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). This week it appears early hours after midnight (EDT) Wednesday morning.
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
- 30 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 30August 2020
30 Aug 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 30August 2020
Summary:
The number of new US cases was down again, but not by much, and it’s possible that less testing has a lot to do with that. The CDC was out with a new directive this week to not bother testing anyone without symptoms, even if they’ve been exposed to the virus, because we really don’t want to know who’s diseased and who’s not, especially with an election coming up. With various estimates ranging up to ~40% of those infected being asymptotic, these new policies will lead to a significant undercounting of numbers infected. Calculated Risk is tracking the daily testing rate and results. The 01 September graphic:
Meanwhile, with a couple of hurricanes and thousands of fires out west, there’s also quite a bit of other environment news this week:
Thousands allowed to bypass environmental rules in pandemic – Thousands of oil and gas operations, government facilities and other sites won permission to stop monitoring for hazardous emissions or otherwise bypass rules intended to protect health and the environment because of the coronavirus outbreak, The Associated Press has found. The result: approval for less environmental monitoring at some Texas refineries and at an army depot dismantling warheads armed with nerve gas in Kentucky, manure piling up and the mass disposal of livestock carcasses at farms in Iowa and Minnesota, and other risks to communities as governments eased enforcement over smokestacks, medical waste shipments, sewage plants, oilfields and chemical plants. The Trump administration paved the way for the reduced monitoring on March 26 after being pressured by the oil and gas industry, which said lockdowns and social distancing during the pandemic made it difficult to comply with anti-pollution rules. States are responsible for much of the oversight of federal environmental laws, and many followed with leniency policies of their own. AP’s two-month review found that waivers were granted in more than 3,000 cases, representing the overwhelming majority of requests citing the outbreak. Hundreds of requests were approved for oil and gas companies. AP reached out to all 50 states citing open-records laws; all but one, New York, provided at least partial information, reporting the data in differing ways and with varying level of detail. Almost all those requesting waivers told regulators they did so to minimize risks for workers and the public during a pandemic – although a handful reported they were trying to cut costs. The Environmental Protection Agency says the waivers do not authorize recipients to exceed pollution limits. But environmentalists and public health experts say it may be impossible to fully determine the impact of the country’s first extended, national environmental enforcement clemency because monitoring oversight was relaxed. “The harm from this policy is already done,” said Cynthia Giles, EPA’s former assistant administrator under the Obama administration.
Legionnaire’s Bacteria Found in Drinking Water at Nine Reopened Schools – In addition to taking precautions against the novel coronavirus, schools across the country find themselves needing to worry about a new scourge: legionella bacteria in their drinking water, according to The New York Times. Recently, nine schools in Ohio and Pennsylvania found the harmful bacteria in their water. In Fox Chapel, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh, four out of the town’s six schools tested positive for the bacteria. Because the schools were unused for so long, nearly six months, the water just sat in the pipes and did not have a chance to move. That created a condition for the bacteria to thrive, according to WPXI News in Pittsburgh. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people get sick when they inhale mist that has the bacteria or they ingest water with the bacteria in it. It can cause severe pneumonia or lung infection, which is worrying when the nation is already grappling with COVID-19, an infectious disease that leads to severe pneumonia. Similarly, schools outside of Dayton, Ohio found the bacteria in their water last week. In all of those cases, the outbreak was noticed in locations that were far from classrooms or drinking fountains, such as one faucet in a seldom used bathroom, according to Dayton Daily News. “We would have capability to wash hands, we would provide drinking water, we have toilets that are working, and we have the ability to serve lunch,” said superintendent Rob O’Leary, defending the district’s decision to proceed with in-person instruction and to keep the schools open, as Dayton 24/7 reported. O’Leary added that the school district ran disinfectant through all the school’s water lines and cleaned the aerators on all of its faucets. The Milton-Union school district, also in Ohio, received a federal grant to test its water over the summer. It found the bacteria in a drinking fountain and in two faucets on only the cold-water side, according to WHIO News in Ohio. “Ice machines we tested it all,” said Tim Swartztrauber, West Milton Water Supervisor and Chief Inspector to WHIO. “Luckily we did because we did find legionella. We tested every drinking fountain and we got it in a drinking fountain. Without that this probably would have been missed.” Swartztrauber added that they ran chlorine through the system to disinfect it and then flushed out the chlorine to make the water safe again.
Long-term exposure to air pollution linked to impaired breathing in children -Babies exposed to levels of air pollution within EU standards develop poorer lung function as children and teenagers, according to research presented at the European Respiratory Society International Congress. [1] The study also suggests that some of the risk from exposure to pollution can be reduced if babies are breastfed for at least 12 weeks. A second study presented at the Congress [2] shows that adults who are exposed to air pollution, even at low levels, over a period of decades are more likely to develop asthma. “Babies’ lungs are especially vulnerable because they are growing and developing, so we wanted to see if there are longer-term impacts for babies who are exposed to air pollution as they grow up.” The children had tests to measure their breathing at the ages of six, ten or 15 years. Researchers compared these measures with estimates of the levels of pollution in the areas where the children lived in the first year of life, taking account of other factors that are linked to poorer lung function, such as whether the children’s mothers smoked.They found that the higher the levels of air pollution babies were exposed to, the worse their lung function was as they grew into children and teenagers. They saw an even bigger impact on lung function in children who developed asthma. The results also suggested some of the damage linked to air pollution was reduced in babies who were breastfed. “Our results suggest that babies who grow up breathing polluted air, even at levels below EU regulations, have poorer breathing as they grow into children and adults. This is worrying because previous research suggests that damage to lungs in the first year of life can affect respiratory health throughout life.”The second study included 23,000 Danish nurses who were recruited to the study in either 1993 or 1999.They found that while noise pollution was not linked to rates of asthma, there was a link between long-term exposure to air pollution and the likelihood of being diagnosed with asthma. There was a 29% rise in asthma risk for each increase in PM2.5 of 6.3 micrograms per cubic metre. And there was a 16% rise in asthma risk for each increase of NO2 of 8.2 micrograms per cubic metre. The levels of air pollution that the nurses were exposed to was relatively low compared to many European cities, averaging around 18.9 micrograms per cubic metre for PM2.5 and 12.8 micrograms per cubic metre for NO2. The current European standards for PM2.5 and NO2 are 25 and 40 micrograms per cubic metre, respectively.
Children in Greener Urban Neighborhoods Have Higher IQs, Study Finds – One of the best things you can do for your child’s well-being may be to raise them somewhere green.The latest study to examine the positive impacts of nature on children found that children living in greener urban areas had higher IQs than children living in less green areas. “There is more and more evidence that green surroundings are associated with our cognitive function, such as memory skills and attention,” study coauthor and Hasselt University in Belgium environmental epidemiology professor Tim Nawrot told The Guardian. “What this study adds with IQ is a harder, well-established clinical measure. I think city builders or urban planners should prioritize investment in green spaces because it is really of value to create an optimal environment for children to develop their full potential.” The research, published in PLOS Medicine on August 18, looked at 620 children between seven and 15 years old living in urban, suburban and rural parts of Belgium. It used satellite imagery to calculate the amount of green space a child had access to, and then compared this with their scores on intelligence and behavioral assessments, The Guardian explained. Children living in urban areas with three percent more greenery scored an average of 2.6 points higher in IQ. They also scored two points lower in a metric of behavioral problems, like aggression and poor attention span. The researchers did not find any benefit to additional greenery in suburban and rural environments, perhaps because these areas already had enough baseline greenery to make a difference. The research builds on other studies that show time in nature benefits children’s behavior and mental health. An Aarhus University study published in February 2019 found that children who grew up with access to green space were 55 percent less likely to develop serious mental disorders later in life. A 2015 study based in Barcelona found that access to green space improved children’s cognitive development.
Wasps Attack German School, Injuring 16 Kids – Emergency services were called to a school in western Germany after multiple students complained of wasp stings. The students were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment.A wasp attack at a school in the western German city of Lüdenscheid sent at least 16 students to the hospital.Emergency services were contacted by the Adolf Reichwein secondary school at 10:45 local time (08:45 UTC) after several students complained of wasp stings during recess. A fire department spokesman told DW that all the students were between the ages of 12 and 15.Ambulances took 13 of the students to nearby hospitals. Eleven of them received emergency treatment at the Lüdenscheid clinic, the hospital confirmed in a statement, asking parents not to come to the hospital.A hospital spokeswoman told the local news website come-on.de most were being treated for minor injuries, while one remained under observation due to a known wasp allergy. The students would also need to undergo a COVID-19 test at the hospital.Why the wasps attacked remains unclear. The playground was closed off after the incident so that an exterminator could remove a nest. The school, which has around 1,200 students, said it sent all of them home at 13:00 local time.Lüdenscheid, with a population around 75,000, is located around an hour’s drive northeast of Cologne. Wasps are protected in Germany under the Federal Nature Conservation Act, and deliberately disturbing, capturing, injuring or killing them without reasonable cause can carry fines between €5,000 and €50,000.
Bread prices to rise after extreme weather causes UK’s worst wheat harvest in 40 years – The UK’s worst wheat harvest in 40 years is set to cause a price hike in flour and bread, the agricultural industry warned. Due to last autumn’s heavy rains, only 40 percent of the usual amount of wheat crop was planted, while this year’s wild weather also affected crops that are being harvested. “We’re looking at a 30 percent reduction in our good fields, in some of our poor fields it’s even more,” said Matt Culley, a farmer from Hampshire and chairperson of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU). The federation said only 40 percent of the usual amount of wheat crop was planted last October due to heavy downpours. Severe weather continued to hit the agricultural sector this year as droughts earlier in the season affected the quality of crops being harvested now. The dry spells were followed by lots of August rains, resulting in poor quality harvests. Cirencester farmer Ed Horton said his crops usually yield around 2 500 tonnes of wheat, but this year, his crops are down to 580 tonnes. “It has a huge knock-on effect on our finances,” he told Sky News. “We’ve produced a third of what we usually would, therefore there’s a large hole in our cash flow and we’ve had to replace wheat with other crops that we don’t make as much money out of.” “For the food chain, there’s a lack of domestically produced quality wheat so we may end up having to import wheat from other parts of the world.”Some farmers have already started charging 10 percent more for flour, and it is also feared that a no-deal Brexit may cause prices to further rise. “In the event of a no-deal Brexit, millers could face a 79 pound-per-tonne tariff on wheat imports from the EU as the UK would be reverting to WTO rules.” The UK Met Office told BBC News that the extremes of wet and dry conditions this year may soon become more common due to climate change.
Over 60 million chickens in England and Wales rejected over disease and defects – More than 61 million chickens were rejected because of diseases and defects at slaughterhouses in England and Wales over a three-year period, according to figures analysed by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the Guardian.Broilers, chickens raised for meat, were the worst affected with almost 59 million defects recorded. More than 39 million broilers arrived and were rejected at slaughter due to disease – approximately 35,000 every day.The inspection findings, compiled from Food Standards Agency (FSA) data, resulted in either part of a bird or a whole bird being condemned and rejected for human consumption.New data shows that between July 2016 and June 2019, 61,008,212 defects in chickens were identified by inspection staff at various points in the meat production process after arrival at slaughter. This figure includes spent laying hens as well as hens and cockerels used for breeding, which may be sold as meat. There were a further 1.7 million diseases and 2.5 million full condemnations in Scotland during a three-year period between 2016 and the end of 2018. The new figures come after data released last month revealed that thousands of birds were also dying or being culled on-farm due to disease or injury. An average on-farm mortality rate of around 4% was reported on chicken farms. In a flock of 10,000 birds, that means around 400 birds dying or being culled.
More than 100 000 livestock animals perish as intense snowstorms hit Patagonia, 70 percent of flock at risk – w/ videos – Intense snowstorms and frosts hit Patagonia amid one of the region’s worst winters in two decades, which has badly affected the agricultural sector. More than 100 000 livestock animals have perished, according to officials’ first estimate of losses, who also warned that herdsmen in the highlands may lose up to 70 percent of the flock. In early August, an agricultural disaster emergency was declared for the affected territories.Officials conducted the first assessment of losses together with technicians from the Agriculture Technology Institute, covering highlands next to the cordillera. “Anyhow, we are talking of at least 100 000 sheep and 5 000 cattle,” said provincial livestock secretariat Tabare Bassi this week.Bassi further warned that the severe weather could cause the death of 70 percent of the flock in the high areas of the Patagonian Argentina’s Rio Negro Province.Intense snowfall followed by frosts affected mostly small farmers with flocks no larger than 250 heads, “which makes it a serious survival challenge,” he said. “We estimate that the worse losses are along the mountainous terrain between 1 000 and 1 300 m (3 280 to 4 260 feet) above sea level, while at sea level we can expect sheep mortality in the range of 30 percent.” While snow in the lower lands will help renew pastures during spring, Bassi pointed out that the main concern is the small farmers in the highlands who make money out of wool and survive winter feeding on mutton. “We will have to give them some sort of support.” Rio Negro senator Alberto Weretilneck proposed an initiative requesting extensive economic aid for the affected farmers, “which is one of the conditions considered in the Sheep Farming Recovery Fund,” when there is an agriculture emergency as a result of severe weather conditions. Patagonia has been gripped by one of its worst winters in the last 20 years, with Rio Negro among the worst affected provinces.
Kesongo mud volcano erupts, leaving 4 people poisoned and 19 buffaloes missing, Indonesia – Kesongo mud volcano in Central Java, Indonesia erupted at around 05:00 LT on August 27, 2020, leaving 4 people poisoned and 19 buffaloes missing. The last eruption of this mud volcano took place 3 years ago. Blora BPBD Rapid Reaction Team Coordinator, Agung Tri, said mudflow eruptions occurred several times over a period of about 10 minutes. According to local media reports, villagers reported mud rising dozens of meters into the air and strong sulfur smell. At the time of the incident, four men were herding buffaloes quite close to the explosion site. They reportedly felt weak after inhaling the fumes and were taken to hospital. While the villagers are now in good condition, 19 of their buffaloes are still missing. Some of them reportedly got stuck in the mud but managed to get out with the help of villagers. (includes several videos)
Asteroid Could Strike Earth Before Election Day But Won’t Cause Major Damage, NASA Says – The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) predicts that an asteroid with a 0.41 percent chance of hitting Earth will pass by our planet Nov. 2, the day before U.S. election day, The Independent reported.But you shouldn’t worry about the asteroid doing any real damage, NASA was quick to point out.”Asteroid 2018VP1 is very small, approx. 6.5 feet, and poses no threat to Earth!” NASA Asteroid Watch tweeted Sunday. “It currently has a 0.41% chance of entering our planet’s atmosphere, but if it did, it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size.” 2018VP1 was first discovered in November 2018 from the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, WGME reported. At the time, it was 450,000 kilometers (280,000 miles) away from Earth, ScienceAlert explained. But it follows a two-year orbital cycle and is currently headed back in our direction.It is expected to pass within 4,994.76 kilometers (approximately 3,104 miles) of Earth, which is close for a celestial object, and the reason it has a one in 240 chance of hitting us. The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said there were three potential impacts, according to The Independent.But, “based on 21 observations spanning 12.968 days,” it did not think a direct hit was likely. Further, its small size means it would burn up if it entered the atmosphere. To be considered dangerous, an asteroid must be at least 460 feet, according to ScienceAlert. The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was six miles across when it struck.
