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:
- 17 May 2020 – Coronavirus Disease News 17May 2020
17 May 2020 – Coronavirus Economic News 17May 2020
Trump EPA Won’t Regulate Toxic Drinking Water Chemical That Harms Children’s Development — In defiance of a court order, the Trump administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not regulate perchlorate, a toxic chemical used in rocket fuel that contaminates drinking water and harms the development of fetuses and small children. The move is in keeping with other Trump administration decisions not to impose recommended limits on toxic chemicals, such as its decision not to ban child-harming pesticide chlorpyrifos or known-carcinogen asbestos,The New York Times pointed out. “This is all of a piece,” University of Maryland law professor Rena Steinzor told The New York Times. “You can draw a line between denial of science on climate change, denial of science on coronavirus, and denial of science in the drinking water context. It’s all the same issue. They’re saying ‘We don’t care what the research says.'” High concentrations of perchlorate have been found in at least 26 states, usually near military sites because of its use in rocket fuel. It has been shown to hamper the development of fetuses and young children by blocking the thyroid gland’s uptake of iodine and therefore interfering with hormone production. The EPA had been ordered by the courts to finalize regulations on the chemical by the end of June. Instead, administratorAndrew Wheeler will reverse a 2011 EPA finding that the chemical posed a health risk to between five and 16 million Americans and argue that it is “not in the public interest” to regulate it, two staff members familiar with the issue told The New York Times Thursday. “EPA’s cynical decision to defy a court order and the law, and to ignore the science that, as the American Academy of Pediatrics has said, dictates a strong perchlorate standard to protect vulnerable kids, is a deeply disturbing violation of the agency’s mission,” Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) senior strategic director for health and food Erik Olson wrote. “It must be reversed.”
Florida Beachgoers Left Behind 13,000 Pounds of Trash Last Week on This Beach – When beaches in Florida reopened last week, people flocked to them to absorb the sun, sand and water. Unfortunately, many forgot to take their trash with them when they left.While pollution and emissions have precipitously dropped worldwide, Cocoa Beach saw a huge spike in garbage as cleanup crews collected more than 13,000 pounds strewn across the sand over the weekend, asThe Hill reported.The beaches, which reopened on April 21, will remain open, but authorities will start to crack down on litter by increasing the fines and enforcement, according to Florida Today. Littering will now come with a $250 fine.”As restrictions are becoming more relaxed during this pandemic, the City of Cocoa Beach is beginning to see an influx of day-trippers to our beaches, along with piles of unlawfully discarded trash in their wake,” Cocoa Beach Police Department wrote in a notice, according to Florida Today. “This will not be tolerated.”In a Facebook post, the Cocoa Beach Police Department stated that they will be “focusing on litter violations in the days and weeks ahead in an effort to educate the public and mitigate this repulsive and disrespectful behavior.”This weekend’s litter collection surpassed the previous weekend’s total of roughly 12,000 pounds. Two weekends ago, cleanup crews collected 297 bags of trash, which weigh roughly 40 pounds per bag. Bryan Bobbitt, executive director of Keep Brevard Beautiful, told CNN that the true number would be higher since they did not collect many larger items like tent poles and beach chairs that were left behind.This weekend’s total was 305 bags of trash, according to Bobbitt. Volunteers and observers have noticed that the discarded items are often single-use plastics.”People will come from out of town and leave an umbrella, a tent or chairs because it’s a onetime use,” said Bobbitt to CNN. “Chip bags, plastic straw wrappers and anything can get blown into the dunes.”Cocoa Beach Police Chief Scott Rosenfeld said in a statement that the local community works “very hard to be stewards of environmental sustainability,” as The Hill reported.”If I need to relocate critical resources during our peak season to combat litterers, we are no longer asking our visitors to comply with our litter laws, we expect it, and there will be consequences for offenders,” he added.
Microplastics Are Wafting in on the Sea Breeze – Last month, researchers discovered surprisingly high concentrations of microplastics on the seafloor. And now, a paper published in PLOS ONE Tuesday finds the ocean is spitting some of them back in our faces in the form of the sea breeze.”We keep putting millions of tonnes of plastic into the ocean every year,” study co-leader and University of Strathclyde Ph.D. candidate Steve Allen told The Guardian. “This research shows that it is not going to stay there forever. The ocean is giving it back to us.”The study is the first to show microplastics being released into the atmosphere by the ocean itself. The researchers found up to 19 microplastic pieces per cubic meter of air along the Bay of Biscay in France,Wired reported. They also demonstrated in a lab how the popping of bubbles could fling microplastics into the air.Microplastics are just the latest addition to the messy bursting of ocean bubbles, the researchers explained.”That bubble actually acts as like a sponge for tiny particles like sea salt, viruses, bacteria, and – potentially – plastics, as it comes up through the water column,” University of Strathclyde microplastic researcher and co-study leader Deonie Allen told Wired. “So the outside of that bubble is now sort of coated in particles.”When the bubble pops, those particles shoot into the air.All this means you may have to reassess your idea of a sea breeze. The researchers estimated the ocean spray ejects 136,000 tons of microplastics every year.”Sea breeze has traditionally been considered ‘clean air’ but this study shows surprising amounts of microplastic particles being carried by it,” Steve Allen told The Guardian. “It appears that some plastic particles could be leaving the sea and entering the atmosphere along with sea salt, bacteria, viruses and algae.”
You cannot avoid microplastics – Microplastics are everywhere – including in our drinking water, table salt and in the air that we breathe. Having studied the scope of microplastics in a number of countries, researchers are worried. Given the lifetime inevitable exposure to microplastics, we urgently call for a better understanding of the potential hazards of microplastics to human health, says Dr Elvis Genbo Xu, an Assistant Professor of environmental toxicology at the University of Southern Denmark. There are many studies on microplastics, especially concerning the oceans, but in this study Elvis Genbo Xu and his colleagues chose to focus on microplastics in table salt, drinking water and air. Microplastics have been found in many places, including in various foods such as honey, milk, beer and seafood, but these are foods that you can choose not to eat – unlike salt, water and air, which no one can avoid, and that’s why we’re focusing on these, he says. When we inhale microplastics, the tiny particles can reach the lungs and digestive system. Nobody knows what this means for the human organism and our health, but as we are talking about a lifelong exposure, it’s a cause for concern, says Elvis Genbo Xu. There are no official guidelines for how much microplastic food may contain. Likewise, no studies have defined values for when certain sizes or amounts of microplastic particles can be hazardous for humans to ingest. However, animal studies show that the ingestion of microplastics can disturb, for example, the metabolism and intestinal system. High concentrations of microplastics in table salt have been found in Croatia, Indonesia, Italy, USA and China. Conversely, concentrations are low in Australia, France, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Portugal and Africa. Microplastics do not come from the salt itself, but are added during drying, production, packaging and transport. The occurrence of microplastics is greatest in water from recycled plastic bottles. The microplastics may originate from one or more steps in the water supply chain, from the plastic bottle itself or from its screw cap. The researchers were surprised to find microplastics in water sold in glass bottles. One possible source is the plastic cap, which can release microparticles when screwed off and on the glass bottle.
Fine particulate matter may increase mortality among young patients with certain cancers – An analysis of nearly 16,000 young patients with cancer in Utah revealed that exposure to fine particulate matter was associated with increased mortality at five and 10 years after diagnosis of certain cancers. The Study was Published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research; this paper will be featured in a forthcoming Environmental Carcinogenesis Focus section in the journal. “It is estimated that roughly 40 percent of Americans live in communities with unhealthy levels of air pollution,” said Ou. “Currently, there are no guidelines for long-term cancer survivors that advise reducing exposure to air pollution, nor are cancer patients considered a population vulnerable to mortality or illness from air pollution. Our results suggest that limiting exposure to fine particulate matter may be important for the survival of younger cancer patients with specific cancers.” Studies have shown associations between increased exposure to fine particulate matter, defined as atmospheric particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and cancer mortality among adult breast, liver, and lung cancer patients, yet the underlying biology of cancers in young patients potentially differs from cancers in adults, Ou explained. “Because the associations observed between exposure to fine particulate matter and increased cancer mortality in adults cannot be easily extrapolated to younger cancer patients, we wanted to study how continued exposure to fine particulate matter after diagnosis affected survival outcomes in this specific population,” she said.
