Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
This is a collection of interesting news articles about the environment and related topics published last week. This is usually a Tuesday evening regular post at GEI (but can be posted at other times).
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Note: Because of the high volume of news regarding the coronavirus outbreak, that news has been published separately:
- 25 Oct 2020 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 24October 2020
25 Oct 2020 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 24October 2020
Summary:
We had records all around; anything I could say in summary would be eclipsed by the reality on the ground. New US cases were just short of an all time high on Thursday, easily beat the all time high on Friday, and then posted what would have been an all time high on Saturday were it not for Friday’s record. New cases were easily up more than 15% week over week. US deaths spiked to 1224, the highest since August, on Wednesday and, although below 1k per day the rest of the week. were up nearly 12% week over week.
There is similar news in Europe as well; 9 separate European countries hit all time highs on Thursday, (as 8 US states were doing the same). With Europe and the US leading, global records for new cases were set on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday – now top a half million new cases a day, For perspective on that, new cases first topped 400,000 only eight days earlier, which is evident on the graphic below from Johns Hopkins, showing the daily global new cases since the start of the pandemic.
The map from Reuters has been updated for data through 27 October. Last week the data was as of 10 October and there have been very significant changes in the 17 days. Note: This map has been updated from the one shown in the weekly disease news Sunday. The map is interactive to show data if you click on it:
If you recall, the first and most deadly US outbreak was centered in the Northeast – New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and adjacent states, with large outbreaks in Michigan, Washington, Florida, and California
This summer’s outbreak was across the southern tier of states, with record numbers of new cases in Texas, Florida, California and the southeast, and was probably exacerbated by people staying indoors in the heat.
As shown by the graphic above, the current surge is dominated by states from the mid-south to the north.
Calculated Risk continues to track US testing. The decline in positive test results over July and August dfefinitely ended in September. The trend is now up. In September the increase in new cases was attributed to increased testing. In October that has changed – increases in new cases are now arising from increased percentage of tests returning positive. The October 27 graphic:
Here’s this week’s other environmental news, which offers little respite:
Deadly bacteria lurk in coastal waters. Climate change increases the risks. — For 11 days, Clinton lay in a coma, his organs shutting down. Medical staff informed his wife that his chances of survival were slim. The culprit: an infection caused by a pathogen known as Vibrio vulnificus – often described as a “flesh-eating bacteria.” By the time the hospital treated it, it had done a lot of damage. Vibrio is a group of rod-shaped bacteria found in brackish and balmy coastal waters. It has many species – more than 70 – but only about a dozen make people sick. V. vulnificus is its most deadly strain, killing one of every five people who contract it. For others, its toxins attack flesh, turning infected sores into gaping wounds. Scientists call Vibrio a bellwether for climate change because it flourishes in warm water. As the overheating planet alters the oceans – swelling sea levels and fueling harsher storms – the bacteria are multiplying in places where they already thrived and creeping into places where they never did. That’s sickening more Americans who swim, fish and work in coastal waters. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the number of Vibrio infections from the three most common species – V. vulnificus included – doubling nationally over the 11 years the agency has tracked it in all states, from 433 in 2007 to 897 in 2016. Bruce Gutelius of the CDC’s bacterial-infection monitoring branch attributes that in part to the “warming of coastal waters.” The summer water temperature has risen steadily over roughly the same period, averaging 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in the 1980s. In the Chesapeake Bay region – a new hotspot – Vibrio infections have increased almost two-fold from 2007 to 2019, according to state data. Warm season temperatures in that time were around 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the previous 25 years. The trend is playing out in nearby Pennsylvania, where the 490 percent surge in its rate of Vibrio infections tops the Eastern seaboard states, federal data shows. Researchers forecast more vibriosis outbreaks in and around bays and tributaries of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Virginia as climate change accelerates. This past summer, an outbreak occurred as far north as Connecticut, where the state health department issued a rare alert after five residents contracted the deadly V. vulnificus bacteria. Meanwhile, in the Carolinas, rising seas and intensifying storms are washing the virulent strains further inland. Since 2007, when the CDC required states to report Vibrio cases, South Carolina has seen a three-fold increase in its incidence rate and North Carolina’s reported rate soared 1.6 times. By 2019, according to more recent state data, the bacteria had sickened at least 550 people in both states.
Significant link found between air pollution and neurological disorders –Air pollution was significantly associated with an increased risk of hospital admissions for several neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias, in a long-term study of more than 63 million older U.S. adults, led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.The study, conducted with colleagues at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, is the first nationwide analysis of the link between fine particulate (PM2.5) pollution and neurodegenerative diseases in the U.S. The researchers leveraged an unparalleled amount of data compared to any previous study of air pollution and neurological disorders.The study will be published online October 19, 2020 in The Lancet Planetary Health.”The 2020 report of the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care has added air pollution as one of the modifiable risk factors for these outcomes,” said Xiao Wu, doctoral student in biostatistics at Harvard Chan School and co-lead author of the study. “Our study builds on the small but emerging evidence base indicating that long-term PM2.5 exposures are linked to an increased risk of neurological health deterioration, even at PM2.5 concentrations well below the current national standards.”
Polluted air killing half a million babies a year across globe — Air pollution last year caused the premature death of nearly half a million babies in their first month of life, with most of the infants being in the developing world, data shows.Exposure to airborne pollutants is harmful also for babies in the womb. It can cause a premature birth or low birth weight. Both of these factors are associated with higher infant mortality.Nearly two-thirds of the 500,000 deaths of infants documented were associated with indoor air pollution, particularly arising from solid fuels such as charcoal, wood, and animal dung for cooking.The discovery is reported in the State of Global Air 2020 report, which examined data on deaths around the world alongside a growing body of research that links air pollution with health problems. Medical experts have warned for years of the impacts of dirty air on older people and on those with health conditions, but are only beginning to understand the deadly toll on babies in the womb.Katherine Walker, principal scientist at the Health Effects Institute, which published the report, said: “We don’t totally understand what the mechanisms are at this stage, but there is something going on that is causing reductions in baby growth and ultimately birth weight. There is an epidemiological link, shown across multiple countries in multiple studies.”Babies born with a low birth weight are more susceptible to childhood infections and pneumonia. The lungs of pre-term babies can also not be fully developed.”They are born into a high pollution environment, and are more susceptible than children who went to term,” said Dan Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute in the US.Beate Ritz, professor of epidemiology at UCLA, (University of California, Los Angeles), who was not involved with the study, said the indoor air pollution in cities across India, south-east Asia and Africa was comparable to that of Victorian London.”This is not the air pollution we see in modern cities [in the rich world] but that which we had 150 years ago in London and other places, where there were coal fires indoors. Indoor air pollution has not been at the forefront for policymakers, but it should be,” Ritz said.
Air Pollution Responsible for Over 6.6 Million Deaths Worldwide in 2020, Study Finds – An annual comprehensive report on air pollution showed that it was responsible for 6.67 million deaths worldwide, including the premature death of 500,000 babies, with the worst health outcomes occurring in the developing world, according to the State of Global Air, which was released Wednesday. The State of Global Air 2020 looked at the effects of air pollution on health outcomes in 2019 and found that conditions are getting worse, as it moved up from the fifth leading cause of death worldwide to the fourth leading cause. Only high-blood pressure, smoking and poor diet surpass air pollution. The State of Global Air 2020 is a joint collaboration produced annually by the Health Effects Institute and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease project. One reason that air pollution moved up in the list of leading causes of death is that this year’s report was able to account for infant death due to air pollution. The report noted that roughly half a million babies died to due to poor air quality, with roughly two-thirds of those deaths due to poor indoor air from burning charcoal, wood and animal dung for cooking, according to The Guardian. “We don’t totally understand what the mechanisms are at this stage, but there is something going on that is causing reductions in baby growth and ultimately birth weight,” said Katherine Walker, principal scientist at the Health Effects Institute, as The Guardian reported. “There is an epidemiological link, shown across multiple countries in multiple studies.” India was the worst hit country with 116,000 infant deaths linked to air pollution, while Sub-Saharan Africa saw 236,000 infant deaths due to poor air quality, according to the report, as Agence-France Presse (AFP) noted. Most of the complications were due to low birth weight and premature birth, which leaves a baby’s lungs fragile. It is not just babies that need to be protected. Recent studies have also noted that exposure to air pollution for mothers contributes to low birth weight and premature births, according to The Tribune in India. According to the report, the most smog or PM2.5 air pollution for 2019 was in India, followed by Nepal, Niger, Qatar and Nigeria. The report noted that India’s air quality has been steadily decreasing since 2010. While most of the 20 most populous countries have decreased air pollution over the last decade, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Japan have seen air pollution increase, as The Hindustan Times reported. Long-term exposure to air pollution contributed to 1.67 million deaths in India last year.
Covid Plus Decades of Pollution Are a Nasty Combo for Detroit – Cars rolled slowly down the street, their drivers honking and waving, stopping for brief chats. Theresa Landrum was there to salute her niece, Donyelle Hull, who’d won a touch-and-go battle against the virus-doctors at one point told her son to start planning her funeral. Hull, who’s 51, spent 61 days in Beaumont Hospital and an additional 45 days in rehab learning to walk again.This wasn’t the only welcome-home parade Landrum had been invited to. She counts at least 10 friends and neighbors who’ve recovered from the virus. And she has another list, of those who didn’t make it: a pastor, a state legislator, a neighbor couple who passed away within weeks of each another. “You can’t even grieve,” Landrum says. “You just harden yourself so you don’t get that feeling of hurt.”She doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that so many people she knows have had severe cases of Covid. She attributes it to something quite obvious: the air they breathe. Her ZIP code, 48217, is one of the most polluted in Michigan. And researchers have begun to confirm that pollution can worsen the effects of the illness. A study out of Harvard, for example, has shown that Covid death rates are higher in populations with more exposure to pollutants, and international research has demonstrated that some of the hardest-hit parts of Europe are in especially polluted areas.For decades, Black Americans like Landrum, who’s in her 60s and describes herself as a 48217 environmental-justice activist, have fought to limit industrial emissions in their neighborhoods. More than two dozen industrial sites surround hers. People in 48217 live on average seven fewer years than in the country as a whole, and asthma hospitalization rates in the area are more than twice as high as those of Michigan and about five times higher than those of the U.S. Generations of activists in Southwest Detroit say they’re tired of living under a cloud. They’ve demonstrated, filed petitions, shown up at public hearings, and watched as industry won regulatory victory after regulatory victory. This summer, as the Black Lives Matter protests raged, residents of an overwhelmingly minority Detroit-area neighborhood filed acivil-rights complaint related to the approval of a hazardous-waste storage facility’s ninefold expansion, arguing that pollution is a form of racism, too.
NUS study reveals severe air pollution drives food delivery consumption and plastic waste –When the air outside is bad, office workers are more likely to order food delivery than go out for lunch, which in turn increases plastic waste from food packaging, according to a study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS). “Plastic waste is a growing global environmental concern. While we see more research on the impact plastic pollution is having on the natural environment, there has been less work trying to understand the human behaviour that drives plastic pollution. This is where our study seeks to contribute – finding a strong causal link between air pollution and plastic waste through the demand for food delivery. Air quality in the urban developing world is routinely poor and in the past decade, the food delivery industry has been growing sharply. The evidence we collected shows a lot of single-use plastic in delivered meals, from containers to carrier bags.” The study surveyed the lunch choices of 251 office workers repeatedly over time (each worker for 11 workdays) in three often smog-filled Chinese cities – Beijing, Shenyang and Shijiazhuang – between January and June 2018. To complement the office-worker survey, the researchers also accessed the 2016 Beijing order book of an online food delivery platform, which broadly represented all market segments served by the food delivery industry – collecting observational data on 3.5 million food delivery orders from about 350,000 users. An estimated 65 million meal containers are discarded each day across China, with office workers contributing over one-half of demand. Data from the survey and order book were then compared with PM2.5 measurements (fine particles less than 2.5 micrometres in diameter) during lunchtime periods from the air-monitoring network in all three cities. It was observed that PM2.5 levels during these periods were often well above the 24-hour US National Ambient Air Quality Standard of 35 g/m, making pollution highly visible. The researchers were careful to control for confounding factors such as economic activity.Both data sources indicated a strong link between PM2.5 (haze) pollution and food delivery consumption. Correcting for weather and seasonal influences, the firm’s order book revealed that a 100 g/m increase in PM2.5 raised food delivery consumption by 7.2 per cent. The impact of a 100 g/m PM2.5 shift on office workers’ propensity to order delivery was six times larger, at 43 per cent.
Bottle-Fed Babies May Consume Millions of Microplastic Particles a Day – The process of preparing and mixing a baby bottle formula seems innocuous, but new research finds this common occurrence is actually releasing millions of microplastic particles from the bottle’s lining, Wiredreported.Microplastics are particles that are smaller than five millimeters long. Sterilizing and mixing formula may also release trillions of nanoplastic particles, which are billionths of a meter long, Wired reported.The new study published in Nature Food found that the amount of microplastic babies consume is much larger than previous estimates. “We were absolutely gobsmacked,” study co-author John Boland told The Guardian. “A study last year by the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated adults would consume between 300 and 600 microplastics a day – our average values were on the order of a million or millions.””The numbers are, well, frightening,” Deonie Allen, who studies microplastics at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, but wasn’t involved in the research, told Wired. “They’re bigger than any exposure tests that have been done before for human uptake.”The researchers examined the amount of formula that infants up to a year old consumed in 48 global regions. They discovered that, on average, bottle-fed babies were exposed to 1.6 million microplastic particles a day, The Guardian reported.”We have to start doing the health studies to understand the implications,” Boland told The Guardian. “We’re already working with colleagues to look at what buttons in the immune system these particles begin to press.”The researchers explained their methodology and results in The Conversation. They used common polypropylene baby bottles, and followed the WHO’s 2007 guidelines for preparing baby formula. This involved cleaning, sterilizing and mixing formula. The results were that bottles released up to 16 million particles per liter of water heated to 158 degrees F. The number of particles jumped to 55 million at 203 degrees F. Not only does hotter water shed more microplastics, but so does shaking the bottle, which is a common practice for reconstituting formula. However, the researchers also created a simple four-step method for reducing microplastic exposure, detailed in The Conversation:
- Rinse sterilized feeding bottles with cool, sterile water.
- Always prepare formula in a non-plastic container.
- After formula has cooled to room temperature, transfer it into the cooled, sterilized feeding bottle.
- Avoid rewarming prepared formula in plastic containers, especially with a microwave oven.
