companies in the “energy and transportation sectors” deserve support. But the message appears particularly concerned with the possible exclusion of coal companies, noting that BlackRock decided in January to exclude any company from its actively managed holdings if it derives more than 25% of its revenue selling coal used in power plants. BlackRock has more than $7 trillion under management, although much of that is in passive holdings. A representative for the company declined to comment on the senators’ letter.
Coal companies seek to cut tax that supports Black Lung Disability Trust Fund – – Washington Post – Harold Sturgill spent 35 years down in the coal mines, running a ferocious machine that grinds away at the seams of coal and at the rock that encases them, throwing coal dust and silica into the air. In 1998 he was diagnosed with black lung disease. He kept working underground another 17 years after that, the only job he could imagine doing where he lives in Beckley, W.Va. Now 60, and a widower, he’s retired and concerned his weakened lungs could make him more susceptible to complications from the novelcoronavirus. “I can’t hardly walk down to my basement and come back up without gasping for breath,” he said. With the black lung, “you go on and it gets worse, and it never gets better.” He’s one of 25,000 retired miners supported by the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund, a program administered by the Department of Labor and funded by an excise tax on mine operations for every ton of coal they carve out of the earth. But now the coal companies, citing the economic cost of the pandemic, want to cut back the taxes they pay to support the fund and let the federal government pick up the tab. “They’re crooks,” said Sturgill, who receives a benefit of $686.70 a month from the fund and worries the program might be shut down completely. “They’re going to try to use this virus thing to stop paying benefits.” The National Mining Association asked Congress last month for a 55 percent cut in the excise tax for the trust fund, and a suspension of another fee that pays to clean up abandoned mines. Altogether the operators say they could save about $220 million. While the level of taxation to back the fund has fluctuated sharply over the past two years, it currently stands at $1.10 for every ton of coal mined underground and 55 cents for surface coal. The idea didn’t make it into the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill, but the association plans to keep pushing for it. If the coal companies succeed in getting the tax cut, the black lung trust fund would need to borrow more money than it already does from the federal government to maintain benefits. It’s currently about $4 billion in debt to the Treasury. The NMA – which includes among its members the six largest coal operators not currently in bankruptcy and smaller firms – points out that coal is hardly alone in seeking government help, and it says that retired miners would not see their benefits or health care reduced.
Consol reopens Bailey Mine that had been shut from COVID-19 – The Bailey Mine, which Consol Energy Inc. had closed for two weeks after two coal miners tested positive for COVID-19, went back into operation Monday. Bailey, one of three coal mines at Consol’s massive underground complex beneath Greene and Washington counties, announced March 30 that it would temporarily shut the mine due to the COCID-19 cases. The company said at the time that it would deep clean the mine and stop the production there for two weeks out of an abundance of caution. At least one other employee tested positive for COVID-19. “We continue to reiterate to employees who test positive, have been exposed to someone that has tested positive for COVID-19, or have any flu-like symptoms, to stay home and contact their human resources representative,” a Consol spokesman told the Business Times on Monday. Consol’s other two mines in the underground complex, Enlow Fork and Harvey, remained open as did the preparation plants.
Massive increase in toxic emissions at Australian coal power plant – Data released this month by the National Pollutant Inventory revealed that the Vales Point coal-fired power plant on the New South Wales (NSW) Central Coast released 130,000 kilograms of fine particulate matter in 2018-19, an increase of 181 percent over the previous year. Australians became all too familiar with toxic PM2.5 pollution in recent months, as smoke from the summer’s catastrophic bushfires enveloped large sections of the country for weeks on end. The World Health Organisation estimates that 4.2 million premature deaths each year are caused by air pollution. Exposure to PM2.5 has been shown to increase the incidence of heart, lung and kidney disease. A study released earlier this week at Harvard University in the United States found that a small increase in long-term exposure to PM2.5 also is associated with a 15 percent increase in the COVID-19 death rate. An Australian federal government review board recently ruled against a bid to use $14 million of the federal Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) to upgrade the privately-owned Vales Point plant. The Independent Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee found that the proposed turbine blade replacement project would cut the power station’s carbon emissions by a mere 1.3 percent, not enough to bring the plant’s emissions below the grid average. The bid for funding had been rejected in 2018 by the government’s Clean Energy Regulator for the same reason, but the plant’s multi-millionaire co-owner, Trevor St Baker, sought an “urgent meeting” to appeal the decision. Melissa Price, the then environment minister in the federal Liberal-National government, called for the review. While this proposal was turned down, nothing in the ruling contradicts Price’s 2018 insistence that the ERF was “technology neutral,” and therefore could be used to fund supposed upgrades to polluting coal-fired power stations. In the first five years of its operation, the government’s $2.55 billion ERF reportedly reduced Australia’s carbon pollution by 44.8 million tonnes, a mere 8 percent of the country’s annual emissions, and less than one fifth of the emissions caused by the recent bushfires. More than half of that reduction came from reforestation projects, suggesting a significant portion of projected future gains may have literally gone up in smoke. Like the earlier Emissions Trading Scheme introduced by the last Labor government of 2007 to 2013, the ERF is aimed at bolstering the very capitalist market responsible for global warming and the environmental crisis. Rather than forcing big polluters to forgo any of their profits to reduce, or at least pay the true cost of, their carbon emissions, they are rewarded with additional public funds for even the smallest effort to improve their environmental performance.