Healey, linking air pollution to COVID-19 disparities, calls for action – Poor air quality increases people’s vulnerability to the coronavirus and helps to explain why some of the most polluted areas in the state have become COVID-19 hotspots, according to a new report from Attorney General Maura Healey’s office. Cities that are home to a high percentage of people of color, including Chelsea, Everett, Lawrence and Lynn, have had disproportionately high rates of coronavirus infections, the report found, relying on an analysis from the Boston University School of Public Health. Communities of color are also exposed to more air pollution and have higher rates of hospitalizations from asthma. “These families and these communities are breathing the most polluted air and face the biggest COVID vulnerabilities,” Healey said in a Zoom call for reporters. Researchers and community leaders have previously said that environmental factors might be a key reason that some cities have been hit hard by the coronavirus while others have been spared. Healey joined that chorus on Tuesday, releasing a brief linking air quality to high COVID rates in certain parts of the state, and offering policy recommendations to help combat the disparities. Policymakers, Healey’s brief said, should invest in clean energy and green jobs during the period of economic recovery that will likely follow the coronavirus crisis, fight rollbacks of federal environmental regulations, and increase air quality monitoring in order to track high levels of pollution in poor and minority neighborhoods. The memo also recommended that policymakers establish stronger criteria for permitting and siting facilities that create pollution and affect residents’ health. “Our neighbors are getting sick and dying every single day,” said Roseann Bongiovanni, the executive director of GreenRoots, an environmental justice group in Chelsea. Bongiovanni and other leaders in Chelsea have long sounded the alarm about Chelsea’s unequal environmental burden, which includes 85,000 vehicles, plus ships and planes, passing over and under the Tobin Bridge every day.Chelsea is also the epicenter of the coronavirus in Massachusetts, with rates of infection higher than those in New York City, according to Healey’s office. Cities like Chelsea, Brockton and Lawrence have a combination of factors that make the coronavirus so deadly; in addition to environmental burdens, many residents live in crowded housing, work essential jobs, and rely on public transit, where social distancing is difficult.
Human Pollution Reaches Underground Cave Ecosystems, New Study Shows — New research published in PLoS ONE May 6 examined how water runoff from the surface impacted the communities of microbes in the Monte Conca cave system in Sicily. The answer? Quite a lot. Potentially human-introduced bacteria made up less than 4 percent of the microbial community during the dry season, but shot up to almost 90 percent during the wet season, after heavy rains.”Anthropogenic microbial contaminants originating from outside of the cave environment can replace endemic cave communities,” the researchers concluded.The Monte Conca cave system is one of many caves formed by a process called sulfuric acid speleogenesis, by which groundwater containing sulfur dissolves limestone. Communities of microbes within the caves contribute to this process, the researchers explained.But the study, carried out by a team of microbiologists and geoscientists at the University of South Florida (USF), indicates that bacteria from urban and agricultural areas can enter these unique communities via runoff from surface water, the university press release explained. This happens despite the fact that the Monte Conca system sits below a nature preserve.To assess the impact of surface-level bacteria on the cave’s microbial communities, the researchers compared their composition between the dry and wet seasons.During the dry season, more than 90 percent of the microbes were sulfur oxidizers. These are bacteria uniquely adapted to use both oxygen from the cave and sulfur from its spring pool. But during the wet season, when large amounts of rainwater enter the cave, the composition radically changed. Escherichia and Lysinibacillus bacteria jumped from 3.7 percent of the microbial community to 89.5 percent. These are fecal and soil bacteria researchers identified as influenced by human activity, including the fecal bacteria Escherichia coli, or E. coli.Researchers also found evidence of a transition period between the wet and dry seasons in a sample taken when rains were 50 percent of typical wet season levels. During this period, the human-i ntroduced bacteria made up 67.3 percent of the microbes, while sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and nitrogen-fixing bacteria were also present.
Urban air quality improves as coronavirus empties U.S. highways: NOAA – (Reuters) – U.S. air quality has improved since the coronavirus crisis emptied the roads of traffic, giving the country a futuristic glimpse of the clearer skies that could come with an electric vehicle fleet, according to preliminary findings by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration labs. Using satellites, airplanes and ground monitors, NOAA researchers say they have observed a 25% to 30% reduction in smog-causing nitrogen oxide emissions along with big cuts in volatile organic compounds and greenhouse gases in both the heavily populated U.S. Northeast and in Colorado’s urban cluster. The so-called COVID Air Quality Study, which focuses on those two disparate regions of the country, “offers a glimpse into a potential future of urban air quality, due to the ongoing electrification of the U.S. transportation fleet,” NOAA said. “We can learn lessons from this shutdown,” said Xinrong Ren, a researcher at the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory in Maryland, who added he expected urban areas of the United States would see similar improvements in air quality if half the U.S. car fleet was electrified and more people continued to work from home. Other parts of the world have also recorded improvements in air quality since the coronavirus outbreak, including the notoriously smog-filled Indian city of New Delhi and industrialized parts of northern China, a thin silver lining to a health crisis that has killed almost 290,000 people. NOAA researchers said they were comparing their U.S. pollution measurements to data recorded in previous years to come up with the estimated cuts. Along the I-95 corridor from Boston to Washington, for example, NOAA researchers found a decrease in nitrogen oxide emissions of 25% to 30% and a cut in carbon dioxide emissions of 15% to 20%, as traffic dropped by about half from typical levels. Transportation is the source of around 43% of the nation’s nitrogen oxide emissions, and 29% of its carbon dioxide emissions, according to according to the U.S. Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR). Preliminary findings from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, showed that concentrations of volatile organic compounds measured during the month of April in Colorado’s Front Range – home to the state’s most-populous cities – were half what they were in April 2018, said Jessica Gilman, a NOAA research chemist. Carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides also decreased by about 30% when compared with the median monthly observations from 2010 to 2019, she said.
Bluer Skies, Less Greenhouse Gas. What Happens After the Pandemic? – Earlier this month, health care experts from across the United States gathered to address hundreds of journalists and policymakers by webinar. But their focus was not testing, nor vaccines, nor “herd immunity.” It was not even COVID-19, really. Instead, their focus was climate change.”While many see issues like climate change and biodiversity loss as far from what’s going on right now … I see this as the time to talk about it,” said Aaron Bernstein, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. “Climate solutions are, in fact, pandemic solutions.”A few days later, economists and policy experts with the World Resources Institute held their own panel discussion. The message was similar, and the audience one of the largest in the organization’s history. The experience of and response to COVID-19, proclaimed expert after expert, was intricately tied to climate.Indeed, increasing numbers of researchers and policymakers, scientists and health care practitioners, are looking at the coronavirus through an ecological lens. Whether they are focused on consumer behavioral shifts, changes in emission outputs, or policy decisions that might help or hurt long-term goals for green infrastructure, they are seeing in this moment a pivotal chance to address climate change.”As we respond to the very imminent economic and health crisis, can we also tackle the climate and sustainability crisis?” asked Manish Bapna, WRI’s managing director and executive vice president.There have been a number of short-term environmental shifts connected with how the world is coping with the pandemic. China’s carbon emissions dropped 18% between the beginning of February and mid-March, according to data compiled by the website CarbonBrief. Pollution over India has decreased dramatically, according to satellite images from NASA’s Earth Observatory. And in the U.S., a dramatic decrease in air travel, as well as a drop in vehicular travel, has also lowered emissions. But many of these changes are temporary, researchers say, and may barely register on any long-term analysis of global carbon emissions. The drop in China’s carbon output, for instance, came alongside a lockdown over much of the country and a related plunge in factory operations. As the country reopens, says Fang Li, chief representative of the World Resources Institute in Beijing, emissions are expected to rebound along with the economy. After the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, Dr. Fang and others point out, global emissions grew rapidly.
Panicked Over “Murder Hornets” People Are Killing Bees – People, get a grip. Yes, the Asian giant hornet, now famously known as the “murder hornet,” is one huge scary wasp, capable of decimating an entire colony of honeybees and savagely stinging and possibly killing humans who get in their way.But since last week, when it was reported that two hornets were spotted for the first time in Washington state, the national panic has led to the needless slaughter of native wasps and bees, beneficial insects whose populations are already threatened, said Doug Yanega, senior museum scientist for the Department of Entomology at UC Riverside. (Bees, for one, are the planet’s pollinators-in-chief,pollinating approximately 75% of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “Millions and millions of innocent native insects are going to die as a result of this,” Yanega said today. “Folks in China, Korea and Japan have lived side by side with these hornets for hundreds of years, and it has not caused the collapse of human society there. My colleagues in Japan, China and Korea are just rolling their eyes in disbelief at what kind of snowflakes we are.” The worries started on May 2, after the New York Times reported that a beekeeper in Custer, Wash., found an entire hive of bees destroyed in November 2019, their heads ripped from their bodies. Then two Asian giant hornets were found near Blaine, just a few miles north, near the U.S.-Canadian border.One of the hornets was found dead on a porch. The other reportedly flew away into the woods, Yanega said, and since then Washington entomologists have been on the lookout, encouraging residents to set out traps for the hornets so authorities can find and destroy any nests before they can grow.Queens are the biggest of the world’s biggest hornets. They can grow to 2 inches from their cartoonish Spider-Man-type face (with vicious mandibles) to their quarter-inch-long stinger that can puncture heavy clothing. They hibernate, Yanega said, so scientists speculate that at least two hornet queens hitched a ride to the New World on a cargo ship, the first time it’s known to have happened “in over a century of significant maritime commerce between Vancouver and Southeast Asia.”