We Can Solve Water Scarcity in the U.S., New Study Says -The U.S., like much of the world, has the compounding problem of a growing population and an increased likelihood of drought due to the climate crisis. In fact, the Southwest is already in the throes of its worst drought in 1,200 years while Colorado and California are seeing how drought has turned their forests into tinder boxes. Now, a new study has identified ways to revamp how water is utilized to thrive in a time of water scarcity.The study, titled “Reducing water scarcity by improving water productivity in the United States” was published Tuesday in Environmental Research Letters. The authors say that some of the most water-stressed areas in the West and Southwest have the greatest potential for water savings. The paper attributes nearly half the potential to simply improving how water is used in agriculture, specifically in growing the commodity crops, corn, cotton and alfalfa.The researchers, led by a team from Virginia Tech, looked at realistic water usage benchmarks for more than 400 products and industries. The team of scientists pinpointed unrealized water savings in various riverbasins across the country.”Nearly one-sixth of U.S. river basins cannot consistently meet society’s water demands while also providing sufficient water for the environment,” said Landon Marston, a Civil & Environmental Engineering professor at Virginia Tech University, in a statement. “Water scarcity is expected to intensify and spread as populations increase, new water demands emerge, and climate changes.”However, improving water productivity by meeting realistic benchmarks for all water users could enable U.S. communities to expand economic activity and improve environmental flows. We asked ourselves the questions: if water productivity is improved across the U.S. economy, how much water can be saved and in which industries and locations?’ Our study is the first attempt to answer this question on a nationwide scale, and develop benchmarks to inform future action.”
A month’s worth of rain falls in Punjab in a day, leaving 24 dead and 18 injured, Pakistan (news video) Persistent heavy monsoon rains hit Pakistan’s Punjab Province overnight into Thursday, August 20, 2020, leaving at least 24 people dead and 18 hurt. In Lahore, more than 200 mm (8 inches) of rain fell in 24 hours, which is more than the average August rainfall of 164 mm (6 inches).Torrential rains left several houses damaged or destroyed as many homes in rural Pakistan are made of sun-baked mud and flimsy cinder block construction.At least 24 people died while 18 others were injured. According to the emergency services spokesman Muhammad Asghar, most of the fatalities were caused by collapsed walls and roofs.Three of the victims died when a landslide struck a coal mine in Chakwal District.In Lahore, flooding swept through homes and streets after heavy rainfall struck.The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) registered more than 200 mm (8 inches) in a 24-hour period, surpassing the city’s average monthly rain for August of 164 mm (6 inches). PMD warned of further heavy rains in Punjab, as well as in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh over the coming days.
Two dams in Karachi overflow, at least 7 killed in weather-related incidents, Pakistan – w/ videos – At least 7 people were killed in different weather-related incidents across Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city on August 25, 2020. On August 26, two dams in the city overflowed, placing several towns at risk of major flooding. More heavy rains are expected across the region until Thursday, August 27.The Lath and Thaddo dams in Karachi have overflowed after a day of very heavy rain, placing the towns of Surjani, Saadi, and Safoora Goth at risk of major flooding.The event took place after major urban flooding across the city on Tuesday, August 25, in which at least 7 people lost their lives, including three children. Five people drowned in Gujjar Nullah while 2 others died in Malir after being struck by a lightning.According to local media reports, major roads of the city were flooded and flight operations suspended after continuous monsoon showers on Tuesday morning.Many areas across the city lost power, most of them after K-Electric decided to cut off supply as a safety precaution.In Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Johar Block 3, a retaining wall collapsed on the vehicles parked at the back of the apartment complex at Javed Hill View. Around 35 cars and 50 motorbikes were destroyed in the incident but no one was injured. Nearby houses have been evacuated as a precautionary measure.By Tuesday evening, the Sindh government has declared a rain emergency in Karachi and other parts of the province. The government has canceled vacations of all employees and ordered the Provincial Disaster Management Authority to begin relief operations in affected areas.This is the sixth and more powerful spell of monsoon rains that has hit southern parts of the country, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) who issued urban flooding warning for Sindh and Balochistan on August 24.
Storm Francis brings flood, damaging rainfall and record-breaking winds to UK and Ireland – (videos) Storm Francis hit parts of the UK and Ireland on Tuesday, August 25, 2020, bringing heavy rains and flooding that damaged hundreds of properties, prompted dozens of rescues, and left two people missing. The Met Office confirmed that the storm also brought record-high wind speeds across Wales and the Midlands, with gusts between 79 km/h (49 mph) to 125 km/h (78 mph).Floodwaters and fallen trees damaged hundreds of homes and businesses. Debris also blocked roads and rail lines, disrupting travel.Police searched for two missing people who were feared to have fallen into the swollen River Taff. Meanwhile, a woman was safely rescued from the Ely, another swollen river in the Welsh capital.The Met Office confirmed that a number of areas across Wales and the Midlands registered record-high wind speeds for the month of August. Gusts of 109 km/h (68 mph) were recorded at Pembrey Sands, 84 km/h (52 mph) at Shobdon, and 79 km/h (49 mph) at Pershore. All were August highs for the said locations. Wind gusts reached up to 125 km/h (78 mph) off the Isle of Wight.Strong winds prompted the agency to issue an amber warning across most of Wales and central England on Tuesday.”Wind speeds this strong are unusual during August and may come as a surprise to people spending time outdoors trying to catch the last few days of summer,” said chief meteorologist Steve Ramsdale. In St. Clears, Carmarthenshire, fire crews rescued nine people and two dogs from a flooded campsite after river levels rose. Around 30 other people were also evacuated from a flooded caravan site in Narberth, Pembrokeshire. In Llanelli and Neath, a number of homes were infiltrated by floodwaters. The M48 bridge was closed in both directions due to wind speeds, while power disruptions also affected hundreds of houses. In Newcastle, Northern Ireland, people were rescued from their flooded homes after a river broke its banks, sending waters to 300 houses and submerging streets.
Two weeks after powerful windstorm, Iowa faces humanitarian crisis – More than two weeks after the powerful derecho windstorm devastated a large swath of the US Midwest on August 10, the working class and poor in the hard-hit state of Iowa are still suffering from the catastrophic damage caused by the storm in the face of a lack of resources or urgency from local, state and federal government agencies. A total of 1.9 million residents across the region lost power due to the storm, with 1.4 million maximum simultaneous outages, broken down by state to 759,000 in Illinois, 585,000 in Iowa, 283,000 in Indiana, and 345,000 in other states such as Nebraska and Wisconsin. Four total deaths due to the direct impact of the storm were reported, three in Iowa and one in Indiana. To add to the criminality of the response of the ruling class and government, there exist no warning systems for derechos although they have occurred in the past, a repetition of the failure to warn residents of tornados in many parts of the Midwest and South or to raise alarms in California over the wildfires that swept through the northern part of the state in 2018. In Linn County, Iowa, where winds reached their highest velocity at 140 mph, residents face a serious humanitarian crisis. In the city of Cedar Rapids, the second-largest city in the state with a population of 126,326, every one of the city’s 60,000 homes and businesses were damaged to some degree, according to Mayor Brad Hart. Across Iowa, the storm severely damaged an estimated 82,000 homes. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, roads were impassible, cell phone service was very spotty, and trash removal was stopped across much of the state. At a Monday press conference on the state of emergency in the city, Cedar Rapids Department of Public Works officials explained that crews are continuing to work to remove an estimated 48,000 tons of debris from curbsides. To underscore both the city and state’s utter lack of preparation for such a disaster, officials noted that massive piles of debris in Cedar Rapids are continuing to pile up, with residents responsible for moving and hauling felled trees and other debris to their curbs for pickup. The total timeframe for cleanup and removal of tree debris in the Cedar Rapids area is expected to take months.
Two tropical storms developing into hurricanes as they aim for U.S. –Tropical storms Marco and Laura were expected to develop into hurricanes as they gained strength and aimed for an unprecedented twin strike next week on the mainland U.S.Marco entered the Gulf of Mexico Saturday evening and was headed toward landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi Monday afternoon, according to National Hurricane Center projections. Hurricane status could come as early as Saturday night, federal forecasters said.Laura, over the eastern area of the Dominican Republic Saturday, was expected to strengthen to a hurricane by Tuesday afternoon, the center said. It could make landfall from Texas to Florida’s Gulf Coast by Wednesday afternoon, forecasters said.”It looks like the upper Gulf is going to get a one-two punch,” hurricane center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. “That’s pretty much unprecedented that close together.”The shortest time between U.S. landfalls for major storms is 23 hours between Sept. 4 and 5, 1933.Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency Friday ahead of the storms and on Saturday asked President Donald Trump to grant federal emergency status to the state.”Tropical Storms Marco and Laura are forecast to impact Louisiana in quick sequence early next week,” Edwards’ office said in a statement.Marco was in the Gulf of Mexico, about 75 miles west-northwest of Cuba, with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph, according to the hurricane center. It was moving north-northwest at 13 mph.A hurricane watch was in effect from Intracoastal City, Louisiana, to the Mississippi-Alabama border, including New Orleans, federal forecasters said.Tropical Storm Laura was about 85 miles east-southeast of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph. It was moving west at 18 mph.A tropical storm warning was in effect for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and parts of the northern coast of the Dominican Republic and a tropical storm watch was issued for the central Bahamas and the Florida Keys from Ocean Reef to Key West and the Dry Tortugas, the hurricane center said.
Hurricane Laura: Forecast Category 4 poses catastrophic threat to Louisiana and Texas – Hurricane Laura, a major Category 4 storm, is set to hit near the Texas-Louisiana border on Thursday morning as local officials scramble to evacuate thousands of residents. The storm’s rapid intensification shocked scientists and prompted forecasters to issue warnings of “unsurvivable storm surge” in Texas and Louisiana. “Unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes,” the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday. “This surge could penetrate up to 30 miles inland from the immediate coastline.” Laura could bring storm surge of nearly 13 feet to the coastline as well as flash flooding and tornadoes on land. The storm battered the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Haiti over the weekend, knocking out power for more than 1 million people, collapsing some homes and killing at least 23 people. “I’m running out of words. Hurricane Laura is now one of the fastest-intensifying storms in recorded history in the Gulf of Mexico,” climate scientist Eric Holthaus wrote in a tweet. “Laura now poses a catastrophic, potentially historic threat to coastal Louisiana.” Rising ocean temperatures driven by climate change are leading to more intense and destructive hurricanes. As hurricanes such as Laura strengthen more rapidly in warmer waters, states have less time to prepare storm mitigation and evacuate people from dangerous areas. “One thing we’ve seen in particular – with Harvey in 2017, and Florence and Michael in 2018 and now with Laura – is very rapid intensification, wherein the storm strengthens from a tropical storm to major hurricane status in less than a day,” said climate scientist Michael Mann. “Such rapid intensification happens over very warm waters like we’ve seen in the tropical Atlantic and Gulf in recent years, and right now large parts of the Gulf are bathtub-level hot,” Mann said. Leaders in Texas and Louisiana have ordered evacuations for at least 500,000 residents as the states grapple with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Officials are encouraging evacuees to take shelter in hotels where they can self-isolate instead of evacuation centers that could be crowded. “Just because a hurricane is coming to Texas does not mean Covid-19 either has or is going to leave Texas. Covid-19 is going to be in Texas throughout the course of the hurricane,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news briefing on Tuesday. Laura is headed toward an area that comprises more than 45% of total U.S. petroleum refining capacity and 17% of oil production, according to the Energy Information Administration. Major oil and gas companies have already evacuated employees from offshore production sites in the Gulf of Mexico. As of Tuesday, producers shut down roughly 84% of offshore production in the Gulf as many refinery plants along the Texas and Louisiana coasts shutter in anticipation of life-threatening storm surge.
Category 4 Hurricane “Laura” ties for strongest Louisiana landfalling hurricane on record – Category 4 Hurricane “Laura” made landfall near Cameron in southwestern Louisiana at 06:00 UTC (01:00 CDT) on August 27, 2020, with maximum sustained winds of 241 km/h (150 mph) and minimum central pressure of 938 hPa. Catastrophic storm surge, extreme winds, and flash flooding are occurring in portions of Louisiana.Laura is the strongest hurricane to make landfall in Louisiana since the Last Island Hurricane of 1856. Last Island also had maximum sustained winds of 241 km/h (150 mph) – tie for the strongest Louisiana landfalling hurricane on record.The table below, made by Dr. Philip Klotzbach of the CSU, shows 11 strongest hurricanes to make landfall in Louisiana since records began in 1851, based on maximum sustained wind. Laura’s minimum central pressure of 938 hPa is the 4th lowest for a Louisiana hurricane landfall on record, trailing Katrina (2005, 920 hPa), Last Island (1856, 934 hPa) and Rita (2005, 937 hPa), Klotzbach noted. Laura is also the 7th named storm to make landfall in continental US (CONUS) in 2020, breaking the old record of 6 named storms making CONUS landfall by the end of August, set in 1886 and 1916.It is also the 7th major hurricane (Category 3+) to hit the state of Louisiana during August since records began in 1851. “Louisiana has been hit by more major hurricanes during August than any other state except Texas,” Klotzbach said.
Strong winds from Hurricane Laura reversed the flow of Mississippi River water – Strong winds blowing north from Hurricane Laura appeared to reverse the flow of many waterways along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, including the Mississippi and the Neches rivers, as it approached land.Laura came ashore as a Category 4 storm early Thursday near the Texas state line, ripping off roofs, damaging buildings and robbing hundreds of thousands of power.Rivers normally flow into the Gulf, but Laura’s strong winds blew the top layer of water upriver, away from the Gulf, instead. Chris Dier captured a time lapse of the phenomena Wednesday afternoon from Arabi, one neighborhood downriver of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward and about 200 miles east of where Laura made landfall. In the tweeted video, a Gulf-bound barge can be seen fighting against the inland flow of the water.The winds in Arabi and across southern Louisiana gusted at tropical-storm force throughout Wednesday and Thursday morning, as Laura passed to the west. These winds pushed the surface water back up river, as seen in the video, CNN Weather experts said.River gauges maintained by the US Geological Survey and the Army Corps of Engineers showed that the main current of both rivers slowed during this time, likely because the surface water was flowing in the opposite direction, along with the wind, they said.
Hurricane Laura’s winds batter Louisiana, killing four – At least four people have been killed by falling trees as Hurricane Laura battered the US state of Louisiana. Winds of up to 150mph (240km/h) caused severe damage, with power cuts to more than half a million homes and a chemical fire from an industrial plant. But the feared 20ft (6m) storm surge was avoided as the hurricane, the state’s biggest, tracked further east. Laura has now been downgraded to tropical storm status and has crossed into Arkansas. President Donald Trump was briefed at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) in Washington and said he would go to the area at the weekend. He said he had been prepared to postpone his speech at the Republican National Convention later on Thursday to travel to the region but added: “We got a bit lucky. It was very big and very powerful but it passed quickly.” Laura and another storm, Marco, earlier swept across the Caribbean, killing 24 people. The victims, killed in separate incidents by trees falling on their homes, included a 14-year-old girl in the Leesville area.
