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:
- 11 Apr 2021 – Coronavirus Disease Weekly News 11April 2021
- 11 Apr 2021 – Coronavirus Economic Weekly News 11April 2021
We are continuing to see a modest increase in the number of new Covid cases in the US, even as Covid deaths continue to decline. New Covid diagnoses during the the week ending April 10th were 2.8% higher than during the week ending April 3rd, but still 75.3% lower than during the peak seven day period ending Jan 11th. This week’s Covid deaths were down 12.6% from the prior week’s, and down 77.8% from the 7 days ending January 27th, when US Covid deaths were at their highest.
Globally, the pandemic continues to rage, and appears to be heading to new highs; new cases worldwide over the week ending April 10th were 12.4% higher than the prior week and 81.9% higher than their February low; global deaths attributed to the coronavirus were 13.0% higher this past week than during the week ending April 3rd, and 31.8% higher than their mid-March low. The rise in new Covid cases this week was largely due to a surge in India, where the mutant UK strain has overrun the country, but Brazil still continues to account for the largest number of Covid deaths, on some days surpassing a quarter of the world’s total. I don’t recall seeing a study that the endemic Brazilian mutant strain (P.1) was that much more deadly than the other covid strains in circulation, but the demographics certainly point to it.
On Wednesday, the CDC said that the mutant UK strain, B.1.1.7, is now the dominant Covid strain infecting Americans; that mutation is said to be 50 to 70% more contagious, 30% more deadly, and much more prone to infect the young than the original strain was. It has taken over quite rapidly; it only accounted for 11% of all Covid cases in late February but by mid-March it had jumped to 27% of the total, and now it is presumably more than half.
At the press briefing announcing that, the CDC director said that severe cases of Covid requiring hospitalization are being led by younger adults, in their 30s and 40s, without quantifying the numbers involved. The CDC also reports that Covid hospitalizations during the 7 days ending April 8th were 4.4% higher than during the prior 7 day period. That most of the elderly have now been vaccinated would seem to a factor in that shift in the age of the population with the most severe cases.
Some of the COVID-19 graphics presented in the articles linked at the beginning of this post have been updated below.
Summary data graphics:
Below is a copy of today’s graph of new US cases from WorldOMeters so you can get a visuallization of what the growth and decline of this thing looks like (data through April 06):
New cases globally continue to increase. (See Johns Hopkins graph below.) This graphic shows the daily global new cases since the start of the pandemic up through 13 April.
Globally deaths are rising again. (See Johns Hopkins graph below.) This graphic shows the daily global deaths since the start of the pandemic up through 13 April.
Here’s the week’s environment and energy news:
Study links prenatal phthalate exposure to altered information processing in infants – Exposure to phthalates, a class of chemicals widely used in packaging and consumer products, is known to interfere with normal hormone function and development in human and animal studies. Now researchers have found evidence linking pregnant women’s exposure to phthalates to altered cognitive outcomes in their infants. Most of the findings involved slower information processing among infants with higher phthalate exposure levels, with males more likely to be affected depending on the chemical involved and the order of information presented to the infants. Reported in the journal Neurotoxicology, the study is part of the Illinois Kids Development Study, which tracks the effects of hormone-disrupting chemicals on children’s physical and behavioral development from birth to middle childhood. Now in its seventh year, IKIDS has enrolled hundreds of participants and is tracking chemical exposures in pregnant women and developmental outcomes in their children. The researchers analyzed metabolites of three commonly occurring phthalates in urine samples regularly collected from the pregnant women in the study. The chemical exposure data were used in combination with assessments of the women’s infants when the children were 7.5 months old. The researchers used a well-established method that gives insight into the reasoning of children too young to express themselves verbally: Infants typically look longer at unfamiliar or unexpected images or events. “By analyzing the time spent looking at the faces, we could determine both the speed with which the infants processed new information and assess their ability to pay attention.” The assessment linked pregnant women’s exposure to most of the phthalates that were assessed with slower information processing in their infants, but the outcome depended on the specific chemical, the sex of the infant and which set of faces the infant viewed as familiar. Male infants, in particular, tended to process information more slowly if their mothers had been exposed to higher concentrations of phthalates known to interfere with androgenic hormones.
2.3 Million Americans Exposed to High Levels of Strontium in Drinking Water -=About 2.3 million Americans are exposed to high natural strontium levels in their drinking water, a metal that can harm bone health in children, according to a United States Geological Survey study.The study, published in Applied Geochemistry, found that almost every groundwater sample across 32 U.S. aquifers had detectable strontium levels, while 2.3 percent exceeded 4 milligrams per liter (mg/L), the maximum amount that people should consume routinely, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The public and private wells extending from these aquifers provide drinking water for 2.3 million people.While low amounts of natural strontium are safe and even beneficial for the human body, these high concentrations can stunt bone growth in children who lack adequate calcium intake. Strontium can replace calcium in bones, weakening them and limiting development, according to Sarah Yang, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services’ groundwater toxicologist.”We’re more worried about infants and children because their bones are actively growing,” Yang told EHN. “Generally infants and children can absorb more strontium in their intestines, and adults can’t.”High strontium in drinking water is linked to rickets in children, an extremely rare skeletal condition causing soft, sometimes deformed, bones. Strontium, a soft metal that originates from minerals like celestine, makes its way into drinking water naturally. Aquifers with high strontium concentrations are often surrounded by carbonate rock containing limestone and dolomite.In the USGS study, author MaryLynn Musgrove, a research physical scientist, found that 86 percent of people exposed to high strontium levels drink water supplied by carbonate rock aquifers. More than half of them are using Florida’s underground reservoirs, where some freshwater has been blending with limestone and dolomite for 26,000 years.Texas’ carbonate aquifers also stood out.The Edwards-Trinity aquifer system, a sandstone and carbonate formation spanning from Oklahoma to western Texas, had the most frequent occurrence of high strontium concentrations in its corresponding wells.Dolomite is abundant in the bedrock of eastern Wisconsin, where strontium levels are among the highest of U.S. drinking water supplies.While the USGS study mainly looked at areas exceeding 4 mg/L of strontium in samples, some communities living atop these dolomite layers drink water with more than 25 mg/L, the one-day health advisory limit for children.
Contaminated Military Bases ‘Are No Place’ for Kids, Advocates Warn as Biden Ramps up Detention Capacity — In a move that was condemned by environmental justice advocates on Friday, President Joe Biden’s administration earlier this week sent 500 unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors to Fort Bliss – a highly contaminated and potentially hazardous military base in El Paso, Texas – and is reportedly considering using additional toxic military sites as detention centers for migrant children in U.S. custody.”We are extremely concerned to hear of plans to detain immigrant children in Fort Bliss. Military bases filled with contaminated sites are no place for the healthy development of any child,” Melissa Legge, an attorney at Earthjustice, said in a statement. Earthjustice argues that the Biden administration’s plan to use military bases – many of which the group says “are known to be riddled with toxic hazards from past military operations, spills, storage of toxic chemicals, unexploded ordnances, and firing ranges” – to expand its capacity to temporarily detain unaccompanied children is no solution.According to Earthjustice: “130 military bases and installations are considered priority Superfund sites by the Environmental Protection Agency. There are currently 651 Department of Defense and National Guard sitespotentially contaminated by toxic chemicals known as PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. PFAS don’t easily break down, and they can persist in your body and in the environment for decades.”Several of the military sites being considered by the Biden administration “are contaminated with potentially hazardous pollutants and some are even located on or near Superfund sites,” Earthjustice said. The organization continued:Superfund sites under consideration for housing children in immigration custody include theHomestead Detention Facility in Homestead, Florida, Moffett Field in Mountain View, California, and Joint Base San Antonio in Texas. Many of the sites remain inadequately remediated and still contaminated. Without proper environmental reviews, there is no way to guarantee these sites are safe for children, potentially exposing them to toxic chemicals that could have lifelong health impacts.Fort Bliss is no exception. Earthjustice, along with partners including Alianza Nacional de Campesinas and the National Hispanic Medical Association, released hundreds of documents of searchable documents and an expert analysis of previous plans for construction of a temporary detention center for children and families at Fort Bliss. These records document several problems with the project, including that the Army did not adequately investigate to determine what types of waste had been disposed of at the site, that the methods used for testing the soil samples were inadequate or never completed, and that samples taken after the supposed clean-up still had concerning levels of pollution. Additionally, illegal dumping on the site may continue to this day. As a result, there is now even greater uncertainty about the environmental hazards at the site and a greater need for thorough testing, analysis, and cleanup. “Based on what we found in our Fort Bliss investigation in 2018,” said Dr. Elena Rios, president of the National Hispanic Medical Association added, “there are still present toxins from past landfills, which means children could be forcibly exposed to toxicity linked to cancer and development defects.”
Study Links Pesticide Exposure to Childhood Central Nervous System Tumors — The study, published in Environmental Research last week, found that children were more likely to develop central nervous system (CNS) tumors if their mothers had lived within 2.5 miles of land where pesticides were being sprayed when they were born.”This study is the first, to our knowledge, to estimate effects for a large number of specific pesticides in relation to CNS tumor subtypes,” Julia Heck, a study coauthor and the associate dean for research at the University of North Texas College of Health and Public Service said, as NBC Los Angeles reported.The research looked at the California Cancer Registry to identify cases of certain cancers in children under six years old, the study explained. They focused on mothers who lived in rural areas and gave birth between 1998 and 2011 to identify 667 cases of childhood central nervous system tumors and 123,158 controls. They then compared these cases to data from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s (CDPR) Pesticide Use Reporting (PUR) system to identify whether chemicals classed as possible carcinogens by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been sprayed within 2.5 miles of the mothers’ homes at birth.One important implication of the study is that the mothers did not have to be directly working in agriculture in order for their children to face dangerous exposure.”California’s agricultural work force numbers more than 800,000, according to state estimates,” Dr. Christina Lombardi, study co-author and epidemiologist with the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told Beyond Pesticides. “In addition to the negative health effects of pesticides on workers there are large numbers of pregnant women and young children living adjacent to treated fields who may experience detrimental health effects as well.”This risk is exacerbated by the fact that farmland and residential land is not always clearly delineated in the state.”This transition from farmland to residential neighborhoods is abrupt across California, and, of course, constantly changing as farmland is developed,”
Microsoft files patent for a crypto mining system using human brain activity – We all know how powerful the human brain is! It is true that we still are not able to use it to our full potentials. But what about if I tell you that Microsoft can help us do that? The company has filed a recent patent that will help them mine crypto using brain activity. A report from The Independent suggests that Microsoft plans on “monitoring people’s brain activity and other personal biometric data” to generate cryptocurrencies. This crypto mining system using the human brain can unlock a boat load of possibilities in the near future.The patent filed by the company said that it will use sensors that will track the specific activity of the users. This activity could include tasks like viewing ads and then convert them into data that can be used to solve complex equations which is what happens in general proof of work systems. There can also be other tasks that can be specified by the company which can be converted to usable mining data. Altogether they plan to use the human body and mind to produce one of the most valuable assets in human history.Microsoft thinks that instead of using powerful computers that just use a lot of energy, it is better to use the human brain and mind for such activities. Since the brain can do a lot of tasks, convertible to useful data, it can easily act as a computational problem solver. And it will not just focus on mental activity. Microsoft also plans to use physical activity to do mining (Sounds more like gold mining). These activities wouldn’t be so difficult to do. It could be normal running, jogging, or intense exercise. When such activities are performed the signals sent out by the brain can be used for mining. And finally, Microsft could set specific tasks for interested users that when completed could use their brain activity to mine cryptos. All in all, it is a great idea but we have to wait and see if it actually materializes into something. Because if it does we could be making money doing our daily chores and the energy efficiency problem with cryptos would be gone.
New Neuralink Video Purportedly Shows Monkey Playing Video Games Using Its Mind — The man who can’t seem to keep his cars (or his recent spaceships) from spontaneously combusting now claims that his mind-machine interface company, Neuralink, can allow a monkey to play video games using only its mind. Neuralink released footage this week that purports to show a monkey named Pager, who is nine years old, playing video games in exchange for a banana smoothie delivered through a straw. Pager was hooked up to a Neuralink system six weeks ago, according to RT.The video shows links recording activity from more than 2,000 electrodes implanted in the monkey’s motor cortex. The activity is then wirelessly fed to a machine-learning algorithm, which “sensed modulations in the monkey’s neurons and allowed the system to predict intended hand movements via a mathematical model of neural activity and the corresponding joystick movements.”Researchers calibrated the system, the report says, by monitoring Pager’s brain waves as it manipulated a joystick. Then, they disconnected the controller without telling the monkey, who wound up playing pong using only its brain, sans the joystick.And what would an inch of progress be without Elon Musk taking a mile? Musk quickly took to Twitter to proclaim that Neuralink’s first product would “enable someone with paralysis to use a smartphone with their mind faster than someone using thumbs”. “Later versions will be able to shunt signals from Neuralinks in brain to Neuralinks in body motor/sensory neuron clusters, thus enabling, for example, paraplegics to walk again,” Musk wrote.