200 Goats Run Wild Through California Neighborhood – A California neighborhood was treated to an unusual lockdown protest Tuesday evening when around 200 goats broke through a fence and ran shoulder to shoulder through the streets. The moment was captured on video and shared on social media by 23-year-old Zach Roelands, who returned to his San Jose home around 5 p.m. to find the goats on the loose, as USA Today reported. “This is the craziest thing to happen all quarantine,” Roelands tweeted.While goats may not be very good at social distancing, they are very helpful at combating another potential crisis – California wildfires. Their ability to munch on flammable non-native grasses while navigating steep hillsides has made them a valuable (and adorable) part of fire-prevention efforts across the state. That is the reason the goats were in the neighborhood to begin with, Zach’s father Terry Roelands told NBC Bay Area. The hill behind the Roelands’ home caught fire around 15 years ago, so goats have since come to eat the brush a few times a year. This time, one of the goats went to eat a flower on the other side of the fence and tapped an electric fence, which then broke the boards on the fence, allowing the goats to escape.
Giant Lizards Are Spreading in Georgia –In the wake of news about “murder hornets” invading the West Coast, the Southeast has its own scourge to contend with: an invasive, South American lizard that can grow up to 4 feet in length. The lizard has been spotted for the third year in a row, according to a Facebook post from the Orianne Society, a reptileconservation group, as The Associated Press reported.The Argentine black and white tegus was first spotted in Florida, but they have now migrated north to establish themselves in Georgia’s Toombs and Tattnall counties, said John Jensen of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Conservation in a YouTube video.In the video, Jensen explained, “Many of the public that encounter these often report them, thinking that they look like a baby alligator well away from the water. They eat just about anything they want, plant and animal matter.””Tegus will eat the eggs of ground-nesting birds – including quail and turkeys – and other reptiles, such as American alligators and gopher tortoises, both protected species,” according to the Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Conservation’s website, as CNN reported. The lizards will also eat fruit, vegetables, pet food and small animals – including grasshoppers and gopher tortoises.The tegus’ voracious appetite means it poses a threat to native wildlife, especially protected species like American alligators and gopher tortoises. The black and white tegus have been seen hiding in gopher tortoise burrows and eating tortoise and alligator eggs, as well as baby tortoises, according to The Associated Press.”Established from escaped or released pets, these large lizards are voracious predators that have been found consuming a variety of native wildlife in the longer-established Florida populations,” the Orianne Society wrote on Facebook.The society said it believes tegus are able to survive the state’s winters, which means it has the potential to spread quickly. “It is critical to remove invasive species early in the invasion process to have the best chance of success,” the society said, according to CBS News.
Florida wildfire covering 6,000 acres forces evacuations and closes Alligator Alley – Wildfires fuelled by strong winds and dry weather are sweeping across Florida forcing evacuations in the Naples area. NBC 2 reports that several brush fires began burning in Golden Gate Estates inCollier County on Wednesday.They eventually combined to form one large fire spanning as much as 6,000 acres on Thursday. The fire is five to ten per cent contained.Parts of Interstate 75, known as Alligator Alley, have been closed as a precaution, with visibility changing unpredictably due to smoke and shifting winds.The Naples Fire-Rescue Department said in a statement posted to Facebook: “All residents in the area of the fires should be aware of the danger and follow any orders advising evacuation.”“This is an extremely dangerous situation and the fire conditions are making it very difficult to predict the movement and protect property.”Governor Ron DeSantis is travelling to Collier County to receive an update on the fires from local emergency officials.On Wednesday night the local sheriff’s office tweeted: “Moderate winds are contributing to significant fire movement which is now anticipated throughout the late night.”More than a dozen wildfires raged across Florida this week thanks to hotter and drier than average weather in April. The Florida Panhandle was hit hard last week when wildfires led to evacuations and road closures near Pensacola.
Shark Attacks: Surfer Killed in Northern California, Another Escapes in Australia -A 26-year-old man was killed by a shark as he was surfing near a state beach in Northern California on Saturday, according to authorities, as The New York Times reported.Ben Kelly was roughly 100 yards from shore at Manresa State Beach near Santa Cruz when a shark attacked him around 1:30 p.m., the California Department of Parks and Recreation said on Sunday, according to The New York Times. While the beach was closed to encourage social distancing, the water was open for people to engage in water sports, like surfing and swimming.A witness flagged down a lifeguard patrolling the area. Since the attack, the beach and water are now closed until May 14. The water is off-limits for one mile north and south of the attack and signs have been posted to inform potential beachgoers of the presence of sharks, according to the AP.Monterey Bay drone photographer Eric Mailander told KRON he has observed dozens of great white sharks swimming near the shoreline in recent days. He said he counted 15 sharks while out on his boat Saturday morning, as the AP reported. The species of shark that attacked Mr. Kelly is still unknown, the Department of Parks and Recreation said in a statement. “White sharks are big enough and their teeth are so sharp that even a halfhearted attempt will cause significant injuries,” he said.Fatal shark attacks are rare along the Northern California coast, although it is a major breeding ground for the great white shark, according to KPIX, San Francisco’s CBS affiliate. There have been at least two other fatal attacks since 1984, KPIX noted, but those involved divers. In March, a shark bit the board of a paddleboarder near Capitola, narrowly missing him, according to the sheriff’s office. On the other side of the world, a shark bit a French surfer in Australia, but the surfer was able to get away.Video of the incident shows Dylan Nacass and Matt Sedunary yelling and scrambling to get away from a stalking shark, as The Guardian reported.Nacass, 23, punched the shark twice when it attacked him at Bells Beach in Victoria, according to Sky News. He needed stitches for his puncture wounds. “I punched him one time, he stay in my legs. Two times after, he go,” he told television news in Australia. Matt Sedunary heard screaming and thought Nacass was joking around. After realizing the seriousness of the situation, he rushed to help, as Sky News reported.
Trump Admin Denies Endangered Species Protections to Pacific Fishers Across Most of Their Range — The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced Thursday it would deny Endangered Species Act protections to the weasel-like Pacific fisher throughout most of its West Coast range, only protecting a subset of its population in the California Sierras. “The Trump administration’s denial of protection for fishers is an unwarranted gift to the timber industry that ignores key science on these at-risk animals,” Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) endangered speciesdirector Noah Greenwald said in a press release. “These awesome forest weasels face huge threats, including the logging of their old-growth forest homes, rodenticide poisoning and a warming world. They absolutely should have been granted much broader safeguards.”Tens of thousands of Pacific fishers once lived in the woods from Southern California to British Columbia, but, beginning in 1900, their numbers started to decline as trappers sought them for their pelts and loggers destroyed their habitat, Reuters explained. In recent years, they have also been threatened by rodenticides used to protect illegal marijuana farms and the climate crisis. There are now only two populations: 100 to 500 in the southern Sierra Nevadas and around 3,000 in Northern California and Southern Oregon. Studies have shown that they are genetically distinct, the Sierra Sun Times reported. It is the first and smaller of these populations that FWS announced Thursday it would protect as endangered.
With attention on virus, Amazon deforestation surges (AFP) – It has not gotten much attention with the world focused on coronavirus, but deforestation has surged in the Amazon rainforest this year, raising fears of a repeat of last year’s record-breaking devastation — or worse. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hit a new high in the first four months of the year, according to data released Friday by Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE), which uses satellite images to track the destruction. A total of 1,202 square kilometers of forest (464 square miles) — an area more than 20 times the size of Manhattan — was wiped out in the Brazilian Amazon from January to April, it found. That was a 55 percent increase from the same period last year, and the highest figure for the first four months of the year since monthly records began in August 2015. The numbers raise new questions about how well Brazil is protecting its share of the world’s biggest rainforest under President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right climate change skeptic who advocates opening protected lands to mining and farming. “Unfortunately, it looks like what we can expect for this year are more record-breaking fires and deforestation,” Greenpeace campaigner Romulo Batista said in a statement.Last year, in Bolsonaro’s first year in office, deforestation soared 85 percent in the Brazilian Amazon, to 10,123 square kilometers of forest. That loss — nearly the size of Lebanon — fueled worldwide alarm over the future of the rainforest, seen as vital to curbing climate change. The destruction was driven by record wildfires that raged across the Amazon from May to October, in addition to illegal logging, mining and farming on protected lands. The trend so far in 2020 is all the more worrying given that the usual high season for deforestation only starts in late May.
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon Increases for 13th Consecutive Month – Despite the global economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon appears to be continuing largely unabated with forest clearing over the past 12 months reaching the highest level since monthly data started being released publicly in 2007, according to official data released Friday by the country’s national space research institute INPE. Forest loss in Earth’s largest rainforest has now risen 13 consecutive months relative to year-earlier figures. INPE’s deforestation monitoring system, DETER, detected 406 square kilometers of forest loss in the “legal Amazon” during the month of April. That brings the extent of deforestation measured by the system to 9,320 square kilometers for the year ended April 30, 2020, 40% higher than where it stood a year ago and more than twice as high as it was in April 2018. 5,606 square kilometers of forest have been lost since the “deforestation year” began August 1, 2019, the highest on record for this time of year. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest, has been trending upward since bottoming at 4,571 square kilometers in 2012. Prior to that, deforestation had been declining in the region thanks to better forest monitoring and environmental law enforcement, public and private sector efforts to curb forest clearing, the creation of new protected areas and indigenous territories. The rise in deforestation has been particularly sharp since Jair Bolsonaro assumed the presidency in January 2019. Bolsonaro has rolled back environmental regulations, granted amnesty from fines for illegal deforestation, cut budgets for environmental law enforcement, diminished the role of scientists in the government, blamed environmental NGOs for deforestation and claimed without evidence that Leonardo DiCaprio funded last year’s fires in the Amazon, and opened protected areas and prospective indigenous territories for extractive industries and agribusiness. He’s openly called for more deforestation in the Amazon, while his administration has sacked officials charged with protecting forests and indigenous peoples against illegal land invasions.