Chemical Fire Caused by Hurricane Laura Near Lake Charles, Louisiana, Drives Residents Indoors –Thick smoke poured across Interstate 10 from a chemical plant fire near Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Thursday, hours after Hurricane Laura roared through the area.Officials said the fire was related to the storm, and downed utility lines, trees and other wreckage from Laura posed a challenge for crews trying to reach the site. Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality spokesman Greg Langley said environmental officials hope to fly over the site as soon as it is safe to do so.“We’ll be doing flyovers, looking for sheens on the water, any little thing we can see – orphan drums, things like that,” he said. Residents were advised to follow the situation closely. .The cities of Westlake, Moss Bluff and Sulphur issued emergency shelter-in-place orders, according to KPLC. The alerts said to close doors and windows and turn off air conditioners.Louisiana State Police said they were responding to a chlorine leak at the plant operated by Biolab, which manufactures pool chlorine and cleaning products, the AP reported. At some point during the storm, some of the plant’s products began to react and decompose, which caused a fire, The plume of smoke is carrying chlorine, Browning said, but winds are pushing that plume toward Lake Charles. Testing was expected to continue throughout the day. The fire was burning in Westlake, which is on the west side of Lake Charles in in Calcasieu Parish. That area is home to several chemical plants.The Biolab site is on 15 acres within an industrial complex on the southside of I-10 with several other companies. It makes trichloroisocyanuric acid, chlorinating granules and other specialty blends, .Trichloroisocyanuric acid is a white powder often used in granular or tablet form to kill bacteria and control algae in swimming pools and hot tubs.Trichloroisocyanuric acid and chlorine can be toxic to people and animals if ingested or inhaled. Chlorine gas, which was used as a chemical weapon in World War 1, is a powerful irritant to the eyes, throat and lungs.
Hurricane Laura slams Louisiana, kills six, but less damage than forecast – (Reuters) – Hurricane Laura tore through Louisiana on Thursday, killing six people and flattening buildings across a wide swatch of the state before moving into Arkansas with heavy rains. Laura’s powerful gusts uprooted trees – and four people were crushed to death in separate incidents of trees falling on homes. The state’s department of health said late Thursday that there were two more fatalities attributed to the hurricane – a man who drowned while aboard a sinking boat and a man who had carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a generator in his home. In Westlake, a chemical plant caught fire when hit by Laura, and the flames continued to send a chlorine-infused plume of smoke skyward nearly 24 hours after landfall. Laura caused less mayhem than forecasts predicted – but officials said it remained a dangerous storm and that it would take days to assess the damage. At least 867,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas remained without power on Thursday afternoon. “This was the most powerful storm to ever make landfall in Louisiana,” Governor John Bel Edwards told a news conference. “It’s continuing to cause damage and life-threatening conditions.” Laura’s maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour (241 kph) upon landfall easily bested Hurricane Katrina, which sparked deadly levee breaches in New Orleans in 2005, and arrived with wind speeds of 125 mph. The NHC said Laura’s eye had crossed into southern Arkansas late Thursday afternoon and was heading to the northeast at 15 mph (24 kph). The storm could dump 7 inches (178 mm) of rain on portions of Arkansas, likely causing flash floods. Satellite imagery showing buildings along W McNeese Street before Hurricane Laura hit Lake Charles, Louisiana, U.S. in this September 29, 2019 handout photo. Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS Laura was downgraded to a tropical depression by the NHC at 10 p.m., and the forecaster said it will move to the mid-Mississippi Valley later on Friday and then to the mid-Atlantic states on Saturday. Laura’s howling winds leveled buildings across a wide swath of the state and a wall of water that was 15 feet (4.6 m) high crashed into tiny Cameron, Louisiana, where the hurricane made landfall around 1 a.m. A calamitous 20-foot storm surge that had been forecast to move 40 miles (64 km) inland was avoided when Laura tacked east just before landfall, Edwards said. That meant a mighty gush of water was not fully pushed up the Calcasieu Ship Channel, which would have given the storm surge an easy path far inland.
Hurricane Laura damage: Before and after satellite images of Louisiana show widespread destruction – CNN – New satellite images are giving a glimpse of the destruction that Hurricane Laura has waged across Louisiana. Hurricane Laura roared through southwestern Louisiana early Thursday morning, killing six and leaving behind a wide path of destruction. CNN has obtained new satellite images from Maxar Technologies that are showing just how destructive the storm was. At the Lake Charles Regional Airport, it appears the Freeman Jet Center and aircraft hangars on the northern end of the airport have sustained significant damage. A number of buildings have large portions of their roofs missing. It appears the debris has been scattered among the grounds and the runways. Just under two miles to the northeast, images indicate that homes in the neighborhood west of the Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for Women have also likely sustained significant damage. On either side of Gauthier Road, debris litters the yards of homes and it appears that most of them have had extensive roof damage. Roof damage isn’t the only thing that Louisianans are dealing with in the aftermath of Laura. Power outages are widespread across the area. A joint NASA and NOAA operated satellite is showing just how extensive they are. The imagery taken by the Suomi National Polar satellite shows much of western Louisiana is without power. Additional imagery from Maxar Technologies shows a community of mobile homes along Flounder Drive and Tuna Lane appear to have also sustained damage as the Category 4 hurricane came through Lake Charles, Louisiana. It appears that some homes along Tuna Lane were affected by floodwaters from a nearby canal. Almost nine miles away, the satellite images appear to show that Grand Lake High School dodged roofing damage. However, buildings nearby appear to have been nearly obliterated during the storm. On either side of Louisiana Highway 384, the roofs of a number of the buildings near the high school are shredded or completely missing.
Hurricane Laura: Louisiana Residents Face Weeks Without Power, Water – Residents in parts of Louisiana face weeks without power – and maybe water, too – after Hurricane Laura ripped away power lines and knocked out water plants that serve hundreds of thousands of people. The power and water outages come as the state is facing some of its hottest days of the year so far, which could make for dangerous conditions during cleanup operations. Heavy rain is also forecast in some areas. Residents like Nikki Norman, who lives in Holly Beach, returned home to find their properties ripped apart by the storm. “This roof blew off. There’s some of it over there,” Michael Putman, owner of Putman Restoration, told the Associated Press Friday as he worked to repair First United Methodist in Lake Charles. He pointed to part of the roof laying nearby. Water poured into the church as the crew worked. Downed power lines, trees and other debris littered the streets in Lake Charles. The water outages were causing problems for hospitals and nursing homes. “We’re transferring all of our patients out of here just due to the lack of municipal water,” Matt Felder, a spokesman for Lake Charles Memorial Hospital, told weather.com in an interview late Friday afternoon. “We feel it would be in the best interest of the patient to have them somewhere else.” Among the patients evacuated included 19 babies in the NICU, who had already been moved from another hospital because of the storm. At least 10 other hospitals and several nursing homes evacuated patients to other facilities, The Advocate reported. As of Friday afternoon, 98 water systems statewide were out of operation, leaving some 177,000 people without water. More than 400,000 homes and businesses in Louisiana remained without power Saturday, according to poweroutage.us. Another 79,000 were still without power in Texas and about 13,000 in Arkansas.
Hurricane Laura moves out, forecasters eye Nana and Omar – Hello Nana and Omar? Although the remnants of Hurricane Laura are still drenching parts of the eastern U.S. Friday, there are already concerns about more storms stirring in the Atlantic Ocean.The National Hurricane Center has identified two areas for potential tropical development, one in the central Atlantic, the other in the eastern Atlantic. Both have a 30% chance of development within the next five days. For the one in the central Atlantic, the hurricane center said that “some gradual development of this system is possible during the next several days while it moves westward at about 15 mph toward the eastern Caribbean islands.” For the other one, in the eastern Atlantic near the Cabo Verde Islands, “some development of this system is possible early next week when it begins to move slowly westward over the eastern and central tropical Atlantic,” according to the hurricane center. Should the systems develop into named storms, the next two names on the list are Nana and Omar. Storms get names when their sustained winds reach 39 mph.
Katrina-like storms are the new normal – Coming ashore as a Category 4, Hurricane Laura is our 15th anniversary reminder that Hurricane Katrina was a failure of the imagination and that we’ve been falling short on disaster preparedness ever since. “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,” President George W. Bush told Diane Sawyer after New Orleans, a below-sea level city, went aquatic in 2005. Actually, one year before Katrina hit, a commission on U.S. Ocean Policy appointed by Bush highlighted the risk of the levees failing. After Katrina hit, I remember driving through the hollowed out city of New Orleans, Plaquemines Parish to its south, and along the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast, and being awed. I was reminded of wars I’d covered, but with fewer deaths (still over 1,800) and far wider destruction. It was a world turned upside down, shrimp boats on the land, houses in the water, barges on levees and whole towns washed away. Army troops patrolled the disaster-stricken areas and refugee camps sprouted wherever there was space. Katrina as it turned out, was not the storm of the century like people thought it might be. Just over three weeks later, Hurricane Rita hit western Louisiana with the same shocking force, in pretty much the same location where Hurricane Laura struck this week, in what is predicted to be one of the most active Atlantic hurricane seasons in history.In the interim we’ve seen super storms such as Sandy, Ike, Irene, 2017’s Harvey, Irma and Maria, and last year’s Dorian that crushed the Bahamas.A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) studyreleased in May indicates that climate change has been intensifying the strength of hurricanes by about 8 percent per decade over the past 40 years. That means today’s hurricanes will on average be one third more destructive than those that made landfall in the 1980s, when our coastlines were also less built up.A new analysis commissioned by the Environmental Defense Fund finds the cost of climate-linked U.S. natural disasters has also increased four-fold since 1980. The cost of 663 disasters during this period was $1.77 Trillion dollars. Not surprisingly, especially given some 40 percent of the U.S. population is concentrated in our coastal counties, storms and hurricanes accounted for $954.4 billion or over half that cost. These natural disasters, unnaturally enhanced by our energy and development choices, also resulted in over 14,000 deaths. While the death toll isn’t on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, it still reflects a significant public risk.
Increasing Number of Climate Disasters Impacting Mental Health -The psychological toll of climate change-fueled disasters, now compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, is mounting and the U.S. is unprepared. These are the findings of a project by the Center for Public Integrity and Columbia Journalism Investigations, in collaboration with 10 local and regional outlets.The U.S. has faced nearly 40 billion-dollar disasters in the past decade, more than ever before. One such event, Hurricane Harvey in 2017, caused half of Houston-area residents to struggle with powerful or severe emotional distress in its aftermath, according to a Rice University survey to be published Wednesday.Meanwhile, the main federal vehicle for addressing the psychological trauma of weather and climate disasters, the Crisis Counseling Assistance and Training Program, run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has distributed about as much in post-disaster assistance over its three decades of existence ($867 million) as one agency within the Department of Defense lost track of in a single year.Even if the government were to fully fund and support comprehensive mental health care for disaster survivors, it would be insufficient without action to mitigate the underlying reality of climate change, advocates argue.”After a disaster, if the government does not declare a climate emergency and start acting like it, it’s just such a betrayal,” said Margaret Klein Salamon, a psychologist who started the advocacy group The Climate Mobilization after living through Superstorm Sandy. Providing mental-health support while failing to fight climate change, “is like a Band-Aid. How can we trust a government that does so little to protect us?”
Hundreds of thousands displaced, six dead as 600 fires rip across California – A hellish nightmare has engulfed the West Coast of the United States. Record breaking heat waves, fire and lightning storms have led to the outbreak of over 600 fires throughout the state. The nation’s largest and most populous state, and a global breadbasket, has been turned into a deadly inferno fueled by extreme heat waves and weather conditions that sparked fires which have decimated land areas larger than the state of Rhode Island. Currently some 13,700 firefighters are battling the blazes, air pollution is at hazardous levels and at least six lives have been lost.The dead include a helicopter pilot who crashed while dropping water on blazes in Fresno County, a still unidentified family of three in Napa County, a male Solano County resident and a Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) utility employee working in the Vacaville area.Two firefighters in Marin County nearly lost their lives on Friday after they were surrounded by flames from the Woodward fire. By chance, a helicopter was nearby and rescued them with minutes to spare. “Had it not been for that helicopter there, those firefighters would certainly have perished,” said Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick. Rare August thunderstorms last week above the Northern California Bay Area produced more than 20,000 lightning strikes that hit trees and vegetation, at a time when vegetation is at its driest, resulting in fires and “complexes” of numerous fires that have merged into major conflagrations in parts of the state. As of Saturday night, more than 140,000 people in the Bay Area have been evacuated while many are choosing to stay behind and attempt to protect their home from approaching walls of fire.The group of fires known as the L.N.U. Lightning Complex in Napa Valley, burning across the counties of Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Yolo and Solano is the second largest fire in California history. Fire has burned through more than 341,000 acres and consumed 845 buildings and damaged another 230 and is only 17 percent contained as of midday Sunday.At least 20 fires continue to rage East of Silicon Valley, also known as the S.C.U. Lightning Complex group fires, affecting locations in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. The S.C.U complex fires have grown to 339,968 acres and are now the third largest fire in state history, primarily overtaking less-populated areas. They are only ten percent contained.The CZU Lightning Complex started August 16 from lightning strikes in San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties. The complex has charred 71,000 acres, 24,000 structures are threatened, and it is eight percent contained as of Sunday. The River Fire in Monterey County has scorched 42,583 acres, up from 10,000 acres Wednesday, and is 12 percent contained.The Lake Fire near Lake Hughes in Los Angeles County has continued to burn since August 12 when it began near the Angeles National Forest. So far, it has destroyed 12 structures and 21 outbuildings, damaged six structures and threatens 1,329 others, and has consumed a total of 30,763 acres. By Sunday evening it was only 52 percent contained. Full containment is not expected until early next month.
California Wildfires Cover 1 Million Acres In A Week As Storms Expected To Fan Flames –In the course of just one week, wildfires blazing across the state of California have burned through nearly one million acres statewide, destroying hundreds of homes ahead of an expected storm system heading toward the state that could bring more high winds and lightning strikes. Two clusters of wildfires in the Bay Area have grown to become the second- and third-largest wildfires in recent state history by size. Light winds and cooler and more humid nighttime weather helped fire crews make progress on those fires and a third group of fires south of San Francisco ahead of the forecast of warm, dry weather, erratic wind gusts and lightning, state fire officials said. Weary firefighters in California raced Saturday to slow the spread of the blazes as President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration to provide federal assistance. Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that the declaration will also help people in counties affected by the fires with crisis counseling, housing and other social services. Calm weather overnight allowed firefighters to make progress against a trio of massive wildfires burning in Northern California, but they were bracing for a weather system Sunday that will bring high winds and thunderstorms that could spark new fires and fan existing blazes that destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and other structures and forced tens of thousands to evacuate. The “complexes,” or groups of fires, burning on all sides of the San Francisco Bay Area, were initially sparked by lightning strikes – some of roughly 12,000 strikes registered in the state in the past week. The National Weather Service issued a “red flag” warning through Monday afternoon for the drought-stricken areas across the Bay Area, meaning extreme fire conditions, including high temperatures, low humidity and wind gusts up to 65 mph “may result in dangerous and unpredictable fire behavior.” The LA Times reported Sunday night that the US military and the state national guard have been deployed to help fight the blazes due to the shortage of able-bodied prisoners able to double as firefighters. In some parts of the state people are collecting supplies to help those displaced by the blazes.