Transportation noise pollution and cardio- and cerebrovascular disease – Epidemiological studies have found that transportation noise increases the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, with high-quality evidence for ischaemic heart disease. According to the WHO, ?1.6 million healthy life-years are lost annually from traffic-related noise in Western Europe. Traffic noise at night causes fragmentation and shortening of sleep, elevation of stress hormone levels, and increased oxidative stress in the vasculature and the brain. These factors can promote vascular dysfunction, inflammation and hypertension, thereby elevating the risk of cardiovascular disease. In this Review, the authors focus on the indirect, non-auditory cardiovascular health effects of transportation noise. They provide an updated overview of epidemiological research on the effects of transportation noise on cardiovascular risk factors and disease, discuss the mechanistic insights from the latest clinical and experimental studies, and propose new risk markers to address noise-induced cardiovascular effects in the general population. The authors also explain, in detail, the potential effects of noise on alterations of gene networks, epigenetic pathways, gut microbiota, circadian rhythm, signal transduction along the neuronal-cardiovascular axis, oxidative stress, inflammation and metabolism. Lastly, they describe current and future noise-mitigation strategies and evaluate the status of the existing evidence on noise as a cardiovascular risk factor. Thomas Munzel, MD, lead author of the review and director of Cardiology at University Medical Center Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, said, “as the percentage of the population exposed to detrimental levels of transportation noise will rise again when the COVID pandemic is over, noise mitigation efforts and legislation to reduce noise are highly important for future public health.”
Salmonella Outbreak Is Linked to Wild Birds and Feeders, C.D.C. Says – A salmonella outbreak linked to contact with wild songbirds and bird feeders has sickened 19 people across eight states, eight of whom have been hospitalized, federal health authorities said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was investigating salmonella infections in California, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington State in people ranging in age from 2 months to 89 years old. Six cases were reported in Washington and five in Oregon. No deaths have been reported. To prevent further cases, the C.D.C. recommends cleaning bird feeders and bird baths once a week or when they are dirty. People should avoid feeding wild birds with their bare hands, and should wash their hands with soap and water after touching a bird feeder or bath, or after handling a bird. In California, where three human cases have been reported, the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife warned of an outbreak in February, and reported that it had been “inundated with calls” from Californians who had discovered sick or dead finches at bird feeders.Andrea Jones, director of bird conservation for Audubon California, said the state had found that most of the birds affected by the outbreak were pine siskins, a finch species that spends the winter in California. Pine siskins congregated in California in large numbers this year, which allowed the outbreak to spread among the birds.”It can happen any year, but this has been a particularly bad year,” Ms. Jones said. “Pine siskins are not very good at social distancing.” Sick birds can often look weak or lethargic, or may appear to be struggling to breathe, Ms. Jones said. She added that most birds die within 24 hours of being infected by salmonella. Salmonella bacteria can spread from birds to pets and to humans. People may experience diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps for anywhere from six hours to six days after infection, according to the C.D.C. Children, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems sometimes suffer worse cases of salmonella, though most people recover in a week or less without treatment. Because many people recover quickly and are not tested for salmonella, the C.D.C. said it was likely that the true number of cases resulting from the outbreak was much higher than the number of reported cases. About 1.35 million cases of salmonella are reported every year in the United States. Of those, about 26,500 require hospitalization and 420 result in death, according to the C.D.C.
Algal Blooms Could Spew Lethal Toxins Into the Air, New Study Suggests — Harmful algal blooms may be even more harmful than we thought.They have already been shown to kill the fish that swim in the water they infest or the animals that drink from it. Now, new research indicates they could even poison the air. In a study published in Lake and Reservoir Management this month, scientists for the first time detected an airborne instance of the algal toxin anatoxin-a (ATX), also known as “very fast death factor.” “ATX is one of the more dangerous cyanotoxins produced by harmful algal blooms, which are becoming more predominant in lakes and ponds worldwide due to global warming and climate change,” study lead author Dr. James Sutherland of the Nantucket Land Council said in a press release.ATX is a toxin made by cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. Despite their name, these single-celled organisms are not plants but rather bacteria that can photosynthesize. The toxin can cause loss of coordination, muscular twitching and respiratory paralysis. It has been known to kill livestock, pets and other animals that drink contaminated water.”Although no previous studies have documented the capture of airborne ATX molecules or cyanobacteria cells containing ATX, we hypothesized that ATX could become airborne under certain environmental conditions,” the study authors wrote.To test this idea, the scientists devised a way to sample the air above a pond in Nantucket, Massachusetts dealing with a harmful algal bloom (HAB). They brought an air sampling device to the shore on windy days and collected airborne particles on filters. They also tested the water for the presence of the toxin. The scientists collected their samples between July and October of 2019. They detected ATX in the water at concentrations as high as 21 nanograms per milliliter, Science Alert reported. And, on one foggy and windy day in September, they detected it in the air also. They recorded an average of 0.87 nanograms per filter on their air sampling device, which would equal an airborne exposure of 0.16 nanograms per meter squared. The researchers are not sure how the toxin ended up in the air, but think the wind might have blown it in small droplets from the pond, and then the fog allowed it to persist for longer than usual. In any case, it is a problem worth investigating further.
Human Fecal Bacteria Found in Protected Reef Ecosystem 100 Miles off Texas Coast – Ocean acidification and pollution are well-known threats to the world’s coral reef ecosystems. But in a recent study, scientists have uncovered an entirely new threat: human fecal bacteria.Two extreme flooding events in Texas in 2016 and 2017 carried human waste more than 100 miles offshore to the Gulf of Mexico’s “secret” coral garden, also known as the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, new research from Rice University has found.Usually, extreme flooding is expected to impact just nearshore ecosystems, such as salt marshes and oyster beds. That’s why when scientists began to trace terrestrial runoff from extreme flooding to off-shore coral reefs they were “pretty shocked,” marine biologist Adrienne Correa, co-author of a new study published inFrontiers in Marine Science, told Rice News.”One thing we always thought the Flower Garden Banks were safe from was terrestrial runoff and nutrient pollution. It’s a jolt to realize that in these extreme events, it’s not just the salt marsh or the seagrass that we need to worry about. Offshore ecosystems can be affected too,” Correa added.Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, one of the 14 marine protected areas managed by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, is home to manta rays, sea turtles, hammerheads and whale sharks, as well as “boulder-sized” brain and star corals, according to NOAA. Scientists at Rice University were originally inspired to conduct their study after recreational divers reported “murky waters” and “dead and dying organisms” in the sanctuary, Rice News reported. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, scientists took sponge samples and found that samples from 2016 and 2017, after flooding events, contained E. coli and other human fecal bacteria. “This shows perhaps they aren’t protected from severe events. And these events are increasing in frequency and intensity with climate change,” lead author Amanda Shore said, according to ABC13. When exposed to terrestrial runoff, coral reef ecosystems can face decreased salinity and increased levels of contaminants and turbidity, the scientists wrote.Over the past few years, Houston has not been a stranger to extreme flooding events. During the 2016 Tax Day flood, for example, 17 inches of rain fell in some places in less than a day. Hurricane Harvey also dumped an estimated 13 trillion gallons of rain over southeast Texas in August of 2017, making it the most intense rainfall event in U.S. history, ABC13 reported.
COVID Litter is Polluting the Environment and Killing Wildlife, Reports Say – The coronavirus pandemic has brought with it the rise of a new kind of single-use plastic in the form of personal protective equipment (PPE), like disposable face masks and gloves. As early as May of last year, environmentalists warned that these proliferating single-use items could cause a new wave of plastic pollution. Now, about a year after the World Health Organization first declared that COVID-19 had caused a global pandemic, two new studies are justifying those concerns. The first, published on March 22 in Animal Biology, focuses on COVID litter’s impact on wildlife. It presents the first overview of how PPE is directly impacting animals by trapping or entangling them, or by being mistaken for food.”We signal COVID-19 litter as a new threat to animal life as the materials designed to keep us safe are actually harming animals around us,” the study authors wrote. The second, published March 30 by the charity Ocean Conservancy, emphasizes the scope of PPE pollution in the environment. The report found that volunteers with the organization’s International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) had collected more than 100,000 PPE items from coasts and waterways during the last six months of 2020.”That number in itself is pretty staggering and we know that that’s really just kind of the tip of the iceberg,” ICC outreach manager Sarah Kollar told Treehugger. The Ocean Conservancy study only begins to measure the amount of PPE that has entered the environment since the pandemic began. The organization was well prepared to make this initial observation because of its Clean Swell mobile app that allows volunteers to record what type of trash they encounter during the annual ICC, traditionally held on the third Saturday of September. These cleanups have led to yearly reportsdocumenting the most frequently collected items, as well as the total amount of trash. Ocean Conservancy added PPE to the app in late July 2020. It also sent out a survey to more than 200 ICC coordinators and volunteers asking about their experience with PPE. The results show that it is a real problem. Volunteers collected a total of 107,219 pieces of PPE in 70 of 115 participating countries. Of those surveyed, 94% reported seeing PPE at a cleanup, and 40% found five items or more. Further, 37% found the items already submerged in bodies of water. But, as shocking as the reported numbers are, Ocean Conservancy thinks the true numbers are probably higher. Volunteers had already been reporting PPE to Clean Swell under the tag “personal hygiene” before it was added in July, and the number of items entered under that category increased threefold from January to June 2020 when compared to the same time period over the previous three years.
Another whale found dead at Bay Area beach; 4th in over a week – ABC7 San Francisco (KGO) — Another dead whale has been found washed up in the Bay Area. Three others have been found in recent days. One was at Crissy Field, one at the Berkeley Marina and another along the San Mateo Coast.It isn’t yet clear how the whales died. The first one was towed from Crissy Field to Angel Island for a necropsy.The video above is of a whale first spotted yesterday at Muir Beach.You can see experts from the Marine Mammal Center conducting a necropsy on that whale this afternoon.
Dead eagles found across the US had rat poison in their blood – In a sample of eagles from across the US, rat poison was found in about 80 per cent of the birds. This widespread exposure to toxic chemicals could impair their health or even lead to death. “This really suggests that despite the best efforts to use these compounds wisely and minimise the opportunity for the raptor species to be exposed, they’re still somehow getting exposed,” says Mark Ruder at the University of Georgia. Between 2014 and 2018, Ruder and his team determined the cause of death for 303 golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) and bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), which were sent to them from around the US. Some deaths couldn’t be explained, but the team determined that 4 per cent of the eagles died directly as a result of rat poison. They tested 133 of the birds for anticoagulant rodenticide, the most common rodenticide, which can also target opossums and beavers, and found that 82 per cent of the birds had it in their body. There was a high prevalence of what are known as second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, which are highly toxic and can remain active for months after ingestion. These have been tightly regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency since 2011 and are only available for commercial use. Eagles often scavenge, and rodents killed by the poison could become their food, although it still isn’t clear how exactly the eagles came into contact with it. It is also unclear whether the poison can affect reproduction or impair their health in other ways, says Ruder. “Such widespread exposure indicates that this issue is more than a localised phenomenon, and if there are widespread health impacts they may occur throughout the population,” says Garth Herring at the US Geological Survey, who wasn’t involved in the study.The findings are “alarming”, Ruder says, particularly because eagles and other raptors have recently rebounded from the brink of extinction caused by another toxic pesticide, DDT, which caused the birds to produce thin-shelled eggs. The threat of rodenticide may be exacerbated when combined with lead and bromide poisoning, which has also been documented in eagles.