Missouri River Drought Was Its Worst in 1,200 Years, Study Finds –For the first decade of the 2000s, the Missouri River, the nation’s longest river, was drier than it’s been in more than 1,200 years. The culprit is the climate crisis, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS.Since global temperatures continue to warm, the severe droughts like the one the Upper Missouri River basin experienced are likely to happen again, as The Washington Post reported. Rising temperatures that reduced the amount of snowpack melt in the Rocky Mountains in Montana and North Dakota caused the drop in the water level that persisted from 2000 to 2010, according to the study.”In the Upper Missouri River basin, what we’re really worried about is a future of snow droughts,” said Erika Wise, an associate professor in the geography department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and study co-author, to The Washington Post. “Snowpack in the Rocky Mountains is very sensitive to warming temperatures. Snow provides the water for stream flow to the Upper Missouri, and we’ve designed our agriculture and infrastructure around expectations that this water will be provided at a certain pace over a certain part of the year.”The Missouri River runs through North and South Dakota and past Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, where it supports farming in several states and provides fresh water for dozens of municipalities. “In terms of the most severe flow deficits, the driest years of the Turn-Of-The-Century-Drought in the [Upper Missouri River Basin] appear unmatched over the last 1,200 years,” the study said, as The Washington Post reported. “Only a single event in the late 13th century rivaled the greatest deficits of this most recent event.”
Water loss in northern peatlands threatens to intensify fires, global warming – A group of 59 international scientists, led by researchers at Canada’s McMaster University, has uncovered new information about the distinct effects of climate change on boreal forests and peatlands, which threaten to worsen wildfires and accelerate global warming. Manuel Helbig and Mike Waddington from McMaster’s School of Geography and Earth Sciences gathered observational data from collaborators in countries across the boreal biome. Their study of how ecosystems lose water to the atmosphere appears today in the journal Nature Climate Change. The unprecedented detail of their work has highlighted dramatic differences in the ways forests and peatlands regulate water loss to the atmosphere in a warming climate, and how those differences could in turn accelerate the pace of warming. As the climate warms, air gets drier and can take up more water. In response to the drying of the air, forest ecosystems – which make up most of the world’s natural boreal regions – retain more water. Their trees, shrubs and grasses are vascular plants that typically take up carbon dioxide and release water and oxygen through microscopic pores in their leaves. In warmer, dryer weather, though, those pores close, slowing the exchange to conserve water.Together with lakes, the spongy bogs and fens called peatlands make up the remainder of the boreal landscape. Peatlands store vast amounts of water and carbon in layers of living and dead moss. They serve as natural firebreaks between sections of forest, as long as they remain wet. Peatland mosses are not vascular plants, so as warming continues, they are more prone to drying out. Unlike forests, they have no active mechanism to protect themselves from losing water to the atmosphere. Dehydration exposes their dense carbon stores to accelerated decomposition, and turns them from firebreaks into fire propagators, as shown in previous research from Waddington’s ecohydrology lab.
The First Tropical Depression of the Atlantic Hurricane Season Forms Off Southeast Coast; Tropical Storm Watch Issued – The first tropical depression of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has formed near the northern Bahamas and is expected to become Tropical Storm Arthur this weekend. This system will bring some rain, breezy conditions, high surf and rip currents to parts of the Southeast coast into next week. Tropical storm watches have been issued for portions of the North Carolina coast. Tropical Depression One is located east of the Florida’s East Coast and has been producing showers and thunderstorms, along with gusty winds over parts of South and Central Florida and the northwestern Bahamas. Friday morning, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale took the brunt of the heaviest rain. Rain fell at the rate of almost 2 inches per hour, triggering a flash flood warning for Miami-Dade County, where street flooding was reported to be widespread, according to the National Weather Service. Scattered showers have been moving from north to south through the Florida peninsula on Saturday. Tropical Depression One is expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Arthur by Sunday, and move north-northeastward along the Southeast Coast. Wind shear, a shredding of clouds by varying winds in different layers of the atmosphere, has continued to decrease and become more favorable for slow development of this disturbance since Thursday. These winds are expected become far more favorable this weekend. Tropical Depression One is likely to strengthen modestly this weekend as it moves northeastward. This system will gradually have less impacts over Florida even as it develops and strengthens because thunderstorms are expected to be somewhat lopsided on the eastern side of the system, but some showers and thunderstorms are possible in eastern Florida this evening. The heaviest rain from the system is expected to fall over the Bahamas through Saturday.
New High Seas Treaty Could Be a Gamechanger for the Ocean – In 2018, after more than a decade of groundwork at the United Nations, negotiations officially began for a new treaty focused on conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in the waters beyond national jurisdiction. The proposed treaty is being developed under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was signed in 1982 and defined nations’ rights and responsibilities for use of the world’s oceans. The Convention itself is a landmark agreement that established many key environmental protections and policies, but over the years it’s become obvious that some gaps in its governance policy have left the ocean’s ecosystems open to ongoing and emerging threats. The new treaty is intended to help fill those gaps, although, as with any international agreement, that presents challenges. Representatives of world governments gathered in 2018 and 2019 for three rounds of negotiations, but many parts of the key issues remained unresolved. Among them are plans to establish a framework for evaluating and implementing area-based management tools, which include marine protected areas, since no such systems exist now for the high seas. Other items requiring agreement include establishing uniform requirements for conducting environmental impact assessments; how benefits from marine genetic resources may be shared among nations; and capacity building for management and conservation. Many experts hoped the fourth negotiation session, originally scheduled to begin March 23 at the U.N. headquarters in New York, would lead to the finalization of the treaty’s text, but the meetings were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “This is the first time that there’s been a treaty process devoted to marine biodiversity in the high seas and the first ocean treaty really to be negotiated in over 30 years,” said Peggy Kalas, director of the High Seas Alliance, a coalition of more than 40 environmental nonprofits and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. “It’s a big deal, and it’s been a long time coming.” But this historic opportunity is also one that could be squandered if the treaty fails to enact protections strong enough to actually safeguard ocean life.
Analysis: India’s CO2 Emissions Fall for First Time in Four Decades Amid Coronavirus – An economic slowdown, renewable energy growth and the impact of Covid-19 have led to the first year-on-year reduction in India’s CO2 emissions in four decades. Emissions fell by around 1% in the fiscal year ending March 2020, as coal consumption fell and oil consumption flatlined.The decline in emissions reflects the headwinds already affecting the Indian economy since early 2019, and increasing renewable energy generation. But our analysis of official Indian data across the nation’s entire 2019-20 fiscal year shows the fall has steepened in March, due to measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s CO2 emissions fell by an estimated 15% during the month of March and are likely to have fallen 30% in April.As with the global CO2 impact of the pandemic, the longer-term outlook for India’s emissions will be shaped, to a significant degree, by the government response to the crisis. This response is now starting to emerge – as set out below – and will have major long-term implications for India’s CO2 emissions and air quality trajectory. As lower power demand growth and competition from renewables weakened the demand for thermal power generation throughout the past 12 months, the drop-off in March was enough to push generation growth below zero in the fiscal year ended March, the first time this has happened in three decades.Over the preceding decade, thermal power generation grew by an average of 7.5% per year. As seen in the figure below, the dramatic drop-off in total power demand was entirely borne by coal-based generators, amplifying the impact on emissions. Coal-fired power generation fell 15% in March and 31% in the first three weeks of April, based on daily datafrom the national grid. In contrast, renewable energy (RE) generation increased by 6.4% in March and saw a slight decrease of 1.4% in the first three weeks of April.
Could New York’s Youth Finally Convince the State to Divest Its Pension of Fossil Fuels? – Despite never having heard of a pension plan before this year, 18-year-old Natalie Penna finds herself discussing New York state’s retirement fund, and its role in financing the fossil fuel industry, quite a lot lately. “We’re investing in these things that will temporarily benefit the people who are making money off it in their pensions, but what’s left for us afterwards?” she said. “What’s the world going to look like for us?” The Albany High School senior is one of hundreds of youth from across New York now urging state legislators and other officials to divest the nation’s third largest pension system of its fossil fuel holdings, arguing that failing to do so ignores the reality of climate change and goes against the state’s mandated emissions reduction targets. Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law that says the state must transition its power sector to net-zero emissions by 2040 and reduce the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. In April, a day before Earth Day’s massive virtual gathering, Penna and about 150 other youth met with nearly 40 New York lawmakers or their staff online, asking them to support a bill that would force the New York Common Retirement Fund to divest from fossil fuel companies within five years. As of last year, the fund had nearly $211 billion in assets under management and currently has about $5 billion in fossil fuel holdings, according to the New York State Comptroller’s office.The bill, known as the Fossil Fuel Divestment Act, has been introduced in the New York Senate four years in a row but has never made it out of committee. But as youth climate strikers who are sheltering in place seek ways to spread their message without marching in the streets, the once stalled legislation has quickly gained support this year.Teenage activists with New York Youth Climate Leaders, an advocacy group, virtually meet with New York Sen. Liz Krueger to talk about divesting the state’s pension of fossil fuel holdings. The group lobbied nearly 40 state lawmakers last month on the day before Earth Day.Though still in committee, the bill has already received majority support in the state Senate with 33 sponsors. It’s counterpart in the state Assembly currently has 58 sponsors and needs 76 votes for passage. If passed by both chambers, New York would be the first state in the nation to commit to divesting its pension entirely of companies that make their money from producing, selling or burning fossil fuels.”It’s absolutely in a stronger place than it’s ever been before,” said Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat and the bill’s original sponsor. “And I absolutely believe it is young advocates who are making the difference.”