High levels of microplastics released from infant feeding bottles during formula prep –New research shows that high levels of microplastics (MPs) are released from infant-feeding bottles (IFBs) during formula preparation. The research also indicates a strong relationship between heat and MP release, such that warmer liquids (formula or water used to sterilise bottles) result in far greater release of MPs. In response, the researchers involved – from AMBER, the SFI Research Centre for Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research, TrinityHaus and the Schools of Engineering and Chemistry at Trinity College Dublin – have developed a set of recommendations for infant formula preparation when using plastic IFBs that minimise MP release. Led by Dr Jing Jing Wang, Professor John Boland and Professor Liwen Xiao at Trinity, the team analysed the potential for release of MPs from polypropylene infant-feeding bottles (PP-IFBs) during formula preparation by following international guidelines. They also estimated the exposure of 12-month-old infants to MPs in 48 countries and regions and have just published their findings in the high-profile journal Nature Food. Key findings
- PP-IFBs can release up to 16 million MPs and trillions of smaller nanoplastics per litre. Sterilisation and exposure to high temperature water significantly increase microplastic release from 0.6 million to 55 million particles/l when temperature increases from 25 to 95 degC
- Other polypropylene plastic-ware products (kettles, lunchboxes) release similar levels of MPs
- The team undertook a global survey and estimated the exposure of 12-month-old infants to microplastics in 48 regions. Following current guidelines1 for infant-feeding bottle sterilisation and feeding formula preparation the average daily exposure level for infants is in excess of 1 million MPs. Oceania, North America and Europe have the highest levels of potential exposure, at 2,100,000, 2,280,000, and 2,610,000 particles/day, respectively
- The level of microplastics released from PP-IFBs can be significantly reduced by following modified sterilisation and formula preparation procedures
Study Finds Synthetic Clothes Contributed 4,000 Metric Tons of Plastic Microfibers in California – A new study from the University of California at Santa Barbara has found that synthetic clothes released about 4,000 metric tons of plastic microfibers into California’s environment in 2019.For context, that’s about 80 million plastic rubber ducks in California, or 130,000 times as many stars as there are in the Milky Way galaxy, The Guardian reported. The Guardian received exclusive access to this study, although it has not been peer-reviewed or published.These microfibers, smaller than five millimeters, are shed when synthetic clothes are washed, including “yoga pants, stretchy jeans and fleece jackets” the Guardian reported.To determine how many microfibers are shed in a given year, researchers calculated how many synthetic materials consumers bought with how many loads of laundry people did. The data also calculated how many microfibers were released in each wash. Researchers combined those numbers with public data on sludge and wastewater management in California to reach 4,000 metric tons. These microfibers then make their way into the state’s water and land, The Guardian reported.Those numbers might alarm consumers. According to The New York Post, a recent study in PLoS One found that the average person inadvertently consumes more than 5,800 microfiber particles – every year.While wastewater plants have the ability to prevent microfibers from entering waterways, they are ultimately delaying the process. Wastewater treatment facilities tend to combine what they capture with treated sewage, which is eventually spread on agricultural fields. The microfibers then run off back into the waterways, The Guardian reported.”So we’re changing it from an ocean problem to a land problem,” Roland Geyer, an industrial ecologist at UC Santa Barbara who collaborated on the report, told The Guardian. “Rather than removing the fibers, we’ve just moved their location.” Studies that quantify microplastics in the environment help play a vital role in regulating them. For example,Politico reported that California’s State Water Resources Control Board recently approved a decision to make it the first state to define microplastics. The board will propose testing methods by July 2021; it will require water suppliers to report their microplastic levels for four years once a testing protocol is agreed upon. Global production of synthetic fibers around the world is predicted to triple by 2050, The New York Post reported.
New York Will Finally Enforce Its Plastic Bag Ban – New York is finally bagging plastic bags. The statewide ban on the highly polluting items actually went into effect March 1. But enforcement, which was supposed to start a month later, was delayed by the one-two punch of a lawsuit and the coronaviruspandemic, NY1 reported. Now, more than six months later, enforcement is set to begin Monday. “New York’s bag ban has already improved New York’s health by cutting down on plastic pollution,”Environmental Advocates NY deputy director Kate Kurera told NBC4 New York. “We look forward to the State beginning enforcement and stores complying with this important law.” The new law prohibits most stores from giving out thin plastic shopping bags. They can dispense paper bags, for which counties have the option of charging a five cent fee. Any business caught handing out the banned plastic bags will face a fine, according to NY1.Enforcement of the ban was held back in part by the coronavirus pandemic, as several stores actually banned shoppers from bringing their own reusable bags when the spread of COVID-19 was at its height in the state.But the new law has also faced fierce opposition from plastic bag makers and convenience store owners, who brought a lawsuit challenging it. These groups have argued that the ban will bankrupt them. American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance director Zachary Taylor told The Associated Press that the law was “unworkable” and it would be harder for smaller stores to acquire paper bags during the pandemic.
Hormone-Mimicking Chemicals Harm Fish Now-and Their Unexposed Offspring Later – Fish exposed to endocrine-disrupting compounds pass on health problems to future generations, including deformities, reduced survival, and reproductive problems, according to a new study. The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, is the first of its kind in a fish that can live in freshwater, brackish water or salt water, and suggests that compounds in pesticides and birth control that pollute waterways are not only harming fish living there now, but their offspring and the subsequent generation as well. The results are troublesome as the negative effects seen in fish offspring-including reduced survival and reproduction problems-could lead to population level declines over time.”These effects can carry over into indirectly exposed fish and those not exposed at all,” Bethany DeCourten, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral consultant at the University of California Davis’ Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Cell Biology, told EHN. The research offers the latest evidence of the deeply embedded biological problems for humans and animals exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals-which mimic natural hormones-that are pervasive in our environment. “These findings suggest that single-generation toxicity testing may not be adequate to determine the effects of these chemicals on long-term population viability,” the authors wrote.
Trump Admin Is Rushing Harmful Regulatory Rollbacks as Election Nears – With President Donald Trump’s re-election very much in doubt, his administration is rushing to ram through regulatory rollbacks that could adversely affect millions of Americans, the environment, and the ability of Joe Biden-should he win-to pursue his agenda or even undo the damage done over the past four years.Reporting by the New York Times details how the administration is cutting corners as it scrambles to enact as much of its agenda as possible before ceding power on January 20 if Trump loses the election. Required public comment periods and detailed analyses, according to the Times, are being eschewed in favor of streamlined approval processes that have left even staunch deregulation defenders sounding the alarm. Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the Times that the president has always “worked quickly… to grow the economy by removing the mountain of Obama-Biden job-killing regulations.”However, critics are warning that some of the proposed changes are being rushed through with insufficient regard to the harm they might cause. Some of the issues that are raising red flags include:
- Refusing to lower limits on dangerous particulate and ozone pollution, which cause thousands of annual premature deaths.
- Allowing so-called “bomb trains” that transport highly combustible liquefied natural gas on freight trains.
- Determining when workers can be classified as employees or independent contractors.
- Exempting certain commercial drivers from mandatory hour limits and rest periods.
- Placing limits on how science is used in the air pollution rule-making process.
- Expanding regulation of immigrants by requiring citizenship applicants to submit biometric data, by forcing sponsors of immigrants to stay off welfare and prove their financial independence.
In response to the reporting, critics of the administration like writer Matthew Kressel said that it helps make clear that if the Republicans in the White House cannot win reelection, they’ll “scorch the earth before they go.”And Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, tweeted: “I think people underestimate the amount of time and energy that is going to be needed just to climb out from under the mountain of shit this administration leaves behind.”
Ex-EPA aide’s suit claims retaliation over Pruitt scandals — Wednesday, October 21, 2020 — A former senior EPA official is suing the agency as well as the Department of Energy over alleged retaliation after he raised concerns about ex-Administrator Scott Pruitt’s excessive spending and mismanagement. Kevin Chmielewski, once a top political aide at EPA, filed a lawsuit yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He claims EPA violated his free speech and due process rights by removing him from the agency while DOE did the same by refusing to hire him. This was done for “retaliatory purposes,” according to his complaint. John Kolar and other attorneys with the Government Accountability Project, a whistleblower protection group, submitted Chmielewski’s lawsuit yesterday. Along with the two federal agencies, he also named EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette as defendants in the case. Chmielewski confirmed to E&E News he filed the lawsuit yesterday but declined to comment further. EPA spokesman James Hewitt told E&E News, “We can’t comment on pending litigation.” Press officials at DOE didn’t respond to questions from E&E News for this story. Chmielewski has been a thorn in the Trump EPA’s side for some time now. A vocal critic of Pruitt and his top aides at the agency, he expressed worries about Pruitt’s travel and office expenses with reporters as well as lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Pruitt resigned from EPA in July 2018 under a crush of ethics scandals. Chmielewski’s lawsuit said he “exhausted his administrative remedies” with the Office of Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board. Both offices found they couldn’t help the former EPA official because they lacked jurisdiction over a political appointee.
Crystal clean water? Not if Trump can help it | TheHill — For most of the past 48 years, the Clean Water Act produced dramatic improvements in the quality of our nation’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters. But problems persist: In 2017, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that 46 percent of rivers and streams were in poor condition, contaminated with pollutants. That was also true of 21 percent of lakes and 14 percent of coastal waters. Unfortunately, the Trump administration’s unrelenting rollback of clean water protections is stalling progress toward fixing these problems and endangering a half-century’s worth of gains. One core element of our nation’s commitment to clean water is federal funding to states to construct sewage treatment plants. For FY 2021, the president proposed to cut this funding by 32 percent. This cut would come at a time when the need for clean water infrastructure is estimated to be $271 billion. Worse, this reduction is in the context of a potentially devastating overall cut to the EPA budget in FY 2021 of 27 percent. Enforcement is essential to meeting the Clean Water Act’s goal of “fishable and swimmable” waterways. But a new study looked at 14 years of data and reported a 70 percent decrease in Clean Water Act prosecutions under Trump. Report authors concluded, “It is hard to overstate the significance” of this decrease, speculating that one explanation may be “uncertainty about the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act” resulting from Trump administration regulatory changes to narrow the scope of waters protected by the act.Effective enforcement is not the only victim of the Trump administration’s changes to the scope of the waters protected by the act. Some 117 millionAmericans get their drinking water from small streams that may be left unprotected following revisions to regulations taking effect this past June. In February, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board wrote that the revision “decreases protection for our Nation’s waters and does not provide a scientific basis in support of its consistency with the objective of restoring and maintaining ‘the chemical, physical and biological integrity’ of these waters.” The original Clean Water Act allowed states to go further than the federal government to protect waters under their jurisdiction. But the Trump administration recently finalized rules cutting back state authority to review and approve federal permits or licenses that allow pollution of state waters. Trump’s support for the coal industry also impacts water quality. Coal-fired power plants threaten water bodies with discharges that include arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, chromium and cadmium. In August, the Trump administration finalized rules to extend timelines for compliance and exempt facilities that are closing, repowering or switching to natural gas by 2028. Other rule changes would extend timelines and potentially weaken standards for coal ash disposal sites, which pose a risk to groundwater and nearby waterways.
Will loopholes in toxic discharge rule hurt regional waters? –The Trump administration’s latest move to ease regulatory requirements on the nation’s coal-burning power plants is expected to have limited impact in the Chesapeake Bay region because several facilities discharging toxic pollution have already agreed to clean up or decided to shut down their operations. But environmental groups and at least one state regulator are still worried that the weaker standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could lead to more toxics in the region’s waterways over the next several years. The EPA announced in late August that it had revised a 2015 Obama era regulation to give coal plants more leeway and more time to curtail discharges of toxic metals such as arsenic, mercury and selenium into lakes, streams and rivers. Agency officials said the new rule would save the power industry $140 million a year while resulting in a greater cleanup. The revisions do so by “leveraging newer, more affordable pollution control technologies and taking a flexible, phased-in implementation approach,” according to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Critics, though, said the EPA has carved some big loopholes in the Obama rule that will allow plants to continue and even increase their discharges of toxic contaminants. “The EPA is making it easier for the most-polluting and worst-run coal-fired plants to dump poisons into the waterways our communities depend upon,” said Frank Holleman, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. The EPA’s revision of its Effluent Limitations Guidelines, as the discharge rule is called, is among dozens of regulatory holdups or rollbacks initiated by the Trump administration, many of which have been challenged in court. This one is significant, Holleman said, because by the EPA’s own estimate at least 30% of all by toxic water pollution discharged by industries comes from coal-fired power plants. The technology to prevent and treat the toxic discharges is “widely available,” he said. The 2015 rule, imposed after the EPA was sued by several environmental groups, required coal plants to treat toxic contaminants in wastewater generated when they wash out their air pollution scrubbers. It also required plants to stop discharging wastewater that contains ash from coal-burning, which also contains toxins. The original rule would have required most plants to install water-pollution controls by 2020. But the EPA put it on hold in 2017, saying it intended to revise it. “If EPA were following the law, the coal industry would be close to eliminating its toxic wastewater by now,” said Abel Russ, senior attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project.
California Ranchers and Activists Face Off Over a Federal Plan to Cull a Beloved Tule Elk Herd — Known for its seaside bluffs and dense summer fog, Point Reyes National Seashore is a landscape of rolling coastal prairie blending into forests and marshlands, a sanctuary for hundreds of plants and animals and a destination for migrating birds and marine life. Just a one-hour drive from San Francisco, the 71,000-acre peninsula serves as a haven for native California species like snowy plovers, red-legged frogs, coho salmon and tule elk. The tule elk are one of the primary attractions of the park, which sees over 2 million visitors annually, and they can be easy to spot in the zones where they’re preserved. The elks’ beauty and majesty is hard to miss; one frequent visitor to the park described their strange, high-pitched bugle as “otherworldly.” Once on the brink of extinction, tule elk were reintroduced into Point Reyes in 1978. Now, hundreds of elk live in three herds throughout the park. But Point Reyes is also home to about 20 ranches that have operated in the park since the mid-1800s. And the tule elk are at the center of a major battle between ranchers, who say the elk are overpopulated and disruptive to their operations, and animal and environmental activists, who think that ranching has degraded the land, leaving it to resemble a “lunar landscape,” as one activist said. The park, the activists argue, should prohibit ranching and preserve the land entirely as wilderness to protect the elk and other species. The tule elk in Point Reyes have virtually no natural predators, so management of their population is left up to the National Park Service, which is in the process of implementing a wildlife management plan that includes killing elk in one of the three herds to control their numbers, a process known as culling. One of the prime considerations for how to manage the tule elk is how their numbers affect the ranchers, who sold their land to the government when the park was established in 1962. Many stayed on the land and continued ranching under renewable five-year permits.
Iowa derecho in August was most costly thunderstorm disaster in U.S. history – No single thunderstorm event in modern times – not even a tornado – has wrought as much economic devastation as the derecho that slammed the nation’s Corn Belt on Aug. 10, based on analyses from the public and private sectors. The storm complex, blamed for four deaths, hit Cedar Rapids, Iowa, particularly hard, cutting power to almost the entire city of 133,000 people, and damaging most of its businesses and homes. In an October update to its database of billion-dollar weather disasters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated damages from the August derecho, which raced from Iowa to Indiana, at $7.5 billion. This includes agricultural impacts that are still being analyzed, so the total may be revised, said Adam Smith, who manages the database. The derecho’s financial toll exceeds that of nine of this year’s record 10 landfalling U.S. hurricanes and tropical storms. The exception is Hurricane Laura, which struck Louisiana in late August and caused an estimated $14 billion in damage. Including the derecho, the U.S. has been hit by a record-tying 16 billion-dollar weather disasters this year through September. A derecho is a fast-moving, violent wind event associated with a thunderstorm complex. One common definition specifies that it must produce “continuous or intermittent” damage along a path at least 60 miles wide and 400 miles long, with frequent gusts of at least 58 mph and several well-separated gusts of at least 75 mph. Parts of five Iowa counties were struck by wind gusts estimated at 110 to 140 mph. “To have a Midwest city endure [such] wind speeds, and also see such a devastating impact to a large volume of regional crops, is almost unbelievable,” Bowen said. “I don’t think most of the country truly realizes how severe the event ended up being.” Derecho winds typically last about 10 to 20 minutes at any one spot. In contrast, the 30- to 60-minute duration of severe gusts in the hardest-hit areas Aug. 10 was much more comparable to the passage of a hurricane eyewall than a tornado, whose winds typically last only a few seconds to a minute or two. In Cedar Rapids alone, more than 1,000 housing units were deemed unlivable in the week after the storm, according to the Gazette. Hundreds of other homes were damaged. Iowa state climatologist Justin Glisan highlighted the scope of agricultural impacts in a September webinar. According to initial estimates, more than 3.5 million acres of corn and 2.5 million acres of soybeans were affected in Iowa, or about 20 percent of the state’s total farmland.