New Montana Bills ‘Declare War on Wolves, Bears and Other Carnivores,’ Wildlife Advocates Say — A flurry of bills has recently been introduced to Montana’s state legislature that reduces restrictions on the killing of grizzly bears and wolves – two predators which have historically struggled to survive in the state.One such bill is SB 98, put forward by Republican Sen. Bruce Gillespie, which would expand the state law allowance for killing grizzly bears. Currently, Montanans can kill grizzly bears if they are caught in the act of killing their livestock, according to CBS News. But the new bill – which has already passed the state Senate – would mean grizzly bears could be killed if they were “believed to be ‘threatening’ a person or livestock.” The bill also states that grizzly populations have “recovered” and should be taken off the federal endangered species list.Other bills include SB 314, which would allow all but 15 breeding pairs of wolves to be killed, and HB 224, which would legalize the use of neck snares to hunt wolves.With Montana’s first Republican governor in 16 years, Greg Gianforte, and a Republican-controlled legislature, the bills represent “a political sentiment,” according to Rep. Tom France, a Democrat and retired regional executive director for the National Wildlife Federation, The New York Times reported, adding that Montana’s State Legislature is now saying, “We don’t live by federal laws and aren’t going to pay attention to them.”Proponents of bills like the ones aimed at limiting wolf numbers feel they have “no voice” when it comes to keeping the predators away from eliminating their game, like elk and deer, State Senator Bob Brown, a Republican who introduced one of the bills, said at a hearing, according to The New York Times.”We can’t sit by and allow our game – the thing that feeds so many families – to be taken off the table,” he added.Activists and wildlife advocates have opposed the bills, calling them a series of “bad bills” that “declare war on wolves, bears and other carnivores,” according to a statement by Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. “These bills – all put forward by just three lawmakers, Rep. Paul Fielder, Sen. Bob Brown, and Sen. Bruce Gillespie – also seek to usurp biologists, including the state’s wildlife agency,” Block wrote.
Records Shattered as Seasons Play Tug-of-War Across the US — As the first full week of April began across the United States, the weather was marked by a battle between winter in the Northwest as frigid air swept in behind a storm, and summer across the Plains as temperatures soared to record-setting levels.The dividing line between this tug-of-war match was drawn by a storm system that moved out across the central Plains on Tuesday.Ahead of the storm, temperatures across the center of the country surged Monday. Highs reached into the upper 70s F and 80s F from New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana to South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin — and a few locations even topped 90 F for the first time since last summer or autumn.Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was one of the sites that reached 90 degrees Monday, setting a new record high temperature for the date. The previous daily record was 87 set back in 1991. It was also the earliest the city reached the 90-degree temperature benchmark in a calendar year, shattering the old record, which was set in 1954, by nine days.Sioux Falls hadn’t experienced a temperature over 90 since late last summer when the high soared to 91 F on Sept. 6, 2020. And the summerlike day ended with a bang in Sioux Falls and surrounding areas. A severe storm pressed overhead of the Sioux Falls National Weather Service (NWS) office during the evening, spawning large hail.Farther south, El Paso, Texas, recorded one of the highest temperatures across the Plains Monday when the mercury skyrocketed to 92 degrees during the afternoon hours and set a new record high for the date. The old daily record high of 89 F was set in 1942 and tied in 2016. The last time El Paso reached the 90-degree mark was on Oct. 21, 2020.North Platte, Nebraska, and Burlington, Colorado, also hit 90 degrees Monday, each setting a new record high temperature for the day. The 90-degree reading in North Platte eclipsed the previous daily record high of 87 set in 1991. Meanwhile, Burlington surpassed the old daily record of 85 set way back in 1959.The recorded temperatures easily overshot normal high temperatures for the Plains in the beginning of April, which range from the lower 50s in the Dakotas to the middle 70s in western Texas.Even in the height of summer, the normal high temperatures in Sioux Falls only climbs to as high as 84 degrees. In contrast, normal high temperatures reach the lower 90s in El Paso by the middle of May.Dramatically plummeting temperatures in the wake of the storm will set the stage for accumulating snow in some areas of western Nebraska. A few locations that recorded temperatures in the 70s and 80s Monday could pick up between 1 and 4 inches of snow through Wednesday. Some locations where temperatures climbed into the upper 80s saw a mix of rain and snow Tuesday night, but rain fell in North Platte, according to AccuWeather forecasters.On the western side of the storm, temperature records were on the opposite end of the spectrum as a blast of Arctic air swept into the Northwest in the wake of the storm system.The temperature at the NWS office in Seattle dropped to 33 F on Monday, breaking the old daily record low for this location of 34 F set in 1997. Olympia, Washington, tied the daily record low of 26 degrees for the date, which was set in 1961.
California reports third-driest year on record –A snow survey in California revealed that the state only received about 50% of its average precipitation during the 2021 water year, tying it for its third-driest on record.The snow survey, which is conducted annually by the Department of Water Resources (DWR), records precipitation for the water year, which extends from October to March. The survey recorded a snow depth of 49.5 inches and a snow water equivalent, which measures the amount of water contained within the snowpack, of 21 inches, on April 1.April 1 is typically when snowpack is at its deepest in the state and has the highest snow water equivalent.”With below-average precipitation statewide, California’s reservoirs continue to show the impacts due to dry conditions,” Sean De Guzman, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources, said.This year’s water season tied for third-driest on record with the 2014 season. The second-driest year on record was 1924, and the driest on record was 1977, when an area of high pressure parked off the West Coast and deflected storms away from California and instead pushed them into the Pacific Northwest. Precipitation during the 1977 water year was less than 35% of average,according to a report from the comptroller general of the United States.Lake Shasta, the largest surface-level reservoir in the state of. California, recorded just 65% of what is considered average in terms of precipitation this year. (California Department of Water Resources)Lake Shasta, California’s largest surface-level reservoir, recorded 65% of what is considered average.Lake Oroville, the largest reservoir within the State Water Project, a 700-mile-long water storage and delivery system, is at 53% of average. The State Water Project supplies water for over 27 million people and irrigates about 750,000 acres of farmland.Statewide, De Guzman said the largest reservoirs are holding around half of their total capacity. When current snowpack melts, reservoirs in the state are still only expected to be filled up to 58% of average capacity.AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Bob Smerbeck said the La Nina weather pattern this year steered storms north of California, leaving the state with less precipitation.According to Smerbeck, a dry water season in California can allow for fire season to begin earlier in the year as temperatures rise with less water available to evaporate, resulting in drier vegetation.
Wisconsin governor declares state of emergency over wildfires –Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) has declared a state of emergency due to wildfires in the state.The executive order signed Monday comes as more than 320 wildfires have burned 1,400 acres of land throughout The Badger State so far in 2021.Evers’s order allows the state’s National Guard to help the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources respond to fires by deploying Blackhawk helicopters to help suppress fires from the air.”With nearly the entire state experiencing high or very high fire risk, protecting Wisconsinites from the destructive dangers of wildfires is a top priority,” Evers said in a statement.”The ability of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to have all available resources ready to be quickly dispatched is a critical element in keeping fires small and achieving swift containment.”Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources reported a total of 782 wildfires that burned 1,630 acres of land in 2020. Fire officials expect this wildfire season to be much longer due to snow melting earlier around the state.
Florida declares state of emergency as reservoir holding millions of gallons of radioactive wastewater could ‘collapse’ at any time – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on Saturday after a leak was detected at an old phosphate plant pond in the Tampa Bay area that could potentially lead to a dangerous acidic flood. Residents living close to the old Piney Point phosphate mine, located north of Bradenton, near Tampa, have been asked to evacuate their homes. Those living within a half-a-mile radius of the reservoir received a text message alert on Saturday notifying them the collapse was “imminent,” the Guardian reported. State officials said they first discovered the leak on Friday. It was located in one wall of the 77-acre pond that holds about 600 million gallons of water, containing phosphorus, nitrogen, and small amounts of radium and uranium. The stacks can also release large concentrations of radon gas. “A portion of the containment wall at the leak site shifted laterally, signifying that structural collapse could occur at any time,” Manatee County Director of Public Safety Jake Saur warned, according to CBS News. “Due to a possible breach of mixed saltwater from the south reservoir at the Piney Point facility, I have declared a State of Emergency for Manatee County to ensure resources are allocated for necessary response & recovery,” DeSantis tweeted on Saturday. Officials say they are most concerned about the flooding the rupture could cause, adding that the water that would be discharged is only “slightly acidic,” according to a statement issued by Manatee County on Twitter. “The water meets water quality standards for marine waters with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, and total ammonia nitrogen,” the statement said. “It is slightly acidic, but not at a level that is expected to be a concern, nor is it expected to be toxic.” Workers have been desperately trying to figure out ways to stop the environmental catastrophe from happening. Authorities worked around the clock on Saturday to pump out as much water as possible to minimize the effect of the potential flood. But this process is time-consuming and can take up to 12 days. The governor, however, has ordered more pumps and cranes to be transported to the area. Some workers tried to plug the hole with rocks and other materials on Friday afternoon but were unsuccessful. George Kruse, a Manatee County commissioner, said he traveled to the plant on Saturday to assess the situation but had to leave the area quickly after realizing it was a safety hazard. “We determined that it was no longer safe to be anywhere near Piney Point, so we all kind of raced off the stacks as fast as we could,” Kruse said, according to the Guardian.
Florida faces ‘imminent’ pollution catastrophe from phosphate mine pond – Work crews were pumping millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into an ecologically sensitive Florida bay on Sunday, as they tried to prevent the “imminent” collapse of a storage reservoir at an old phosphate mine. Officials in Manatee county extended an evacuation zone overnight and warned that up to 340m gallons could engulf the area in “a 20ft wall of water” if they could not repair the breach at the Piney Point reservoir in the Tampa Bay area, north of Bradenton. Aerial images aired on local television showed water pouring from leaks in the walls of the retention pond. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, declared a state of emergency after officials warned of the “imminent collapse” of the pond.He toured the scene by helicopter and said at a press conference engineers were still attempting to plug breaches in the reservoir wall with rocks and other materials, and that other mitigation efforts included the controlled release of 35m gallons daily at Port Manatee. He said the state’s department of environmental protection (DEP) had brought in 20 new pumps. “What we’re looking at now is trying to prevent and respond to, if need be, a real catastrophic flood situation,” DeSantis said. “The water quality issues that are flowing from this for us is less than the risk of everyone’s health and safety, particularly folks who may live in the area.” The governor also attempted to downplay reports that the water contained traces of radioactive materials. “The water was tested prior to discharge [and] the primary concern is nutrients,” he said. “The water meets water quality standards, standards for marine waters, with the exception primarily of the phosphorus and the nitrogen.” Scott Hopes, the acting county administrator, warned that despite a low population density, the nearby area could be overwhelmed by a sudden collapse of the 77-acre pond, even though discharges had lessened the quantity of remaining water. “What if we should have a full breach? We’re down to about 340m gallons that could breach in totality in a period of minutes, and the models for less than an hour are as high as a 20ft wall of water. “So if you’re in an evacuation area and you have not heeded that you need to think twice and follow the orders.” Advertisement Officials widened the evacuation zone late on Saturday from a dozen or so properties to more than 300 houses. The Tampa Bay Times interviewed some residents who were refusing to leave. A local jail a mile away from the leaky pond was not being evacuated, but officials were moving people and staff to the second story and putting sandbags on the ground floor. Hopes said models showed the area could be covered with between 1ft to 5ft of water, and the second floor is 10ft above ground. County officials said well water remained unaffected and there was no threat to Lake Manatee, the area’s primary source of drinking water.
’20-Foot Wall of Water’ Could Be Unleashed if Florida Phosphate Pond Collapses, Official Warns – A 20-foot-tall wall of water could be unleashed in minutes if the wall surrounding a phosphate wastewater pond breaches, a Manatee County government official said Sunday. About 306 million gallons of polluted saltwater remain in the reservoir that began leaking last week, Manatee County Administrator Scott Hopes said. At a news conference on Sunday morning, Hope said up to a 20-foot wall of water could form in less than an hour, based on models, if the pond breached. The pond was once used to store waste from a plant at the site that turned phosphate into fertilizer. Officials in Manatee County on Florida’s Gulf Coast ordered residents of more than 300 homes near the site to evacuate immediately Saturday. “What we’re looking at now is trying to prevent – and respond to if need be – a catastrophic flood issue,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said at the Sunday morning briefing. DeSantis said the water is not radioactive, even though the gypsum stack that the pond sits on is mildly radioactive. The governor said the water is mostly saltwater from a dredging project years ago and the “process water” from the old fertilizer plant. That process water is high in phosphorus and nitrogen, nutrients that can cause algae blooms in rivers and bays. Much of the water has already been drained into Port Manatee, which sits at the mouth of Tampa Bay. DeSantis said pumps are sending 33 million gallons a day from the pond to the bay. He also said the Florida National Guard is flying more pumps to the top of the gypsum berm around the pond to pump more water. DeSantis and Noah Valenstein, the secretary of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection, said flooding is the biggest danger to the public now. Valenstein the primary focus is on directing a controlled discharge to an area where it will have the least impact. At a county news conference at 2 p.m. Sunday, Vanessa Baugh, chairman of the Manatee County Commission, said, “Steady draw down of the process water has continued at Piney Point, and we have thankfully avoided uncontrolled breach that would have endangered people and property in the evacuation zone around the stacks.”