Report: California’s Oldest State Park, Home To Majestic Coast Redwoods, Is ‘Gone’ – California’s oldest state park and home to some of the most celebrated ancient coast redwood trees appears to be no more, at least the “historic core” and well-known facilities in the park.”We are devastated to report that Big Basin State Park, as we have known it, loved it, and cherished it for generations, is gone,” Sempervirens Fund, an organization dedicated to redwoods protection, wrote in a post to their website Thursday afternoon.The CZU Lightning Complex, a combination of several fires burning over the last several days in San Mateo and Santa Cruz Counties, has “damaged the park’s headquarters, historic core and campgrounds,” according to a news release from the California Department of Parks and Recreation.Big Basin was California’s very first state park, acquired by the state in 1902.While the park features over 80 miles of trails and spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean, its true stars are the 250-foot-tall ancient coast redwood trees. They’re estimated to be between 1,000 and 1,800 years old and are thought to predate the Roman Empire.The fate of the park’s oldest trees is not yet known. Some reports show many of the giant redwoods were touched by the flames, but still standing. “Nearly all Big Basin’s iconic redwood trees were scorched, and while many escaped the blaze with foliage intact, dozens near the park center had been torched up to the crown and their tops had burned off or broken,” The Mercury News wrote Thursday. According to the New York Times, conditions at Big Basin remain too dangerous for anyone to assess damage to the trees.
California’s Big Basin Redwoods Severely Damaged by Fires -Many of Big Basin Redwoods State Park’s coast redwood trees, which have come to symbolize California’s grandeur and ecological diversity, are 1,000 to 1,800 years old, hundreds of feet tall and, in some instances, over 50 feet in circumference. Most were on fire earlier this week, as the CZU August Lightning Complex Fires tore through the park, causing several of the ancient trees to fall.On Wednesday, the California Department of Parks and Recreation said in a statement that Big Basin Redwoods State Park – California’s oldest state park – had been “extensively damaged” by the CZU August Lightning Complex Fire in Santa Cruz County. As of Saturday morning, the fire has burned 63,000 acres,caused the evacuation of at least 77,000 people and is 5% contained, according to state officials. Park officials said the park’s headquarters, “historic core” and campgrounds had all been damaged by the fires, and all campers, day visitors and park staff have been evacuated. The park is closed until further notice. The 118-year-old park includes the largest continuous stand of ancient coast redwoods trees south of San Francisco, and has been featured in numerous films and pieces of writing, including Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.Mercury News reported on Friday that while “the vast majority” of the park’s redwoods are still standing, several have fallen, including one ancient redwood that had a base “more than a dozen feet across.” The News also reported that nearly every one of the park’s redwoods had been “scorched.”“We are devastated to report that Big Basin, as we have known it, loved it and cherished it for generations, is gone,” the Sempervirens Fund, a nonprofit whose mission is to protect and preserve redwoods, said in a statement. “Early reports are that the wildfire has consumed much of the park’s historic facilities. We do not yet know the fate of the park’s grandest old trees.”
These Photos Show How The Oldest State Park In California Has Been Destroyed By Fire California is having a tough time with a heat wave, rolling blackouts, and wildfires (not to mention the pandemic) all converging in an unholy alliance. There are over 500 fires blazing across the state, with the Bay Area is hit especially hard.The CZU Lightning Complex Fire is part of series of wildfires in Northern California that combined have burned more than 770,000 acres and blamed for five deaths. The CZU fire alone has burned 55,000 acres as of Friday and was 0% contained after being sparked by lightning on Aug. 17.Big Basin Redwoods State Park, which was founded in 1902 and is the oldest park in California, has been hit particularly hard. Park structures and nearby houses have been destroyed, and some of the redwoods were damaged. Rangers have also had difficulty accessing parts of the park to assess other damage due to continued fire risk, Chris Spohrer, the local district superintendent for state parks, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Here’s a look at some of the damage to the historic from the past few days.
Most ancient redwoods survive California fire – Most of California’s ancient redwood trees have survived so far amid massive wildfires burning across Northern California, according to The Associated Press. A reporter hiking in the area confirmed the survival of most of the centuries-old giants, including one known as the “Mother of the Forest” in Big Basin Redwoods State Park, according to the news service. The trees’ survival was thought to be in question after a wildfire swept through the park last week, according to the AP, which captured images of some trees taking major damage from the fires. However, the trees have been through multiple fires before, and though some have been felled by fires, more are expected to grow from those that fell. “The forest is not gone,” Laura McLendon, an official with a local redwood conservation group, told the AP. “It will regrow. Every old growth redwood I’ve ever seen, in Big Basin and other parks, has fire scars on them. They’ve been through multiple fires, possibly worse than this.” Death toll from California fires rises to seven Report: Empty homes, vehicles looted during California wildfire… “The reason those trees are so old is because they are really resilient,” added an official with the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Much of the state is currently affected by wildfires ravaging forested areas of California as a result of thousands of lightning strikes in the region so far this month, with more than 14,000 state firefighters mobilizing in response.
‘Is This Real Life?’ A Wall of Fire Robs a Russian River Town of its Nonchalance – Days before the raging wildfire threatening to destroy western Sonoma County started, the big worry among Guerneville residents was that our little town might just be too popular. Tourists from all over the San Francisco Bay area and beyond were crowding the Russian River beach towns, with Guerneville, the biggest (pop. 4,800) chief among them. Still, the complaints came with a side of pride. Who could blame city refugees for flocking to Guerneville? Nestled amid majestic redwood forests, it’s a love song to nature, with idyllic summer weather – warm, never hot, breezy, never humid – and air so refreshing that taking a deep breath feels like drinking in health. Or it did. Ash fell from the sky like gray snow flurries when the evacuation order came Tuesday night, forcing the entire town – in all, 12,000 residents around the region – to flee. . Just as in accounts from people in Paradise, the wooded town in Northern California obliterated by the Camp Fire in 2018, all the roads out of town – two – were jammed. We crawled through the smoke-choked air, windows up, reached the 101 freeway nearly an hour later, and dispersed to hotels and the homes of friends and family. I drove 75 miles south, to San Francisco. The giant fire wall looming over the coastal ridges north of Guerneville, completely uncontained two days later, has fouled the skies with smoke for miles around. On Wednesday, fires flaring across five Bay Area counties combined to give Northern California the worst air quality in the world, according to a report by PurpleAir, a Utah company that measures airborne particulate matter in real time. But smoky air is the least of Guerneville’s worries. The greatest is the fire itself. On Thursday, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) officials called the fire, dubbed the Walbridge Fire, the most worrisome among the cluster of lightning-sparked blazes in Northern California known as the LNU Lightning Complex. The complex includes fires in Vacaville (contained on Thursday) and near Lake Berryessa, west of Sacramento. Fires are raging up and down California, sparked by a combination of record heat and nearly 11,000 lightning strikes over 72 hours – a “lightning siege” – as officials have called it. On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom blamed the new reality of extreme weather on climate change and declared a state of emergency. Since then, the situation has gotten worse, with fires growing in number and size.The acreage burned and evacuations ordered have been changing so rapidly that they become outdated within hours after being reported.
‘They Have Nowhere To Run’: Inmate Families, Advocates Push for Prisoner Release as California Wildfires Engulf State – As wildfires rage in California, advocates are pushing for Gov. Gavin Newsom to evacuate prisons in the line of the fires.“It’s disaster on top of disaster on top of disaster,” Kirsten Roehler, whose 78-year-old father, Fred Roehler, is imprisoned in Lancaster, California, toldThe Guardian. The 2020 wildfire season is especially difficult for multiple reasons, including record high temperatures and extreme weather a nd, of course, Covid-19. Flames burned through more than 770,000 acres in the Golden State within just one week, theWashington Post reported Friday, leaving five people dead and air quality continually decreasing. Some of the state’s prisons are located in areas under evacuation orders, including the California Medical Facility (CMF) and Solano State Prison, which are outside of Vacaville, California.“They are breathing in fire and smoke, and they have nowhere to run,” Sophia Murillo, 39, whose brother is incarcerated at CMF in Vacaville told The Guardian. “Everyone has evacuated but they were left there in prison. Are they going to wait until the last minute to get them out?” Civil rights advocates have called on the governor to release offenders since the Covid-19 outbreak began ravaging prison populations and staff throughout the United States. Newsom and other governors have released thousands of prisoners in light of the pandemic, but with the fires raging closer and closer to physical prison structures, the calls for more action are growing.In Vacaville, instead of releasing the nonviolent inmates, officials moved 80 prisoners “to sleep in outdoor tents instead of indoor cells” in a move meant to mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in its facility, The Guardian reported. But the wildfires have damaged air quality, prompting authorities to move the inmates back inside.“I’m furious at the incompetence and severe inhumanity of this,” Kate Chatfield, policy director with the Justice Collaborative, a group that fights mass incarceration, told The Guardian. “Covid is allowed to rage through the prison system and kill people, and then they have tent hospitals set up … and now with wildfires, they take down the tents and put these people back in the Covid-infected building?”
Seven dead and 170,000 displaced as massive wildfires continue to burn in Northern California – At least seven people have died in fires raging across Northern California, including a helicopter pilot who crashed while fighting a fire in Mt. Hood National Forest, three people found in a hillside bunker in Napa Valley, a Pacific Gas & Electric employee who died from smoke inhalation while assisting firefighters, a male Solano County resident, and on Sunday, a 70-year-old man from Santa Cruz County. At least 33 people have been injured, and at least two are missing. The fires began early last week after thunderstorms produced by a tropical storm resulted in over 13,000 dry-lightning strikes, setting off hundreds of small fires, which merged into massive “fire complexes.” The fires were fueled by strong winds and a severe heatwave, which has affected much of the western United States over the past week and caused rolling blackouts throughout the state. Unusually dry air and wide areas of critically dry vegetation – part of a decades-long shift in the region’s climate toward greater aridity – have caused the fires to burn more intensely and closer to populated areas than in the past. The three largest fire complexes are burning on all sides of the heavily-populated San Francisco Bay Area, not far from the eastern edge of San Jose. As of Monday night, the SCU Lightning Complex to the southeast had burned 363,000 acres (568 square miles) and was 15 percent contained; the LNU Lightning Complex to the northeast had burned 352,000 acres (551 square miles) and was 27 percent contained; and the CZU Lightning Complex to the south had burned 78,000 acres (109 square miles) and was 17 percent contained. The August Lightning Complex further north had burned 181,000 acres (283 square miles) and was 11 percent contained. As of Tuesday morning, 937 structures have been destroyed and 251 damaged, and the fires continue to threaten some 30,500 additional structures, according to Cal Fire, California’s fire agency. The National Weather Service has set air quality alerts for much of California’s Central Valley, and parts of Oregon, Idaho, and Colorado. The San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley regions have spent days covered in a thick haze of smoke, and the concentration of fine particulate matter in the Bay Area has reached roughly five times the daily limit set by the EPA.
California Wildfires Destroy Condor Sanctuary, at Least 4 Birds Still Missing – One of the many wildfires raging through California has destroyed a sanctuary for endangered condors, and the fate of at least four of the birds remains unknown. The Dolan Fire on Friday scorched an 80-acre condor sanctuary operated in Big Sur by the group Ventana Wildlife Society, the San Jose Mercury News reported. In the process, it took out a remote camera that was monitoring a condor chick nesting in a redwood about one mile away. Ventana Wildlife Society Executive Director Kelly Sorenson said the baby’s parents flew away as the fire advanced. “We were horrified. It was hard to watch. We still don’t know if the chick survived, or how well the free-flying birds have done,” he told the San Jose Mercury News. “I’m concerned we may have lost some condors. Any loss is a setback. I’m trying to keep the faith and keep hopeful.” The imperilled chick, named Iniko, was born April 25. Its name is of Nigerian origin and means “born during troubled times,” according to the Ventana Wildlife Society website. In addition to Iniko, at least four other wild condors remain unaccounted for, and it is not yet safe for biologists to search for them because the fire continues to burn, Sorenson told the San Jose Mercury News. The Dolan Fire ignited last Wednesday in Los Padres National Forest, according to The Associated Press. It is one of hundreds of fires raging in the state that have so far killed at least seven people, burned almost 1,300 structures and forced around 170,000 people to flee their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. A man has been arrested as a suspected arsonist in connection with the Dolan Fire specifically. However, University of California, Los Angeles scientist Daniel Swain said the climate crisis means California’s wildfires are more likely to grow larger and spread more quickly once they start.
Wildfires continue to rage across California amidst heat wave and pandemic – Fires, ash and disease continue to rage throughout much of the West Coast of the United States. Record-breaking heat waves and fires sparked by powerful lightning storms have torn through several areas of California over the past week, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The scene is apocalyptic as fires rage throughout much of northern California, with a smoke-filled haze covering the dense San Francisco Bay Area and statewide heat waves prompting utility companies to induce rolling power outages. So far this year, more than 7,000 fires have decimated over 1.6 million acres (2,500 square miles), an area larger than the state of Delaware, to make this fire season one of the most active in California history. In comparison, by August of 2019, some 4,292 fires had burned 56,000 acres across the state. According to Cal Fire, California’s fire agency, there are currently over 650 active fires of varying sizes, which have so far destroyed over 2,000 structures and killed at least seven people. Hundreds of small fires began after thunderstorms hit on the night of August 17, resulting in over 13,000 dry-lightning strikes, which led to massive “fire complexes.” Strong winds and a severe heat wave have exacerbated the situation, creating the second and third largest fires in California history. The most destructive of the blazes, the LNU Lightning Complex in the northern San Francisco Bay Area counties of Napa, Lake and Sonoma, has destroyed close to 1,000 buildings. It continues to threaten about 30,000 more buildings and has killed at least five people. As of Wednesday morning, the fire had been 33 percent contained. The SCU Lightning Complex grew to become the second largest wildfire in California state history after surpassing the acreage of the LNU Lightning Complex on Monday. Only the 2018 Mendocino Complex was larger. The fire, threatening residents east of Silicon Valley proper in Santa Clara, Alameda, Stanislaus, Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties, has destroyed nearly 40 structures and threatens over 20,000 more. The third of the large fire complexes, the CZU Complex, has destroyed over 530 structures throughout Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, south of San Francisco. Cal Fire reported progress in containing the fire for the first time on Wednesday, but the fire remains at 19 percent containment and officials warn that the trend could change if weather conditions worsen. Most devastatingly, the fire has led to the indefinite closure of Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the oldest in California and home to redwood trees hundreds of years old, which have been completely destroyed. Pollution from the smoke of multiple fires burning at once has significantly worsened air quality across California and southern parts of Oregon. Officials project that the air quality index (AQI) for Northern and Central California will remain at levels up to three times the acceptable range set by the Environmental Protection Agency until at least Sunday. Polluted air has the potential to weaken the immune systems of otherwise healthy people. This makes the situation all the more dire in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, like smoke inhalation, affects the respiratory system. California already has one of the highest infection rates in the country, with more than 6,000 new cases reported on average each day. Studies suggest that areas with higher levels of air pollution correlate to higher COVID-19 infection rates.