October Snow Sets Records for Some, and More Is on the Way – Snow that has blanketed parts of the northern Rockies, northern Plains, upper Midwest and northern New England set October records in multiple locations, and more snow is on the way through early next week, possibly as far south as Texas. We’re only about a month into autumn, but in the last week a colder pattern in parts of the country has reminded us that winter is fast approaching. Minneapolis-St. Paul set the most recent October snowfall record after piling up 7.9 inches on Tuesday during Winter Storm Abigail, as named by The Weather Channel. That’s the heaviest snowstorm on record so early in the season in the Twin Cities. It was also the heaviest snowstorm so early in the fall in St. Cloud, Minnesota, where 7 inches was recorded. Both Eau Claire and Rhinelander, Wisconsin, also set their October snowstorm of record Tuesday, picking up 6.9 and 6.1 inches, respectively. Montana has been the hardest hit since last week. Great Falls has picked up 15.6 inches of snow since Friday and set a number of October snowfall records, including:
- -Heaviest calendar-day October snowfall: 8.2 inches Sunday
- -Greatest October snow depth: 10 inches Monday, which topped previous record set last year on Oct. 9.
- -Earliest-in-season 10-inch snow depth, which beat the previous record set Nov. 9, 2012.
Given the southward expansion of cold air, unusually early first snow of the season could fall farther south early next week, from parts of western Texas and northwest Oklahoma into Kansas and Missouri. Coincidentally, parts of the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and Arkansas also picked up a freakish early snow late last October. The October 24, 2019, thundersnow event in Amarillo, Texas, was their heaviest October snowstorm in 101 years. In some of these areas, the first snow usually doesn’t occur until late November or December. Here’s a look back at some of the other noteworthy snowfalls since this past weekend. Billings has picked up just over a foot of snow since Saturday. Temperatures the previous weekend there hit 85 degrees. Parts of Iowa were blanketed by two rounds of snow Sunday and Monday. On Sunday, Des Moines picked up its second earliest 1-inch-plus snowfall on record since 1885. On Monday, a thin band of heavy snow parked over parts of central and eastern Iowa and dumped 6 to 9 inches of snow in some north Des Moines suburbs. It was the snowiest October day on record in Ankeny. In eastern Iowa, 2 to 5 inches of snow fell in Cedar Rapids on Monday and blanketed debris from the mid-August derecho, the costliest single-day thunderstorm event to hit the U.S. in 40 years. Other places that picked up their first snow of the season included Omaha, Nebraska; Fargo, North Dakota; parts of southern Wisconsin; and parts ofnorthern New England. In the map below, you can see the areas that have picked up at least light accumulations of snowfall in the past seven days.
Weather-related power outages are increasing nationwide – – It’s not just your perception, the number of power outages is increasing, as storms wreak havoc on the aging electrical grid. New research conducted by Climate Central backs up what many of us feel we have been experiencing. While New England is dealing with more frequent outages, nationwide they are increasing too. These outages affect millions of people and cost the economy billions of dollars each year. The analysis looks at power outage data since 2000, through the Department of Energy. Nationally, there has been a 67 percent increase in major outages, defined as 50,000 customers or more, from weather events. 34 states and the District of Columbia have had increases in major power outages from weather events. That increase has been largest right here in the northeast, followed by the southwest and southern Great Plains. There were a total of eight major, weather-related outages in the first 10 years of this century, from 2000 to 2009. In the most recent decade, there have been 25. In New Hampshire, the increase is even more drastic. There were just three major weather outages in the first ten years; 23 occurred in the most recent ten years. Credit: NCM Power outages are not only a nuisance and economically disruptive – they have the potential to become life-threatening, especially in a pandemic. With much of our grid above ground – susceptible to wind, heavy snow and ice, it requires a continued effort to make it more resilient.
Weeks of flooding leave 155 people dead in Nigeria – At least 155 people have been killed and 25 000 displaced after heavy rains and floods started affecting Nigeria in September.Torrential rainfall, river, and flash floods since September have cumulatively impacted 192 594 people across 22 Nigerian states, IFRC reported. 155 people have lost their lives, 826 were injured and 24 134 displaced.The overflowing Benue and Niger rivers caused severe floods in Jigawa, Kebbi, Kwara, Sokoto, and Zamfara states, killing 57 people, affecting 91 254 and displacing 22 357.According to the Red Cross, the floods were a result of heavy rainfall in river catchments along with dam releases in neighboring countries of Niger, Cameroon, and Benin.Jigawa State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) said the state has experienced its worst flood in 32 years. More than 2 million tons of rice crops have been destroyed — a quarter of the country’s projected harvest.Officials could not give the exact number of farmlands and houses that were destroyed by the flood but said the damage is unprecedented.They fear that the situation may worsen the country’s food insufficiency and lead to a further price hike.
444 dead, 101 missing in monsoon-related disasters in Nepal – A total of 444 people died while 101 others went missing due to various monsoon-related natural disasters since April 2020 in Nepal, the Natural Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said. The calamities include floods, landslides, and lightning strikes, which also resulted in major losses of properties and livestock.Since the arrival of monsoon rains in early April, 444 Nepalis have lost their lives, 101 went missing, and 739 were injured in floods, landslides, and lightning across the country.Most of the fatalities were caused by mudslides, which claimed 295 lives, left 64 missing, 223 injured, and 439 livestock lost. Lightning claimed 65 lives, injured 213 people, and killed 696 livestock.Floods resulted in 42 casualties, 32 others missing, 11 injured, and 272 livestock lost. Fires triggered by severe weather also contributed to the number as 10 people were killed and 144 were hurt.A total of 1 755 livestock perished in the disasters. NDRRMA added that damages amounted to around 820 million Nepalese rupees or about 7 million dollars.
At least 90 dead, 32 missing and 5 million affected as more floods and landslides hit central Vietnam – Floods and landslides triggered by severe weather have claimed at least 90 lives, left 32 missing, and affected up to five million people in central Vietnam over the last two weeks, the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control reported Monday, October 19, 2020. The recent deaths occurred Sunday, October 18, when a mudslide hit the barracks in Quang Tri, killing at least 14 military personnel and leaving eight others missing. Officials said this could be the country’s largest military loss in peacetime. A mudslide hit the barracks of a unit of Vietnam’s 4th Military Region in Quang Tri Province, killing at least 14 military personnel. The incident happened just days after a previous landslide killed 13 people in the neighboring province of Thua Thien Hue. “We had another sleepless night,” deputy defense minister Phan Van Giang told the media. The government, confirming the fatalities, said they have “never lost so many military members, including two generals and high ranking officials, in natural disasters.” “There have been four to five landslides, exploding like bombs, and it feels like the whole mountain is about to collapse,” commune vice chairman Ha Ngoc Duong told VN Express, a state-run news outlet. Mudslide survivor Pham Tan An said he felt “completely powerless” after seeing his comrades buried under the rubble. As of Monday, October 19, at least 12 000 people have been displaced, nearly 45 000 households remain affected, and about 147 houses and more than 70 schools have been damaged or destroyed in Quang Tri alone. Overall, 32 people are still missing.
Severe weather claims 22 lives, affects 16 657 people across Mozambique – (videos) Severe weather claims 22 lives, affects 16 657 people across Mozambique At least 22 people have lost their lives and 16 657 have been affected by natural calamities caused by severe weather in Mozambique since the beginning of October 2020. 16 657 people from 3 695 households have been affected by floods in the provinces of Manica, Maputo, Niassa, Nampula, according to Government spokesperson and Deputy Justice Minister, Filimao Suaze. In Tete Province, the Zambezi River overflowed as a result of heavy rains, affecting areas in Doa. In Rapale, at least 13 people lost their lives in flash floods after the Meluli River burst its banks on October 12. Eight others died as a result of collapsed buildings due to strong winds and heavy rain. One person died after being struck by lightning. Suaze added that there had been instances of hailstorm and flooding in low-lying areas of Tete due to the overflowing of the Cahora Bassa Dam. Torrential rains have damaged 91 classrooms, three health units, and 14 places of worship.
Tropical Storm “Epsilon” forms, expected to be at or near hurricane strength near Bermuda –Tropical Storm “Epsilon” formed at 15:00 UTC on October 19, 2020, breaking the record for the earliest 26th named Atlantic storm. Epsilon formed 34 days before Tropical Storm “Delta” in 2005. Epsilon is the 3rd named storm in the Atlantic since October 2. The last time the Atlantic had 3 or more named storms in October was in 2012.According to the NHC forecast, Epsilon is expected to be near or at hurricane strength when it approaches Bermuda late this week.While it’s too soon to determine the exact details of its track and intensity near the island, there is a risk of direct impacts from wind, rainfall and storm surge on Bermuda. There are currently no coastal warnings or watches in effect but interests there should closely monitor the progress of this storm, NHC forecasters warn. At 15:00 UTC on Monday, October 19, the center of Epsilon was located 1 185 km (735 miles) SE of Bermuda. Epsilon is currently a stationary storm, with little overall motion expected through tonight (AST).Its maximum sustained winds were 65 km/h (40 mph) and minimum central pressure estimated at 1 000 hPa.Gradual strengthening is forecast during the next 72 hours, and Epsilon is forecast to be at or near hurricane strength by early Thursday, October 22. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 220 km (140 miles) primarily to the northeast and east of the center.
Epsilon rapidly intensified into a major hurricane on its way to Bermuda —Epsilon rapidly strengthened into a major hurricane on its way to Bermuda and is now slowly weakening. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Bermuda where tropical storm conditions are expected intermittently through this evening (AST).
- According to the NHC, tropical storm conditions are expected intermittently on Bermuda through this evening (AST), when Epsilon is forecast to make its closest approach east of the island.
- Dangerous and potentially life-threatening surf and rip currents are expected along the coasts of Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, the Leeward Islands, the east coast of the United States, and Atlantic Canada during the next couple of days.
At 09:00 UTC on October 21, Epsilon’s center was located about 415 km (260 miles) ESE of Bermuda. Its maximum sustained winds have decreased from 185 km/h (115 mph) to 175 km/h (110 mph) and additional weakening is forecast during the next few days.Epsilon was moving NW at 11 km/h (7 mph) and had an estimated minimum central pressure of 955 hPa.A turn toward the north-northwest is expected later today, followed by a northward motion tonight through Friday night, October 23, and an acceleration toward the northeast on Saturday.On the forecast track, the center of Epsilon is forecast to make its closest approach to, but well to the east of, Bermuda later this evening (AST).Large swells generated by Epsilon will affect Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, the Leeward Islands, the east coast of the United States, and Atlantic Canada during the next few days. These swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions. Epsilon is expected to merge with a frontal zone and become extratropical by Tuesday, October 27.
Powerful Storm Barbara hits Portugal and Spain – An impressive deep cyclone named Storm Barbara by the Spanish meteorological agency is moving into Europe on October 20, 2020, bringing powerful winds and very heavy rainfall. The first to feel its effects are Portugal and Spain where Red and Orange alerts are in effect today. Barbara is expected to bring strong winds and heavy rain to Portugal and Spain on Tuesday and Wednesday, October 20 and 21. The rain will then spread further inland into France, where Orange and Yellow warnings now cover most of the country. While no major impacts are expected in the United Kingdom, Barbara will bring some rain, likely heavy to the southeast and possibly central England on October 21.
Nearly Half of the U.S. Is in Drought. It May Get Worse. – NYT – Nearly half of the continental United States is gripped by drought, government forecasters said Thursday, and conditions are expected to worsen this winter across much of the Southwest and South. Mike Halpert, deputy director of the Climate Prediction Center, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said a lack of late-summer rain in the Southwest had expanded “extreme and exceptional” dry conditions from West Texas into Colorado and Utah, “with significant drought also prevailing westward through Nevada, Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.” Much of the Western half of the country is now experiencing drought conditions and parts of the Ohio Valley and the Northeast are as well, Mr. Halpert said during a teleconference announcing NOAA’s weather outlook for this winter. This is the most widespread drought in the continental United States since 2013, he said, covering more than 45 percent of the Lower 48 states. “The winter forecast doesn’t bode well,” Mr. Halpert added. Warmer and drier conditions are expected across the South and Southwest and drought is likely to develop in parts of Georgia and Florida and in Central and Southern California, where the dry conditions could add to the risk of wildfire in what has already been a catastrophic year for fires in California. The American Southwest has been mired in drought for most of the past two decades. Studies suggest that the region is experiencing an emerging megadrought, similar to some periods in the past 1,200 years, when droughts persisted for 40 years or longer. Mr. Halpert said the likelihood of worsening drought this winter can be linked to La Nina, which developed in August and is expected to persist at least through the winter. La Nina occurs every two to seven years on average when the upper layer of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean cools to below-normal temperatures. This leads to changes in atmospheric circulation that can affect weather around the globe. In the United States during a La Nina, the South is usually warmer and drier, the East Coast is warmer and much of the North is cooler and wetter. The current NOAA forecast is for a moderate to strong La Nina, as measured by the difference in sea-surface temperatures from normal. In a stronger La Nina the effects on the United States would be expected to be greater, Mr. Halpert said. But he emphasized that the agency’s winter outlook was based on probabilities, and that sometimes during La Nina or El Nino the expected impacts do not materialize.
Cameron Peak Fire: Colorado is fighting its largest wildfire in history – The Cameron Peak Fire near Rocky Mountain National Park has become the largest wildfire in Colorado history, growing to almost 207,000 acres this week. The fire was 55 percent contained as of Wednesday afternoon. It was quickly joined this week by the East Troublesome Fire to its southwest. Over a period of 24 hours, the East Troublesome Fire grew six times in size to more than 125,000 acres as of Thursday. The blaze, which is burning at an elevation of 9,000 feet and across both sides of the continental divide, forced Rocky Mountain National Park to close. It’s now the fourth-largest fire in Colorado history. The previous record-holder before Cameron Peak was the 137,000-acre Pine Gulch Fire near Grand Junction, Colorado. That fire also ignited this year and was declared 100 percent contained in September. It only held on to its record as Colorado’s largest wildfire for seven weeks. Three of the four largest wildfires in state history have ignited just since July. Yet another fast-moving wildfire ignited in Boulder County on Saturday and quickly spread across almost 10,000 acres, forcing at least 3,000 people to evacuate. Known as theCalWood Fire, it’s now the largest wildfire on record for Boulder County. Then on Sunday, theLefthand Canyon Fire started just outside of Boulder. Beyond the threat from the flames, these various wildfires have sent dangerous, smoky air into cities like Denver and Fort Collins, triggering air quality alerts off and on for months. Together, the recent blazes in Colorado add up to an unusually long, late, and severe wildfire season, and it’s not likely to let up anytime soon. “We still have dry, windy conditions pushing these fires.” It’s an increasingly familiar story. Like the epic wildfires this year across California, Oregon, and Washington, the wildfires in Colorado arose amid a year of extreme heat and dryness. Heat waves baked the state this summer and persisted into the fall. The high temperatures increased the evaporation of moisture from vegetation, leaving plants dry and ready to burn. There was also less rainfall. Over the past month, precipitation was less than 10 percent of what is typical. That aridity has left almost every type of vegetation in the state primed to burn, as was evident in the Cameron Peak Fire. “It burned all the way from fir forest, ponderosa pine, mixed conifer. It’s burned through some grasslands and shrublands as well,” Hoffman said. “It’s burned through areas that have previously burned, like during the Bobcat Fire. It’s burned through bark-beetle-affected areas. So a really big mix of fuels that this fire has burned through over the last 60 days.”