Drone discovers 2nd breach concern in Florida phosphate reservoir – A drone discovered a possible second breach in a large Florida wastewater reservoir as more pumps were headed to the site to prevent a catastrophic flood, officials said Monday. U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, a Republican, toured the area by helicopter Monday and said federal resources were committed to assisting the effort to control the 77-acre (33-hectare) Piney Point reservoir in Manatee County, just south of the Tampa Bay area. Among those are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers, Buchanan said at a news conference. “I think we are making some progress,” Buchanan said. “This is something that has been going on too long. Now, I think everybody is focused on this.” Fears of a complete breach at an old phosphate plant led authorities to evacuate more than 300 homes, close portions of a major highway and move several hundred jail inmates nearby to a second floor of the facility. Scott Hopes, the Manatee County administrator, said the additional pumps should increase the capacity for a controlled release of the water from about 35 million gallons (about 132 million liters) a day to between 75 million and 100 million gallons a day. “This has become a very focused local, state and national issue,” Hopes said. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection says the water in the pond is primarily saltwater mixed with wastewater and stormwater. It has elevated levels of phosphorous and nitrogen and is acidic, but not expected to be toxic, the agency says. The ponds sit in stacks of phosphogypsum, a solid radioactive byproduct from manufacturing fertilizer. State authorities say the water in the breached pond is not radioactive. Still, the EPA says too much nitrogen in the wastewater causes algae to grow faster, leading to fish kills. Some such blooms can also harm humans who come into contact with polluted waters, or eat tainted fish. The Piney Point reservoir, and others like it storing the phosphogypsum byproduct, have been left unaddressed for far too long, environmental groups say. “This environmental disaster is made worse by the fact it was entirely foreseeable and preventable,” said Jaclyn Lopez, Florida director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “With 24 more phosphogypsum stacks storing more than 1 billion tons of this dangerous, radioactive waste in Florida, the EPA needs to step in right now.”
Florida phosphate reservoir on the verge of collapse: An exposure of industrial and government negligence – On Sunday, the state of Florida began pumping millions of gallons of radioactive contaminated wastewater into Bishop Harbor, an ecologically sensitive inlet connecting to Tampa Bay. This was done to prevent the “imminent” collapse of the Piney Point retention pond, a phosphate reservoir that began leaking in late March. This breach is only the latest incident in a decades-long history of environmental disasters involving the property. After a significant leak was detected Friday, April 2, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency, and Manatee County officials established an evacuation zone where it is possible that 340 million gallons could engulf the area in a “20 ft wall of water” in a matter of minutes if the breach cannot be repaired. Engineers have been working since March to plug breaches in the reservoir with rocks and other materials and are performing a controlled daily release of 35 million gallons of water at Port Manatee. The evacuation zone includes more than 300 houses, several businesses, and a local jail with more than 1,000 inmates. As of Sunday evening, only 345 inmates were reportedly being evacuated. This is being done to “free up bed space” for the remaining inmates on the upper level of the jail, which is only 10 feet above ground.During his press conference, DeSantis tried to downplay the presence of radioactive materials in the water being pumped into the bay. “The water meets water quality standards, standards for marine waters, with the exception primarily of the phosphorous and the nitrogen.” The wastewater stored in the holding pools in fact contains not only these two chemicals but also ammonia and small amounts of radium and uranium. In a tweet announcing the state of emergency, DeSantis described the toxic water as “mixed saltwater.” “What we’re looking at now is trying to prevent and respond to, if need be, a real catastrophic flood situation,” DeSantis stated. “The water quality issues that are flowing from this for us is less than the risk of everyone’s health and safety, particularly folks who may live in the area.” DeSantis noted that the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) brought in 20 new pumps to ease pressure on the reservoir.
Crews Drain Florida Wastewater Pond As Leak Threatens To Unleash ‘Catastrophic Flood’ – Emergency crews in Manatee County, Fla., are using pumps and vacuum trucks to drain a leaking wastewater reservoir in an effort to prevent a full-fledged breach that officials said could unleash a “20-foot wall of water.” The leak at Piney Point – a long-abandoned phosphate plant in the Tampa Bay area – was first discovered last month, and workers are removing millions of gallons of water from the reservoir each day to reduce pressure on its liner. Concerns over a potential breach prompted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency Saturday for Manatee County, where more than 300 homes and businesses have been ordered to evacuate. The leak at the former fertilizer manufacturing facility and threat of an uncontrolled breach have prompted a multi-agency response at the state and federal level. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency deployed an on-scene coordinator on Sunday, for example, and an Army Corps of Engineers team arrived at the site Monday. Piney Point closed 20 years ago when its owners declared bankruptcy, Steve Newborn of member station WUSF told NPR. It is now owned by a company called HRK Holdings and still stores industrial byproducts including polluted water and stacks of phosphogypsum – a waste product that emits radioactive gas, according to the EPA. HRK reported on March 26 that process water was bypassing the wastewater management system at Piney Point, according to Protecting Florida Together, a state-run website focused on water quality issues. Officials identified a leak in a containment wall that put the structure at risk of collapsing. Water is being drawn by pumps from the top of the 79-acre pond to Tampa Bay, according to the county. Officials said on Sunday that the Florida National Guard was dropping off extra pumps to increase the volume of water being pumped out in addition to the 10 vacuum trucks and 20 pumps already deployed. There were about 480 million gallons in the impacted area of the reservoir on March 26, according to Protecting Florida Together. By Monday, Hopes said that number was “probably just shy of 300 million.” DeSantis said the water being discharged is not radioactive, describing it as saltwater from a dredging project “mixed with legacy process water and stormwater runoff.” It meets water quality standards for marine waters, officials said, “with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen.” Matt Pasek, a geoscience professor at the University of South Florida, told NPR’s Here and Now the water that is a waste product of phosphate is “mildly radioactive” but said “radioactive” has a wide range of values. “To put it in perspective, this one’s more radioactive than bananas, but not that many bananas. It’s about 20 bananas’ worth of radioactivity,”
Water Pumped Into Tampa Bay Could Cause a Massive Algae Bloom, Affecting Manatees and Fish –Millions of gallons of water laced with fertilizer ingredients are being pumped into Florida’s Tampa Bay from aleaking reservoir at an abandoned phosphate plant at Piney Point. As the water spreads into the bay, it carries phosphorus and nitrogen – nutrients that under the right conditions can fuel dangerous algae bloomsthat can suffocate sea grass beds and kill fish, dolphins and manatees.It’s the kind of risk no one wants to see, but officials believed the other options were worse.About 300 homes sit downstream from the 480-million-gallon reservoir, which began leaking in late March 2021. State officials determined that pumping out the water was the only way to prevent the reservoir’s walls from collapsing. They decided the safest location for all that water would be out through Port Manatee and into the bay.Florida’s coast is dotted with fragile marine sanctuaries and sea grass beds that help nurture the state’s thriving marine and tourism economy. Those near Port Manatee now face a risk of algal blooms over the next few weeks. Once algae blooms get started, little can be done to clean them up.The phosphate mining industry around Tampa is just one source of nutrients that can fuel dangerous algae blooms, which I study as a marine biologist. The sugarcane industry, cattle ranches, dairy farms and citrus groves all release nutrients that often flow into rivers and eventually into bays and the ocean. Sewage is another problem – Miami and Fort Lauderdale, for example, have old sewage treatment systems with frequent pipe breaks that leak sewage into canals and coastal waters. All can fuel harmful algal blooms that harm marine life and people. Overall, blooms are getting worse locally and globally. Just down the coast from Port Manatee, the next three counties to the south have had algae blooms in recent weeks, including red tide, which produces a neurotoxin that feels like pepper spray if you breathe it in. Karenia brevis, a dinoflagellate, is the organism in red tide and produces the toxin.This part of Florida’s Gulf Coast is a hot spot for red tide, often fueled by agricultural runoff. A persistent red tide in 2017 and 2018 killed at least 177 manatees and left a trail of dead fish along the coast and into Tampa Bay. If the coastal currents carry today’s red tide father north and into Tampa Bay, the toxic algae could thrive on the nutrients from Piney Point.
Toxic Waste Ponds Dangerously Vulnerable to Climate Change –The threat of a catastrophic failure unleashing a 20-foot wall of industrial wastewater over nearby homes and businesses in Piney Point, Florida, illustrates the danger of widespread reliance on industrial waste ponds across the U.S., The New York Times reports. Many of these ponds, filled with toxic and sometimes radioactive, byproducts of climate-change causing activity like coal ash from power plants or manure from industrialized farms, are also at risk because of climate change. Open lagoons make up the extent of waste processing infrastructure for industrial hog farming operations and coal-fired power plants and both were overwhelmed by Hurricane Florence in 2018, when more than 100 hog lagoons were swamped throughout the Carolinas and coal ash poured out of containment ponds at Duke’s Sutton Plant in Wilmington, N.C.”They’re just an irresponsible way to store very dangerous waste,” Daniel Estrin, general counsel at the Waterkeeper Alliance, a clean water nonprofit group, told the Times. “And with climate change, we’re going to see more frequent and stronger storms that are going to impact these sites.”
More than 40 people killed, hundreds missing after severe floods and landslides hit Indonesia –At least 44 people have been killed and hundreds are reportedly missing after heavy rains struck Indonesian East Nusa Tenggara province, triggering floods and landslides early Sunday morning, April 4, 2021. The worst-hit area is East Flores regency where heavy rains are expected to continue into the next week.According to the National Disaster Management Agency, the disaster buried dozens of homes, swept away several other houses, and destroyed roads and bridges.In Lamenele village on Flores Islands, a mudslide struck nearly 50 homes, claiming the lives of at least 20 people. Three more bodies were found in Oyang Bayang village.Two people are missing and four were injured in Waiburak village where overnight rains caused rivers to burst their banks, flooding large areas of the East Flores district.According to the head of Nele Lamadike village, hundreds of people are missing after a massive landslide hit part of the village in the early hours of Sunday.Officials launched large-scale rescue efforts, hampered by power cuts, blocked roads, and remoteness of the area.Severe flooding was also reported in the town of Bima, West Nusa Tenggara after dams in four sub-districts overflowed, submerging nearly 10 000 homes. At least 2 people were killed and nearly 10 000 forced to evacuate.
Dozens killed as flooding, mudslides ravage Indonesia and Timor-Leste —A developing tropical system brought rounds of torrential rainfall to the islands of eastern Indonesia and Timor-Leste throughout the weekend, leading to widespread flooding and deadly mudslides. AccuWeather forecasters warn that more rain is expected in the coming days. As of Sunday evening, local time, at least nine people have been killed by floodwaters in Dili, the capital city of Timor-Leste, an official from Civil Protection told local media.According to Reuters, the death toll due to flash flooding, landslides and a falling tree climbed to 113 by Monday evening, local time. Officials called the city a “calamity zone” as days of heavy tropical rainfall caused Dili to fill with floodwaters, especially during high tide.Extensive damage to homes and businesses has been reported, including to infrastructure needed to fight the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.Staff at the warehouse where Timor-Leste’s medical supplies are stored have been working to save what they can after the building flooded over the weekend. This is the same building that was going to store COVID-19 vaccines that were scheduled to arrive on Monday.Residents and officials have reported water levels as high as 6.5 feet (2 m) in some neighborhoods with houses along the Comoro River being swept away,reported local media.The East and West Nusa Tenggara provinces of eastern Indonesia were also hit hard by torrential rainfall over the weekend. At least 70 people have been killed and thousands more displaced due to flash flooding and mudslides, Reuters reported. Hundreds of people were involved in search-and-rescue efforts across the province, said Raditya Jati, a spokesperson for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Six villages were impacted by flooding and landslides, and recovery efforts were hindered by power outages, debris, thick mud covering roadways and rough seas, Jati added. Nearly 10,000 people were forced to evacuate due to flooding in Bima, a town located in West Nusa Tenggara, the Associated Press reported. The death toll from flooding and mudslides is expected to increase in the coming days as search-and-rescue missions continue in some areas and tropical rainfall continues in others.