Santee Cooper center as SC House-Senate feud gets angrier (AP) – The plan was for South Carolina lawmakers to meet Wednesday, get their business done in an hour or two and head home until at least the summer, when hopefully the coronavirus crisis was past. Instead, that old entanglement Santee Cooper popped up again. The typical annoyance between the House and Senate turned to anger. Sniping statements and speeches were exchanged. And now at least one of the chambers will have to return before July 1 and pass a bill allowing the state to continue operating without a budget or South Carolina will shut down. Wednesday’s unfinished business leaves lawmakers with several choices. Pass nothing and let the state shut down seems inconceivable. The likeliest scenario is the House returns. It can pass what the Senate passed or change it again and put the ball back in the Senate’s court. Or both sides could let the May 14 adjournment date pass and leave it to the governor to call a special session. At issue is the fate of Santee Cooper. Lawmakers have been studying whether to sell or reform the state-owned utility since it took on $4 billion in debt in the last decade for a minority stake in a pair of nuclear reactors that never generated power. The bill to allow state government to keep spending included a section to extend the law allowing the state to sell or reform the utility to be extended into 2021. House leaders said Senate leaders agreed to a provision preventing Santee Cooper from entering into any contracts over a year in length, but suddenly that became an issue 36 hours before Wednesday’s session.
Coronavirus expands foothold at Georgia Power’s Vogtle project – The new coronavirus has infected several more workers on Georgia Power’s nuclear expansion of Plant Vogtle, described as the largest construction project in the state. The utility’s parent, Southern Company, cautioned investors last week that the multi-billion-dollar project’s latest timeline and costs could be disrupted by the pandemic. The work already is years behind scheduled and billions over budget, problems that developed long before COVID-19.Georgia Power said Friday that a total of six of the roughly 9,000 workers assigned to the project have been confirmed to have COVID-19. It had reported the first confirmed case there less than a week ago.Nearly 170 other workers are under quarantine because they were in close proximity to workers who had pending COVID-19 tests, company spokesman John Kraft wrote in an email to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.Eleven workers are awaiting test results and 79 have tested negative, he wrote.The company did not disclose what parts of the project the workers were assigned to. Nor did it say whether any of the infected workers have been hospitalized.“Construction work continues at the site under continuing enhanced protocols designed to reduce worker-to-worker contact and keep areas that workers frequent, cleaned and sanitized,” Kraft wrote.Among other things, the company said it has added portable hand-washing stations, adjusted break schedules, implemented some alternate work schedules, closed an on-site cafeteria and suspended on-site transit trams and shuttle buses.
As the coronavirus pandemic bites, EDF lowers its nuclear output projections for 2020 – In the latest example of how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting the energy sector, French utility EDF said Thursday that it was sharply revising down its projected nuclear output for this year. In a statement, the company said it expected its nuclear output for 2020 to be “in the region of” 300 terawatt hours (TWh) – a steep downwards revision to the 375-390 TWh previously forecast. The company explained that in response to the ongoing public-health crisis it had made adjustments to all of its activities in order to protect workers at its nuclear power plants. Work slated to be carried out during maintenance outages had been “significantly affected,” it said, which had in turn lowered output capacity. “Furthermore, the economic slow-down has brought about a drop in electricity consumption, which could potentially fall by 20% compared to usual levels, thereby resulting in reduced nuclear output,” EDF said. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, France has reported 134,598 cases of Covid-19, and 17,188 people have died. Looking ahead, EDF added that it was working with French grid operator RTE to provide a “continuous supply of power” this winter, and said that a number of reactors “may have to be taken off line this coming summer and autumn in order to save fuel on these power plants.” Given the above, the firm said output was expected to be between 330 to 360 TWh in 2021 and 2022. Shares of EDF were down around 5% on Thursday. Earlier this week, the company withdrew all of its financial targets for 2020 and 2021. Globally, EDF operates 73 nuclear reactors, with 58 of these located in France.
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