Colorado wildfire jumps U.S. Continental Divide, threatens mountain towns (Reuters) – An explosive Colorado wildfire that has already forced the evacuation of several mountain communities and the closure of Rocky Mountain National Park blackened another 45,000 acres (18,200 hectares) on Thursday as it jumped the U.S. Continental Divide. The East Troublesome Fire, which broke out on Oct. 14, has now burned 170,000 acres (68,800 hectares) and was only about 5% contained as of Thursday afternoon, incident commander Noel Livingston said at a news briefing. The flames have spread into Rocky Mountain National Park, prompted the National Park Service to close the entire 415 square-mile (668-square-km) expanse and the blaze has become the second-largest on record in Colorado. The closure of the national park is in addition to more than one million acres of wilderness in Colorado that the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and state authorities have deemed off limits to the public.The National Weather Service was forecasting continued hot, dry, windy conditions in much of Colorado, but snow and much colder weather are expected this weekend. Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin has ordered evacuations in the area, including the tiny lakeside community of Grand Lake, which has a population of about 470. The fire is among the latest in a brutal fire season following a long period of drought across Colorado. The cause remains under investigation.
Record wildfires continue to expand across Colorado – Colorado has become a major hotspot for record-breaking wildfires in the Western United States in the 2020 fire season with flames reaching the major population centers of Boulder and Fort Collins. As of Thursday, eleven different fires have been burning across the state razing over 550,000 acres and dozens of homes. Thousands of residents are under evacuation orders. Red flag warnings have been in effect throughout the state as unusually warm temperatures for the month of October coupled with low humidity and high winds create the conditions for the sudden eruption of fires. In some areas, firefighters on the front lines have been unable to use helicopters and other aircraft to combat the spreading fires due to wind gusts of over 35 mph. Terrified residents have posted pictures and video of ominous scenes of billowing black smoke barreling towards their homes with the orange haze of the fires underneath. “It’s getting worse and worse. It’s bad. It’s really bad,” a Grand County resident exclaimed in a video she posted online. On Thursday morning, the East Troublesome Fire in northern Colorado exploded to over 125,000 acres burned, a six-fold increase from the night before with a reported 19,000 acres burned. The fire, currently only 5 percent contained, is now the fourth largest in state history. The sudden eruption forced the area around the town of Grand Lake to evacuate with police officers knocking door-to-door by 6 p.m. Wednesday night. On Thursday, Rocky Mountain National Park announced that it would close due to the fires and hazardous air quality with a pre-evacuation order being sent to towns in the surrounding area. “It was really an amazing amount of fire spread yesterday,” said Fire Incident Commander Noel Livingston during a Thursday morning briefing and noted that the fire had spread 20 miles overnight and is burning at an estimated 6,000 acres per hour. “The fire is growing faster than we can catch it right now.” Despite over 300 firefighters battling the blazes across the state, meteorologists are expecting a cold front to approach the area accompanied by wind gusts of up to 50 mph. Officials are depending on a stronger front of cool and humid air over the weekend which may produce snowfall that could offer some relief. Still, officials are projecting that the fires will not be extinguished until November 10. At the current trajectory, officials fear the possibility that the East Troublesome Fire could collide with the Cameron Peak Fire a few dozen miles north in the Roosevelt National Forest. The Cameron Peak Fire in Larimer County near Fort Collins has been burning since August 13 and has become the largest fire in state history at more than 200,000 acres burned. The fire eclipses the previous record also set this year at the end of July by the Pine Gulch Fire near the city of Grand Junction with over 139,000 acres burned.
Colorado Fire Grows By Over 100,000 Acres In 1 Day, Hits Rocky Mountain National Park – Already battling the largest fire in state history, Colorado is now dealing with another blaze that grew by more than 100,000 acres in a day.The flames traveled east, fueled by beetle-eaten pine trees and dry winds. Hundreds evacuated. The fire jumped the Continental Divide. Conditions forced the closing of Rocky Mountain National Park.The fire, called East Troublesome after a nearby creek, has spread to more than 125,000 acres. Smoke plumes stretched 40,000 feet in the air. The nearby town of Grand Lake was forced to evacuate.East Troublesome is now the fourth-largest wildfire in Colorado records. It started on Oct. 14, but overnight Wednesday it quadrupled in size.”The growth that you see on this fire is unheard of,” Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin said during a Thursday press conference. “We plan for the worst. This is the worst of the worst of the worst. And no matter how we look at it, we can’t control Mother Nature.”The cause is under investigation.Three of the five largest fires in Colorado history are from 2020. The state has battled its largest fire in history for more than two months just west of Fort Collins. The fire, named Cameron Peak, continues to burn and has spread to about 207,000 acres. It is 55% contained.”By the end of September, nearly 100% of the state was experiencing some level of drought, up from 51% since the beginning of the calendar year,” according to a monthly report from the Colorado Climate Center.There have been no reported injuries or deaths, but some residents disregarded mandatory evacuation orders Wednesday, Schroetlin said. Numerous structures were destroyed Wednesday, he said.He had “no idea” of the extent of damages, Schroetlin said. As of Thursday afternoon, the East Troublesome Fire was 5% contained.High wind and low humidity conditions will make it easy for the fire to spread further, said Noel Livingston, incident commander for Pacific Northwest Team Three.”We anticipate another day of large fire growth,” he said. It’s possible the East Troublesome Fire could connect with the Cameron Peak Fire, Livingston said. Cameron Peak has also burned into Rocky Mountain National Park.
Colorado Wildfire Grows by 6,000 Acres an Hour – Thousands of homes were evacuated Wednesday after a Colorado wildfire exploded in size, growing at a rate of 6,000 acres per hour.The East Troublesome fire had been burning since Oct. 14, but suddenly took off Wednesday in a more erratic manner than even worst-case-scenario predictions had anticipated, Grand County Sheriff Brett Schroetlin said, as The Colorado Sun reported. The fire had grown to 125,600 acres by Thursday morning and 170,163 acres by Thursday evening, making it the second-largest wildfire in Colorado history. It is only five percent contained, according to InciWeb.”The growth that you see on this fire is unheard of,” Schroetlin said during a Thursday press conference reported by NPR. “We plan for the worst. This is the worst of the worst of the worst. And no matter how we look at it, we can’t control Mother Nature.” Schroetlin said Thursday morning that there was “lots of structure loss,” according to The Colorado Sun, though no official tally of damage has been reported. As many as five people were unaccounted for by Thursday evening. However, there have been no reports of deaths or injuries. The fast-moving fire was first driven by high winds into the town of Grand Lake Wednesday night, Colorado Public Radio (CPR) reported. “It was basically out of a movie,” retired newscaster Ernie Bjorkman told CPR. “It was a firestorm in downtown Grand Lake. Smoke and embers flying around. It was just a chaotic scene. We locked the door and said, ‘hopefully, house, we’ll see you when we get back.’ ” The fire then crossed the Continental Divide by 1:15 pm Thursday, according to The Colorado Sun. It also entered Rocky Mountain National Park, forcing it to close.
PG&E Ripped for Prioritizing Cleanup in Areas With Low Fire Risk (CN) – Pacific Gas and Electric has prioritized wildfire-prevention work based on what makes it look good rather than what actually reduces risks in the highest fire-threat areas, a court-appointed monitor warned in a recent memo. “Overall, we believe the inspections and related analyses have identified material shortcomings in PG&E’s progress, as compared to its stated goals regarding wildfire risk reduction,” independent monitor Mark Filip wrote in an Oct. 16 letter made public Tuesday. The letter was sent to U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who oversees PG&E’s criminal probation in a case related to the fatal 2010 San Bruno pipeline explosion. PG&E said it prioritizes wildfire-prevention work based on a risk model that assigns a risk score to each high fire-threat zone in its service area. In 2019, PG&E identified 100 circuits, or stretch of power lines, as having a much higher risk score than 596 other areas. But approximately 59% of its enhanced vegetation management (EVM) work was performed in lower-risk circuits that year, according to the monitor. This year the monitor team found 4.82 missed hazards per mile, suggesting that improvement has “at best, plateaued, and perhaps actual regression has occurred.” On Oct. 4, a monitor’s team inspector found a tree PG&E was supposed to remove in mid-August with leaves singed from contact with a power line. It failed to remove the tree twice “seemingly because of a series of process breakdowns.” After the monitor alerted PG&E, the tree was removed within 24 hours. PG&E also failed to meet its internal target for completing enhanced climbing inspections for 967 transmission structures in high fire-threat areas by Aug. 31. That goal would have allowed PG&E to address potential problems before the peak fire season started in late September. PG&E performed zero enhanced inspections of those towers by the deadline. At the same time, it conducted 1,000 climbing inspections on transmission towers outside the high-threat areas by Aug. 31. That it prioritized enhanced tower inspections in lower-risk areas while neglecting ones in higher-risk zones demonstrates the company’s “shortcomings in executing work in a manner that prioritizes wildfire risk reduction,” Filip wrote.
Alarm as Arctic sea ice not yet freezing at latest date on record – For the first time since records began, the main nursery of Arctic sea ice in Siberia has yet to start freezing in late October.The delayed annual freeze in the Laptev Sea has been caused by freakishly protracted warmth in northern Russia and the intrusion of Atlantic waters, say climate scientists who warn of possible knock-on effects across the polar region.Ocean temperatures in the area recently climbed to more than 5C above average, following a record breaking heatwave and the unusually early decline of last winter’s sea ice.The trapped heat takes a long time to dissipate into the atmosphere, even at this time of the year when the sun creeps above the horizon for little more than an hour or two each day.Graphs of sea-ice extent in the Laptev Sea, which usually show a healthy seasonal pulse, appear to have flat-lined. As a result, there is a record amount of open sea in the Arctic.”The lack of freeze-up so far this fall is unprecedented in the Siberian Arctic region,” said Zachary Labe, a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University. He says this is in line with the expected impact of human-driven climate change.”2020 is another year that is consistent with a rapidly changing Arctic. Without a systematic reduction in greenhouse gases, the likelihood of our first ‘ice-free’ summer will continue to increase by the mid-21st century,’ he wrote in an email to the Guardian.This year’s Siberian heatwave was made at least 600 times more likely by industrial and agricultural emissions, according to an earlier study.The warmer air temperature is not the only factor slowing the formation of ice.Climate change is also pushing more balmy Atlantic currents into the Arctic and breaking up the usual stratification between warm deep waters and the cool surface. This also makes it difficult for ice to form.”This continues a streak of very low extents. The last 14 years, 2007 to 2020, are the lowest 14 years in the satellite record starting in 1979,” said Walt Meier, senior research scientist at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. He said much of the old ice in the Arctic is now disappearing, leaving thinner seasonal ice. Overall the average thickness is half what it was in the 1980s. The downward trend is likely to continue until the Arctic has its first ice-free summer, said Meier. The data and models suggest this will occur between 2030 and 2050. “It’s a matter of when, not if,” he added.
Melting glaciers threaten catastrophic consequences for humanity – Global warming has already resulted in continual and worldwide loss of glacial ice. The concurrent melting of the permafrost ground layer is a possible tipping point-crossing a threshold beyond which no countermeasures can reverse global warming. Last Monday the research vessel Polarstern made berth in Bremerhaven, having completed a year-long Arctic expedition. The expedition left Tromso, Norway on September 20, 2019, on what they called the largest Arctic expedition of all time. Under the direction of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), rotating crews of hundreds of scientists from 80 institutions and 20 countries were on board. The Polarstern spent nearly 10 months docked on ice floes in the Arctic Ocean, allowing scientists to measure and document the entire ice cycle, from the winter freeze to the summer melt. The over euro 140 million mission was tasked with a year-long, all-encompassing measurement of Arctic ice and water. Scientists measured over 200 parameters, from temperatures in currents in deep water and at heights of up to 35 kilometers, to the microorganisms in and on the ice. It will take years to completely evaluate the data, which will likely be used for decades. But this much is already clear: the researchers encountered weak, fractured and melting ice extending all the way to the north pole. They repeatedly came across melt-water ponds and open water. “This used to be an area of old ice,” says Polarstern captain Thomas Wunderlich. Now, however, in just a few days the Polarstern was able to advance practically unhindered to the North Pole. Since the 1980s, Arctic ice coverage has decreased by roughly half. The remaining ice is thin and thawing. The expedition has documented a collapsing world. This year the Bering Strait was almost free of ice, as shown by a March 7 image from the European Earth-observing satellite Sentinel 1. Normally the strait is frozen that early in the year. According to the European Space Agency (ESA), there is currently less ice in the Bering Sea than at any point since records began in 1850. By 2050, the temperature is expected to rise by at least 3 degC (5.4 degF); by 2080, by up to 9 degC (16.2 degF).
Alaska’s new climate threat: tsunamis linked to melting permafrost – In Alaska and other high, cold places around the world, new research shows that mountains are collapsing as the permafrost that holds them together melts, threatening tsunamis if they fall into the sea. Scientists are warning that populated areas and major tourist attractions are at risk.One area of concern is a slope of the Barry Arm fjord in Alaska that overlooks a popular cruise ship route.The Barry Arm slide began creeping early last century, sped up a decade ago, and was discovered this year using satellite photos. If it lets loose, the wave could hit any ships in the area and reach hundreds of meters up nearby mountains, swamping the popular tourist destination and crashing as high as 10 meters over the town of Whittier. Earlier this year, 14 geologists warned that a major slide was “possible” within a year, and “likely” within 20 years.In 2015, a similar landslide, on a slope that had also crept for decades, created atsunami that sheared off forests 193 meters up the slopes of Alaska’s Taan Fiord.”When the climate changes,” said geologist Bretwood Higman, who has worked on Taan Fiord and Barry Arm, “the landscape takes time to adjust. If a glacier retreats really quickly it can catch the surrounding slopes by surprise – they might fail catastrophically instead of gradually adjusting.”After examining 30 years of satellite photos, for instance, geologist Erin Bessette-Kirton has found that landslides in Alaska’s St Elias mountains and Glacier Bay correspond with the warmest years.Warming clearly leads to slides, but knowing just when those slides will release is a much harder problem. “We don’t have a good handle on the mechanism,” Bessette-Kirkton said. “We have correlations, but we don’t know the driving force. What conditions the landslide, and what triggers it?”Adding to the problem, global heating has opened up water for landslides to fall in. A recent paper by Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary, shows that as glaciers have shrunk, glacial lakes have grown, ballooning 50% in both number and size in 18 years. In the ocean, fjords lengthen as ice retreats. Slopes that used to hang over ice now hang over water. Over the past century, 10 of the 14 tallest tsunamis recorded happened in glaciated mountain areas. In 1958, a landslide into Alaska’s Lituya Bay created a 524-meter wave – the tallest ever recorded. In Alaska’s 1964 earthquake, most deaths were from tsunamis set off by underwater landslides.