Floods and landslides leave at least 3 dead, hundreds affected in Colombia (videos) Heavy rain has been impacting several departments in Colombia over the past days, causing floods and landslides that left at least three fatalities and hundreds of residents affected, the Civil Defense reported.The three victims lost their lives after heavy downpours triggered a landslide that in Florencia, Caqueta Department, on April 5.Floodwaters swept through parts of the Cundinamarca Department, while more than 70 people were affected as the severe weather damaged their homes in El Rosal municipality.On April 3, severe flooding in Quipama, Boyaca Department, damaged 65 houses and destroyed two others, affecting a total of 325 people. Five residents sustained injuries.In Risaralda Department, flash flooding from April 2 impacted the municipalities of Pereira and Dosquebradas, damaging more than 40 homes.Several other landslides were also reported in parts of Bogota. Between April 1 and 5, two separate landslides in the city damaged four homes, affecting at least 35 people.
At least 3 dead, thousands of homes flooded as torrential rains hit Haiti (video) Torrential rains have been affecting Haiti since April 2, 2021, resulting in extensive damage and at least three fatalities. At least 149 homes have been damaged, with more than 1 270 properties still submerged in floodwaters.Persistent heavy rains have been affecting Haiti in the past days, causing flooding in four departments. At least three people have lost their lives, while three others remain missing as of April 6. Two of the fatalities and the three missing were reported in the town of Boise Lance in the northern port.More than 1 270 homes were still submerged in floodwaters in Terrier-Rouge, Caracol, and True-to-Nord, while heavy rains drench the streets of Cape Haitian. At least 149 homes have been damaged in Jean-Rabel commune in the Nord-Ouest department.The Civil Defense said they will provide shelter for 137 households in the northeast, while 85 people have been transferred to safer areas.Prime Minister Joseph Jude also has called for the urgent mobilization of the Ministries of Home Affairs, Social Affairs, and Public Works to assist the victims.
Western Australia under rare weather threat of three strong tropical systems — The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has warned residents living on the coast of Western Australia to brace for intense winds, rain, and possible flooding as Tropical Cyclone “Seroja” is expected to pass between Carnavon and Jurien Bay late Sunday or early Monday, April 11 or 12. In a rare weather event, two other potentially strong storms are looming west of WA, with the potential to hit the area over the coming days. A triple threat of storm systems is expected to bear down on Western Australia in the following days. Seroja, the first storm, is forecast to intensify again from Thursday to Saturday, April 8 to 10, into a Category 3 storm, with winds of up to 157 km/h (96 mph) and gusts peaking at 225 km/h (140 mph), before crossing the coast on Sunday. Seroja has already claimed lives of more than 150 people as it formed near Indonesia. The second system, dubbed 23U, which is situated south of Christmas Island, may have an effect on Seroja as it slowly moves south. BOM said it is expecting the system to intensify to cyclone level as it starts moving toward WA. “On Sunday it is expected to turn to the southeast towards the west coast and make landfall, most likely late Sunday or early Monday between Carnarvon and Jurien Bay,” it stated. “There is likely to be destructive winds, very heavy rainfall, and higher than normal tides close to Seroja’s path. The most intense rainfall, with the associated danger of flash flooding, will be close to Seroja’s track, while the strongest winds will be just to the north of its track.” The third low, called 24U, located near Cocos Islands, is also accelerating east and may form into a cyclone. As of the present, this system is considered to be the least threat to the land.
Antarctic cold blast to bring snow and subzero temperatures to southeast Australia – An Antarctic blast of icy air is forecast to bring snow and subzero temperatures to southeast Australia this weekend, with hail possible in some regions. According to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), the first cold front will arrive Friday, April 9, followed by a second one on Saturday, April 10. The weather in parts of southeast Australia, particularly New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania, will shift from warm to cold in the following days due to two polar cold fronts. “This is looking to be the last hurrah of the warm season and the summer,” said Jonathan How, a BOM meteorologist. “The first cold front is a garden-variety cold front. The next one is the leading edge of this air mass moving north from the Southern Ocean. It’s a low-pressure system that has been circulating the Antarctic.” “Sometimes we see these systems jump up towards Australia and that’s when we see these winter blasts. This will be the last time we see the high 20s and low 30s until next spring,” he added. The conditions will move through to Sydney on Sunday, making for an “uncomfortably” chilly weekend. How continued, “Even though we’re not going to see any record broken, the main message is that it is going to be quite uncomfortably chilly. This sudden swing will catch people by surprise.” The mercury is expected to drop to 0 deg C (32 degF) in Melbourne on Sunday and in Canberra on Monday. The first snowfalls of the season are expected across the eastern seaboard, with a dusting of up to 800 m (2 600 feet) in Tasmania, 1 000 m (3 280 feet) in Victoria, and 1 200 m (3 900 feet) across NSW and ACT. “The really cold weather will come by Monday or Tuesday, that’s because the cold front brings cooler air, and the wind needs to settle down before it gets really chilly,” said Jiwon Park with the BOM.
Yukon sets new daily snow record, nearly 300 percent of normal, Canada – Whitehorse City in Yukon, Canada, registered 70 cm (27.5 inches) of snow on the ground on April 4, 2021 — the area’s most snowfall on record for the day and almost 300 percent of normal. The snowpack usually peaks around 30 cm (11.8 inches), and by late April, the snow base would be near zero.Although Yukon’s capital Whitehorse is no stranger to heavy snow, the past winter has been especially snowy there with 70 cm (27.5 inches) of snow still on the ground as of Arpil 4. This is the city’s largest snow on record for April 4 and is considered a tremendous amount for the area, which has a population of 25 000.The snowpack usually peaks at 30 cm (11.8 inches) and by late April, the snow diminishes to near zero. The Weather Network described the recent snowpack as “quite peculiar”.”The region was even greeted by a rare atmospheric river back in early December. It’s typical to get a meandering Jet Stream in La Nina conditions, along with above-normal precipitation across parts,” it explained.”The atmosphere essentially behaved like an El Nino for January, limiting the amount of frigid air available in the region; when the active storm track kicked in, excess moisture moved into Yukon. It rarely was too cold to snow.”As of April 6, the city has been recording below-freezing temperatures for 161 days.
Temps hit 38 below zero in Alaskan city, setting new April record –A historic cold blast settling into Alaska this week will send temperatures plummeting far below zero, which could topple century-old low-temperature records in one city and even a longstanding state record. The severe cold comes at a time when Alaska normally starts to thaw out from brutal winter weather. “April is typically the time of year when Alaska is steadily climbing out of the Arctic’s icy grip, with average high temperatures rising 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit from the beginning of the month to the end in places such as UtqiaÄ¡vik (formerly Barrow), Fairbanks and Anchorage,” AccuWeather Meteorologist Renee Duff said. High temperatures in Anchorage, Alaska, usually start April in the upper 30s, before reaching the lower 50s by the end of the month. Fairbanks rivals this spring warmup average by rising from the mid-30s in early April and ending up near the mid-50s by the last day of the month. “But that has been far from the truth so far this month, with temperatures running close to 18 degrees below normal month-to-date in Fairbanks,” Duff said. Anchorage set a daily record low of 9 degrees on Thursday. The previous record low for April 8 of 10 F was set back in 1986. The cold air is also keeping snow from melting, which led to a new record Thursday. A snow depth of 24 inches was measured Thursday, the latest on record the snow has been that deep around Anchorage. The previous record came from 2011-2012 at the end of Anchorage’s snowiest winter on record when 134.6 inches of snow fell. This year only 69.7 inches has been measured, which is below normal for the city. A normal total for April 8 is 71.8 inches. It’s been a topsy-turvy start to April in Fairbanks. The city began the month with a high of 11, and low temperatures that didn’t reach above zero degrees. Around Easter, the city’s temperatures nearly recovered, just a couple degrees below the average high, but this was short-lived as temperatures tanked again to fall below -20, despite average lows being around 15 degrees. “The next three days will bring historic-level cold for this time of year to parts of mainland Alaska. The state record low for April of -50F (-45.6C) might be broken,” Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said on Twitter on Wednesday.
Switzerland sees unusually fatal avalanche season — Switzerland’s winter season this year has been 50 percent deadlier than the average season, resulting in around 27 fatalities as of March 31.Around 296 people have been affected, which is a 67 percent increase, as the number of people caught in avalanches over the past 20 years is 177.215 of the avalanches this season were caused by people, compared to an average of 113 over the last 20 seasons.Over the same timespan, an average of 18 people died in avalanche accidents per ski season. This season, 11 of the fatalities were among ski tourers and 6 among free riders. The deadliest region was Verbier, among the 4-valleys region, as seven of the total avalanche fatalities occurred there.Among the fatalities was former Olympian Julie Pomagalski, a snowboarder from France who died on March 23, along with a guide.The French ski federation did not cite the location of the avalanche, but according to the Associated Press, it occurred on Gemsstock mountain.The WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research explained that a thin, fragile layer of snow, which fell high up in autumn, caused future snow to become unstable. The melting and freezing of old snow throughout the season increased the risk of thick layers of snow breaking apart, causing accidents.
‘It’s Irreversible’: Goldendale Green Energy Project Highlights A History Of Native Dispossession | Spokane Public Radio — Some 15,000 years ago, an ice dam broke in Montana. Water cascaded across the Northwest in some of the largest flooding ever to happen on Earth. And the Ka-milt-pah people climbed up to one of the highest points on the Columbia River. As the stories go, the area known as Put-a-lish, or the Goodnoe Hills, is where people survived the walls of water slamming downstream in the Missoula Floods. The height of those hills protected Harvey’s ancestors. It’s also a reason this area is being considered for a new energy storage project. It’s one that the Yakama Nation says would land smack dab on top of an incredibly sacred area.The Goldendale Energy Storage Project would be a solution to generate energywhen the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. When there’s too much energy on the grid, water would be pumped into an upper storage reservoir. Then, when more energy is needed, it could be spilled through turbines into a lower pool of water – currently the cleanup site of an old aluminum smelter.It would be the largest pumped storage project in the Northwest.But, to the Yakama Nation, the destruction of those sites would add another heartbreak to an ever-expanding list. Countless important cultural areas have faced destruction across the Northwest, largely because they’re not understood by non-tribal members.”That’s the thing that we protect. And I know it’s meaningless to others, but, to us, it means everything,” says Jerry Meninick, the Yakama Nation’s deputy director for culture. Meninick’s lineage traces back to the Rock Creek Band.
Company that wants to build hydropower station near Ashokan Reservoir seeks new site for water source – The company that wants to create an underground hydroelectric power station near the Ashokan Reservoir will look for a new location to build a supplemental reservoir that would power the operation, state Sen. Michelle Hinchey said Thursday.Hinchey, D-Saugerties, was among about 50 elected officials and environmental advocates who gathered Thursday morning at the Ashokan Center in Olivebridge to voice opposition to the 2,800-megawatt power station proposed by Premium Energy Holdings of Walnut, Calif.Hinchey said Premium’s president, Victor Rojas, “has promised that, because of our opposition, the three current proposals [for off-site reservoirs] will be rescinded, and a new alternative will be presented” as part of the company’s application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).But those who gathered Thursday would prefer the entire project be scrapped.”That’s what we’re demonstrating here today,” Hinchey said.Premium says in the 28-page application it submitted to FERC that it wants to create a 2,800-megawatt power station 200 to 300 feet below ground on one of three sites – two near state Route 28, and one on the north side of the Ashokan’s west basin.Of the electricity to be generated, 800 watts would be sent into the grid via Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp.’s substation on Hurley Avenue in the town of Ulster during 12-hour periods when demand is high, while the remainder would be used to keep the power station itself functioning.The station would be powered by water from the Ashokan that first would be sent to the planned new reservoir. Premium originally was considering sites in West Shokan, Woodland Valley and the Greene County community of Lanesville to create the new reservoir.