America is trailing in the clean energy race – The United States is falling behind other countries in the race to transition to a clean energy future, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum.For the second-straight year, the United States lost ground in rankings that measure countries on key issues, including energy security, environmental sustainability and preparedness for the energy transition.Ranked 32nd out of 115 countries, the United States scores below European countries including Sweden, France and the United Kingdom as well as Canada, Colombia and Costa Rica. In 2018, the United States was ranked 25th in the Energy Transition Index. The main reason for America sliding in the rankings is poor marks for Washington’s political commitment and regulatory stance towards clean energy and fossil fuels.President Donald Trump has attempted to revive the embattled coal industry by slashingenvironmental rules and installing a former coal lobbyist to lead the EPA. At the same time, Trump has gutted fuel economy standards and falsely claimed that windmills cause cancer.“The United States has remained flat, while other countries have evolved,” said David Victor, a professor at the University of California San Diego who sits on the panel of advisors that ranks nations on the energy transition.Experts warned that the coronavirus pandemic adds great uncertainty to future efforts to transition the world to cleaner energy.The health crisis has scrambled intricate global supply chains, making it harder for solar companies to source panels they normally buy from China. And plunging revenue in cities and states and at major companies could make it harder to fund the transition towards renewable energy.
Clean energy has shed nearly 600,000 U.S. jobs due to pandemic: report – (Reuters) – The U.S. clean energy sector has lost 17% of its work force, or nearly 600,000 jobs, as stay-at-home orders halt production of components from solar panels to electric cars and slow installations at homes and businesses, according to a report released on Wednesday. The sector lost 447,200 jobs, about triple the 147,100 lost in March when states first began implementing lockdown orders to combat the spread of the new coronavirus, according to the analysis of U.S. unemployment data conducted by BW Research Partnership. While they represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s total job losses during the period, the clean energy industry’s fall in employment has exceeded estimates. After a similar study last month, BW Research had projected 500,000 job losses sector-wide by the end of June. It now expects 850,000 job losses, about a quarter of all clean energy jobs, in that time. “The data does not suggest that we have yet to hit the bottom,” BW Research Partnership Principal Phil Jordan said in a statement. Total U.S. unemployment claims have reached 33.5 million since mid-March, according to the Department of Labor. The clean energy industry’s job losses are a devastating blow to an industry that had been growing rapidly. The 594,347 jobs lost is more than double the number the sector has created since 2017, the report said. Energy efficiency accounted for 70% of the losses, as contractors who install efficient lighting or heating and cooling systems were unable to access homes and offices. Renewable energy has shed more than 95,000 jobs and the clean vehicle industry has lost 46,500 jobs, according to the report. California was the state hardest hit, with more than 100,000 jobs lost in total. Florida, Georgia, Texas and Michigan each lost more than 22,000 clean energy jobs in April alone, the report said.
Trump Admin Approves the Nation’s Largest Solar Project Despite Wildlife Concerns – A solar and battery storage project large enough to power the residential population of Las Vegas received final approval from the Department of the Interior on Monday, despite concerns from some conservationists about the project’s impact on the threatened Mojave desert tortoise.The $1 billion project is expected to produce 690 MW of electricity coupled with a 380 megawatt AC battery storage system, enough to power about 260,000 homes and businesses. Located on federal land near Las Vegas, the 7,000-acre project was opposed by local and regional environmental groups, who say construction activity could harm wildlife and biological soil crusts which sequester large amounts of carbon. “The solar industry is resilient and a project like this one will bring jobs and private investment to the state when we need it most,” Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, told the AP.
U.S. approves massive solar power project on public land – (Reuters) – The Trump administration on Monday approved what it said would one day be the largest solar project in U.S. history, to be located on federal land in the Nevada desert. The Gemini Solar project is expected to generate enough electricity to power 260,000 homes in the Las Vegas area and will include a battery system to store energy for use after the sun goes down, the U.S. Department of Interior said in a statement. Nevada utility NV Energy, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, will be the customer for the project’s power. California-based Arevia Power is the developer. Officials said the project would be key to stimulating economic activity amid the crippling coronavirus pandemic. The $1 billion project will generate $713 million of economic activity during construction, which is expected to begin this year and last until 2022 or 2023. It will employ an average of 500-700 construction workers at any given time, the department said. Once built, the project will employ 19 full-time workers. Approval of the massive project, which will be sited on about 7,100 acres (2,873 hectares) of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land, was delayed here earlier this year over concerns about its impact on a historic region traversed by settlers of the American West. BLM reached an agreement with the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, Nevada BLM Director John Rabe said on the call, but is awaiting the signature of Indian tribes before it will issue a Notice to Proceed with construction. Conservation groups have also raised concerns about the project’s impact on the federally threatened desert tortoise. About 70 tortoises will be relocated to a conservation center during construction, officials said, and will be returned to the site once the project is built.
GUEST COMMENTARY: Bill to stop Grain Belt Express is bad for Missouri’s economy | Guest Commentaries – As Missouri residents worry about the health crisis wreaking havoc on our state, the legislature is ignoring those concerns to work on the pet projects of the politically powerful and the wealthy. As the public is told to avoid the Missouri Capitol and the audio on livestreamed committee hearings has continual “technical issues,” it is challenging for the public to understand which bills are being pushed in their name and for whose benefit. One proposal being scuttled through this dark process is a bill to prevent the Grain Belt Express transmission line from exercising eminent domain. Well, the bill doesn’t exactly do that: It describes banning a specific transmission project that could only be the Grain Belt Express line and says only this transmission line cannot use eminent domain. Let’s put aside that targeting one particular person or company is itself unconstitutional to get into the the details of the Grain Belt Express project. This is a transmission line designed to bring wind-generated power from the Great Plains to heavily populated areas east of Missouri. Along the way, Grain Belt will deliver power to dozens of Show-Me State municipalities – such as Columbia – at a savings to rate payers of $12.8 million per year. Direct investment into Missouri’s energy infrastructure will amount to $500 million. Plus, over 1,000 Missouri residents will be hired to build the Grain Belt Express across northern Missouri. This does not include the tens of millions of dollars that will be paid out to landowners along the line for access to their property.
Even In A Pandemic, Texas Is Expected To Break Electricity Use Records This Summer – The group that operates the Texas electric grid expects the state to break records for peak electricity use this summer, despite the fact that people are using less electricity because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In its Seasonal Assessment of Resource Adequacy, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas forecasts yet another hotter-than-average summer. That combined with continued population growth means the state’s electric demand will increase, even while it is dampened by the pandemic. Pete Warnken, ERCOT’s manager of resource adequacy, says there should be enough electricity available to meet everyone’s needs, though “an extreme heat wave or low wind generation or an unusual amount of generation outages could still mean that emergency alerts need to be declared.” Those alerts include calls to conserve electricity if the state gets close to its reserve margin, which is the amount of extra energy on hand beyond what operators believe to be peak demand. This summer’s assessment is a big shift from last year’s. In 2019 ERCOT was confronting its smallest ever electricity reserve margin. Some wondered if rolling blackouts would be in the cards, but the grid made it through without ERCOT needing to cut anyone’s power. About half of summer peak electricity use comes from air conditioning. That means heat is a big factor in predicting demand. In line with global warming, Texas has seen hotter and hotter summers both in terms of average temperatures and the number of triple digit days the state experiences.