Alaska earthquake triggers small tsunami – The magnitude 7.5 earthquake near Sand Point, Alaska, generated a tsunami, Scott Langley with the National Tsunami Warning Center said Monday afternoon. Langley said the tsunami sent two waves, each measuring 130 centimeters (4 feet, 3 inches) high. But observers onshore reported the waves appeared to be 1.5 feet (45.7 centimeters) and 2 feet (61 cm) over high tide. The center is monitoring harbors in a 500-mile area along the Alaska coastline, he said. Tsunami advisories issued for parts of Alaska and the state of Hawaii following the earthquake were canceled Monday night, according to tweets from the National Weather Service Pacific Tsunami Warning Center When it comes to iconic sneakers, heck, when it comes to the entire history of footwear, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more beloved or influential shoe than the Superstar Langley said earlier the area in Alaska that had been subject to the warning and advisory is “pretty remote.” “For other US and Canadian Pacific coasts in North America, there is no tsunami threat,” the center said.
Strong eruption at Bezymianny volcano, ash up to 9.5 km (31 000 feet) a.s.l., Russia – A strong eruption started at the Russian Bezymianny volcano at 20:22 UTC on October 21, 2020, ejecting ash up to 9.5 km (31 000 feet) above sea level. The Aviation Color Code was raised to Red at 21:51 UTC and lowered back to Orange at 03:19 UTC on October 21 after the eruption has finished. Satellite data at 23:00 UTC showed a large ash cloud moving about 75 km (46 miles) west of the volcano, KVERT reported. The large ash cloud was present in the area of the Klyuchevskoy group of volcanoes, but its height has decreased to 5 – 5.5 km (16 400 – 18 000 feet) a.s.l. by 03:19 UTC. The cloud has divided on the northern part (105 x 57 km / 65 x 25 miles in size) and the southern (36 x 67 km / 22 x 41 miles in size), KVERT said.
Greenhouse gas and gold mines: Nearly 1 ton of CO2 emitted per ounce of gold produced in 2019 – Gold mines emitted on average 0.8 tonnes of CO2 equivalent for every ounce of gold that was produced in 2019; however, stark differences exist both regionally and across open pit versus underground mining methods. With prices testing and stabilizing at new highs, gold has been one of the best-performing metals of 2020, benefiting greatly from the uncertainty the year has brought. Strong price performance over the past several years has also led to a large number of new mines opening in recent years. With that in mind, and amid concerns of mining’s impact on climate change as well as a growing environmental and social governance focus on financial portfolios, we present a review of greenhouse gas emissions from gold mines. Underground mines, which operate at higher grades and process less material, generally have lower greenhouse gas footprints than their larger open pit counterparts. For every ounce of gold produced, underground mines emit less than half the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent that open pits do. Given also that different regions apply different mining methods and have different power sources, trends in emissions from gold mines arise at a local level as well. As underground mines are generally higher in grade than open pit mines, there is the assumption that open pit mines emit greater amounts of greenhouse gases than equivalent-producing underground mines. While there are more factors in greenhouse gas emissions than simply the volume of material moved and processed, there is a direct correlation between the two when we evaluate emissions as a function of production. This means the assumption stated above is valid, with open pit mines emitting on average around twice as much CO2e per ounce of gold produced as underground mines, at 0.85 tCO2e and 0.40 tCO2e, respectively. Open pit mines also process roughly five times the amount of ore at an average grade of around 1.05 g/t Au for the population evaluated, versus 3.25 g/t Au for underground mines. We also looked at free cash flow from those same mines using S&P Global Market Intelligence’s discount cash flow models, based on the most-recently published set of consensus metals prices. While the larger gold mines do have the capacity to generate a greater amount of free cash, that large production base comes with higher emissions. Consequently, some see better-than-average returns per tonne of emissions. Underground mines have an even clearer advantage on a free cash flow basis than was evident on a per-ounce of gold produced basis, generating as much as US$2,112/tCO2e emitted, compared to just US$951/tCO2e from open pit mines. While underground mines do generate more free cash flow than open pits – around US$422/oz versus US$375/oz – the scale is far greater on a greenhouse gas emissions level given the comparative lower emissions of underground mines.
CAMPAIGN 2020: Democrats run from Green New Deal, fracking bans — Tuesday, October 20, 2020 — Republicans in tight congressional races around the country are working to tie their opponents to the Green New Deal, but Democrats are trying their best to steer clear of the ambitious proposal. President Trump and national Republicans have for years worked to paint Democrats as too radical on the environment. That strategy is extending to a host of contested House and Senate contests. In races from Alaska to South Carolina, Ohio and Colorado, the GOP is trying to weaponize the aggressive decarbonization plan pushed by progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), often saying incorrectly that it would outlaw cheeseburgers and air travel. But with few exceptions, Democrats in close races are denouncing both the Green New Deal and quickly banning hydraulic fracturing when they get the opportunity, and are instead laying out their own, less aggressive plans to fight climate change. This year’s races are the first major electoral test for the Green New Deal, which was thrust into the national spotlight following the 2018 midterm elections. And so far, few Democrats in the most competitive races think it’s a winner. “I don’t know where Sen. McSally gets her information from. But since the Green New Deal was authored, I’ve been against it. There’s a lot of stuff in there that has nothing to do with climate,” Arizona Democrat Mark Kelly said in a recent debate against Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.). She referred to the proposal as the “Green Bad Deal,” adding that it would cost $93 trillion and “would be devastating to our economy.” Kelly said of his opposition to the Green New Deal, “I’ve made that very clear,” adding that as a former Navy aviator, he knows the importance of fossil fuels. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) sought to use the Green New Deal against Al Gross, his independent opponent who’s backed by Democrats. Gross responded, “Dan Sullivan continually claims that I’m for the Green New Deal. That’s a lie. That’s a falsehood, and it just shows how scared he is and concerned about losing his seat.”
China delivers a barrage of criticism at U.S. climate policies – China delivered a diatribe against U.S. climate policies on Monday, saying that under President Trump, the United States “is widely viewed as a consensus-breaker and a troublemaker.” Beijing’s Foreign Affairs Ministry blamed Trump’s “negative stance” and “retrogression on climate change” for undermining progress on an international climate accord. Trump, who plans to formally pull out of the Paris climate agreement the day after Election Day, had “seriously undermined the fairness, efficiency and effectiveness of global environmental governance,” the ministry said in a fact sheet. The barrage from Beijing resembled the tit-for-tat criticism that China and the United States have traded on subjects such as human rights, trade and the expulsion of reporters and diplomats, but climate policies have been largely the exception. Not anymore. AD China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, took aim at the United States, the second-biggest emitter, after the State Department on Sept. 25 issued a “China’s Environmental Abuses Fact Sheet,” which said that Beijing “threatens the global economy and global health by unsustainably exploiting natural resources and exporting its willful disregard for the environment through its One Belt One Road initiative.” In the U.S. fact sheet, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “too much of the Chinese Communist Party’s economy is built on willful disregard for air, land, and water quality. The Chinese people – and the world – deserve better.” “This seems like a reminder that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” Jason Bordoff, director of Columbia University’s global energy center, said of the Chinese report. “We put out a statement attacking their environmental record and they put out an even stronger one, and the Trump administration has given them a lot to work with.” He said the dueling attacks were “a reminder of how strained the U.S.-China relationship is, and there’s going to need to be a lot of work to be done to allow for a constructive relationship on climate moving forward.” The relationship between China and the United States has been deteriorating for years. China has seized islands in the South China Sea, deploying military forces to the disputed territories. It has detained in prison camps large numbers of Uighurs seen as possible threats. And it has pursued trade policies that have made it difficult for American companies to do business there.
ENERGY TRANSITIONS: Cities’ actions fall short of lofty climate goals — Thursday, October 22, 2020 — Most major American cities that have signed on to the climate fight with pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions are failing to meet their goals or haven’t even started to track local progress, according to a survey by the Brookings Institution.
Report calls on California to lead on carbon capture for deep decarbonization | S&P Global Market Intelligence – California, a state frequently rocked by disasters exacerbated by a warming climate and a leader among U.S. states on actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has an opportunity to lead the development of carbon capture technologies, a new report concluded. A combination of policy actions could support the development of carbon capture and storage, or CCS, technology and achieve deep decarbonization in California, according to an Oct. 22 report. The action plan from Energy Futures Initiative, Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy, and the Stanford Center for Carbon Storage presents a path to encourage CCS deployment for a wide range of industries that may have few other decarbonization options. A 2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report urged the world to achieve net-zero emissions by around 2050 to limit global warming to about 1.5 degrees C relative to preindustrial levels. The organization previously identified CCS as a critical technology for hitting that goal. As U.S. power generators set net-zero emissions goals, many include CCS, direct air capture or other technologies as part of their plans. Early efforts to address climate change focused on decarbonizing the electricity and transport sectors. However, fewer people thought about what deeper decarbonization might imply for the broader economy and jobs, said Sally Benson, a Stanford University professor and a project executive for the report. As it becomes more apparent that climate change will eventually drive a need to capture carbon dioxide from the air and sequester it, policymakers have the chance to take a cheaper and more efficient route to avoid some of those future emissions now, Benson said. SNL Image “If you have high-purity sources that could be eliminated today, with technology that’s available today, why wouldn’t we?” Benson asked. “Why wouldn’t we choose a lower cost, easier option, rather than wait for the one that’s going to be harder and more expensive?” The action plan says expanding CCS would further in-depth decarbonization efforts in emissions-heavy sectors such as chemicals, transportation fuels, cement, plastics and rubber products. Wide CCS deployment may also enable the emergence of “new, potentially multi-billion-dollar clean energy industries” and drive job creation in California, the report said.
Lake Charles company to permanently store millions of tons of greenhouse gases 10,000 feet below ground — A Lake Charles company has embarked on an ambitious plan to create a vast repository 10,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface for the permanent storage of up to 80 million tons of carbon gas now released into the air by Louisiana industrial plants. The repository is actually a permeable layer of rock containing saltwater – similar to layers that once were drilled into to capture oil and gas in the area – located beneath a cattle ranch owned by Gulf Coast Sequestration LLC between the Sabine River and Lake Charles. The company owns both the surface and subsurface rights to the land and plans to create a facility on the property where the carbon gas would be shipped and then pumped underground. The company announced this week that it has begun the process to obtain a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency to operate the underground injection well specially designed for carbon storage. According to recent EPA public meetings, it could take a year or more before a permit decision is made. “This filing is a long time coming and an exciting moment for GCS,” Gray Stream, president of Matilda Stream Management Inc., the owner of Gulf Coast Sequestration, said in a news release. “We have done our homework, and our permit application reflects our commitment to robust environmental compliance.” Sequestering carbon Sequestering carbon In August, Gov. John Bel Edwards called Louisiana the “canary in the coal mine” for climate risk because of its increased loss of wetlands due to more intense hurricanes, more frequent Mississippi River flooding and sea level rise. He launched an ambitious program aimed at reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 28% by 2025. He also set a “net zero” emissions goal by 2050. Louisiana’s total carbon emissions come from a variety of sources, including car, truck and ship traffic; oil and gas production at wells; and the use of oil and gas for refineries, electric utilities and residential heating.
Industry Lawyers Resist Relying on Trump Environmental Rollbacks -Power industry lawyers are in regulatory limbo as the Trump administration nears its four-year mark, unable to rely on several tailor-made rollbacks amid potential policy shifts.Federal agencies’ recent rewrites of regulations for environmental reviews, water jurisdiction, and coal ash are too vulnerable to legal and political winds to steer business decision-making, attorneys said Wednesday during an American Bar Association conference.Tennessee Valley Authority lawyer Steven Johnson pointed to recent wastewater and coal ash rules from the Environmental Protection Agency. TVA has to make related operational decisions quickly, “but it is difficult with looming uncertainty,” Johnson said.Lawmakers could reverse both rules under the Congressional Review Act if Democrats control both chambers, or the rules could be sidelined by courts or a future Democratic administration, should former Vice President Joe Biden win the election. TVA, a government-owned power company, has simply decided against taking advantage of some Trump-era policies designed to benefit industries. When the Interior Department loosened liability for bird deaths under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, for example, TVA opted to “protect migratory birds as robustly as before,” Johnson said. A district court later struck down Interior’s policy, though the agency is working on a follow-up rulemaking.
Risky business: Cellphone satellite networks endanger asteroid early warning, threaten catastrophic space junk — During the coming decade companies that include Amazon, SpaceX and OneWeb are seeking to launch well over 100,000 satellites to service wireless networks on Earth. Many more satellites may follow after that. Astronomers are crying foul because the satellites-which have proven to be much more reflective than anticipated-are making it difficult for observatories to survey the night sky. The satellites show up as multiple streaky white lines in long-exposure photography so essential to detecting new objects in the distant reaches of the universe. Thus have the wonders of wireless communications blinded us to the risks of filling the sky with so many satellites. Were that the extent of the problem, it would be irksome to the world astronomy community but probably not a major concern to the rest of us. Unfortunately, much bigger risks await us as the number of satellites in orbit around planet Earth reaches, well, astronomical proportions. Far more serious is the impairment of our ability to monitor the skies for near-Earth objects that might collide with the planet-like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. This is important because we now have technology that would allow us to see such an object approaching early enough for us Earthlings to do something about it. Part of the reason for the oversight is that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has not forced any of the satellite wireless companies to submit an environmental impact statement that might have led to the consideration of one very, very big possible impact! This is a colossal failure of risk management. Now, it is true that an impact of the size that wiped out the dinosaurs is a very rare event. But even smaller impacts can be a major concern in a world now filled with large, sprawling cities that could be obliterated by much smaller objects. It is as if we are in a strange duel in which our opponent is continuously firing a gun loaded with millions of projectiles at us but with very poor aim. The geologic record already shows that occasionally the shooter will hit us with devastatingly lethal consequences. Now, we have the technology to shot back in such a way that would divert a projectile headed toward us before it hits. A large meteor impact could conceivably wipe out both the members of the FCC and everyone else on Earth. Weighed against faster wireless access to the internet-especially when that access is already being built on the ground-means that we are allowing these companies to increase the danger to all of human civilization (and much of the animal and plant kingdoms besides) so that the shareholders of a few companies can get a piece of the profits in the wireless industry.