Central Maine towns do not support amendment to state’s plan for Kennebec River – The proposed amendment to the state’s Kennebec River Management Plan to restore a healthy river and boost fish population has drawn significant opposition from several central Maine towns. Skowhegan, Norridgewock and Madison have all expressed their opposition to the amendment, citing the economic impacts that the region would face should the amendment be adopted.Previously, Waterville’s City Council voted to support the state’s plan, while Winslow andFairfield town councils voted in opposition.The amendment proposed by the Maine Department of Marine Resources seeks to expand the fish species targeted for restoration in the river to include all of Maine’s native diadromous fish, or species that spend a portion of their life in rivers and a portion of their life in ocean. The amendment also updates the descriptions of the physical, biological and ecological conditions in the watershed and revises goals, objectives and actions for restoration in the river and provides reasons for decommissioning and removing dams.The amendment to the plan includes the potential removal of four dams along the Kennebec River, which includes the Shawmut in Fairfield, Weston in Skowhegan, and the Hydro Kennebec and Lockwood dams in Waterville. All four are owned by Toronto-based Brookfield Renewable Partners.The dams account for more than 250 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy annually.Last week, a Brookfield subsidiary announced a lawsuit had been filed, suing the Maine Department of Marine Resources and its commissioner, Patrick Keliher. The lawsuit calls the rulemaking process of the Kennebec River Management Diadromous Resources Amendment “unlawful” and seeks to have the amendment process stopped.Brookfield believes MDMR is acting outside its legal rights and in their filing, highlighted deficiencies within the plan, including not allowing the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry or other agencies to assist with the plan and not providing an estimate of the fiscal impact of the project.The filing claims that the Marine Resources agency is not consulting with its sister agencies regarding the provisions of the management plan; it is also not following the plan as it was conceived in 1993.
Sea Level Rise Is Killing Trees on the Atlantic Coast, Creating ‘Ghost Forests’ Visible From Space –Trekking out to my research sites near North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The trees growing in the water are small and stunted. Many are dead. Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees.As an ecologist studying wetland response to sea level rise, I know this flooding is evidence that climate change is altering landscapes along the Atlantic coast. It’s emblematic of environmental changes that also threaten wildlife, ecosystems, and local farms and forestry businesses.Like all living organisms, trees die. But what is happening here is not normal. Large patches of trees are dying simultaneously, and saplings aren’t growing to take their place. And it’s not just a local issue: Seawater is raising salt levels in coastal woodlands along the entire Atlantic Coastal Plain, from Maine to Florida. Huge swaths of contiguous forest are dying. They’re now known in the scientific community as “ghost forests.” Rising seas are inundating North Carolina’s coast, and saltwater is seeping into wetland soils. Salts move through groundwater during phases when freshwater is depleted, such as during droughts. Saltwater also moves through canals and ditches, penetrating inland with help from wind and high tides. Dead trees with pale trunks, devoid of leaves and limbs, are a telltale sign of high salt levels in the soil. A 2019 report called them “wooden tombstones.”As the trees die, more salt-tolerant shrubs and grasses move in to take their place. In a newly published study that I coauthored with Emily Bernhardt and Justin Wright at Duke University and Xi Yang at the University of Virginia, we show that in North Carolina this shift has been dramatic.The state’s coastal region has suffered a rapid and widespread loss of forest, with cascading impacts on wildlife, including the endangered red wolf and red-cockaded woodpecker. Wetland forests sequester and store large quantities of carbon, so forest die-offs also contribute to further climate change.
Major Companies Join Call for Deep-Sea Mining Moratorium — For the first time, major companies are adding their voices to the call for a ban on deep-sea mining.Google, BMW, Volvo and Samsung SD all signed a WWF statement last Wednesday calling for a moratorium on the controversial practice until its environmental impacts are thoroughly understood, Reuters reported.”We welcome this important step, and call on other companies who care about the ocean to join these leaders by signing on to the statement,” WWF International Global Ocean leader John Tanzer said in a press release. “It is a clear message to those who are swayed by the false promise that deep seabed mining is a ‘green’ and attractive investment proposition. It is not so.”Deep-sea mining would involve the extraction of mineral-rich, potato-sized nodules from the ocean floor, asBBC News explained. These nodules contain elements like cobalt that are necessary for building electric vehicle batteries. Proponents therefore argue that mining the seafloor is an important tool for fighting theclimate crisis while being less damaging than mining on land.But WWF counters that the practice could be extremely damaging for little-understood deep-sea ecosystems, harm fisheries and disrupt nutrient and carbon cycles. This argument has proved persuasive to some companies.”It’s the fear that everything we do down there could have irreversible consequences,” senior BMW sustainability expert Claudia Becker told BBC News. “Those nodules grew over millions of years and if we take them out now, we don’t understand how many species depend on them – what does this mean for the beginning of our food chain? There’s way too little evidence, the research is just starting, it’s too big a risk.”In signing WWF’s statement, BMW and the other companies are pledging not to source minerals from the seabed, not to permit them into their supply chains and not to fund any mining exploration. They are asking the moratorium be kept in place until three conditions are met:
- The risks are clearly understood.
- All alternative mineral sources have been used up.
- It is clear the mining can be done in a way that preserves marine ecosystems and biodiversity.
Despite WWF’s concerns, mining companies are moving ahead with exploring the possibilities of deep-sea mining. DeepGreen, GSR and UK Seabed Resources, a UK Lockheed Martin subsidiary, all hold exploratory licenses, Reuters reported. Norway has said it could license companies to begin the practice as soon as 2023.
More than 67 killed after lahar from Mount Lewotolo hits two villages, Indonesia – (video) Torrential rains dumped by Tropical Storm “Seroja” produced deadly lahar on the slopes of Mount Lewotolo volcano early April 4, 2021. According to the AAP, the total number of casualties attributed to Seroja rose to 155 as of early Monday, April 6. 72 people are still missing.The death toll includes 67 people who died in a rain-triggered avalanche of debris from the Lewotolo volcano on Lembata island, said Raditya Djati, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency.Another 49 people were killed on nearby Adonara island and 12 on Alor island.Lahars produced on the slopes of Lewotolo hit two villages — Lamawolo and Jontona, Head of Kominfo Lembata district confirmed.Based on the information provided by the Lewotolo monitoring post, volcanologists have warned villagers that they were prone to lahar flows and asked to evacuate.
New fissures open near the eruption site in Geldingadalir, Iceland (video) Two new volcanic fissures opened near the eruption site in Geldingadalir, Iceland on April 5, 2021. Helicopters from the Icelandic Coast Guard were sent to the new eruption site to make sure the area is evacuated. The fissures are in total 200 m (656 feet) long and are located approximately 700 m (2 300 feet) NE of the craters in Geldingadalir. The lava from the fissures is non-viscous and flows fast in a narrow lava river into Meradalir valley, east of the new fissures, where a new lava field is forming. Because of the lack of ash and tephra emission in the atmosphere, the aviation color code for Keflavik airport remains Orange as there is no imminent hazard for aviation.
Red alert issued for La Soufriere volcano, evacuation ordered, St. Vincent and the Grenadines -Scientists monitoring La Soufriere volcano in St. Vincent and the Grenadines have observed a significant increase in activity at the volcano on April 8, 2021, which has prompted The Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to raise the volcanic alert level to Red and issue an evacuation order for communities in the Red volcanic hazard zone. The UWI-Seismic Research Centre (UWI-SRC) scientific team recorded six separate bands of volcanic tremor throughout the day. This new type of seismic event has not yet been observed since the beginning of the eruption in December 2020. The seismic signal recorded is usually associated with the movement of magma and fluids close to the surface. Ash venting was also observed during the most recent tremor episode. The effusive eruption is continuing and an explosive phase of the eruption may begin with very little warning, the center said. As a result of increased activity, an evacuation order has been issued for communities in the Red volcanic hazard zone. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves made the announcement during the second of two press conferences held in Kingstown on April 8. View of the dome at 2:00 PM local time grabbed by @VincieRichie from the summit cam. We continue to monitor and advise @NEMOSVG #svg #lasoufriere #volcano #stilldangerous #uwi #uwiseimic pic.twitter.com/jgvw5YolJn – UWISeismic Research (@uwiseismic) April 8, 2021 pic.twitter.com/pVXiaXKEhc – UWISeismic Research (@uwiseismic) April 8, 2021 “We cannot give any clear warning that nothing can happen within the next 24 – 48 hours and we would not be surprised if there are explosions at the volcano during that period,” the UWI-SRC Geologist and Scientific Team Lead, Prof. Richard Robertson said. At Red alert level, the public is advised to urgently comply with directives issued by National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO). NEMO has advised that safe areas are those from North Union to Kingstown, on the Windward side of the island, Barouallie to Kingstown on the Leeward side and the Grenadine Islands. In a bulletin released at 03:30 UTC on April 9, UWI-SRC said elevated and continuous periods of gas venting from the summit of the volcano coincided with the bands of tremor, with a well-defined plume at times. Visual observations made from the Observatory at Belmont during the early evening indicate that the dome height increased significantly during the day. The glow from the dome was visible from Belmont.
Powerful explosive eruption at La Soufriere volcano, ash to 12 km (40 000 feet) a.s.l., St. Vincent and the Grenadines – A powerful explosive eruption took place at La Soufriere volcano, St. Vincent and the Grenadines at 12:41 UTC (08:41 LT) on April 9, 2021, producing an ash column that rose up to 12 km (40 000 feet) above sea level. This is a culmination of the seismic activity that began on April 8. Ashfall was reported on the flanks of the volcano and surrounding communities, including Chateaubelair and Petite Bordel. Ash cloud to 3.3 km (11 100 feet) a.s.l. is moving WNW and to 12.2 km (40 000 feet) a.s.l. to ENE, the Washington VAAC said at 18:11 UTC. Video footage of eruption at #LaSoufriere #SVG today. Credit: MVO, Dr Thomas Christopher @soufriere_hills @mvoms pic.twitter.com/p91Z5yXYmS Areas to be affected by pyroclastic flows and surges will be communities in the red and orange zones, UWI-SRC volcanologists said at a press conference held at 15:00 UTC today. Communities across mainland St. Vincent will experience varying degrees of ashfall. The Grenadines may also be affected. The Barbados Met Servies reported that light ashfall can be expected in approximately two hours – around 21:00 UTC. St. Lucia and Grenada may also experience ashfall in the coming hours. The ash plume may cause flight delays. Ash on the ground can cause discomfort in persons suffering from respiratory illnesses and will impact water resources. Another explosion took place at around 19:00 UTC, with ash column estimated at approximately 4 km (13 100 feet) a.s.l. This is the culmination of a significant increase in activity at the volcano detected on April 8, 2021, which has prompted The Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to raise the volcanic alert level to Red and issue an evacuation order for communities in the Red volcanic hazard zone. The UWI-Seismic Research Centre (UWI-SRC) scientific team recorded six separate bands of volcanic tremor throughout the day. This new type of seismic event has not yet been observed since the beginning of the eruption in December 2020, UWI-SRC said. The seismic signal recorded is usually associated with the movement of magma and fluids close to the surface. Ash venting was also observed during the most recent tremor episode.
Vincentians waking up to extremely heavy ashfall and strong sulfur smell, St. Vincent and the Grenadines – (video) Vincentians are waking up to extremely heavy ashfall and strong sulfur smell which have now advanced to the capital after powerful explosive eruptions started at La Soufriere volcano on April 9, 2021. The last eruption of this volcano started on April 13, 1979 (VEI 3) and lasted for about 6 months. Extremely heavy ashfall and sulfur smell are spreading through the nation on April 10 and have already reached the capital Kingstown (population 16 500), National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) reported at 09:32 UTC. Ashfall will be a pervasive hazard throughout St. Vincent and is expected to reach neighboring islands such as Barbados, it added. Volcanic ash is not necessarily deadly but can lead to respiratory problems and may also impact vehicles and plane engines. NEMO reported that residents have been evacuated from the Red and Orange zones, adding that 76 shelters with more than 2 000 residents are fully operational.The first explosive eruption at Soufriere took place at 12:41 UTC on April 9, after more than 42 years of quiescence. Its last eruption started on April 13, 1979 and lasted to November of the same year — Volcanic Explosivity Index 3. After the initial explosion, seismicity increased again at approximately 15:30 UTC with a swarm of earthquakes lasting until 18:40 UTC. Vigorous ash venting resumed at approximately 18:45 UTC, with lightning seen in the ash column due to its highly charged nature. Another explosion took place at 18:48 UTC. Continuous tremor has been recorded since 19:00 UTC, with the largest signals accompanying the most vigorous venting. Violent volcanic ash emissions due to multiple explosive eruptions are ongoing at multiple flight levels, with the highest at 15.8 km (52 000 feet) above sea level, the Washington VAAC reported at 23:46 UTC. At 05:43 UTC on April 10, the center reported volcanic ash is extending nearly 740 km (460 miles) ENE from the summit and about 650 km (400 miles) ESE from the summit.