Commentary: Energy storage is a game-changer for Texas – Wind and solar are powerful forces in their own right, mainly given their ever lower costs and their rare ability to provide some long-term stability in a turbulent world. The U.S., including Texas, has deployed large numbers of wind turbines and solar panels and deployment will continue to grow. But once another emerging technology – cheap energy storage – shows up, they might very well explode onto the landscape. That is on the verge of happening.You can’t make the sun shine at will or the wind blow when it doesn’t want to. Thus, in that regard, these technologies have earned some fair skepticism. The past and current strategy has generally been to use other dispatchable power plants and flexible demand to help respond to variability in wind and solar output when balancing supply and demand on the grid. This strategy has largely worked because there have been plenty of dispatchable power plants available and the Texas electricity market – the best, most competitive and efficient in the world – makes sure they are compensated fairly for their services. Today, we are much better at predicting changes in wind and solar output and thus are in a much better position to manage them. Wind and solar deliver energy at some of the lowest costs of any source and new technologies keep making them cheaper and easier. Cheap energy storage is often seen as the “holy grail” technology that forms, along with solar and wind, an “energy trinity” that ushers us into the promised land of clean, cheap, and abundant resources. But until now, there have been cheaper ways of generating electricity, namely by managing rivers and lakes for hydropower, harnessing the atom with nuclear fission and burning coal, oil and natural gas. But as wind and solar have become – and with energy storage becoming – commodities rather than luxuries, their overall costs have declined significantly. And, because their fuel is free and renewable, the electricity they produce has a stable price, which cannot always be said for other sources. Just like solar, energy storage is scalable and can be installed in massive quantities alongside utility-scale wind and solar farms, such as the 460 MW Permian Energy Center announced recently by Ørsted, or on a small a scale for individual homes. This bodes well for energy storage, as the more flexible a technology is, the more valuable it will be and the more markets it can serve.
What part of ‘zero’ doesn’t Dominion understand? – The more things change, the more they stay the same. Dominion Energy Virginia filed its 2020 Integrated Resource Plan on May 1. Instead of charting the electric utility’s pathway to zero carbon emissions, it announced its intent to hang on to all its gas plants, and even add to the number. In doing so, it revealed a company so thoroughly wedded to fracked gas that it would rather flout Virginia law and risk its own future than do the hard work of transforming itself. The Virginia Clean Economy Act may be new, but Dominion can hardly claim to be surprised by the commonwealth’s move away from fossil fuels. Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order last September set a statewide target of zero carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2050.“Challenge accepted,” said a Dominion spokesman at the time, and in February of this year the company claimed it was embracing a 2050 net-zero-carbon goal company-wide. A month later, passage of the Clean Economy Act moved the deadline up to 2045 for Dominion, keeping it at 2050 for utilities that lack Dominion’s head start of 30 percent nuclear power. Dominion’s IRP, however, does not accept the challenge to get off fossil fuels. It rejects the challenge, directing a giant middle finger at the governor and the General Assembly. Dominion’s “preferred” plan keeps the utility’s existing fracked gas generating plants – currently 40 percent of its electric generation – operating through 2045. The IRP acknowledges this violates the law, so it argues against the law. The IRP posits that if Dominion stops burning gas in Virginia, it will instead simply buy electricity from out of state, some of which will be generated by gas, and this will cost more money without reducing carbon emissions at the regional level. Better, then, to keep burning gas in Virginia. It gets worse. The IRP actually proposes increasing the number of gas combustion turbines in Dominion’s fleet. The VCEA imposes a two-year moratorium on new fossil fuel plants, so Dominion’s timetable has these gas peaker plants coming online in 2023 and 2024. The justification is vague; the IRP cites “probable” reliability problems related to adding a lot of solar, but it offers no analysis to back this up, much less any discussion of non-gas alternatives. Dominion’s flat-out refusal to abandon gas by 2045 poisons the rest of the document. The IRP is supposed to show a utility’s plans over a 15-year period, in this case up to 2035. And for those years, the IRP includes the elements of the VCEA that make money for Dominion: the build-out of solar, offshore wind and energy storage projects. It also includes money-saving retirements of outmoded coal, oil and biomass plants, as the VCEA requires. Heck, it even includes plans to close a coal plant the VCEA would allow to stay open in spite of its poor economic outlook.
Walmart blasts Virginia regulator’s report on pricing, biomass in Dominion’s proposed 100% renewable energy tariff – Utility Dive – Walmart, one of Dominion Energy’s largest customers in Virginia, warned regulators that their consideration of the utility’s plan to offer a 100% renewable energy option to C&I and residential customers includes unreasonable pricing, according to a Monday filing. An April report from Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) hearing examiner Mary Beth Adams recommended approving Dominion’s proposed tariff. The utility largely approves of Adams’s recommendations and wants to see the tariff approved quickly, to prevent customers from leaving its service. Walmart, alongside renewable energy advocates, said the premium would be paid for an inferior product, as it would include “energy that most customers do not consider to be renewable,” such as co-fired coal and biomass units. The company has long-opposed the tariff but noted a litany of oversights in the net-positive report from Adams. Ten fundamental issues that will impact the energy and utilities sector and how our industry players can prepare to address them in the months to come.Dominion is eager for regulators to approve its proposed 100% renewable energy tariff, after submitting the plan in May of 2019 as some of its largest customers tried to leave its service.High costs and the lack of existing 100% renewable energy options in Virginia have driven large customers to seek exit from Dominion’s service.The utility urged the SCC to issue an order approving the tariff, which would prevent other companies like Direct Energy and Calpine from signing up new customers for their 100% renewable service. Virginia is a regulated state, and customers that wanted to receive all renewable energy were allowed to exit Dominion’s service if they could not get that from the utility itself.While Calpine and Direct Energy have made progress on gaining new customers in Virginia, regulators denied the exit applications of Walmart and Costco last summer, due to concerns over impacts to other ratepayers. Walmart wrote in its Monday response Adams’ report failed to take into account the rates of other competitive service providers offering 100% renewable energy, although Direct Energy offered live testimony in the proceeding on competitive pricing. “[R]ather than needing to offer a product that charges a premiumabove standard service – as Dominion proposes here – customers should be able to pay less than standard service to receive 100% renewable power,” Walmart wrote in its response. Walmart and other stakeholders also commented that the tariff cannot be for a 100% renewable offering if it includes coal-burning units.
Duke CEO decries ‘assault’ on natural gas as shareholders, others target company’s resource plans — Duke Energy faced tough questions from shareholders about its long-term resource plan last week, ahead of its Q1 earnings call on Tuesday. Shareholders pressed the utility on its clean energy progress, including its plans to invest in natural gas well into the 2030s. “I am disappointed to learn that the tool of natural gas is under such assault,” Duke Board Chair, President and CEO Lynn Good told shareholders, adding that the fuel will remain important in the transition away from coal and toward renewable resources. The utility’s Q1 earnings on Tuesday indicated Duke intends to continue on its path to expand its natural gas infrastructure, including building the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, through its $5.6 billion five-year capital plan. The utility also said it is “highly confident” it will reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs $350-$450 million in 2020, as part of its COVID-19 response. Duke has been criticized by some for its plans to build out natural gas infrastructure, as well as its perceived slow progress on other clean energy investments. That concern was echoed by shareholders during the company’s 2020 shareholder meeting on Thursday, who asked the utility a number of questions related to its progress, especially relative to other utilities. However, Duke says regional discrepancies may make it easier for some utilities to invest in renewable energy resources in the short term. “I believe in this march to reduce carbon there will be geographic differences,” Good told shareholders. In the utility’s Florida and Carolinas territories, for example, it does not have “abundant wind like other utilities who may be operating more fully in the Midwest. And so having a mix of renewables to achieve more rapid reduction more early in the period is often an opportunity presented to those who have very abundant wind resources,” she said. Duke has also been making strides in energy efficiency and overall carbon reductions, she said. “I believe what may be overlooked in this conversation is the extraordinary progress this company has made,” including reducing carbon emissions 39% below 2005 levels and the ownership of 8,100 MW of renewables. But environmental and consumer advocacy groups were quick to dismiss the regional discrepancy argument, noting that the utility’s territories in North Carolina and Indiana are both suitable for wind investments.
BIOFUELS: Ethanol producers would get cash payments under House bill — Wednesday, May 13, 2020 — Biofuel producers hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic would receive cash assistance from the Department of Agriculture as part of the relief bill released by House Democrats yesterday.
EPA’s New ACE Rule for Power Plants Barely Decreases Emissions Last year, the EPA repealed the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era policy aimed at reducing carbon pollution from power plants.The agency replaced it with the Affordable Clean Energy – or ACE – rule. The new rule does not place limits on power plant pollution. Instead, it directs states to prioritize energy efficiency improvements at power plants. The idea is that more-efficient plants will burn less fuel.”An unfortunate kind of unintended consequence of that approach is that those power plants then become more cost-effective to operate and tend to run more,” says Kathy Fallon Lambert of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment.Her team analyzed EPA data about the expected impact of the ACE rule. Because some plants will likely run more and old power plants may be kept online longer, she says that over a fifth of power plants were estimated to have an increase in CO2 emissions.Overall, the new rule is projected to drive down emissions less than 1% beyond what would likely happen without any policy at all.”The bottom line when it comes to the ACE rule is that it does virtually nothing to confront climate change,” Lambert says.
Survey: Most N.J. voters support offshore wind – Just a month after Gov. Phil Murphy announced plans to create an offshore wind workforce development hub in the state, Bellwether Research, on behalf of Ørsted, conducted a survey to find out what New Jerseyans truly think of wind parks.The survey found most New Jersey voters (82%) favor expanding wind energy in the state, compared to 13% who don’t approve. And nearly two-thirds (73%) said that offshore wind will impact the environment in a positive way.The Ocean Wind offshore wind farm, which will be the first utility-scale farm in the state located 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City, holds the favorability of 77% of voters statewide and 74% in Atlantic, Cape May and Ocean counties. Beachfront property owners are just as supportive (70% in favor) as those who don’t live at the beach (75% in favor).Concerns over the view are minimal, with 7 in 10 New Jersey voters saying they vacation on the Shore and 85% of them saying they would continue to vacation even if they saw turbines out in the water. Three-fourths of respondents said area tourism will remain the same (62%) or increase (14%) as a result of the project. Voters in the state’s most southern-coastal counties (Atlantic, Cape May, Ocean) were in agreement: 64% the same, 11% increase.