Republican senators ask EPA not to boost refinery biofuel obligations in 2021 (Reuters) – A group of U.S. Republican senators asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday to consider a general waiver that would prevent an increase in biofuel blending obligations next year for oil refiners hit by a collapse in fuel demand because of the coronavirus pandemic. Senators including Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Ted Cruz from Texas said the waiver for 2021 would help refiners cope with the pandemic, which has pushed gasoline demand down more than 10% from year-ago levels. U.S. laws require the refining industry to blend increasing amounts of biofuels into their fuels each year, requirements that have helped farmers by creating a huge market for corn-based ethanol, but which refiners say is costly. The senators also urged EPA to ensure blending obligations do not exceed the so-called “blend wall” of 10% ethanol in the fuel pool. Most ethanol-blended gasoline sold at retail pumps has a 10% cap on the biofuel because some vehicles cannot use gasoline with higher ethanol blends. That could mean reducing mandated blending volumes, if overall fuel demand drops enough, the senators argued. The letter comes after Trump’s EPA handed a major victory to ethanol producers last month, siding with them over oil refiners in an ongoing dispute over the obligations. EPA rejected scores of requests from refiners for waivers that would have retroactively spared them from blending obligations.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: N.J. calls for 100% EVs by 2035, a first for East Coast — Monday, October 19, 2020 — New Jersey officials called last week for a ban on gas car sales by 2035, a move that would make the state the first outside California to enact such a policy.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Dems introduce bill to phase out gas-powered cars — Wednesday, October 21, 2020 — Democrats yesterday unveiled legislation to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars nationwide by 2035 – elevating the controversial climate goal from the state of California to the halls of Congress.
Spread of electric cars sparks fights for control over charging — Electric vehicles are widely seen as the automobile industry’s future, but a battle is unfolding in states across America over who should control the charging stations that could gradually replace fuel pumps.From Exelon Corp. to Southern California Edison, utilities have sought regulatory approval to invest millions of dollars in upgrading their infrastructure to prepare for charging and, in some cases, to own and operate chargers.The proposals are sparking concerns from consumer advocates about higher electric rates and oil companies about subsidizing rivals. They are also drawing opposition from startups that say the successors to gas stations should be open to private-sector competition, not controlled by monopoly utilities. That debate is playing out in regulatory commissions throughout the U.S. as states and utilities promote wider adoption of electric vehicles. At stake are charging infrastructure investments expected to total more than $13 billion over the next five years, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. That would cover roughly 3.2 million charging outlets.Calvin Butler Jr., who leads Exelon’s utilities business, said many states have grown more open to the idea of utilities becoming bigger players in charging as electric vehicles have struggled to take off in the U.S., where they make up only around 2% of new car sales.”When the utilities are engaged, there’s quicker adoption because the infrastructure is there,” he said.Major auto makers including General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are accelerating production of electric vehicles, and a number of states have set ambitious EV goals — most recently California, which aims to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. But a patchy charging-station network remains a huge impediment to mass EV adoption.
U.S. Renewable Energy Consumption Hits Record | OilPrice.com – Renewable energy consumption in the United States continued to rise for the fourth year in a row in 2019, with wind energy and wood and waste energy each accounting for 24 percent of all renewable energy used in America, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said on Monday.Last year, U.S. consumption of renewable energy reached a record 11.5 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu), or 11 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, the EIA has estimated.Of the renewable energy used, wind energy-almost exclusively used to produce electricity-accounted for 24 percent of U.S. renewable energy consumption. Last year, wind beat hydropower to become the most used renewable electricity generation source.Wood and waste energy accounted for another 24 percent of U.S. renewable energy use in 2019, while hydroelectric power accounted for 22 percent of renewable energy consumption. Biofuels followed with a 20-percent share of renewable energy consumption. Solar energy accounted for just 9 percent of renewable energy, but it saw the largest percentage growth among renewable sources in 2019, the EIA said.Earlier this year, the EIA said that the rise of renewables and declining coal electricity generation resulted in energy consumption from renewables in the United States surpassing in 2019 coal consumption for the first time since 1885.Last year, total U.S. renewable energy consumption increased by 1 percent compared to 2018, while coal consumption slumped by almost 15 percent year on year. In 2019, energy consumption from coal dropped for the sixth year in a row to its lowest level since 1964, according to EIA’s estimates using a fossil fuel equivalence to calculate electricity consumption of non-combustible renewables such as wind, hydro, solar, and geothermal energy. Due to rising natural gas production and increased natural gas-powered generation, coal-fired electricity generation capacity continues to retire in the U.S. Following coal capacity retirements, electricity generation from coal has dropped significantly over the past decade to the point of reaching its lowest level in 42 years in 2019.
CONNECTICUT: AG wants reimbursements for poor response to power outage — Friday, October 23, 2020 — Connecticut’s attorney general asked regulators Wednesday to order reimbursements for utility customers who lost food and medicine during August’s dayslong power outage in the wake of Tropical Storm Isaias.
AEP sees business demand rise for electricity after shutdowns – Demand for electricity from American Electric Power’s commercial and industrial customers is showing signs of life after being largely shut down during the spring because of the pandemic. Columbus-based AEP on Thursday reported profit of $748.6 million, or $1.51 per share, for the three months that ended June 30. That was about flat with the same quarter of 2019. Discounting one-time charges, the company earned $728.2 million, or $1.47 per share, in the most recent quarter, also in line with the year-ago quarter. Revenue fell to $4.1 billion in the quarter from $4.3 billion a year ago. AEP said residential demand for electricity, adjusted for weather, has risen this year as consumers continue to hunker down at home to ride out COVID-19. The utility said it is also starting to see more demand from offices, restaurants, factories, stores and other businesses that were closed in the spring. “As we projected, both our commercial and industrial classes are showing steady improvement from the low we experienced in the second quarter as some businesses reopened over the summer,” Nick Akins, AEP’s chairman, president and CEO, said in a statement. “We expect this trend will continue into 2021, barring additional unanticipated negative economic impacts from the pandemic.” Akins told analysts on a conference call that there was nothing new for AEP to report regarding a potential repeal of House Bill 6 in Ohio or the federal investigation surrounding the $61 million Statehouse scandal to get the bill passed.
A new fuel enters the power generation mix – You can add a new fuel in the mix of electric power generation in the Ohio Valley: hydrogen. Eventually it could displace part of the market for the newcomer that has caused so much upheaval in the industry: natural gas. This week, Long Ridge Energy Terminal at Hannibal, Ohio, across the Ohio River from New Martinsville, West Virginia, announced plans to transition its 485-megawatt combined-cycle natural gas power plant to run on hydrogen to produce electricity with no carbon dioxide emissions. Long Ridge said it intends to begin providing carbon-free power to customers as early as next year by blending hydrogen in the gas stream and transition the plant to be capable of burning 100% green hydrogen – hydrogen produced from electrolysis of water using electricity from renewable sources – over the next decade. The plant is under construction, with commercial operations planned for November 2021. Long Ridge would be the first purpose-built hydrogen-burning power plant in the United States and the first worldwide to blend hydrogen in a GE H-class gas turbine, the company says. The plant’s turbine can burn between 15% to 20% hydrogen by volume in the gas stream initially, with the capability to transition to 100% hydrogen over time. Long Ridge is a subsidiary of Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC (FTAI). The hydrogen process is a joint project of FTAI, GE and New Fortress Energy.
Looking towards a net-zero future, Burlington considers requiring all-electric buildings – – Burlington is considering a policy that would set an ambitious energy requirement for new buildings in the city: Either go all-electric, or pay a hefty carbon price. If the ordinance goes through, it would make Burlington among the first cold-climate cities in the country to enact such strong incentives for its future buildings to disconnect from fossil fuels, moving the city closer to its ambitious goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2030. Burlington Electric, the city’s electric utility, presented the policy proposal to the City Council on Oct. 5, and it’s now being reviewed by the city attorney. “We are in a position to be a leader on this,” Darren Springer, general manager of Burlington Electric, told VTDigger. In the absence of strong state policy on green buildings, he said, the proposal is “another opportunity for Burlington to show the way forward.” In 2014, Burlington became the first city in the country to run its electric grid off all renewables. But the Queen City still produces plenty of greenhouse gases: Most buildings have heating and cooling systems that use fossil fuels, and most cars on the streets are not electric. Last September, Mayor Miro Weinberger announced a road map to “net zero energy” for the city by 2030 – which would limit, and eventually eliminate, fossil fuel use in buildings and transportation. To do that, Weinberger said at the time, Burlington would have to “completely restructure” its energy use. In 2019, 95% of the heat in Burlington buildings came from natural gas, according to the city’s report: “The building sector dominates Burlington’s energy consumption with 74 percent of total use. This energy is mostly used for heating buildings; 95 percent of heating is supplied by natural gas.” This likely will prove a “formidable challenge,” the report continues, as natural gas is cheaper than petroleum. The other 26% of the city’s energy goes towards vehicles, and is “almost exclusively petroleum,” according to the report.
Promise or Peril? Importing Hydropower to Fuel the Clean Energy Transition – In 1999 a cheering crowd watched as a backhoe breached a hydroelectric dam on Maine’s Kennebec River. The effort to help restore native fish populations and the river’s health was hailed as a success and ignited a nationwide movement that spurred 1,200 dam removals in two decades. The era of building large dams in the United States, which defined so much of the 20th century, is over. The prime spots for development were cemented decades ago, and the ensuing harm to fish and other wildlife has been well documented. Attention is now focused on removing obsolete dams and retrofitting existing hydroelectric dams to reduce ecological harm and increase energy efficiency. Many other countries are in the same boat. Across Europe and North America “big dams stopped being built in developed nations because the best sites for dams were already developed, and environmental and social concerns made the costs unacceptable,” found a 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Canada appears to be the exception to that. Large dams are still being built across Canada, from Muskrat Falls in Labrador to the generically titled “Site C” in British Columbia, despite cost overruns, outcry from some First Nations and even environmental concerns from the United Nations. Hydroelectric power already supplies 60% of the country’s energy. But the dam building isn’t just to feed Canada’s power needs. It’s also become a hot export commodity. As U.S. states look to meet new clean energy targets, imported low-carbon hydropower from across the northern border has become a larger part of the conversation – and the grid. New England already gets 17% of its energy from Canadian hydropower, Midwest states around 12% and New York 5%. That number is likely to jump. A new transmission project to bring 250 megawatts of Canadian hydropower to the United States just came online in Minnesota. Two more are in the works for Massachusetts and New York. Proponents say we need large-scale hydro to grease the wheels of the clean energy transition. Others caution that it comes with a larger environmental cost compared to wind and solar and could open the floodgates for more dam building.
Cease-and-desist order sought – – In a long-running effort to make Black Bear Hydro address fish kills attributed to the energy company’s Union River dam operation, Downeast Salmon Federation has requested that the Department of Environmental Protection issue an immediate cease-and-desist order on turbine operations during the seasonal alewife migration.The Oct. 15 request cites multiple observations of juvenile alewives being killed in the prior two weeks.”We’ve been fighting these fish kills for years,” Downeast Salmon Federation biological scientist Brett Ciccotelli said. “We’ve been patient. We want to see some real steps made to make this place safe for native fisheries.”However, Black Bear Hydro holds that the dam is shut down and has been since a Sept. 24 “fish mortality event,” except for the brief redirecting of water flows, Senior Communications Director Andy Davis said. “Over the last five years, Black Bear Hydro has voluntarily shut down the generating units multiple times a year from several hours to several days in order to protect migrating fish,” Davis said.Every spring, up to a million adult alewives flood into the Union River to spawn, Ciccotelli said. Come fall, the juveniles are ready to return to the ocean, but they have to make it past the dam. The fish can be killed or wounded by the turbines or by differences in water pressure. If they go over the dam through a ten-foot opening at the top, created to give the fish a better survival rate than traveling through the turbines, they can fall on the rocks and ledges directly below, according to Ciccotelli.The cease-and-desist request is based on alleged violations of the 1987 water quality control (WQC) certificate issued for the dam, then under ownership of Bangor Hydro, by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The Maine DEP denied Black Bear Hydro’s WQC recertification in March. Without the certification, FERC can’t relicense the hydroelectric operations at Union River. Brookfield Renewable, the parent company of Black Bear Hydro, quickly appealed DEP’s decision, a process that is ongoing.
Power line opponents uncover texts between regulator and the utility he later sought to lead – Opponents of a power line through southwestern Wisconsin have uncovered more evidence of private communications between a former regulator and the utilities behind the project.Mike Huebsch, who stepped down from the Public Service Commission in February, later applied to lead Dairyland Power Cooperative after voting to approve two of its projects, the Cardinal-Hickory Creek transmission line and a $700 million natural gas plant. Though he did not land the job, the timing of his application prompted allegations of bias.Two groups suing to stop construction of the $492 million power line have obtained text messages in which Huebsch and a Dairyland executive discuss meetings with former utility CEO Barb Nick and Huebsch’s application for the job. Attorneys for the Driftless Area Land Conservancy and Wisconsin Wildlife Federation are asking a judge to consider whether the texts, as well as emails between Huebsch and the Midwestern power grid operator, tainted the PSC’s decision to grant a permit for the transmission project, of which Dairyland is a minority owner. The land conservancy and wildlife federation say the new documents support their assertion that the PSC did not follow state law when it approved the line, which is expected to cost ratepayers more than $2 billion over its lifetime while generating double-digit returns for the utilities. After a preliminary 3-0 vote by the PSC to grant a permit in September 2019, the land conservancy and wildlife federation requested that Huebsch and PSC Chair Rebecca Valcq recuse themselves from the final decision based on perceived conflicts of interest. Valcq previously worked for American Transmission Co., the project’s majority owner, and Huebsch had served on a committee of the Midwest grid operator, MISO, a party to the proceedings. Both rejected those claims and again voted with Commissioner Ellen Nowak to authorize construction. The opponents, who have sued in both state and federal courts to overturn the decision, later learned that Huebsch applied for the Dairyland job after leaving the commission in February.
Markets are driving shift to green energy away from oil and gas dependence regardless of election winner – the difference is how fast – The U.S. will transition to a clean-energy mix regardless of who wins the White House. But the pace of that change, and with it, the toll on the environment in the meantime, could look dramatically different depending on the election outcome. Sasha Mackler, energy project director for the Bipartisan Policy Center says “the trends in the power sector really demonstrate that this is the part of our economy that is furthest along in the energy transition.” That’s in large part as solar and wind have become more cost competitive, and as avenues such as green hydrogen, while still expensive relative to other power sources, are gaining traction in Europe. “The federal government could make that transition happen more quickly if it had a unifying, coherent policy framework for the power sector,” said Mackler, in a report by S&P Global Platts Analytics. The election is “really more a question of time, rather than endpoint, when it comes to electricity,” whereas “the other parts of the economy are going to be more difficult” to transition to a low-carbon future. Analysts typically point to transportation as a case in point.S&P Global Platts Analytics’ expectations for the next few years include a brief rebound in coal as demand and supply are better aligned. Coal is the fading sector of the economy that President Trump pledged to save during the last election even as coal operators themselves had already been closing or migrating to other sources. The Platts forecast includes a pullback in natural gas, the electricity source that has logged an historic cost drop and increased U.S. energy independence. Natural gas’s NG00, -0.90% inclusion in a mix of traditional and new energy sources is at the center of most Republican-led energy plans, alongside solar, wind, green hydrogen and more. By 2030, coal’s current 21% share of the generation mix would be closer to 5%, under a reference case that assumes a federal carbon price starting in 2026, Platts says. Wind and solar generation in that scenario is seen increasing from 11% of the generation mix in 2020 to 30% in 2030.
TAX POLICY: Free-market groups urge McConnell to kill wind incentive — Friday, October 23, 2020 — A collection of 41 conservative free-market organizations called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to end a tax credit for wind energy that has helped unleash a wave of renewable energy onto the electric grid.