Volcano erupts in southern Caribbean, sparking evacuation ‘frenzy’ (Reuters) -La Soufriere volcano on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent erupted on Friday after decades of inactivity, sending dark plumes of ash and smoke billowing into the sky and forcing thousands from surrounding villages to evacuate. Dormant since 1979, the volcano started showing signs of activity in December, spewing steam and smoke and rumbling away. That picked up this week, prompting Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves to order an evacuation of the surrounding area late on Thursday. Early on Friday it finally erupted. Ash and smoke plunged the neighboring area into near total darkness, blotting out the bright morning sun, said a Reuters witness, who reported hearing the explosion from Rose Hall, a nearby village. Smaller explosions continued throughout the day, Erouscilla Joseph, director at the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre, told Reuters, adding that this kind of activity could go on for weeks if not months. “This is just the beginning,” she said.St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which has a population of just over 100,000, has not experienced volcanic activity since 1979, when an eruption created approximately $100 million in damages. An eruption by La Soufriere in 1902 killed more than 1,000 people. The name means “sulfur outlet” in French. The eruption column was estimated to reach 10 km (6.2 miles) high, the seismic research centre said. Ash fall could affect the Grenadines, Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada. “The ash plume may cause flight delays due to diversions,” the centre said on Twitter. “On the ground, ash can cause discomfort in persons suffering with respiratory illnesses and will impact water resources.” Local media have in recent days also reported increased activity from Mount Pelee on the island of Martinique, which lies to the north of St. Vincent beyond St. Lucia. Some 4,500 residents near the volcano had evacuated already via ships and by road, Gonsalves said at a news conference on Friday. Heavy ash fall had halted the evacuation efforts somewhat due to poor visibility, according to St. Vincent’s National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO). “The place in general is in a frenzy,” said Lavern King, 28, a shelter volunteer. “People are still being evacuated from the red zone, it started yesterday evening and into last night.”
Life in a Remote Alaskan Community on the Front Line of Climate Change – The world’s high-latitude regions experience climate change at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the world. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Prince Williams Sound in South Central Alaska. The fjords of Prince Williams Sound echo like thunder as glaciers calve off into the sea at an ever increasing rate. The ice loss from this region measures in the tens of billions of metric tons each year. For the roughly 200 year-round residents of Whittier, this loss amounts to far more than just a change in scenery. Whittier is a small, understated community nestled between the icefields of the Chugach Mountains and the shores of Prince Williams Sound. At its surface, the town is not much more than a port, a small collection of tin-roofed restaurants and shops, and the 14 story concrete apartment building that houses nearly everyone in town. There are no chain stores or private homes. The only way in or out of town by land is through a single lane two-mile long tunnel open only periodically throughout the day. Despite this challenging geography, the small number of residents are proud to call this special place home. Despite the small year-round population, Whittier residents still often get together, and look after one another. This fidelity is on full display in the town’s Facebook group: “What’s What in Whittier”. Here community members help each other get supplies from Anchorage, report daily bear sightings in summer, share small town news, and, at least in pre-pandemic times, share items and baked goods, often for free. Like many other communities, Whittier has been dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and the resultant loss in tourist revenue from it. But by May 2020 city officials had another thing to worry about: A team of geologists had discovered that the town is at risk from a tsunami, driven not by seismic activity, but by climate change. Some 28 miles from the town of Whittier lies a glacier-filled fjord in Prince Williams Sound known as Barry Arm. The steep walls of this fjord rise nearly vertically out of the water some 2,000 feet high. The fjord is home to three glaciers: Cascade, Cox, and Barry, all of which have experienced rapid ice loss in recent decades. The largest and fastest receding glacier in this fjord is the Barry Glacier. It’s losing billions of tons of ice each year resulting in a thinner shorter glacier. This has left large sections of the fjord walls exposed and vulnerable. According to a statement released by the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (DGGS) “As alpine permafrost thaws and glaciers thin and retreat, support of the valley walls is degraded and removed, allowing rockfalls and landslides to occur; landslides entering the water have the potential to create tsunami.” Most recently, the destabilization of the Taan Fjord near Icy Bay in 2015 created a tsunami when a landslide was triggered by the retreat from the Tyndall Glacier. The tsunami was estimated to have reached a maximum height of 240 meters or nearly 790 feet according to authors of a 2018 study. DGGS reports that the tsunami threat from Barry Arm has the potential to be even larger than the one generated in Taan Fjord.
Despite pandemic shutdowns, carbon dioxide and methane surged in 2020 – NOAA Research – Levels of the two most important anthropogenic greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, continued their unrelenting rise in 2020 despite the economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic response, NOAA announced today.These graphs depict the mean global atmospheric burden of carbon dioxide as analyzed from measurements collected by NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. Credit: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory.The global surface average for carbon dioxide (CO2), calculated from measurements collected at NOAA’s remote sampling locations, was 412.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2020, rising by 2.6 ppm during the year. The global rate of increase was the fifth-highest in NOAA’s 63-year record, following 1987, 1998, 2015 and 2016. The annual mean at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii was 414.4 ppm during 2020. Economic slowdown prevented a record increase in CO2The economic recession was estimated to have reduced carbon emissions by about 7 percent during 2020. Without the economic slowdown, the 2020 increase would have been the highest on record, according to Pieter Tans, senior scientist at NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory. Since 2000, the global CO2 average has grown by 43.5 ppm, an increase of 12 percent. The atmospheric burden of CO2 is now comparable to where it was during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period around 3.6 million years ago, when concentrations of carbon dioxide ranged from about 380 to 450 parts per million. During that time sea level was about 78 feet higher than today, the average temperature was 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than in pre-industrial times, and studies indicate large forests occupied areas of the Arctic that are now tundra.
Atmospheric CO2 Passes 420 PPM for First Time Ever –The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide surged past 420 parts per million for the first time in recorded history this past weekend, according to a measurement taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii.When the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research station “began collecting CO2 measurements in the late 1950s, atmospheric CO2 concentration sat at around 315 PPM,” the Washington Post reported. “On Saturday, the daily average was pegged at 421.21 PPM – the first time in human history that number has been so high.” Exceeding 420 PPM of the heat-trapping gas “is a disconcerting milestone in the human-induced warming of the planet, around the halfway point on our path toward doubling preindustrial CO2 levels,” the Post noted, adding:There is special significance in reaching and surpassing a concentration of 416 PPM. It meanswe’ve passed the midpoint between preindustrial CO2 levels, around 278 PPM, and a doubling of that figure, or 556 PPM. The record of 421 PPM reached Saturday is just a single point and occurred as CO2 levels are nearing their yearly peak. But the levels over the past two months, of more than 417 PPM, signal that the annual average concentration is likely to exceed 416 PPM.While the growing concentration of atmospheric CO2 – which increases the global average temperature and the number and severity of extreme weather events – is a long-term trend that corresponds with the rise of fossil fuel-powered capitalism, it has accelerated particularly rapidly since the 1970s. The doubling of atmospheric CO2 is expected to increase Earth’s temperature by 2.6 to 4.1C above preindustrial averages, a level of planetary heating that would “rul[e] out more modest warming scenarios,” as the Post noted. “Even if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were to plummet overnight, the planet would continue warming for years to come,” the Post added. That’s because, as Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the Breakthrough Institute in California, told the newspaper: “The amount of warming that the world is experiencing is a result of all of our emissions since the industrial revolution – not just our emissions in the last year.” As the Post reported, CO2 isn’t the only GHG with “worrying trends.” Emissions of methane and sulfur hexafluoride have spiked, too.Although methane doesn’t remain in the atmosphere as long as CO2, it absorbs heat much more effectively, which means that it greatly exacerbates the climate crisis. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, methane is 84 times more potent than CO2 in the first two decades after its release.
What Keeps Climate Scientists Awake at Night? — What really makes this reporter’s stomach churn thinking about climate change? Thawing permafrost. A scenario where it all melts, releasing copious amounts of CO2 and methane (it holds twice as much carbon as the atmosphere holds right now), and there’s no going back. But what’s at the top of the list of concerns for those who study how climate change is unfolding – on ice sheets and urban street corners, in oceans and farm fields – the climate scientists themselves? DW asked a dozen experts spanning climatology, entomology, oceanography and yes, permafrost research, what keeps them up at night when it comes to the climate. Climate scientist Ruth Mottram studies the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and sea level rise for the Danish Meteorological Institute, but it’s not the science that worries her. “I’m less concerned that there are unknown processes going on that we don’t understand, and there could potentially be some unforeseen catastrophe on the way,” she said. “We know what a lot of the impacts are going to be. I think what keeps me awake at night in a metaphorical sense is really the interaction between the physical system and how human societies are going to handle it.”Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Permafrost Laboratory, said that while he thinks about how what happens in the Arctic will affect the rest of the world, his concerns are much more local.”We should remember that there are still some people living in the Arctic,” he said. Around 4 million people in fact who would have to deal with the real-life consequences of solid ground thawing beneath their feet and houses. “Changes in these local or regional kind of climates and environments, they impact these people and some of these impacts could be very severe.”Perhaps not surprisingly, global heating is a key concern for many researchers, like Dim Coumou, who studies extreme weather at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.Of most concern to him are heat and humidity extremes in the tropics – especially highly populated parts like West Africa, Pakistan and India – which will make it unbearable to be outside. When cooling down by sweating is no longer possible, people can’t work outside and therefore can’t grow food. The likely result being mass migration.
Intelligence report ID’s climate change as key security threat – Climate change will lead to a less secure, more crisis-prone world that will strain global institutions, according to a major national security assessment released Thursday. The “Global Trends Report,” produced every four years by the National Intelligence Council, spotlights climate change among the main structural forces shaping the next two decades. Global warming, along with disease outbreaks, financial crises and other forces, will test the “resilience and adaptability” of the international system. There are reasons to believe that many systems large and small may fail under the increased stress. “Climate change will increasingly exacerbate risks to human and national security and force states to make hard choices and tradeoffs,” the report states.”The burdens will be unevenly distributed, heightening competition, contributing to instability, straining military readiness, and encouraging political movements.” Notably, the report also states that the increasing impacts of climate change may lead to increased demand for geoengineering of the climate. Such schemes, just on the drawing board now, might involve artificially counteracting global warming by spraying tiny particles high into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight, for example. While national security experts have referred to climate change as a threat-multiplier for years, it’s noteworthy this report shows climate change playing such a prominent role in shaping the world order through 2040.This is not your typical grim climate report projecting disaster in the year 2100, i.e. the distant future. Instead, the climate change we will see through midcentury is already baked into the climate system, thanks to how the oceans absorb and redistribute heat. Studies show that even if emissions are sharply reduced now we are still in for additional amounts of warming through mid-century, which will lead to more extreme weather events, sea level rise, and other effects.
Groups petition EPA to remove ethane and methane from list of compounds exempt from emissions limits –Hundreds of environmental groups on Tuesday submitted a petitioncalling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take action to curtail ethane and methane emissions responsible for smog.In a statement Tuesday, the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups petitioning, noted that despite ethane and methane’s contributions to smog, they are exempt from emissions limits based on a 1977 understanding of their contributions.The agency’s official definition of “volatile organic compounds” exempts some compounds by classifying them as “negligibly reactive.”However, the agency has historically maintained the right to amend its listing decisions, the petition notes. The groups requested that the agency remove both compounds from the exclusion list. Other groups that signed on to the petition include the Alliance for Climate Education, the Center for Environmental Health, the Clean Air Council, Christians for the Mountains and the Climate Defense Project.The petition also notes methane and ethane’s roles in ozone formation, citing studies that indicate methane is response for about 20 parts per billion of global background tropospheric ozone.”Further, studies have identified that increasing global methane concentrations from anthropogenic emissions contribute to elevated tropospheric ozone levels,” the petition states.”The rapid expansion of the fracking and petrochemical industries has come at the tragic price of millions of asthma attacks and widespread damage to our national parks,” Robert Ukeiley, an environmental health attorney at the Center, said in a statement.”We’re asking the Biden administration to close the EPA loophole that has allowed unchecked methane and ethane pollution to enable this tragedy,” he added.