COAL: Meet America’s 10 largest emitters — Monday, May 11, 2020
Indiana utilities want to recover revenue due to pandemic (AP) – Indiana’s gas and electric companies are asking state regulators to allow them to recover lost revenue from customers due to the pandemic, but critics argue that it would burden struggling consumers even more. Ten companies, including Indianapolis Power & Light Co. and Duke Energy Inc., filed the request Friday with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. They want to charge customers for all “bad debt expense incurred” associated with an executive order that has suspended disconnections for nonpayment through June 4. The petition stated that the pandemic is causing “substantial adverse financial impact” on their business. But companies did not provide any actual figures regarding loss in revenue or how much customer’s bills would increase if approved. Building closures across the state has caused an overall downturn in energy use thus putting a financial strain on energy companies, the petitioners said. Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, a consumer group, called the request “unprecedented utility greed.” “It is disgusting that during these unprecedented times, they are more concerned with quarterly stock reports than with the health, safety and well-being of the Hoosier communities and consumers which they serve,” Kerwin Olson said in a written response. He is the organization’s executive director. Essentially, utilities want to charge customers for energy that they did not sell, Olson added. The Indiana Energy Association, a trade group that represents utilities, said the petition seeks to defer the fixed-cost portion of energy production “that enables companies to have power available around the clock.” The association also cited that at least 29 other states have approved similar regulations to what Indiana utilities are seeking. If approved, utility companies will have to track coronavirus related costs and make plans on how to recover their losses, which could include charging customers over time. Customers would not be impacted immediately.
Ohio policies cushion the pandemic’s impact on electric utilities | Energy News Network –Ohio utilities saw electricity sales drop this spring as the coronavirus pandemic prompted schools and businesses across the state to close.The drop in energy use, however, did little to hurt profits as both FirstEnergy and American Electric Power shared positive results with investors.The apparent disconnect can be explained by the complicated way in which utilities earn revenue, which largely comes from fees, riders, guaranteed returns on investments and other sources beyond base distribution charges for actual electricity use.Critics say the utilities’ optimistic reports to shareholders recently highlight how policy provisions protect the companies from risk at the expense of ratepayers.“This is a hard time for businesses large and small. But it strikes me that investor-owned utilities are faring comparatively well in the current situation,” said Sonia Aggarwal, vice president at Energy Innovation, a policy analysis firm in San Francisco. “Over the years they have negotiated riders and rate structures that insulate them somewhat from fluctuations in electricity demand due to economic and weather conditions, and those mechanisms are cushioning the blow to utilities right now, even given the substantial reduction in demand for electricity.”Ohio’s investor-owned utilities this month each reported positive earnings per share (income divided by shares) for the first quarter. Ohio-based American Electric Power had earnings of $1.02 per share, while FirstEnergy announced quarterly earnings of $0.66 per share. Those figures compare with first-quarter earnings per share in 2019 of $1.16 for AEP and $0.59 for FirstEnergy. Duke Energy and AES Corporation, which owns DPL Inc. and Dayton Power & Light, also announced adjusted earnings per share of $1.14 and $0.29, respectively.
With Ohio bailout law secured, FirstEnergy Solutions successor moves to increase share buybacks by $300 million – cleveland.com — Leaders of a former FirstEnergy subsidiary, which Ohio electricity customers will soon begin paying $150 million annually to subsidize under a nuclear bailout law Ohio officials passed last year, have moved to spend an extra $300 million on repurchasing the company’s own stock. The stock buybacks, meant to benefit corporate shareholders, come less than a year after an aggressive multi-year lobbying effort by FirstEnergy that culminated in Gov. Mike DeWine and state lawmakers approving $1 billion in bailout money funded by surcharges on Ohioans’ electric bills. The company and elected officials who backed the bailout argued without state money, the power plants and their parent company would become insolvent. The board of directors for the company now known as Energy Harbor on Friday voted to increase authorization for its stock buyback program from $500 million to $800 million, according to an investor presentation the company posted to its website. Energy Harbor can buy back the stock any time until Aug. 27., under the terms of a company plan, approved as the Akron company spun off from FirstEnergy as it emerged from bankruptcy proceedings earlier this year. Private companies buy shares of their own stock to help increase overall share prices by reducing the number of shares available on the market. While the company’s stock is not listed on any U.S. stock exchange, shares of Energy Harbor are available for purchase by the general public through private brokerage companies. The company’s stock was trading at $36.01 a share when markets closed Tuesday evening, more than double the $15.75 it cost when shares first began trading on April 7. The Energy Harbor investors presentation says the company’s “visible” cash flow generated by its nuclear plants is supported by “clean air zero emission credits,” a term for the subsidy created by the nuclear bailout law, called House Bill 6. Energy Harbor owns the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Lake County and the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Toledo. It argues “free cash flow increase from potential future carbon policy offers meaningful upside for Energy Harbor.”
Hearing slated for Coyote Creek proposal to lease federal coal – Two federal agencies will hold a public hearing May 20 on a proposal to lease 320 acres of federally owned coal to the Coyote Creek Mining Co. The company’s lease application is part of its ongoing mining operation southwest of Beulah in Mercer County, and the proposed lease tracts are adjacent to its existing mine, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Office of Surface Mine Reclamation and Enforcement. The agencies are accepting public comment on an environmental assessment of the impacts from leasing the coal, as well as on the project’s lease-by-application, fair market value and maximum economic recovery. Materials related to the matter are available at https://go.usa.gov/xvwpz under the “Documents” link on the left-hand side of the web page. They also can be requested by contacting Joel Hartmann at 406-896-5159.Comments will be accepted through June 8 via email to [email protected] or via mail to the BLM North Dakota Field Office at 99 23rd Ave. W, Suite A, Dickinson, N.D. 58601. In the address line, include: “COYOTE CREEK LBA NDM-110277, Attn: Joel Hartmann.” The hearing will take place via phone from 3-5 p.m. Central time. The public can attend by calling 1-800-369-1853 and entering passcode 3787572. The regulatory proceedings for the Coyote Creek application is part of a U.S. Department of Interior pilot project to streamline compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, according to the agencies.
Central Appalachia Q1 coal production falls to over 25-year low: MSHA – Coal mines in Central Appalachia produced over 14.68 million st of coal in the first quarter of 2020, down 6.5% from 15.71 million st in Q4 and the lowest quarterly output in over 25 years, according to data from the US Mine Safety and Health Administration. The latest quarter was down 22.1% from the year-ago quarter and 27.6% lower than the five-year average for Q1, despite four of the top six mines seeing yearly increases. The region produced has seen six quarterly decreases in the last seven quarters. Coronado Global Resources’ Buchanan mine produced 1.33 million st in Q1, up from the four-year low 988,264 st in Q4 and 1.24 million st in Q1 2019. The low-volatile metallurgical underground mine, which is located in Buchanan County, Virginia, has been the largest-producing mine in the region since 2013. In second was Contura Energy’s Deep Mine 41, which produced a record-high 519,453 st in Q1, up from 431,466 st in the previous quarter and 368,411 st in the year-ago quarter. Rounding out the top three was Contura’s Workman Creek surface mine, which also produced a record-high 489,405 st in Q1, up from 431,466 st in Q4 and 368,411 st in the year-ago quarter. Bristol, Tennessee-based Contura had three of the top five producing mines in Q1, of which all three saw record highs. Just one mine started production for the first time in Q1, which was Contura’s Road Fork No. 52 underground mine in Wyoming County, West Virginia, that produced 23,956 st. The top 21 mines in Central Appalachia all produced over 200,000 st and combined to produce 6.91 million st in Q1, compared with 18 mines that produced over 200,000 st with a combined production total of 5.89 million st and 20 mines that produced 7.26 million st in the year-ago quarter. Contura Energy remained the largest coal producer in the region with its 26 mines producing 4.06 million st in Q1, up from 3.72 million st in the prior quarter and 3.83 million st in the year-ago quarter. Blackhawk Mining was the second-largest CAPP coal producer in Q1 with its 20 mines producing 2.37 million st, down from 2.6 million st in Q4 and 3.51 million st in Q1 2019. Surface mine production in Central Appalachia was at 5.15 million st in Q1, down from 6.97 million st produced in the prior quarter and 7.96 million st in Q1 2019. Contura’s Workman Creek mine was the largest surface mine in Q1, which overtook Arch Coal’s (soon to be renamed Arch Resources) Holden No. 22 mine. Since Q3 2015, Arch’s Holden No. 22 mine had been the largest surface mine, but only produced 420,451 st in Q1, down from 531,511 st in Q4 and 474,730 st in Q1 2019. The remaining 9.54 million st was produced by underground mines in Q1, led by the Buchanan mine, which was up from 8.74 million st produced in Q4, but down from 10.87 million st in the year-ago quarter.