Wind turbines under inspection by MidAmerican after second blade loss – MidAmerican Energy is inspecting more than 40 wind turbines after the second case of a blade coming off a turbine. MidAmerican spokesman Geoff Greenwood says the latest blade issue happened last week. “Our technician at the Beaver Creek Wind Farm noticed an anomaly with one of the wind turbines – went to check it out – and saw that a blade had separated from off of a turbine which is just southeast of Paton in Greene County,” Greenwood explains. He says this followed a similar problem in September. “The turbine that has the blade failure last week is the same type of turbine that had a blade failure last month in Adair County. They also had the same type of lightning system in them that channels lightning from a strike near a wind turbine blade down into the ground safely,” according to Greenwood. “So, this system is something that we are checking out in a series of other wind turbines.” He says the lighting system is one of the many safety features on the turbines. Greenwood says they’ve identified other turbines with the same system and made by the same Danish company, Vestas. “That have also incurred a lightning strike near them. That’s about 46 different turbines,” he says. “So we have turned off those wind turbines while we methodically check those blades and the lightening systems in them to ensure that they are safe.”
Southport power plant to close – A Southport power plant that was fined last year for violating state air quality standards will shut down next spring. Capital Power plans to end operations by March 31, according to a special order by consent filing between the plant’s operating company and the air quality division of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. The operating company – CPI USA North Carolina LLC – was fined nearly $474,000 earlier this year for failing to meet the state’s permitting and emissions standards. The facility, which was commissioned in 1987, powers six steam-generating boilers by burning a mixture of coal, wood and tires, according to the plant’s website. The facility sells the power it generates to Duke Energy and the nearby Archer Daniels Midland Company, a food processing plant. The plant is closing because its power purchase agreement – a contract in which one company generates power and another uses it – expires at the end of March. “We do not have a viable alternate commercial arrangement,” wrote Katherine Perron, a spokesperson for Capital Power, in a statement to StarNews. Moving forward, the company will look for a new owner for the site. But the economic impacts of COVID-19 and “shifting power market conditions” might make securing a buyer challenging, Perron wrote.
Rising water stress risk threatens US coal plants, largely clustered in 5 states | S&P Global Market Intelligence – Many of the nation’s coal-fired power plants, often heavy consumers of water resources, are in areas projected to soon face water stress due to climate change. Based on an analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence and the World Resources Institute, power generators in Texas, Indiana, Illinois, Wyoming and Michigan operate about 37.1 GW of coal-fired generation capacity in areas projected to face medium-high to extremely high water stress – when humanity’s competition for water exceeds nature’s ability to replenish it – due to climate change in 2030. Those five states are home to more than one-third of the 98.2 GW of coal capacity analyzed that falls into those upper-risk categories. Thus, an aging coal-fired fleet already retiring en masse due to the economic challenges of competing with renewable energy and natural gas-fired generation may come under even more intense pressure due to competition for limited water resources. Earlier this year, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association Inc. CEO Duane Highley announced the company would be closing its remaining coal-fired power plants in New Mexico and Colorado as the company shifts to using more renewable energy. “I’ll say it presents an enormous opportunity for all of us, as we think about it,” Highley said. “When you look at a typical coal facility, it uses an enormous volume of water, and the fact that that will be liberated and available for other reuse is going to be significant.” About 98.2 GW, or 44.6%, of the operating coal-fired capacity in the Lower 48 is in regions expected to face medium-high to extremely high water stress by the end of the decade . Of the 25.1 GW of coal-fired plants that have regulatory approval to retire, about 62% is in areas projected to face medium-high to extremely high water stress in 2030. Many U.S. coal-fired plants are already struggling to compete with other forms of generation. As water becomes scarce, disputes around the resource are likely to increasingly factor into energy infrastructure decision-making, said Joe Smyth, a research and communications manager with the Energy Policy Institute who authored a July report examining coal and water conflicts in the American West.
Residents Raise Concerns Over Plant Scherer Water Permit – Residents of the town of Juliette, Georgia, are raising more concerns about a nearby power plant. Plant Scherer, which is the biggest coal-fired power plant in the country, has a water permit up for review that’s coming under scrutiny. People who live near Plant Scherer and environmental groups have been putting increased pressure lately on Georgia Power, pushing for the utility to clean up the plant’s giant coal ash pond and to address other air and water quality concerns. At a virtual public meeting this week, the focus was on a permit required under the Clean Water Act. Critics say the permit fails to protect a creek that flows through the power plant’s property before it passes nearby homes. “Berry Creek borders my property,” Gloria Hammond said on the Zoom meeting. She said her children used to play in Berry Creek. But over the years, she saw the creek change, so she won’t let her grandkids in it. “I have seen the disappearance of all wildlife down there that lived in this creek,” she said. “And I knew something was happening. And it’s not nature. It’s man-made.” Georgia Power says the creek is included in the current permit, which was issued in 2002, and also in the new one it’s applying for.
Coal plant pollution has led to fish consumption warnings around SC – Industry is visible all along this historic city’s waterways, including a paper plant and an on-again, off-again steel mill. But less obvious is one of the more consequential sources of pollution here: Santee Cooper’s Winyah Plant, a four-furnace coal-fired power station that sits in the middle of a wooded area just under 5 miles from downtown. The plant, run by the state-owned utility, is one of three coal-fired stations that have not had updated water pollution permits for roughly a decade. The issue recently led to a lawsuit against the state’s environmental regulator. The station’s stacks tower over the site’s entrance off of Pennyroyal Road and the gypsum plant next door, pumping out billowing white steam when the furnaces are firing. It’s capable of producing more than 1,100 megawatts of power but is running at lower levels these days as Santee Cooper plans to retire the four furnaces there in the next decade. Still, the news that the water pollution permits for the plant are out of date has raised alarm with many in this community who may be used to the area’s industrial nature but now have additional worry about the cleanliness of the local water and the fish they pull from it. “It was really mind blowing because we’re right here and there’s so much uncertainty,” said LaToya Anderson, who lives in the Georgetown area. “It’s caused fear.” Anderson has fished on and off for the past eight years, often taking along her 14-year-old daughter Michaela Howard, and 4-year-old son, MiKendall Anderson, to fish for red brim and, if they were lucky, catfish. But since becoming involved with the Sierra Club earlier this year and learning about South Carolina’s longstanding fish consumption advisories, she’s put down her pole. Most of the state’s warnings are due to mercury in fish. Almost every stream the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control monitors in the state’s coastal plain has a warning about at least one type of fish. The Winyah plant has never recorded a mercury emission that violated Environmental Protection Agency limits, Santee Cooper spokeswoman Mollie Gore said. Still, coal-fired plants like Winyah produce contamination that ends up in local waters and fish.
Citizen groups and state regulators express alarm over environmental violations at coal mines — Citizen groups from across the country have banded together to ensure a bankrupt coal company cleans up its idling coal mines. The cohort of conservation advocates allege several mining sites formerly operated by the bankrupt coal firm Blackjewel have become serious environmental liabilities and are at risk of not being cleaned up, according to court documents filed Wednesday. The groups represent several communities across the country living in the backyards of some of Blackjewel’s former coal mines. They fear these idle mining sites are at risk of abandonment under Blackjewel’s proposed plan to exit bankruptcy. In documents filed Wednesday, they demanded clarification of the plans for cleaning up the remaining mine sites, and provided notice they would exercise their rights to hold the company accountable under federal environmental laws. The Sheridan-based Powder River Basin Resource Council filed the reservation of rights in federal bankruptcy court on Wednesday, along with the Kanawha Forest Coalition, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Citizens Coal Council, Appalachian Voices, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, the Kentucky Resources Council and the Sierra Club. Unmet cleanup obligations at mine sites out east may seem far away from Wyoming. But the outcome of Blackjewel’s bankruptcy could be a harbinger of what’s to come in the leading coal state, if other companies go bankrupt. Blackjewel operated two Wyoming coal mines before it fell into bankruptcy in the summer of 2019, leaving hundreds of miners out of work for months. The Eagle Butte and Belle Ayr mines have since come back into operation under new ownership. But in addition to its Wyoming facilities, Blackjewel owned 30 other coal mines in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia. Nearly 16 months after Blackjewel filed for bankruptcy, many of these eastern mines remain idle and still have no new owner. Although attorneys for the bankrupt coal operator held sales for all of Blackjewel’s mines across the country last summer, the winning bids were limited and some mines didn’t find buyers. These neglected mines, and their associated permits, carry steep cleanup liabilities and could be abandoned, an outcome that could lead to contamination of land, water and air, the citizen groups contend.
Duke Energy Begins Processing Coal Ash For Recycling At 2 North Carolina Plants – Duke Energy has begun processing coal ash for recycling at two new plants in Salisbury and Goldsboro, and a third is expected to come online by year’s end in Chatham County. The new plants are required by state law, as part of Duke’s coal ash cleanups, but also could help the concrete industry. Coal ash is what’s left after coal is burned for electricity. It contains heavy metals linked to cancer and other ailments. Ash also has beneficial uses, including as an additive to strengthen concrete. But what comes out of Duke’s coal-fired power plants is too high in carbon to meet the industry’s needs without processing, so the region has imported ash from other countries. Duke spokesman Bill Norton said these three plants now will reduce the concrete industry’s need for imported ash. “We’ll be able to serve the market in Virginia, both Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee. We’ve got a large region covered,” Norton said outside the Salisbury plant Wednesday morning. North Carolina’s 2016 Coal Ash Management Act required Duke to build the plants at three retired coal-fired power plants where millions of tons of coal ash are stored – the Buck plant in Salisbury, H.F. Lee Plant in Goldsboro, in Wayne County, and at the Cape Fear plant in Moncure, in Chatham County. All together, they will process 1.2 million tons of ash a year. That’s more than all the ash Duke Energy now creates in a year in North Carolina, Norton said. Norton said revenue from coal ash sales will help pay for the plants’ hefty construction costs.
Alabama seeks input on coal ash plans – The state of Alabama is finalizing its approval of utilities’ plans to cover coal ash in place rather than move the material to lined landfills and is seeking input from the public on those permits.,The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has issued draft versions of permits that would approve cover-in-place operations at three Alabama Power coal-fired plants: Plant Miller in Jefferson County, Plant Gadsden in Etowah County and Plant Greene County in Greene County.As required by law, ADEM is hosting a series of public hearings before issuing final permits. The permits would include both the final closure plans for those coal ash ponds, and how to monitor and deal with ongoing groundwater pollution at the ponds.All Alabama utilities have opted to use the cover-in-place option to close the ponds rather than the more expensive option of excavation to a lined landfill. ADEM Director Lance LeFleur said that the power companies can use either method to close the ash ponds.”We have the cap in place and excavation options available to the power companies,” LeFleur said. “It’s up to them to select which one they want to use to achieve the standards that we set.” For decades coal-fired power plants in Alabama and around the world used unlined ponds to dispose of coal ash, which contains potentially hazardous substances from the coal such as lead, arsenic, and selenium.Those unlined ponds, though have been shown to leach those substances into the nearby groundwater, prompting concerns among the public and fines from environmental regulators.Environmental advocates have urged utilities to excavate their ash ponds for years, arguing that even landfills for household garbage require a liner to prevent groundwater contamination. “We wouldn’t be allowed to put household garbage where they’re putting toxic material, in a pit by the river.”
EPA may violate courts with new rule extending life of unlined coal ash ponds – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will allow utilities to store toxic waste from coal in open, unlined pits – a move that may defy a court order requiring the agency to close certain types of so-called coal ash ponds that may be leaking contaminants into water. Research has found even plastic-lined coal ash ponds are likely to leak, but those risks are even higher when a clay barrier is the only layer used to hold the arsenic-laced sludge. Environmental groups have already pledged to sue over the Friday rule, which will allow unlined pits to continue operating, so long as companies can demonstrate using groundwater monitoring data that the pond is unlikely to leak. “These focused common-sense changes allow owners and operators the opportunity to submit a substantial factual and technical demonstration that there is no reasonable probability of groundwater contamination. This will allow coal ash management to be determined based on site-specific conditions,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a release. There are more than 400 coal ash ponds in the U.S. An Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice review of monitoring data from coal ash ponds found 91 percent were leaking toxins in excess of what EPA allows, contaminating groundwater and drinking wells in nearby communities. And when they aren’t leaching into groundwater, the contaminants risk spilling over the sides of the pond any time there is a heavy rain. “When ponds without lining leak, it’s often more aggressive, faster and harder to control,” said Lisa Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, which will fight the rule in court. “Utilities are asking for favors and exemptions and EPA is willing to give them and is willing to rush to provide these exemptions,” she added. A 2018 order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit required the EPA to shut down all coal ash ponds that do not have a plastic liner. The ruling said a 2015 Obama-era coal ash rule violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act dealing with hazardous waste “in failing to require the closure of unlined surface impoundments.” EPA did not answer a question from The Hill seeking an explanation of how the rule complies with the court order. The agency instead wrote in a statement the new rule would “accurately reflect the decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.” The lobby for private utilities, however, called the rule a “critical step” as companies transition away from coal, arguing the rule does not violate the court order because it gives companies a chance to prove they can meet the protectiveness standards required under the law. “Some [coal combustion residue] surface impoundments with alternative liner systems can continue operating without posing an unreasonable risk of adverse effects to health or the environment,” Jim Rower, executive director of the Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, said in a statement. The group’s members include all major utility lobbies.
EPA Allows Coal Ash Ponds to Stay Open Despite Court Order – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a rule change on Friday that will allow somecoal power plants to ignore a court order to clean up coal ash ponds, which leech toxic materials into soil and groundwater. The rule change will allow some coal ash ponds to stay open for years while others that have no barrier to protect surrounding areas are allowed to stay open indefinitely, according to the AP.The arsenic-laced sludge that fills coal ash ponds is likely to leak when just a plastic barrier protects it. It is far more likely to pollute nearby soil and water when the pits have a clay barrier, according to researchers, asThe Hill reported.A 2018 order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit had forced the EPA to close coal ash ponds that did not have plastic lining and were likely to leak toxic chemicals, making Friday’s rule change seem like a blatant move to undermine the court’s authority, according to environmental groups who promised to sue to stop the rule change, as The Hill reported.Environmentalists argue that the rule change is a favor to the coal industry, for which EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler served as a lobbyist prior to joining the Trump administration. The move allows the industry to dump its byproducts inexpensively and irresponsibly. “The reason the utilities are arguing to keep the ponds is because they have put in these unlined pits out the back door of the power plant that act as a catchall for their toxic waste,” said Lisa Evans, an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice, as the AP reported. “They don’t want to get rid of them because they are cheap.” Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project found that 91 percent of them were leaking toxic chemicals beyond what was permitted by EPA regulations, as The Hill reported. Their study found that heavy metals from the waste was polluting nearby drinking wells and groundwater.Coal ash is produced when coal is burned to produce power. It is full of arsenic, mercury, lead and several other hazardous heavy metals. In the U.S., coal plants create nearly 100 million tons annually of ash and other waste, according to the AP.