Pine Gulch Fire in western Colorado tops 50% containment – The second-largest wildfire in Colorado history is now 53% contained, according to the latest update from fire officials Thursday morning. More than 900 personnel are helping to fight the Pine Gulch Fire which has grown to 135,958 acres and burned five structures – one a primary residence, which burned Aug. 18, and four minor structures, such as sheds. Fire crews expect cooler temperatures Thursday with the possibility of strong winds throughout the day and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Fire officials said there was minimal growth (38 acres) on Wednesday. Fire spread outside the fire perimeter should be limited again Thursday due to successful containment lines. Most fire activity will be interior burning when fire picks up pockets of unburned fuels. The overall focus on the Pine Gulch Fire is quickly shifting from fire suppression to suppression repair, fire officials said Thursday. Suppression repair involves actions that help minimize damage to soil, water, and other resources directly attributable to fire suppression activities. Ranchers in the area are feeling the impact of the Pine Gulch Fire. Many of their cattle graze on private or BLM lands that burned in the fire. They’ve spent days wrangling their cows and getting them away from the fire and smoke. Smoke plumes will be visible Wednesday primarily from pockets of unburned fuel burning well within the interior of the fire where it is not a threat. “They’ve just been dealing with a tremendous amount of stress,” Rancher Ryan Cassidy said their cattle in Mesa County, Colo. made it through the Pine Gulch Fire and even still had a little feed and water. Since last Friday night, D&M Meats has been home base for donations of food from all over the Western Slope. Gillilan’s company provided much of the meat, and caterers and volunteers stepped up to bring the rest. All the donated food is donated to ranchers and their families.
Extreme Heat, Wildfires and Record-Setting Storms Suggest the Future Climate Crisis Is Already Here – From the historic heat wave and wildfires in the West, to the massive derecho that tore through the middle of the nation, to the record-breaking pace of this year’s hurricane season, the unprecedented and concurrent extreme conditions resemble the chaotic climate future scientists have been warning us about for decades – only it’s happening right now.While climate catastrophes are typically spaced out in time and geographic location, right now the U.S. is dealing with multiple disasters. The Midwest is cleaning up from a devastating derecho that caused nearly $4 billion in damage to homes and crops, as nearly a quarter-million people in the West are under evacuation orders or warnings from fires that have burned over 1 million acres, and at the same time residents along the Gulf Coast are bracing for back-to-back landfalls of a tropical storm and hurricane.”This current stretch of natural catastrophe events in the United States are essentially a snapshot of what scientists and emergency managers have long feared,” says meteorologist Steven Bowen, the head of Catastrophe Insight at AON, an international risk mitigation firm.To be sure, these events are not all related to each other, but the one thing they do have in common is that climate change makes each one more likely. The simple explanation is that there’s more energy in the system and that energy is expended in the form of more extreme heat, fire, wind and rain.It may be tempting to look at these extremes as a “new normal,” but Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, says while it may be new, it won’t be normal.”For some time we have talked about a ‘new normal’ but the issue is that it keeps changing. It does not stop at a new state. That change is what is so disruptive,” he said. The fires unfolding in California right now have no parallel in modern times. With more than 1 million acres burned in just one week, the season is already historic with more acres burned in this past week than is typical of an entire year. Two of the state’s top three largest fires on record are burning at the same time – the LNU and SCU complex fires – with the likelihood that one of these will take over the top spot soon. As of Monday morning, CalFire reports over 7,000 fires have burned more than 1.4 million acres this season, overwhelming resources to the point where many of the smaller fires are being allowed to burn. CalFire stated that to fight these fires to the maximum of their ability, the agency would need nearly 10 times more firefighting resources than are available. Daniel Swain is a well-known climate scientist who specializes in studying the link between climate change and weather in the West at the University of California, Los Angeles. In a blog post he described how even someone like him, well-versed in climate disaster, is shocked by the current situation: “I’m essentially at a loss for words to describe the scope of the lightning-sparked fire outbreak that has rapidly evolved in northern California – even in the context of the extraordinary fires of recent years. It’s truly astonishing.”
Marine Heat Waves Are Becoming More Common and Intense. What Can We Do to Minimize Harm? – Laurie Weitkamp, a research fisheries biologist with the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Oregon, knew that something had been afoot in the northeast part of the Pacific Ocean since the fall of 2013, which was unusually sunny, warm and calm. A mass of warm water stretched from Mexico to Alaska and lingered through 2016, disrupting marine life. Tunicates weren’t the only creature affected; sea nettle jellyfish all but disappeared, while water jellyfish populations moved north to take their place, and young salmon starved to death out at sea, according to a report by Weitkamp and colleagues. Scientists dubbed this event “The Blob.” Marine heat waves like The Blob have cropped up around the globe more and more often over the past few decades. Scientists expect climate change to make them even more common and long lasting, harming vulnerable aquatic species as well as human enterprises such as fishing that revolve around ocean ecosystems. But there’s no reliable way to know when one is about to hit, which means that fishers and wildlife managers are left scrambling to reduce harm in real time. The Blob, which lasted three years, is the longest marine heat wave on record. Before that, a heat wave that began in 2015 in the Tasman Sea lasted more than eight months, killing abalone and oysters. A 2012 heat wave off the East Coast of Canada and the U.S., the largest on record at the time, pushed lobsters northward. It beat the previous record – a 2011 marine heat wave that uprooted seaweed, fish and sharks off western Australia. Before that, a 2003 heat wave in the Mediterranean Sea clinched the record while ravaging marine life. As with temperature on land, there’s an average ocean temperature on any particular day of the year: Sometimes the water will be warmer, sometimes it will be colder, and every once in a while it will be extremely warm or cold. But greenhouse gas emissions have bumped up the average temperature. Now, temperatures that used to be considered extremely warm happen more often – and every so often, large sections of the ocean are pushed into unprecedented heat, Oliver says. Pelagic ocean ecosystems, however, have not caught up to these hotter temperatures. Organisms may be able to survive a steady temperature rise, but a heat wave can push them over the edge. When blue swimmer crabs started dying in western Australia’s Shark Bay after the 2011 heat wave, the government shut down blue crab fishing for a year and a half. This was hard on industry at the time, says Peter Jecks, managing director of Abacus Fisheries, but it managed to save crab populations. Not all creatures were so lucky – abalone near the heat wave’s epicenter still haven’t recovered. “If you don’t have strong predictions [of marine heat waves], you can’t be proactive. You’re left to be reactive,” says Thomas Wernberg, an associate professor of marine ecology at the University of Western Australia.
Violent flooding leaves at least 110 fatalities, 2 000 houses destroyed in Parwan, Afghanistan – (videos) At least 110 people died and around 2 000 houses were destroyed after violent flash flooding swept through Parwan, Afghanistan, on August 26, 2020, with authorities noting that the death toll may continue to rise. The disaster management added that dozens were injured and more than 1 000 people have been evacuated. Torrential rains poured overnight, triggering the deluge that caught people off guard. Gushing waters carried mud and debris, toppling houses and sweeping away bodies in their wake. Mahmood Samadi, a resident of Parwan’s capital Charikar, said he was awakened by the sound of floodwaters raging through his neighborhood, prompting him to evacuate his family out of the city. Samadi told The New York Times that when he came back, his house was submerged and six homes on his street had already been destroyed. “I don’t know about the exact casualties in our street, but I know many people were killed and wounded.” Another local described the moment the floods struck. “I grabbed the window and was holding it for two hours until the neighbors came to rescue me,” said a 70-year-old resident named Hamida, adding that she had lost everything. According to Parwan governor Fazludin Ayar, the fatalities were estimated to be hundreds, including 11 members of the same family. Rescue teams said many people remain buried under the rubbles, and it is feared that the death toll may rise. Disaster Management Ministry spokesman Ahmad Tameem Azimi reported that more than 2 000 houses were destroyed across the province, and more than 1 000 have been displaced so far.
Are Forever Chemicals Harming Ocean Life? — In seabird after seabird, Anna Robuck found something concerning: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, lurking around vital organs.”Brain, liver, kidney, lung, blood, heart,” Robuck says, rattling off a few hiding spots before pausing to recall the rest. Robuck, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, quickly settles on a simpler response: She found the chemicals everywhere she looked. PFAS – a group of synthetic chemicals – are often called “forever chemicals” due to their quasi-unbreakable molecular bonds and knack for accumulating in living organisms. That foreverness is less of a design flaw than a design feature: The stubborn, versatile molecules help weatherproof clothing; smother flames in firefighting foam; and withstand heat and grime on nonstick pans. Through consumption and disposal, the chemicals seep into ecosystems and bodies, where they have beenlinked to cancers, pregnancy complications, and reproductive and immune dysfunction. Recent attention has focused on the prevalence of PFAS in drinking water. “Over the past 10-15 years we’ve really developed this super negative picture of what PFAS do to humans,” Robuck says. “But we’ve barely scratched the surface of that in wildlife.” One particular area of concern is the marine ecosystem. Long seen as a bottomless sink for pollutants, the ocean is a final stop for PFAS trickling into the ecosystem. Once in the ocean, PFAS can persist for decades or longer – and travel long distances. As a result, a growing body of scientific research suggests that marine wildlife are accumulating dangerous amounts of “forever chemicals.” “If we continue to emit PFAS, then the capacity of the ocean to dilute them is going to be exceeded,” saysJamie DeWitt, an environmental toxicologist at Eastern Carolina University. “For all we know, oceans could be reservoirs that re-pollute the land.” Coastal environments seem especially vulnerable to PFAS seeping from the chemical plants and military bases responsible for heavy contamination. Charlotte Wagner, a researcher at Harvard University studying the global transport of pollutants, says it’s still unclear what fraction of PFAS pollutants remain contained at their source, and what fraction has already leached into other environments. . Studies in the early 2000s showed that PFAS survived decades-long journeys from manufacturers to remote ocean basins without breaking down. . Large-scale ocean circulation moves pollutants huge distances across the globe. Some varieties of PFAS may degrade slightly over the course of years, until they convert into one of the more stable “terminal PFAS” subgroups, including PFAAs. “To the best of our knowledge PFAAs don’t degrade at all under natural environmental conditions,” says Robuck. Rather than diluting PFAS to infinitely low concentrations, oceans carry them to remote areas, like the Arctic and Antarctic. Plants, algae and sediment only remove a small fraction of PFAS from the water column. That leaves more to accumulate in animals, reaching concentrations thousands of times higher than surrounding waters.
Giant Antarctic ice shelves facing fracture risk: study – (Reuters) – A platform of ice surrounding Antarctica measuring more than 350,000 square miles (900,000 sq km) is at risk of collapse as the effects of climate change threaten to destabilise it, a new study has shown. The floating ice shelves that extend from the world’s largest ice sheet into the sea could split if fractures on their surface are flooded by meltwater as the climate warms. Sudden loss of these supportive structures could rapidly accelerate the flow of ice into the ocean, raising sea levels around the world, with previous studies suggesting the rise could be as much as one metre by 2100. Ice shelves float on the ocean but are fastened to land and act as stoppers that prevent Antarctic ice sheets, that are as big as the United States and Mexico combined, from sliding into the sea. When they melt away from those anchor points, the flow of ice into the ocean speeds up, accelerating sea level rise. The study led by researchers from Columbia University in the United States and involving Edinburgh University, Utrecht University and Google estimated around 60 percent of the ice-shelf area was vulnerable a process called hydrofracturing. It is a process where meltwater repeatedly refreezes and thaws again, enlarging fractures in those sections of ice and putting them at risk of collapse.
Earth has lost a ‘staggering’ 28 trillion tonnes of ice to global warming in the last 23 years, UK scientists find – A “staggering” 28 trillion tonnes of ice has disappeared from the surface of the Earth since 1994, a group of UK scientists has found. Scientists from Leeds and Edinburgh universities and University College London analyzed satellite surveys of glaciers, mountains, and ice sheets between 1994 and 2017 to identify the impact of global warming. Their review paper was published in the journal Cryosphere Discussions. Describing the ice loss as “staggering,” the group found that melting glaciers and ice sheets could cause sea levels to rise dramatically, possibly reaching a meter (3 feet) by the end of the century. “To put that in context, every centimeter of sea-level rise means about a million people will be displaced from their low-lying homelands,” Professor Andy Shepherd, director of Leeds University’s Center for Polar Observation and Modelling, told the Guardian. The dramatic loss of ice could have other severe consequences, including major disruption to the biological health of Arctic and Antarctic waters and reducing the planet’s ability to reflect solar radiation back into space. The findings match the worst-case-scenario predictions outlined by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the scientists have confirmed. “In the past researchers have studied individual areas – such as the Antarctic or Greenland – where ice is melting. But this is the first time anyone has looked at all the ice that is disappearing from the entire planet,” said Shepherd, according to the Guardian. “What we have found has stunned us.” “There can be little doubt that the vast majority of Earth’s ice loss is a direct consequence of climate warming,” the group wrote.
U.S. Voters Increasingly Concerned About Climate Crisis -The dangers of climate chaos are conspicuous across the country as wildfires rage in the West where prolonged drought has turned some forests into a tinderbox, the Gulf Coast braces for back-to-back tropical storms, and the Midwest picks up the pieces from the derecho storm. Now, more Americans than ever before feel the climate will take on a larger role than ever before in this year’s election, according to new research, as The New York Times reported. Climate Insights 2020 is based on survey data collected by Resources for the Future. The report is intended to take into account the manifold issues facing the American public – from the global pandemic to mass unemployment to racial injustice – to provide insights to policy makers and the public about the current sentiments of voters. It turns out that despite the upheaval from the pandemic, the climate crisis is a major issue for the American public.”We continue to see huge majorities of Americans believing that climate change is real and a threat, and passion about the issue is at an all-time high. No doubt, this issue will weigh heavily in the minds of a substantial number of Americans when they cast their ballots in November,” said Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University professor and report co-author, in a statement. “People are more sure than they’ve ever been.”The report found that the need to address the global pandemic did not become an either/or choice for voters. Voters believe that mitigating the climate crisis needs to be done simultaneously with addressing COVID-19 and the economic fallout, as The New York Times reported.Two years ago, 68 percent of survey respondents said the government needs to do more to address global heating. In 2020, that number was unchanged.As for climate crisis mitigation, 82 percent of survey respondents said the government should act, according to the report.”People can walk and chew gum at the same time,” said Krosnick, as The New York Times reported.”The COVID-19 pandemic has been a unique test for how people feel about climate change when faced with a different global crisis,” said Ray Kopp, Resources for the Future vice president for research and policy engagement, in a statement. “The argument that we can’t do anything about climate change without crashing the economy, or that we need to just focus on the pandemic and not do anything on climate right now simply doesn’t resonate with Americans.”