Coal mines lay off workers across the Tri-state – The Coronavirus pandemic has hurt the already struggling coal industry. Along Cabin Creek Road in Kanawha County it’s still a busy day for the workers of Panther Creek Mining, but coming up in just a few short weeks, dozens of workers will be laid off and the trend doesn’t stop here. In Floyd County, Kentucky, Redhawk Mining announced its plans to shut down its entire Spurlock Complex due to a “sudden decline in customer orders,” bringing the total number of layoffs to 182 workers starting this week. The announcement came just hours after word in West Virginia’s Kanawha County that 200 jobs are being lost between layoffs at a stamping plant and the Panther Creek Mine. “Every single job is a family and these jobs generally support seven other jobs so you are talking about arguably 10,000 people that are affected by something like this,” says Kanawha County Commission President Kent Carper. Carper says there is very little they can do because this is an international issue with the energy market crises. “This is worse than anything we have probably ever seen … just to give you an idea … of how bad the market has been impacted if you consider us manufacturing it’s off 6.4%, that is the largest single decline in the last 74 years,” Says Jason Bostic, vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association. Bostic says, at this moment, it is hard to determine whether the jobs or the market will come back. The Panther Creek layoffs begin June 4th
In a First, Renewable Energy Is Poised to Eclipse Coal in U.S. – NYT – The United States is on track to produce more electricity this year from renewable power than from coal for the first time on record, new government projections show, a transformation partly driven by the coronavirus pandemic, with profound implications in the fight against climate change.It is a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago, when coal was so dominant that it provided nearly half the nation’s electricity. And it comes despite the Trump administration’s three-year push to try to revive the ailing industry by weakening pollution rules on coal-burning power plants.Those efforts, however, failed to halt the powerful economic forces that have led electric utilities to retire hundreds of aging coal plants since 2010 and run their remaining plants less frequently. The cost of building large wind farms has declined more than 40 percent in that time, while solar costs have dropped more than 80 percent. And the price of natural gas, a cleaner-burning alternative to coal, has fallen to historic lows as a result of the fracking boom.Now the coronavirus outbreak is pushing coal producers into their deepest crisis yet.As factories, retailers, restaurants and office buildings have shut down nationwide to slow the spread of the coronavirus, demand for electricity has fallen sharply. And, because coal plants often cost more to operate than gas plants or renewables, many utilities are cutting back on coal power first in response.“The outbreak has put all the pressures facing the coal industry on steroids,” said Jim Thompson, a coal analyst at IHS Markit.In just the first four and a half months of this year, America’s fleet of wind turbines, solar panels and hydroelectric dams have produced more electricity than coal on 90 separate days – shattering last year’s record of 38 days for the entire year. On May 1 in Texas, wind power alone supplied nearly three times as much electricity as coal did. The latest report from the Energy Information Administration estimates that America’s total coal consumption will fall by nearly one-quarter this year, and coal plants are expected to provide just 19 percent of the nation’s electricity, dropping for the first time below both nuclear power and renewable power, a category that includes wind, solar, hydroelectric dams, geothermal and biomass.
North Dakota’s largest power plant looks set to close as the owner bets on wind energy – A 1,151-megawatt (MW) coal power station in North Dakota is set to be retired after it was deemed to have “lost value compared to other alternatives in recent years.” Announcing the decision at the end of last week, electric power supplier Great River Energy said it planned to shut down the two units of Coal Creek Station in the second half of 2022, adding that it was also “willing to consider opportunities to sell the plant.” Located roughly 50 miles north of Bismarck, the Coal Creek Station facility has a workforce of 260 and uses approximately 22,000 tons of lignite each day. According to Great River Energy, it is the largest power plant in North Dakota. “Coal Creek Station is operated efficiently, safely and with pride by a dedicated and talented staff,” David Saggau, Great River Energy’s CEO and president, said in a statement. “We will make every effort to minimize impacts on our employees and the communities through this transition.” Looking ahead, Great River Energy, which operates as a not-for-profit cooperative, is aiming to purchase over 1,100 MW from new wind energy projects by late 2023, an investment of more than $1.2 billion. Among other things, it is also planning to modify a coal and natural gas-based power plant so that it’s fueled solely by natural gas. While other parts of the world, such as Britain, have seen their “reliance on coal for electricity” reach very low levels in recent years – it’s fallen from 70% in 1990 to under 3% today, according to the government – the U.S. is a different story. Preliminary figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that in 2019 coal’s share of utility-scale electricity generation was 23.5%, second only to natural gas. The EIA states that North Dakota is responsible for 4% of total coal production in the U.S. and home to “the world’s largest known deposit of lignite.” Nevertheless, the proposed shuttering of the Coal Creek Station could mirror a number of recent closures in Europe. In April, Austria’s last operational coal-fired power station shut down, while in the U.K. two coal-fired facilities operated by SSE and RWE shut down on the same day at the end of March.
These dirty power plants cost billions and only operate in summer. Can they be replaced? – As the U.S. approaches another scorching summer, the power grid will be tested once again. Energy use typically spikes during heat waves due to the massive amount of electricity required by widespread air conditioning. This extra demand is met by so-called peaker plants, power plants that typically only run during these periods of peak demand. These plants can emit harmful pollutants like fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide into nearby communities – which are often low-income neighborhoods of color.Peaker plants are also expensive. In New York City, more than 600,000 families spend roughly six percent of their entire annual household income on energy payments, and peak electricity in particular is among the most expensive in the country. A new report has found that New Yorkers over the last decade have paid more than $4.5 billion in electricity bills to the private owners of the city’s peaker plants, just to keep those plants online in case they’re needed – even though they only operate between 90 and 500 hours a year. Even at the upper limit, that’s less than three weeks. This all means that the price tag for peak electricity in the Big Apple is 1300 percent higher than the average cost of electricity in the state.Over 1.2 million New Yorkers live within a one-mile radius of a peaker plant – so not only do they pay unusually high electricity bills, but they are also exposed to harmful pollutants produced by the same entities who receive those payments, according to the report. Many of these facilities are 50 or more years old, lack modern pollution controls, and run on dirty fuels like kerosene or oil at least part-time. Environmental justice advocates say that there’s another way. “Instead of ratepayer money going to fossil fuel interests, we want to see that go to renewable projects, to community solar projects, to energy storage and other clean energy initiatives,” said Annel Hernandez, associate director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance (NYC-EJA). When it comes to transitioning away from fossil fuels, peaker plants are the “lowest-hanging fruit, because they’re only powered during peak demand.”The new report, entitled “Dirty Energy, Big Money,” was published by the PEAK Coalition, which consists of New York City environmental justice groups NYC-EJA,UPROSE, and The Point CDC, as well as New York Lawyers for the Public Interestand Clean Energy Group. Their analysis found that about 85 percent of the last decade’s peak electricity payments were funneled to three private, out-of-state firms – a Boston hedge fund, a Houston fossil fuel generation company, and a New Jersey private equity firm – that own a large share of the oldest New York City peaker plants. These polluting plants are located in low-income neighborhoods of color, such as Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, a predominantly Chinese and Latino neighborhood, and the South Bronx, the country’s poorest congressional districtand a predominantly black and brown neighborhood.
COAL: Interior proposes rule to ease federal enforcement at mines — Wednesday, May 13, 2020 — The Trump administration today proposed relaxing federal involvement in investigations of coal mine violations to allow states more leeway to address complaints.
City fines Hilco $2,500 for canal runoff following Little Village smokestack implosion – Chicago Sun-Times – City health officials slapped a $2,500 fine on a suburban development firm Friday after discovering it was allowing “silty water” to seep into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal nearly a month after a botched smokestack implosion in Little Village.A city health inspector found the runoff water going into the canal Wednesday near the shuttered Crawford power station at Pulaski Road, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.Northbrook-based Hilco Redevelopment Partners and a demolition contractor leveled a 95-year-old smokestack there April 11, sending clouds of dust cascading through the mostly Latino, low-income neighborhood – all while an acute respiratory disease sweeps the globe with an especially devastating impact on Illinois’ Latino community.“CDPH will continue the investigation to determine whether there were any chemicals contained in the runoff while simultaneously reviewing the developer’s current procedures to ensure similar situations will not occur in the future,” city health officials said in a statement.City code requires developers to control stormwater during demolition and construction. Hilco had “the proper permits and an onsite management plan for stormwater” but their “error” resulted in the runoff, officials said.Representatives for Hilco, which is building a warehouse and distribution center at the site, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The company previously apologized “for the anxiety and fear caused,” saying “the health, safety and welfare of the local community is of paramount concern.”They now face a class-action lawsuit from a group of residents who complained “nothing was done to minimize the effect of this hazardous material to not flow to all of us surrounding this plant.”And Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul sued Hilco, MCM Management Corp. and Controlled Demolition Inc. earlier this week for violating state pollution laws. Raoul’s suit claims they failed to “adequately [wet] the area around the smokestack and, in particular, the area where the smokestack hit the ground.”
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