St. Louis-based Arch outlines ‘exit strategy’ to stop selling coal used for electricity — Intensifying coal industry woes have pushed the country’s second-biggest producer to outline an “exit strategy” to end its sale of thermal coal, used for electricity generation. In a grim quarterly earnings report released Thursday, Creve Coeur-based Arch Resources mapped out plans to wind down and sell assets tied to its thermal coal operations, including mines in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin – by far the country’s most prolific and cost-competitive region for coal supplied to the energy sector. Overall, the company reported a net loss of $191.5 million for the quarter – a dramatic turnaround compared to its $106.8 million net income over the same period last year. With coal-fired power production under economic siege from competitors like natural gas and renewable energy, Arch’s report said the company is pushing to make a “rapid pivot” that will instead orient its business around metallurgical coal, used in the steelmaking process. The company owns several metallurgical coal mines in West Virginia. “We believe that a careful and well-communicated exit strategy is the most responsible way forward for a range of essential stakeholders, including our employees, the communities in which we operate, our longstanding customer base, and the many consumers who continue to rely on coal-based electricity,” said Paul Lang, Arch’s CEO, in a statement accompanying the earnings report. While the company’s unfolding departure from the world of thermal coal is significant, the move is not surprising. Instead, outside experts say it’s seen as an inevitable culmination of the challenges that have confronted the industry for years, and had even reached into Arch’s last relative stronghold – the Powder River Basin. Famed for its giant surface mines, the region is a U.S. powerhouse, accounting for about 40% of the nation’s coal used in power plants. About a quarter of that coal – or 10% of all the thermal coal produced in the U.S. – comes from Arch’s Black Thunder mine, near Wright, Wyoming. It is the second-biggest coal mine in the country, trailing only its neighbor, the North Antelope Rochelle Mine, situated on adjacent property and owned by fellow St. Louis-based coal giant Peabody. “Effectively what they’re doing is conceding a larger portion of the market to Peabody,” said Rob Godby, a professor of energy economics at the University of Wyoming. “The thermal market still exists and it’ll be around for a little while. The problem is that it wasn’t big enough for both of them.” Arch said its Powder River Basin operations churned out nearly 75 million tons of coal in 2019, but are expected to muster less than 55 million tons this year. The plan announced Thursday “could reduce production levels by an additional 50% over the course of the next two to three years.”
US AP1000 reactor passes pre-commissioning test : New Nuclear – -Cold functional tests are carried out to confirm whether components and systems important to safety are properly installed and ready to operate in a cold condition. Their main purpose is to verify the leak-tightness of the primary circuit and components – such as the pressure vessels, pipelines and valves of both the nuclear and conventional islands – and to clean the main circulation pipes. As part of the testing, the reactor coolant system was filled with water and pressurised above-normal operating conditions, then lowered to normal design pressure, while comprehensive inspections were conducted to verify the systems meet design standards. Georgia Power said the completion of cold hydro testing prepares the site for the last major test remaining for unit 3 – hot functional testing – ahead of initial fuel loading. These tests aim to simulate the temperatures and pressures which the reactor’s systems will be subjected to during normal operation. Georgia Power also announced the first reactor coolant pump (RCP) at unit 3 had successfully been started up, verifying the pump operates as designed. During operation, the RCPs circulate water through the reactor vessel and steam generators, providing forced flow of the reactor coolant through the reactor core, to the steam generator and then back again to support operations.
Plant Vogtle cost overruns once again an issue in Georgia PSC races -Georgia’s public service commissioners are often caught in a vise. On one side is the state’s powerful, politically connected electric company. On the other, consumers of electricity. The company pushes for the rates it says are needed to operate safely and reliably. Consumers push for rates they believe are fair and affordable. It’s the job of the commissioners, who are elected to serve as regulators of the state’s utilities, to work it out. In this election, voters statewide will choose who will occupy two of the five seats on the Public Service Commission, decisions that could play into future energy generation sources, air quality issues and customer power bills for decades to come. That includes setting rates charged by Georgia Power and sister company Atlanta Gas Light. One of the PSC’s biggest upcoming decisions is who will pay for Georgia Power’s billions of dollars in overruns once its nuclear expansion of Plant Vogtle is completed. Among state bodies, the PSC “has the most impact on residential and small commercial customers’ pocketbook,” said Robert Baker, a former PSC member. Georgia Power’s parent, Southern Company, has praised state regulators for maintaining a “constructive” relationship, crediting them for wise decisions and strengthening the company’s financial results. Consumer and environmental groups have complained about some commission decisions that added costs to customers’ bills or fell short of hopes for a cleaner environment.
US awards $1.4 billion to help build small reactors in Idaho (AP) – The U.S. Department of Energy on Friday awarded a Utah energy cooperative about $1.4 billion to help build a dozen small nuclear reactors in eastern Idaho. The money spread over 10 years will pay for one-time costs Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems has in developing and building the commercial reactors. Officials said the money will lower the cost of energy produced by the reactors, making it competitive in the marketplace and reducing the financial risk for the energy cooperative. The first-of-a-kind project is part of an Energy Department effort to reduce greenhouse gasses by using nuclear power to complement intermittent renewable energy such as wind and solar power. “The ideal world for utility companies and their customers, and the most cost-effective, are portfolios containing a high percentage of low-cost renewables, backed up by stable, carbon-free nuclear energy that is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” Douglas Hunter, the energy cooperative’s chief operating officer and general manager, said in a statement. The money is going to Carbon Free Power Project, which is owned by the energy cooperative. The project involves 12 small modular reactors each capable of producing 60 megawatts, or 720 megawatts when all 12 reactors are operating. The reactors are being built by Portland, Oregon,-based NuScale Power. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month approved NuScale’s application for the small modular reactors, the first time U.S. officials approved a design for a small commercial nuclear reactor. The energy company plans to buy the reactors from NuScale, then assemble them in Idaho. The first small modular reactor is scheduled to come online in 2029, if regulatory agencies approve, with 11 more to follow in 2030. The reactors would operate at the Energy Department’s 890-square-mile (2,300-square-kilometer) site that includes the Idaho National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility that would help with the development of the reactors.
Small Nuclear Reactors Would Provide Carbon-Free Energy, but Would They Be Safe? — Many of the remaining coal-fired power plants in the United States are getting ready for retirement. They’re old, costly to build and in dwindling demand, as the domestic market for coal has declined.But a Portland-based company has a plan to repurpose closed coal plants-large sources of carbon dioxide emissions when they were operating-to generate carbon-free energy in the form of nuclear power. Last month, U.S. officials approved NuScale Power’s designs for 12 small nuclear reactors to be built in Boise, Idaho. The reactors could make use of the water, transmission lines and general infrastructure of former coal-powered plants in the West to produce clean energy, said Jose Reyes, co-founder of the company.NuScale said the energy produced by its reactors would generate enough electricity to power about 50,000 homes across six Western states. The Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, an energy cooperative, would be the first to build the reactors on a federal site at the Idaho National Laboratory. But many environmental advocates oppose the project on safety grounds, and some scientists say that by the time the reactors are built, they will not offer much help in staving off the effects of climate change. Since 2013, the Department of Energy has backed NuScale’s initiative, providing more than $300 million to help finance the project and cover the costs of delays. Last week, the Trump administration took another significant step to support the project, pumping $1.3 billion in financing over 10 years to help build the company’s reactors. The goal is to have the first small, modular reactor up and running by 2029, with 11 more to follow in 2030. The timeline for the reactors has been delayed several times. The new schedule allows for the project to be “further de-risked” and “provides time for regulatory, engineering and licensing review of project features,” said Kelly Conroy, a spokeswoman for NuScale.
Poland Strikes $18 Billion Nuclear Power Deal With US —The United States and Poland closed a nuclear power deal potentially worth $18 billion as the Central European country seeks to reduce its reliance on coal and Russian natural gas. While the deal is not yet final, there is a pretty good chance that Warsaw will pick the U.S. over its main competitors on the international nuclear energy scene, namely China and Russia.“We are hopeful that the ultimate decisions that are made by Poland … over a period of time will result in them choosing U.S. technology,” Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette told reporters as quoted by Reuters.Poland wants to build six nuclear reactors to supplement its gas imports. Currently, it imports a lot of gas from Russia, but given the less than friendly bilateral relations, it wants to cut these off, and soon, by 2022, Reuters notes. Instead, it would import pipeline gas by Norway and liquefied natural gas from, among others, the United States.Yet Poland also relies heavily on coal-fired power plants, and this goes counter to the EU’s ambitions for a net-zero economy in 2050. The only way to reduce or even eliminate its coal use is to replace that cheap energy with another comparable generational capacity.The agreement closed this week stipulates that over the next 18 months, the parties will develop a program for the construction of the reactors and how they will be financed. Per plans, the first reactors should come online in 2033.The whole program could end up costing Warsaw some $40 billion, of which at least $18 billion would go towards acquiring U.S. nuclear technology, according to a U.S. government official. Poland’s government plans to build between 6 and 9 GW of nuclear capacity by 2040, but it will also invest in renewable energy, planning between 8 and 11 GW in offshore wind power capacity.
Fukushima: Japan ‘to release contaminated water into sea’ — Japan is to release treated radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea, media reports say. It follows years of debate over how to dispose of the liquid, which includes water used to cool the power station hit by a massive tsunami in 2011. Environmental and fishing groups oppose the idea but many scientists say the risk it would pose is low. The government says no final decision has been made. The release of more than a million tonnes of water, which has been filtered to reduce radioactivity, would start in 2022 at the earliest, according to Japanese media outlets including national dailies the Nikkei and the Yomiuri Shimbun. The water would be diluted inside the plant before release so it is 40 times less concentrated, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, with the whole process taking 30 years. An official decision could emerge by the end of this month, said Kyodo news agency. There has been growing urgency over what to do with the water as space to store the liquid – which includes groundwater and rain that seeps daily into the plant – is running out. Most of the radioactive isotopes have been removed using a complex filtration process. But one isotope, tritium, cannot be removed so the water has been stored in huge tanks which will fill up by 2022.
Ohio GOP lawmakers favor remake of tainted energy bill (AP) – There has been limited progress made by Ohio lawmakers who lined up to repeal and possibly replace a tainted $1 billion bailout for two nuclear plants more than two months ago, increasing the likelihood that around 90% of electric customers in the state will see charges for the bailout next year. Customers would also find themselves paying to subsidize utility-scale solar projects that have not yet begun to produce electricity. That subsidy, like the one for the nuclear plants, is supposed to be paid based on the amount of power generated. Bills to repeal legislation officially titled Ohio Clean Air Program but better known as HB6 were introduced in August, soon after federal authorities announced the nuclear bailout was tied to a $60 million bribery scheme overseen by the House speaker. HB6 has been under intense scrutiny since U.S. Attorney David DeVillers announced on July 21 that House Speaker Larry Householder and four others had been arrested for their involvement in a bribery scheme secretly funded by an unidentified company that clearly was Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. Authorities have described it as the biggest bribery scheme in state history. Republicans, the majority party in both legislative chambers, say hearings will resume after the Nov. 3 election with an apparent consensus that a replacement bill should maintain nearly all of HB6s provisions but include strict auditing requirements to determine whether the nuclear plants’ owner needs the money before subsidies are paid. Democrats argued for that requirement before HB6 was approved with little support from party members last July. The version that became law a year ago calls for annual reviews conducted by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio after subsidies are paid. A FirstEnergy subsidiary operated the plants until February, when a new privately held company called Energy Harbor took ownership in a deal struck in bankruptcy court. Questions about whether Energy Harbor needs the bailout money arose earlier this year after Energy Harbor received permission to buy back $800 million of its stock, which indicates strong financial health.
Former auditor who launched SEC investigation accuses FirstEnergy of whistleblower retaliation – cleveland.com– The fired consulting employee who helped launch a federal investigation into FirstEnergy Corp. accused the Akron utility Monday of retaliating against him because he is a whistleblower. Attorneys for Michael Pircio filed documents in U.S. District Court that alleged the company targeted him for reporting information to the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was fired from his position as an auditor at Clearsulting, the Cleveland consulting firm that assisted FirstEnergy with an internal audit. The filings say Pircio, of Chardon, reviewed the instructions for FirstEnergy’s 2019 audit, as well as the document itself, following the arrests of former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four allies in July. The five face criminal charges in the $60 million bribery scandal linked to House Bill 6, the $1 billion bailout of two power plants, which, for years, had been owned by a FirstEnergy subsidiary. Pircio downloaded information regarding the audit from a Clearsulting database and forwarded it to the SEC, according to the filing by his attorneys Laura Hauser and Marc Dann. The agency’s public finance abuse unit is investigating, records show. “When Pircio learned of the complaint and the allegations therein, Pircio realized that his then-employer, Clearsulting, would have been tasked with auditing FirstEnergy financial statements, including the reporting of payments funneled to Householder and his co-conspirators by FirstEnergy and/or its subsidiaries,” the attorneys’ documents said. “Pircio, with his experience as an IT auditor and in performing regulatory and operational auditing, reviewed the instructions that FirstEnergy gave Clearsulting for the 2019 audit engagement and reviewed the resulting audit. Upon his review of those materials, Pircio observed that the 2019 audit of FirstEnergy may have violated one or more federal statutes.” The filings Monday are a countersuit against Pircio’s former employer, Clearsulting, and FirstEnergy. The companies sued him in early September for taking the documents after he was fired. Pircio had worked for Clearsulting from March to July 30. Court filings included letters from H. Vincent McKnight, Pircio’s attorney in Washington, D.C. McKnight specializes in whistleblower cases. In the documents, Hauser and Dann said the companies filed court records that revealed Pircio is a SEC whistleblower, which they say violates his rights to confidentiality and “may have forever jeopardized his ability to obtain employment.”
FirstEnergy Denies Link to Lawmaker Scandal, Seeks to Avoid Suit – Ohio ratepayers can’t pursue a class complaint alleging FirstEnergy Corp. conspired with state lawmakers to create a subsidy for two nuclear plants because the subsidy hasn’t taken effect, the company told a Ohio federal court Wednesday. FirstEnergy acknowledged it donated to a Generation Now-the same group linked to the now indicted former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder (R)-in its motion to dismiss filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Householder and four others are accused of taking more than $60 million from Generation Now to elect candidates who would support him and push through House…
Yost questions Householder use of $1M from campaign cash on legal fees – Attorney General Dave Yost said Friday he would file a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission after a disclosure Thursday that former House Speaker Larry Householder used campaign cash to cover legal fees since his July arrest on federal corruption charges. In a tweet Friday morning, Yost said the spending was illegal and that he was directing staff in his office to pursue a formal complaint. The post came a day after Householder’s pre-general election campaign finance filing, which included seven expenditures since mid-July totaling more than $1 million to three separate law firms, including $660,000 to Marein & Bradley in Cleveland, the firm currently representing him in federal court. A message was left with the firm Friday morning by The Dispatch. Householder and four other Republicans were arrested July in what federal investigators ranked among the largest corruption scandals in state history, with allegations that the now-former House speaker used dark money from FirstEnergy and related entities to support the campaigns of his supporters and block referendum efforts to overturn 2019 nuclear bailout legislation. Householder’s campaign reported no contributions after July 24, shortly after the federal charges were made public and his arrest. Up to that point during the reporting period, his campaign received nearly $153,000, adding to a beginning balance approaching $1.4 million. His campaign reported a balance of about $426,000. Householder continues to serve in the Ohio House. He faces long-shot write-in candidates in the general election. The Elections Commission has addressed the use of campaign funds for legal fees in multiple advisory opinions dating back decades. In a 1987 opinion, the panel determined that ‘a public officeholder may not use campaign funds to pay for legal representation to defend himself or herself against criminal charges or tampering with records, theft in office, falsification and bribery.” And a 1996 opinion, members noted “that an expenditure for legal fees to defend against criminal charges is not an appropriate use of campaign funds on behalf of the officeholder.”
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