87 lawmakers ask EPA to reverse course after rescinding methane regulations – A coalition of 87 House lawmakers is asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw its latest rules rescinding standards for methane emissions in the oil and gas industry. “Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases driving climate change – 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the first two decades after its release,” the members wrote in the letter, which was signed by 85 Democrats and two Republicans. “This anti-science approach to rule making at the EPA is unacceptable,” they added. The EPA earlier this month finalized two different rules that rescind methane standards, something the agency’s own analysis finds will increase methane emissions through the end of the decade by 400,000 tons and 450,000 tons, respectively. EPA said it would respond to the letter through the appropriate channels. The agency said earlier this month that its rule would be a help to oil and gas companies, who were expected to monitor and prevent methane leaks throughout the course of the drilling process. “Regulatory burdens put into place by the Obama-Biden Administration fell heavily on small and medium-sized energy businesses,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. “Today’s regulatory changes remove redundant paperwork, align with the Clean Air Act, and allow companies the flexibility to satisfy leak-control requirements by complying with equivalent state rules.” But major oil companies have opposed the new rules. “Direct federal regulation of methane emissions is essential to preventing leaks throughout the industry and protecting the environment,” BP America Chairman and President David Lawler told The Hill in a statement shortly after the new rules were released. “We strongly believe that the best way to tackle this problem is through direct federal regulation, ensuring that everyone in the industry is doing everything they can to eliminate methane leaks,” he said. Rescinding the methane standards could make it harder for future administrations to fight climate change, not just because of the release of heat-trapping gases, but by eliminating an avenue for EPA to regulate similar greenhouse gases. The new agency rules set the stage for rollbacks to other pollutants by arguing that the EPA under former President Obama did not sufficiently define what constitutes a “significant” contribution to climate change under the Clean Air Act.
Climate Deniers on Front Line of Battle Over Pennsylvania Joining Cap-and-Trade Program to Slash Carbon Pollution –Pennsylvania, traditionally a battleground state in electoral politics, is currently embroiled in a battle over the state potentially joining a regional program to curb carbon pollution from the power sector. That program, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), has seen carbon dioxide emissions from power plants slashed by 47 percent over 10 years while generating over $3 billion in revenue. Participating states have then used that revenue to invest in energy efficiency and clean energy programs.Environmental advocates say Pennsylvania’s participation in RGGI would be a “game-changer,” but climate science deniers and other fossil fuel allies claim it would be too costly and kill jobs in a state where the coal and fracked gas industries have long dominated the energy landscape.The state’s government is divided on the issue of Pennsylvania joining RGGI. Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, issued an executive order last October directing the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to begin the process of joining the regional cap-and-trade program and develop carbon pollution regulations within the state. The Republican-controlled legislature opposes Pennsylvania participating in RGGI and has held a series of hearings to argue against the governor’s initiative to join the program. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives even passed a bill (House Bill 2025) in July that would strip DEP’s authority to regulate power-sector carbon pollution.Environmental committees in the state legislature held a pair of hearings this week, one in the House and one in the Senate, featuring witnesses opposed to Pennsylvania joining RGGI. One invited witness in the House hearing on Monday, August 24 – the CO2 Coalition’s Caleb Rossiter – broke with the more than 11,000 scientists who last year declared the planet “is facing a climate emergency” when he falsely claimed, “We are not in a CO2-driven climate crisis.”Rossiter, a professor and consultant with a background in international policy, also said the state’s DEP “traffics in lies, damn lies, statistics … and models.”
Union members join industry groups to rally against state caps on power plant emissions –Union workers – seeking a voice at the table in fossil fuel policies at the state and national level – rallied Wednesday at the coal-fired Cheswick Generating Station. Organized by the Power PA Jobs Alliance, a coalition of labor and business groups spanning Southwestern Pennsylvania, the event targeted the negative impacts of Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI. The rally in Springdale was kept small – about 50 people – to comply with pandemic public health guidelines. It unfolded as Republicans in Charlotte prepared for the final days of a virtual national convention set to formally launch President Trump into his run for a second term of office. The debate has been framed as placing the need to address the threat of climate change against the fossil fuel industry, which produces 80% of the nation’s energy needs and contributes to carbon emissions. But industry supporters and labor leaders said it is not that simple. They maintained Wolf’s plan, which proposes to lower carbon emissions through an RGGI carbon tax, is a case in point. It would eliminate jobs and put Pennsylvania power generators at a disadvantage against competitors in Ohio and West Virginia, neighboring states that do not plan to join the initiative, industry workers said. It’s a major issue in the region, where coal- and gas-fired power plants dot the landscape.
Navigating The Energy Transition: A Tale Of Two Hemispheres – Between Covid-19 and the imperative to decarbonize, there’s a sense of urgency for the oil and gas industry to reshape that has never been seen before. The contrast between European and American oil majors’ approach to the energy transition couldn’t be clearer. On the surface, it appears they have very different views of what the future energy system will look like.Based on stated intentions, European majors are all in on alternative energy and reducing their carbon footprint. They’ve made big promises, going so far as to take responsibility for eliminating or offsetting carbon emissions created when their customers burn oil and gas to net-zero. They’ve taken bold steps to reorganize their companies to succeed in alternative energy markets and are looking to make big investments in low-carbon energy. If they remain focused on these commitments, it’s hard to see them looking anything like what they do today.For the most part, the U.S. majors are doubling down on their core businesses. They’ve promised and taken action to reduce the carbon-intensity of their operations but avoided commitment to reallocate capital or reorganize in a way that leads them toward being something other than oil and gas companies. Their investments in new energy technologies tend to focus on efficiency, decarbonization solutions and biofuels. Bold steps to move into more emerging and economically challenged energy solutions, like green hydrogen, are not a central focus. Company executives continue to question whether real disruption will occur soon in end-user behavior or energy infrastructure. At Ernst & Young LLP (EY), we’ve analyzed the paths to energy transition in ourCountdown Clock (power and utilities) and Fueling the Future (oil and gas) projects and believe there are a wide range of outcomes in both magnitude and timing of the energy transition from hydrocarbons to green energy. With that said, we can identify some key signposts that may require a quick pivot on strategy. The U.S. election is an obvious one. Depending on who is elected President and which party controls the Senate, the incentives for companies that do business in the U.S. could be very different than they are today. There could be considerable risk of new regulatory and tax burdens on fossil fuels and new incentives and subsidies for renewable energy. Regardless of which way the election goes, the fallout from economic collapse and government deficit spending during the Covid-19 crisis looms large. The overhang of Covid-19 spending and the ongoing health crisis may hamper even the most ambitious climate policy as other immediate priorities and the economic reality take center stage. Either party will be keen to stimulate the economy after the crisis. Infrastructure spending – including renewable energy projects and research and development – could be at the top of the agenda. What remains to be seen is how much pressure there will be to resist new spending and move the government toward a more sustainable fiscal balance.
Standing Rock developing wind farm near Fort Yates – The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is developing a wind farm, the first of its kind on an Indian reservation in North Dakota.About 60 turbines are slated to dot the Porcupine Hills, a badlands-esque part of Sioux County between Fort Yates and Porcupine. “That’s a really good spot for wind right there,” said Fawn Wasin Zi, chairwoman of SAGE Development Authority, the public power authority the tribe recently formed.Tribal leaders have nixed moving ahead with a wind farm in the past, reaching the conclusion that they would have little ownership of such a facility if a developer were to build one on Standing Rock.”We want more ownership up front,” Wasin Zi said.To aid in that effort, Standing Rock over the years has secured small grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to study wind development potential on the reservation, as it’s long been something the tribe has wanted to pursue. With that work done and with the right approach moving forward, the tribe now hopes to attract a developer aligned with its values to build the project.Standing Rock is pursuing the idea amid its fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which has spurred efforts to harness renewable power on the reservation. A small solar farm already exists in Cannon Ball. Standing Rock is working with advisers, including LIATI Capital, Connexus Capital and Hometown Connections, to make the wind farm come to fruition. The wind farm would be named “Anpetu Wi,” which in Lakota means “the breaking of the new day.” The Lakota people traditionally have prayed at that time, SAGE General Manager Joseph McNeil said. “You’re praying for guidance, you’re praying for wisdom, you’re praying for what’s best for the day for your family, for the people,” he said. “This is really how we look at this project, as a prayer to guide our people into the future, into the new day.” The wind farm would have a 235-megawatt capacity with the potential to expand down the road. SAGE recently filed an interconnection request with the Southwest Power Pool, which oversees the power grid in a number of central states, including in parts of North Dakota.
New York, New Jersey hesitant on offshore grid planning amid federal uncertainty – New York and New Jersey may have their offshore wind goals nailed down, but how to bring the power to land remains very much in the air. Transporting electricity produced by wind turbines off the coasts of New York and New Jersey to shore requires a decision: should states guide a planned grid offshore or let each project developer go it alone? So far the two states have opted to let offshore wind developers plot their own path for transmission lines to connect to their grids. That may ultimately result in higher costs, missed opportunities and an inability to advance future offshore developments. Both states are examining the issue of transmitting offshore wind to shore and plugging it into some of the oldest electric infrastructure in the country. “If we’re going to have a complete revolution of where we get our power from, it only makes sense that you’re going to plan out how to get that power to shore,” said Janice Fuller, president of New Jersey OceanGrid, a division of transmission developer Anbaric. “It can’t be left to this one-at-a-time, we’ll figure it out as we go [process]. … We only have one opportunity to do this right.” With each new award to an offshore wind developer who picks the least-cost and best-located point to hook into the grid, the number of places to interconnect decreases and potential upgrade costs increase. That may raise the bids submitted by wind developers to states seeking thousands of megawatts to support their climate goals. A major barrier to policymakers moving ahead with detailed plans for an offshore grid is the lack of clarity on where new wind projects might be sited. The federal government is slow-walking new leases off the area’s coastline, making any planning nebulous. “It is harder to make material progress on transmission issues on the wet side when you don’t know where the lease areas will be located,” As it stands, there may not be enough capacity in the leased areas to meet the two state’s goals: a combined 16.5 gigawatts by 2035. Setting up an offshore grid to collect electricity generated from multiple wind projects and making proactive onshore upgrades to the grid could ensure lower overall costs for electricity customers, and prevent major additional work on land. Fewer cables could minimize impacts on traditional maritime interests, including shipping and fishing.
FBI Chased Imagined Eco-Activist Enemies, Documents Reveal — FEDERAL AND STATE law enforcement officers gathered in the Midwest in February 2019 to practice their responses to a fictional threat: wind farm sabotage. They divided into four teams and pretended to be the bad guys, environmental saboteurs targeting the large grids of turbines that turn the wind into electric power. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Omaha, Nebraska, field office and the Iowa Division of Intelligence and Fusion Center had organized the “red hat” exercise, meant to provide insight into the minds of environmental activist adversaries that didn’t exist. Each team developed an attack plan. One proposed ramming wind turbine infrastructure with a vehicle. Another sought to plant explosives on electrical transformers. And – although U.S. environmental saboteurs tend to not use guns – two of the teams suggested using firearms to attack electrical substations from a distance. The fact that cops themselves planned the attacks may have created a “bias toward the use of firearms,” the FBI later acknowledged in a pair of reports on the exercise obtained by The Intercept. However, the federal agents also concluded that “Environmental Extremists Likely Would Use Firearms To Circumvent Perceived Electrical Infrastructure Site Security Measures.” The exercise was not conducted due to any imminent threat – a carefully noted fact included in the December 2019 and March 2020 reports. “Neither FBI Omaha nor the Iowa DOI/FC has intelligence suggesting environmental extremists intend to attack wind farms in Iowa,” both reports repeatedly state. Why, then, spend public dollars on FBI role-playing? Because the energy industry wanted it. The exercise came “at the request of an USBUS private energy sector partner, following 14 environmental extremist attacks against transportation infrastructure in Iowa that services the energy sector, particularly oil pipelines,” said one of the documents about the exercise. Privately owned and operated companies and industry groups – none of which were named in the reports – were intimately involved in the exercise: An Iowa utility company and a wind energy lobbyist group provided information to help judge the fake attack plans and assess the fake “threat environment,” and an industry representative joined two of the teams, posing as an insider accomplice. Though there was no indication an attack on wind power sites would occur, the report went on to say, if one hypothetically did, it could proliferate into many, with each set of attackers becoming more skilled in evading security and capture. “As attack methods become more sophisticated,” the report warned, “the chance for large-scale failure of the electrical grid becomes more likely.” Law enforcement ought to be on the lookout for activists undergoing gun training, activists in rural locations with large infrastructure, and activists casing wind power sites, the report advised . .
Utilities face growing ransomware threat as hackers improve strategy, execution —The utility sector, including electric, gas and water companies, has a growing ransomware problem, say security experts. Ransomware is a type of financially-motivated malware, which steals or locks up a company’s data or computing systems until the victim pays a fee to the hacker. And it is quickly becoming more common across the economy, as deploying the malware becomes easier and hackers learn to right-size their demands. “It’s a volume business. A volume, low-margin business,” said Miles Keogh, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. He advised state public utility commissions on cybersecurity issues until 2017. While there have been a few high-profile cases where companies paid large ransoms to recover their data or systems (Garmin reportedly paid millions this summer), experts say more frequently smaller cases are resolved quietly, including some utilities. “As you can imagine, a lot of organizations, if they pay, they keep it under cover. It’s difficult to understand if a victim paid or did not pay – but we are seeing an increase in the number of victims.” Victims of ransomware are reticent to talk. The Reading Municipal Light Department in Massachusetts acknowledged earlier this year it had been hit by ransomware. The utility declined to discuss the attack, saying in a statement “the RMLD implements best utility practices.”The Lansing Board of Water & Light in Michigan in 2016 paid a $25,000 ransom to unlock some of its communication systems. The utility declined to comment on the incident. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, said it has seen “an uptick in attempted attacks” in part related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but added that its members are “prepared to mitigate and manage the extra risks.” The group did not address whether ransomware costs could be passed on to consumers.
Transition to renewable energy accelerates while Kentucky municipal utilities weigh new fossil fuel investments –– The transformation of America’s energy system is accelerating, with important implications for Kentucky. Renewable energy is competing with natural gas as the cheapest sources of electricity, while U.S. coal power production fell 30% in the first half of 2020. This followed a 16% decline in 2019. Earlier this year, renewables generated more electricity than coal for 40 consecutive days in the U.S. In Kentucky, hundreds of megawatts of coal generation have been retired in the past two years by Owensboro Municipal Utilities and Henderson Municipal Power and Light (HMP&L). In July, HMP&L announced a contract for 50 megawatts of solar to be built in Henderson County, which will supply 20% of its electricity needs. In Indiana, the Northern Indiana Public Service Co. (NIPSCO) is transitioning its power supply from 65% coal to eliminate it by 2028. The utility, which serves 466,000 customers, concluded that its least-cost energy mix would include solar, large-scale battery storage, wind, energy efficiency and some market purchases. It expects to save its customers more than $4 billion over 30 years. The Kentucky Municipal Energy Agency (KYMEA) is presently planning for its future energy needs. It has a 100 megawatt coal contract due to expire in 2022 and is considering whether to enter into new coal or natural gas contracts to replace it. KYMEA serves 11 municipal utilities in Kentucky and has contracts to supply all of the energy needs for Frankfort, Barbourville, Bardwell, Corbin, Falmouth, Madisonville, Paris and Providence. The possibility of KYMEA’s entering into new contracts for coal or natural gas power is a significant financial risk for these communities. First, as the cost of wind, solar and battery storage continues to fall, fossil fuel contracts threaten to become an overpriced burden for years to come. Second, there is the question of whether KYMEA needs any additional capacity to replace the expiring coal contract. Analysis has shown KYMEA already has at least 40 – 60 megawatts of excess power capacity, which currently costs its members millions of dollars annually. The cheapest kilowatt-hour is the one you don’t have to buy. KYMEA’s customers should ensure the agency carefully evaluates future needs and only contracts for new power supplies when they are needed.
Indiana Ports Recording Large Shipments – One of the largest shipments in the 50-year history of the Ports of Indiana is set to arrive this week in Burns Harbor. The port is receiving cargo for a $1 billion power plant under construction in Niles, Michigan. According to the Ports of Indiana, the largest piece is a 613,000-pound steam recovery system that is scheduled to arrive in the deep-water port. The component is 100 feet long, 12 feet high, and 15 feet wide. “We have seen an uptick in large project cargo shipments this year for power plants and wind energy components, but the size and scope of this project make it one of the largest shipments in our port’s 50-year history,” said Port of Indiana-Burns Harbor Port Director Ian Hirt. Once the 300-ton system is offloaded, dockworkers will use an 84-axle, 249-foot-long tractor-trailer to move it to a storage yard, before making the last part of the journey to southwest Michigan. The port authority said the vessel is one of six that arrived this summer with components for the project. The equipment was shipped “halfway around the world,” according to port officials on a two-month journey.
Biofuels group blasts new ethanol-waiver requests – The number of small oil refineries asking to get out of a requirement to blend ethanol ballooned to 98 after federal officials said they would wait until after the election to make a decision. Emily Skor is CEO of Growth Energy, a biofuels trade organization. (Photo courtesy of Growth Energy) Should President Donald Trump lose in his bid for re-election, he would still have a couple of months to act on the waivers, which small refineries have requested because they view the ethanol requirement as a financial hardship. Ethanol interests have said the waivers reduce demand for the corn-based fuel additive, endangering an industry central to the Midwest economy. Reduced travel due to the coronavirus pandemic has reduced demand for both oil and ethanol. Industry group Growth Energy on Friday said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed nine new petitions from refiners. A full-scale fight against the waivers has included pleas from U.S. Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley, two of Trump’s GOP colleagues from Iowa. U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, has asked the EPA inspector general to investigate whether the EPA’s action have violated federal biofuels laws. The requests include 67 that ask for retroactive permission to sidestep the blending or the purchase of credits, something that the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association and farm groups have strongly opposed. Head shot of Cindy Axne U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne is a Democrat who represents Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District. “Oil companies are pouring gasoline on the fire, while the EPA seems content to watch it burn,” said Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor said in a statement. “President Trump needs to put his foot down and demand the EPA send a clear signal to struggling rural communities that the demand destruction is over.” “EPA must deny these exemptions without further delay,” Skor added. Ernst pushed Trump on the issue when he visited Cedar Rapids Tuesday. “I’ll speak to them myself,” Trump told Ernst. “I’ll do it myself.” Trump didn’t elaborate as to what he would say to EPA officials.
Biden says supports ethanol, hits Trump on handling of U.S. biofuel laws – (Reuters) – Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Tuesday threw his support behind U.S. laws that require oil refiners to blend biofuels into the nation’s fuel pool and criticized the Trump administration for its handling of the mandates. “A Biden-Harris Administration will promote and advance renewable energy, ethanol, and other biofuels to help rural America and our nation’s farmers, and will honor the critical role the renewable fuel industry plays in supporting the rural economy and the leadership role American agriculture will play in our fight against climate change,” Biden said in a statement. The statement on Tuesday was the strongest commitment the Biden campaign has made to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) yet. The regulation requires refiners to blend billions of gallons of biofuels into their fuel or buy credits from those that do. Small refiners that prove the rules would financially harm them can apply for exemptions. Those waivers have been a touchstone of controversy the last few years as the Trump administration has more than quadrupled the number of exemptions issued. Biofuel advocates say the waivers hurt demand for corn-based ethanol, but the oil industry argues against that claim. The debate gained steam this year after a Denver-based appeals court ruled that waivers granted to small refineries after 2010 had to take the form of an “extension.” Most recipients of waivers in recent years have not continuously received them, casting doubt on the whole program. The administration has not yet announced how it will handle the decision. In the meantime, refiners are requesting retroactive waivers from the administration in hopes of coming into compliance with the court ruling.
How Maryland’s Preference for Burning Trash Galvanized Environmental Activists in Baltimore – Shashawnda Campbell became an environmental activist at 15, when she learned that a company had proposed building the country’s largest waste-to-energy incinerator less than a mile from her high school, in the Curtis Bay section of Baltimore. Waste-to-energy incinerators gained traction in the 1980s, as an environmentally-friendly alternative to throwing trash in landfills by burning it and converting it to energy. But by some metrics, burning trash can be even dirtier than burning coal, emitting lead, mercury, nitrogen oxides, dioxins and particulate matter associated with increased risk of cardiac and respiratory disease. And the facility first proposed by Energy Answers International in 2009 was designed to incinerate 4,000 tons a day. “That just didn’t sit right with us as youth,” said Campbell, now 23. “We knew that we had to do something.” By the time Campbell and several classmates at Benjamin Franklin High School finished their fight, they had come up against then-Gov. Martin O’Malley, the Maryland legislature and a state policy that incentivized and subsidized the incineration of trash. In fact, the city had come to rely on an existing incineration at an existing facility called Wheelabrator Baltimore to such an extent, some environmentalists said, that residential recycling rates were significantly lower than in other parts of the country. Wheelabrator, still in operation, remains Baltimore’s single largest standing source of air pollution, according to an analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data by the Energy Justice Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the “grassroots energy agenda,” according to its website. The massive, aging incinerator is also the focus of intensifying environmental opposition that aims not only to shut it down but to end what activists see as the state’s bizarre policy preference for the incineration of trash over more sustainable alternatives.
Exelon: Massachusetts’ gas and oil-fired Mystic power units to close in 2021 and 2024 – Exelon will close one of the nation’s longest running power plants within four years. The dual-fuel Mystic Generating Station, in one form or another, has been providing power to the Boston area since the 1940s. Exelon took ownership of the gas and petroleum-fired facilities as part of its merger with Constellation in 2012. The first Mystic gas-fired units have been retired for some time, but Units 7, 8 and 9 are now being phased out. Unit 7 and Mystic Jet will cease operations next year, while Units 8 and 9 will be closed when the cost of service agreement expires in May 2024. The Exelon statement partially blamed the decision on changes by the independent system operator ISO-New England which it said negatively impacted the station’s reliability benefits. “We appreciate FERC’s consideration of our complaint that challenged the process ISO-NE is using to replace Mystic’s reliability benefits to Boston, and while we disagree with their order, we accept it,: reads the Exelon Generation statement. “As a result of the order, we currently do not see a path to continue commercial electric generation at Mystic Generating Station.”
Anderson County residents fight over TVA’s toxic coal ash waste -Anderson County resident Loni Arwood says she doesn’t need a study to convince her the Tennessee Valley Authority is contaminating her community with its radioactive coal ash dust.“I’ve seen the stuff flying through the air at the (Kid’s Palace playground) … where the children play ball,” she said, referring to a children’s recreational area located less than 100 yards from a coal ash dump at TVA’s Bull Run Fossil Plant in Claxton. “Why hasn’t that been shut down? Can anyone tell me that?”Arwood isn’t alone in her complaints about TVA’s handling of the millions of tons of toxic coal ash waste it produces and stores at the Bull Run plant – located next to Kid’s Palace and less than a mile from the Claxton Elementary School – and the utility’s current plan to leave all that waste behind when it shutters the plant in 2023.More than 50 residents, including several Oak Ridge scientists and researchers, turned out earlier this month for a virtual community meeting to voice concerns about TVA’s coal ash waste in Anderson County.“Coal ash is the largest unregulated radioactive waste in the United States,” Oak Ridge resident and scientific researcher Bob Hatcher told attendees at the virtual Bull Run Neighbors community group meeting. “This is a toxic material without any question. There are radiological elements in it, despite the denials of TVA.” TVA has claimed for decades its coal ash – the byproduct of burning coal to produce electricity – was mostly “inert” dust, no more dangerous to breathe than dirt and no more radioactive than low-sodium table salt.Although TVA no longer compares its coal ash waste to dirt in public statements, the utility says the substance is not classified as a hazardous waste under Environmental Protection Agency rules.TVA has repeatedly said its coal ash waste has been tested by the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation and other agencies, all of whom have concluded it is not a radiological threat.But an ongoing Knox News investigation revealed TVA has known for decades its coal ash waste contained radium – a radioactive heavy metal dangerous to breathe or ingest – and a slew of other cancer-causing toxins, including arsenic, cadmium and strontium.
Consultant to review utility CEO pay after Trump criticism (AP) – The Tennessee Valley Authority has hired a new independent consultant to take a fresh look into its executive compensation after President Donald Trump earlier this month blasted the CEO as being “ridiculously overpaid,” the federal utility’s board chairman said Thursday. At a virtual meeting, the board announced that hiring a new consultant, Erin Bass-Goldberg of FW Cook, would be one of multiple steps taken after Trump put the agency in his crosshairs. Trump fired the former board chairman and another board member earlier this month and called for the CEO’s replacement and the position’s pay to be capped at $500,000. The board also provided more detail about plans to reverse course on the hiring of foreign labor for information technology jobs, which piqued Trump’s interest enough that in early August he invited the workers who would be replaced to the White House. With the pay-scale review in place, CEO Jeff Lyash could have a breather from Trump’s wrath. Results are expected before TVA’s November board meeting. The TVA Act in federal law already requires hiring an independent consultant to review executive compensation, Board Chairman John Ryder told reporters. But the utility is switching up firms to provide a “new set of eyes on the problem,” he said. “We have reported that back to the White House and the indications we have is that we are approaching this in the right way,” Ryder said of the pay review. In his first six months on the job, Lyash’s compensation was $8.1 million, making him the highest paid federal employee.
Dozen urge state to hold KU accountable on Herrington Lake – (WTVQ) – A dozen environmental leaders and residents on the shores of Herrington Lake urged the state Energy and Environment Cabinet Thursday to hold Kentucky Utilities accountable and make the utility giant do more to clean up the pollution it has caused in the lake from its 65-year-old E.W. Brown power plant. – Advertisement – The comments came during a 65-minute-long virtual public hearing, the first of its kind held by the Cabinet. While 12 people actually spoke, as many as 70 tuned in, including officials from the state and environmental groups and KU. One resident said she ad her husband bought their cabin on the lake 25 years ago and called it their, “Slice of heaven,” attracting visitors from as far away as London, England. “We would like to see real accountability,” she said, noting they’d like to be able to pass the cabin on to their grandchildren with confidence the lake will be safe. “You’ve got to understand how important Herrington Lake is to people of all walks of life,” said Emma Anderson, a former student at Centre College in Danville. “We don’t think what they have done is enough,” added Brett Warner. “They need to clean up the mess and stop all the mess-making by KU,” another resident stated. Environmental groups have challenged KU’s plan for cleaning up coal ash from the plant that has leaked into the lake. They argue fish deformities ad other problems are the result of chemicals leaking into the water. May of the residents said they won’t eat fish caught in its waters.
Duke Energy Asks Regulators To Let it Charge Customers For Coal Ash Costs Duke Energy is urging state regulators to approve rate increases at its two North Carolina electric utilities, including money to pay for cleanups of toxic coal ash. Duke treasurer Karl Newlin told the North Carolina Utilities Commission Monday that if the company isn’t allowed to recover coal ash cleanup costs, it could lead to a downgrade in its credit ratings and scare off investors. His testimony came during the first day of a public hearing on the proposed rate increases that are being conducted online. Coal ash is the residue left after burning coal to make electricity and contains heavy metals that can cause cancer. Duke’s critics say that the company and its investors should absorb the multibillion-dollar cost to clean up millions of tons of coal ash that have piled up at its North Carolina coal plants for decades. But Newlin argued that if that happens, “the end result will be a marked deterioration in the companies’ credit quality, which will inevitably lead to a higher cost of capital as the companies seek to attract investors to fund their extensive capital needs.” “The deterioration in credit quality will be exacerbated by more favorable regulatory treatment for its utilities in neighboring jurisdictions,” Newlin said. “Investors vote with their wallets and will go elsewhere if the returns they see from the companies do not meet their requirements or they do not believe that credit quality will be maintained over the life to that investment.” Duke wants to raise revenues by an average of about 6% in its central North Carolina territory, Duke Energy Carolinas, which includes Charlotte. And it’s seeking an average 15.6% increase for Duke Energy Progress, which includes eastern North Carolina and parts of the mountains. Residential customers who use 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month would see their monthly bills rise from $102.71 to $108.43 in the Duke Energy Carolinas area, and from $120.44 to $137.73 in Duke Energy Progress territory, according to the utilities commission. Duke has reached agreements with the state’s consumer advocate as well as business and environmental groups that could reduce the amount of the rate increases, said Duke spokesperson Meredith Archie. “However, we have not calculated the rate impacts of the proposed partial settlement since it will ultimately be reviewed and approved by the NCUC, along with the unresolved issues,” she said. Coal ash is among those unresolved issues. In 2018, regulators allowed Duke to recover coal ash costs, minus $100 million in penalties.
Lehi City Council votes to back out of nuclear power project contract -The Lehi City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to withdraw the city from a multiagency nuclear power project that would provide nuclear power to cities across Utah, citing concerns over increasing costs.The Carbon Free Power Project is an initiative by Oregon-based NuScale Power, the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems and the United States Department of Energy to build a small modular reactor power plant at the Idaho National Laboratory.The power plant, which NuScale Power expects to be running by 2029 and fully operational by 2030, would provide clean energy to 34 municipalities in Utah, Idaho and New Mexico.The project would use air, not water, to cool steam produced by the power plant and would cut water use by 90%, according to a blog post about the project. Earlier this month, the Utah Taxpayer Association called on cities to withdraw from the project ahead of the Sept. 14 deadline after a closed-door virtual town hall meeting on July 21 where officials warned of project delays, increased costs to cities and towns involved, and “dependence on unpredictable federal subsidies.” Lehi has already spent $455,000 on the project, according to Joel Eves, city power director, who told the council that there hadn’t been “a lot of movement” in the two years since Lehi entered the contract in getting subscriptions for the power project, which he called “concerning.” “A big piece of this is project subscription,” Eves said. “And that makes us nervous. It seems like we’re going at this alone with the UAMPS members.” In November 2017, the total cost of the project was estimated at $3.6 billion. By November 2019, that number had increased to $4.2 billion. By July, the estimated cost had gone up to $6.1 billion. That would cost Lehi $466 million at the city’s current subscription levels, Eves said. UAMPS would be responsible for paying $4.8 billion, while the DOE would pay $1.3 billion and NuScale Power would pay $5 million.
Ohio AG Yost considering lawsuit to halt nuclear plant surcharge | The Blade – Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Wednesday said he’s prepared to seek an injunction that would stop the imposition of a ratepayer surcharge flowing to two northern Ohio nuclear power plants at the center of the $61-million statehouse corruption scandal.Mr. Yost, a Republican, indicated he’s considering moving ahead with a lawsuit as the Ohio Senate prepares to return to Columbus next week to discuss repealing or replacing the energy law, House Bill 6, at the heart of the scandal.Pressuring lawmakers to act quickly on what will be a complex process, Mr. Yost said he could file a lawsuit as soon as September if the legislature doesn’t move swiftly to repeal the law. He declined to set a deadline or elaborate on what might trigger him to file, except to say he supports a repeal.“I’m hoping they get a repeal done. If they don’t though, my office is preparing legal action and among the things we’re going to ask for is an injunction to halt the imposition of a surcharge, its collection, or its disbursement to the FirstEnergy successor,” Mr. Yost said.“We think there are ample grounds and the statute to ask a court to intervene and to stop that.”It’s not clear what an immediate injunction would mean for the Davis-Besse nuclear plant near Oak Harbor or the Perry nuclear plant east of Cleveland. The two financially-strapped plants directly employ about 1,400 people in northern Ohio. Elected officials in the two counties where they’re located have called on lawmakers to maintain the law, arguing the unethical way it came about doesn’t outweigh its benefit to the community.A spokesman for nuclear-plant operator Energy Harbor declined comment.Lawmakers have debated how to handle the controversial law since former House Speaker Larry Householder (R., Glenford) and four others were charged in July with conspiring to funnel $61 million from FirstEnergy and related interests to help elect Mr. Householder’s allies who would then elevate him to speaker. The political power he gained was used to pass the energy law.Its key feature is a new surcharge to FirstEnergy Solutions’ customers monthly bills beginning in 2021 to generate $150 million a year to support the struggling nuclear plants and $20 million a year for solar projects.House Republicans and Democrats have introduced separate repeal bills that would block the new subsidies while restoring mandates that utilities obtain more of their power from renewable sources.A bipartisan measure doing the same thing has been introduced in the Senate.Mr. Yost said a lawsuit would stop a billion-dollar revenue stream from flowing to the nuclear plants while lawmakers deal with the fallout from the corruption scandal.
Ohio Senate likely to repeal HB 6 before Election Day – The Columbus Dispatch – Republicans in at least one branch of the Ohio legislature are returning to Columbus before the election so they can consider overturning controversial House Bill 6. “The Senate will be meeting in September, and we are likely to add additional session dates to the schedule. One of the issues we will be considering is a potential repeal of HB 6,” confirmed Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina.Holding a session in September would show voters that the GOP-dominated legislature is taking action – just before early voting begins in early October – on the legislation at the heart of what federal authorities say is a $60 million racketeering scheme to return former House Speaker Larry Householder to power and to bail out Ohio’s two nuclear power plants. It is unclear whether the House will take similar action. Also uncertain is a timetable for a possible replacement – or whether the $1 billion bailout will be replaced at all.The assessments on Ohioans’ utility bills for the two power plants is to start in January. But it seems unlikely lawmakers will want to abandon the campaign trail long enough to take the time necessary to consider possible alternatives before the election. And Obhof opposes significant legislation in the year-ending lame-duck session.
Ohio nuclear bailout: Vistra Energy joins effort to repeal it – Cincinnati Business Courier — The owner of two Cincinnati-area power plants has joined a coalition to repeal House Bill 6, the controversial $1 billion bailout of nuclear power plants.
Ohio Elections Commission to consider sanctioning failed campaign to repeal nuclear bailout bill – cleveland.com – The failed 2019 campaign to repeal House Bill 6, the Ohio nuclear bailout law that’s now at the center of a federal corruption investigation, is facing possible sanctions this week from the Ohio Elections Commission for not disclosing who funded the campaign.Elections commission members on Thursday will consider a complaint against Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, the well-financed political group that attempted to repeal HB6 through a citizen’s referendum. The group disbanded late last year, shortly after it missed a legal deadline to collect the hundreds of thousands of signatures needed to place the the issue on the ballot for a statewide vote.Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts never filed a state campaign-finance report detailing the group’s 2019 expenditures, which included ads, legal expenses and paid petition workers. That led Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s staff to refer the case to the elections commission in March.Elections commission staff now is recommending fining the group $5,225, or $25 for each day that has passed since Jan. 31, the deadline under state law for campaign groups that performed political work during 2019.The elections commission could fine the group up to $100 a day, said Elections Commission Director Phil Richter. But since Ohioans Against Corporate Bailouts, formed shortly after the passage of HB6 in July 2019, is considered a first-time offender, precedent is to consider a lower-end penalty, Richter said.Gene Pierce, a Republican political consultant who served as a spokesman for the repeal campaign, declined to comment for this story, as did the group’s campaign manager, Brandon Lynaugh. House Bill 6 created subsidies worth more than $1 billion for two Ohio nuclear plants, as well as funding for three solar projects and two coal plants owned by a consortium of Ohio utility companies. The legislation was the subject of a massive lobbying campaign from secretive groups on both sides of the issue. The bill came under renewed public scrutiny last month, when federal agents arrested House Speaker Larry Householder, alleging he corruptly agreed to pass the legislation for FirstEnergy Corp. in exchange for $60 million to help Householder so he could push for the bailout legislation. Federal prosecutors have alleged FirstEnergy and related companies secretly spent tens of millions of dollars to get the get the bill passed, which included running ads pressuring legislators to sign it, hiring campaign workers to interfere with the repeal campaign’s efforts to gather signatures and running ads discouraging voters from signing the repeal petitions. The company and its affiliated political groups structured their spending to make it impossible or difficult to track.
NRC board extends Seabrook plant’s license with conditions relating to concrete testing – – The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board has accepted the Seabrook nuclear plant’s concrete monitoring program after several months of deadline extensions. The licensing board made its ruling on Friday, Aug. 21, and is treating it as non-public to allow the parties an opportunity to review it and propose any redactions. A public version of the ruling, which was nearly 200 pages long, will be issued by Sept. 11. The board’s decision was originally supposed to be issued within 90 days of a Sept. 24, 2019, hearing in Newburyport about concrete degradation at the Seabrook power plant, but was extended multiple times. The plant sits about 17 miles northwest – as the seagull flies – from parts of Gloucester and Rockport, Massachusetts. During the hearing, Amesbury non-profit C-10 called for the revocation of the plant’s license renewal. Concrete degradation was discovered at the plant in 2010. It results from an alkali-silica reaction, or ASR, a chemical process that causes small cracks. In a press release from C-10, Natlie Hildt-Treat, the organization’s executive director, said that while the board accepted NextEra’s concrete testing program, it did so with “several important conditions that will ensure the health and safety of the public.” “NextEra Energy Seabrook has been sent back to the drawing board with this extremely detailed ruling,” said Treat in the release. According to the release from C-10, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board’s order directs Seabrook Station to “conduct much more frequent and detailed monitoring and engineering evaluations in a number of situations, in some cases increasing the frequency of testing from the proposed five to ten years, up to six-month intervals. It also orders NextEra to conduct a petrographic analysis on each core sample extracted from the plant’s concrete in order to detect internal microcracking and delamination. This technique was urged by C-10’s expert witness, Dr. Victor Saouma, who is one of the world’s leading authorities on the condition of alkali-silica reaction, or ‘ASR.'”
Duane Arnold nuclear plant won’t restart after Iowa derecho damage Duane Arnold Energy Center officials decided to close the nuclear facility permanently after experiencing significant damage from the Aug. 10 derecho, a NextEra Energy Resources spokesman said Monday. “After conducting a complete assessment of the damage caused by recent severe weather, NextEra Energy Resources has made the decision not to restart the reactor,” spokesman Peter Robbins said. Duane Arnold, the only nuclear power plant in Iowa, was scheduled to be decommissioned Oct. 30. The derecho caused “extensive” damage to the facility’s cooling towers, Robbins said. Replacing the cooling towers with fewer than three months until decommissioning was “not feasible,” he added. Robbins said NextEra Energy Resources will “continue to work with all our employees to minimize the impact of this situation on them and their families.” Before the derecho, employees were taking early retirements, looking for other jobs within the company or staying at NextEra to manage the decommissioned site. Those options remain intact, Robbins said.
Bill Gates Next Project- Building Nuclear Power Plants Across The Pacific Northwest – Here comes the next Bill Gates project which, like his others, aims to solve climate change and save the planet. However, this time, some of the critics of Gates & Co.’s approach have warned that the advanced nuclear power plants he’s now trying to build (which would “supplement” the northwest’s power grid) might be vulnerable to terror attacks due to high levels of enriched uranium. In a report published Thursday, Reuters revealed, for the first time, a new campaign by the Gates-controlled TerraPower LLC (Gates is chairman of the company’s board) to build commercial advanced nuclear energy plants called “Natrium” in the US later in the decade. The project will focus on the Pacific Northwest, where Gates has won the backing of three major utilities in the region, including Berkshire Hathaway-owned PacifiCorp (of course Gates’ best buddy Warren Buffett was more than willing to help out, we imagine).After President Trump scrapped a plan to build these advanced power plants in and around Beijing, Gate’s TerraPower was forced to shift its focus back to the US, according to Reuters. Gates had initially hoped to build an experimental nuclear plant near Beijing with state-owned China National Nuclear Corp. But last year, TerraPower was forced to seek new partners after the Trump administration restricted nuclear deals with China.If the initial plants are a success, the company hopes to build them across the US, and abroad, hoping to provide a means of buttressing energy grids that are increasingly dependent on renewable power like solar and wind. By mid-century, “we would see hundreds of these reactors around the world, solving multiple different energy needs,” said Chris Levesque, the president and CEO of TerraPower, said. The 345-megawatt plants would be cooled by liquid sodium and cost about $1 billion each, and the complex technology would allow for the introduction of nuclear energy in countries that don’t have those resources like…say…Iran?
NRC monitoring US nuclear power plants in projected path of Hurricane Laura – US Nuclear Regulatory Commission resident inspectors stationed at nuclear power plants in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas are monitoring preparations by utility operators for Hurricane Laura, NRC said in an Aug. 26 post on its Facebook page. “[P]lans are in place to dispatch additional staff to any of the sites if needed,” NRC said. “Current projections show Hurricane Laura making landfall almost on the Texas/Louisiana border, as either a Category 3 or 4 hurricane tonight,” the agency said. That is almost directly between Entergy’s 1,222-MW Waterford plant in Killona, Louisiana, and STP Nuclear Operating Co.’s 2,624-MW South Texas Project plant in Bay City, Texas, NRC said. “The storm is not expected to have a significant impact on either site,” the agency said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said Aug. 24 that every nuclear plant site has its own severe weather-related operational criteria. “Many plants include … consideration of plant shutdown 24 hours before [the] onset of hurricane-force winds,” Burnell said. NRC is also monitoring “several other plants that could be impacted by heavy rain,” the Facebook post said. They include Entergy’s 992-MW River Bend plant in St. Francisville, Louisiana, 1,498-MW Grand Gulf in Port Gibson, Mississippi, and 1,968-MW Arkansas Nuclear One in Russellville, Arkansas. Grand Gulf is currently shut for repairs. Entergy spokesman Mike Bowling said Aug. 26 that Entergy’s nuclear plants “continue to function normally, with no immediate threats to operations.” Operators are conducting walk-downs, verifying communications systems, and securing any loose equipment that could be blown away by high winds, he said. “We continue to monitor the storms in conjunction with local, state, and federal authorities, to ensure our response team members have safe access routes to the plants,” Bowling said.
US nuclear reactors in Hurricane Laura’s path remain at full capacity – Nuclear reactors in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas remained at 100% capacity early Aug. 27, even as Hurricane Laura made landfall at roughly 1 am CT as a Category 4 hurricane. Entergy’s 1,222-MW Waterford plant in Louisiana and 1,968-MW Arkansas Nuclear One in Arkansas were at full power, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s daily reactor status report STP Nuclear Operating Co.’s 2,624-MW South Texas Project in Texas also was at full power, NRC said. Entergy’s 992-MW River Bend plant in Louisiana was at 87% capacity as it continues a power ascension after being shut Aug. 21 for repairs, the agency said. The company’s 1,498-MW Grand Gulf is shut for repairs. Entergy spokesman Mike Bowling said Aug. 27 that the storm will travel “close to” Arkansas Nuclear One, so the company continues to monitor the storm “to ensure our people have safe access to work.” Bowling said Entergy’s operating reactors “all continue to function normally … we’ve had no operational issues.” NRC said in a Facebook post Aug. 26 that resident inspectors at the plants are monitoring preparations by utility operators. “[P]lans are in place to dispatch additional staff to any of the sites if needed,” NRC said. The agency is also monitoring plants “that could be impacted by heavy rain,” the Facebook post added.
After 48 Years, Democrats Endorse Nuclear Energy In Platform – It took five decades, but the Democratic Party has finally changed its stance on nuclear energy. In its recently released party platform, the Democrats say they favor a “technology-neutral” approach that includes “all zero-carbon technologies, including hydroelectric power, geothermal, existing and advanced nuclear, and carbon capture and storage.” That statement marks the first time since 1972 that the Democratic Party has said anything positive in its platform about nuclear energy. The change in policy is good – and long overdue – news for the American nuclear-energy sector and for everyone concerned about climate change. The Democrats’ new position means that for the first time since Richard Nixon was in the White House, both the Republican and Democratic parties are officially on record in support of nuclear energy. That’s the good news. The less-than-good news is that the Democratic Party platform pledges to deploy outlandish quantities of new solar and wind capacity and do so in just five years. Further, the platform ignores the amount of land needed for that effort and how it would end up driving up the cost of electricity for low- and middle-income consumers. (More on that in a moment.) The last time the Democratic Party’s platform contained a positive statement about nuclear energy was in 1972, when the party said it supported “greater research and development” into “unconventional energy sources” including solar, geothermal, and “a variety of nuclear power possibilities to design clean breeder fission and fusion techniques.”
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