400 Groups Petition EPA to Control Methane, Ethane Pollution – Center for Biological Diversity – More than 400 groups, representing tens of millions of people, petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency today to control harmful methane and ethane emissions that are the largest industrial source of compounds causing ozone pollution, also known as smog.Some 125 million people in the United States live in areas with smog levels that are consistently above what the EPA considers to be allowable. And although the outsized contributions that methane and ethane emissions from oil and fracked-gas operations make to smog are well documented, the agency has failed to require the use of widely available, updated technology to prevent emissions of those and other air pollutants.”The rapid expansion of the fracking and petrochemical industries has come at the tragic price of millions of asthma attacks and widespread damage to our national parks,” said Robert Ukeiley, an environmental health attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We’re asking the Biden administration to close the EPA loophole that has allowed unchecked methane and ethane pollution to enable this tragedy.”Ozone pollution can cause human health problems like asthma attacks and even death. For every year that ozone pollution violates the national standards, up to 390,000 more asthma attacks will occur in children, according to the EPA. Smog also hurts forests and wildlife.A 2021 survey of western voters spanning the political spectrum found that 91% support requiring oil and methane gas companies to use updated equipment and technology to prevent leaks of methane gas and other pollution into the air. Methane and ethane are also released by the petrochemical industry, which is concentrated in a part of the Gulf Coast known as “Cancer Alley” and in the Appalachian region. “The regulatory sleight of hand that this petition is trying to end enabled the extreme fossil fuel extraction industry, which is just the latest chapter in a long history of the U.S. government failing to treat this land and its peoples with the respect and dignity they are so clearly deserving of,” said Mati Waiya, founder and executive director of the Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation. “There has been a lot of talk from the current leadership of the U.S. government, but the petition presents an opportunity for actual action representing one small step to live up to that rhetoric.”
Louisville’s Super-Polluting Chemical Plant Emits Not One, But Two Potent Greenhouse Gases – – The Chemours Louisville Works emits a chemical feedstock and a separate gas byproduct that do more damage to the climate than 750,000 passenger vehicles, and far more than the Environmental Protection Agency’s main industrial greenhouse gas inventory indicates. Chemours’ most harmful climate super-pollutant is the byproduct, hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23), a potent greenhouse gas that produces 12,400 times more warming than carbon dioxide, the main chemical compound responsible for climate change. But the plant also emits hundreds of tons of hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22 (HCFC-22), a chemical ingredient in everything from Teflon to lubricants used on the International Space Station. In addition to being a climate super-pollutant that is 1,760 times more effective at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, HCFC-22 also destroys atmospheric ozone that helps protect the Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays.As such, its production was banned in the United States and other developed countries on Jan. 1, 2020 under an international agreement known as the Montreal Protocol. But, Chemours is exempt from that prohibition because the HCFC-22 produced in Louisville is used as a feedstock to make other products that do not damage the Earth’s protective ozone layer. In an article last month, Inside Climate News reported that the Chemours plant, in the city’s Rubbertown industrial area, emits so much of the byproduct HFC-23 that venting this single greenhouse gas likely had a greater climate impact than the emissions of all registered vehicles in the city, according to the main industrial greenhouse gas inventory kept by the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. But the report did not include information on the plant’s emissions of HCFC-22, which the EPA makes public in another database used for different purposes – generally, toxic releases to the air, land and water. When data from both EPA repositories are combined, Chemours’ emissions of the two chemicals have a greater annual impact on the climate than the yearly greenhouse gas emissions of 750,000 U.S. passenger vehicles – about 17 percent more than previously reported. The new figure far exceeds the 519,000 cars and light-duty trucks registered in Louisville and accounts for approximately 14 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from the city, based on Louisville’s most current greenhouse gas inventory.
Sweden’s Space Agency Cancels The Project Funded By Bill Gates to Dim the Sun — Climate change is a reality that nobody can deny, and drastic times call for drastic measures. This is what seems to had been in Bill Gates’s mind, as the billionaire wanted to start funding a geoengineering experiment of Sweden’s space agency that implies blotting the Sun with aerosols as an anti-global warming measure. RT.com writes about the jaw-dropping news, and it made a lot of people angry. Therefore, the pressure from eco groups was strong enough to make Sweden’s space agency to call off the event. SCoPEx is the name of the project in question, which stands for the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment. Researchers from Harvard University came up with the idea, and they were aiming to release a cloud of calcium carbonate into the Earth’s atmosphere to study the effects on sunlight. The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) issued the following statement:The scientific community is divided regarding geoengineering, including any related technology tests such as the planned technical balloon test flight from Esrange this summer. We should also take into account this statement:SSC has had dialogues this spring with both leading experts on geoengineering and with other stakeholders, as well as with the SCoPEx Advisory Board. As a result of these dialogues and in agreement with Harvard, SSC has decided not to conduct the technical test flight planned for this summer.However, there’s no reason to worry, according to SCoPEx’s website. The experiment would pose no significant hazard for people nor the environment, as it had the goal of releasing only a tiny amount of particles in the atmosphere.Bill Gates has been the target of COVID conspiracy theories since 2015 when he spoke at the TED conference in Vancouver about a future pandemic that would spread extremely fast and kill millions of people. The billionaire’s involvement in the geoengineering experiment of Sweden’s space agency also adds to his bad reputation, although he may not have bad intentions at all.
Geoengineering the climate: The zombie idea that just won’t die — Just when you think the last boomlet for geoengineering the climate has expended itself and we might be rid of any serious consideration of it as a strategy for addressing climate change, it rises zombie-like from the dead and starts roaming the Earth again. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has recommended spending $100 to $200 million over the next five years to study the idea – its feasibility, possible unintended consequences, and an ethical framework for governing it.What is it that makes us think we can anticipate the consequences of geoengineering the climate with enough precision that we won’t make things worse than they already are? I am reminded of an observation often attributed to Albert Einstein: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” We have treated the building and governing of industrial society as engineering problems. We believe that if we just use the proper equations for building a skyscraper or managing the economy, we’ll be all right.If we treat climate change as simply an engineering problem, albeit on a large scale, we will be faced once again with the possibility of engineering failures on a planetary scale. Climate change is quintessentially a product of the way we think, the reductionist thinking we apply to practically everything we plan and execute in industrial society. We rarely, if ever, think about the consequences of our actions for the biosphere, the very envelope of life-sustaining processes that is our only home.We generally act without reference to systemic effects which can amplify small changes radically. The small changes in the amount of carbon in the atmosphere cannot alone account for changes in the Earth’s temperature. Instead, those small changes trap heat which warms water creating more water vapor which, as it turns out, is the biggest driver of climate change. The excess vapor wouldn’t be in the atmosphere, however, were it not for the small additions to the carbon in the atmosphere brought on primarily through human activity.Today, of course, we regard our carbon emissions as very large even though human-caused additions to the atmosphere are still counted in parts per million. We count those emissions as very large because their effects are very large.If we set out on the path of geoengineering, we may face a host of unanticipated consequences that could be ruinous for some (and not others) – or ruinous for us all. I understand that the inability of our civilization to make any meaningful progress on addressing climate change is truly a crisis. But I do not believe we will address that crisis successfully by deploying strategies that use the same kind of thinking that got us here in the first place.
Biden Administration proposes record budget for NOAA – President Biden’s administration has proposed a budget increase for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that would be the biggest in the agency’s history if approved by Congress. The proposed budget would provide $6.9 billion in funding for the agency, a $1.4 billion increase from the budget enacted for 2021 and nearly $2.3 billion above the amount proposed by Donald Trump’s administration, or roughly 50 percent more. The increase would infuse a massive amount of resources to support the agency, whose responsibilities include weather forecasting, climate research and services, ocean research, the health of the nation’s fisheries and protection of endangered marine species. “These additional funds would allow NOAA to expand its climate observation and forecasting work and provide better data and information to decision-makers, support coastal resilience programs that would help protect communities from the economic and environmental impacts of climate change, and invest in modern infrastructure to enable these critical efforts,” according to the Biden administration’s budget document, released Friday. The agency’s involvement in efforts to fight climate change served as a primary motivation for the fund hikes. “This increase includes $800 million to expand investments in climate research, support regional and local decision-making with climate data and tools, and improve community resilience to climate change,” the document says. “These investments would support an expanded and improved drought early-warning system, as well as competitive grants to build coastal resilience to help reduce the costly economic and environmental impacts of severe weather events on communities.” Weather and climate forecasting are also highlighted as a key area of investment, specifically supporting NOAA’s weather satellite programs. “Families, businesses, and state and local governments rely on NOAA’s weather satellites and forecasts every day,” the document says. “The discretionary request invests $2 billion, an approximately $500 million increase over the 2021 enacted level, in the next generation of satellites, incorporating a diverse array of new technologies, which would improve data for weather and climate forecasts and provide critical information to the public.”
Biden budget’s $14 billion hike for climate includes big boosts for EPA, science (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday proposed $14 billion in spending on initiatives to fight climate change in the 2022 budget, including large cash injections for environmental regulation and science research. ration’s ambitions to decarbonizing the economy by 2050 to stem global warming, reversing a policy direction set by former President Donald Trump to slash red tape that hindered fossil fuel production. Biden’s so-called “skinny”, or preliminary, budget proposal includes $11.1 billion for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a 21.3% boost over last year’s enacted level. It also includes $10.2 billion for the National Science Foundation, up 20% from the 2021 enacted level, with $500 million of that going to climate and clean energy research. An administration official told reporters that the infusion of funding would help restore the federal government’s ability to respond to climate change after the previous administration slashed funding for scientific and regulatory agencies. “Despite the growing threat of climate change, we’ve cut funding for climate science and technology,” the official said, adding the new funding would “help restore the capacity needed to carry out core climate functions, to secure environmental justice for communities that have been left behind and to help developing countries reduce emissions.” The budget includes major new climate change investments and financial support for communities hardest hit by pollution or by the rapid transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The proposal allocates the largest amount ever to invest marginalized and overburdened communities – $1.4 billion, including $936 million toward a new Accelerating Environmental and Economic Justice initiative at the EPA, as well as $100 million to develop a new community air quality monitoring and notification program. It also invests $550 million in a program to remediate abandoned oil and gas wells nationwide, tripling current funding, an effort that would create 250,000 jobs. The request would also increase the Energy Department’s budget by 10.2% to $46 billion. Among new programs it would fund, the DOE would invest $1.9 billion to launch a clean energy and workforce initiative that would help the Biden administration meet a goal of decarbonizing the electricity sector by 2035 through a clean electricity and energy efficiency standard.
The wage gap that threatens Biden’s climate plan – President Joe Biden’s efforts to sell the country’s workers on his climate agenda will face a major hurdle, data obtained by POLITICO show – a big wage gap between the new green energy jobs and the old fossil fuel ones. Energy industry workers employed by solar and wind power companies earn significantly less than those who mine coal or drill for natural gas, according to data compiled by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz’s clean energy think tank. For example, the median wage for solar workers is $24.48 an hour compared with $30.33 for those employed by the natural gas sector, which amounts to a roughly $12,000 annual wage gap. These wage disparities threaten to undermine Biden’s promise that the nation can launch a multitrillion-dollar assault on climate change while growing its economy and transitioning workers to well-paying jobs.Biden himself gets that, said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, an organization of labor unions and environmental groups jointly working on environmental issues. He said Biden understands the value of the labor movement within the transition to a clean energy economy, and highlighted proposals in Biden’s infrastructure plan unveiled last week to beef up clean energy job quality. “His understanding of labor, I think, extends to knowing intuitively that you can’t expect workers and their representatives to embrace this transformation if they can’t continue to get work that will pay family-sustaining wages and benefits and be a career,” Walsh said. “The reality is that there is so much work that will be created by this transformation that it is just imperative that we get the job quality piece right.”
A Green New Deal must put people first – The notion of a ‘Green New Deal’ has gained traction on both sides of the Atlantic. It is primarily politicians on the left such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortezin the US and Yanis Varoufakis in Europe leading the charge for a transformative political agenda to accompany a transition to green energy. Economist and former Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis told us last week there will be collateral damage: “There’s no way of eliminating all losses and all transition costs – social as well as economic.” Varoufakis rose to prominence during the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis, becoming Greece’s finance minister in 2015 as part of the left-wing government led by Syriza. Following his resignation, he formed DiEM25, a pan-European political party that calls for a European Green New Deal.The programme, as currently envisaged, would cost 5 per cent of GDP every year and be funded through green bonds issued by a public investment bank, while a Universal Basic Income would unify workers across sectors and guarantee a wage to the newly redundant.”What matters now is a basic income – free of strings and denigrating processes of approval – it’s like a stepping stone, it allows you to stand on your own feet and reach for something else,” says Varoufakis. “[This] never applied to the mine workers who were made redundant at the start of the miners’ strike.”The Green New Deal would also help to ‘energise’ excess finance. “Look at the masses of liquidity in the financial sector gathering dust or being used [for] share buybacks,” says Varoufakis. “The Green New Deal is a set of policies that repurposes . . . existing liquidity [and] pushes it into . . . the climate change amelioration technologies.”But very little has been done to make this tangible. If climate change risks making much of the world uninhabitable, the current social tumult triggered by the global pandemic provides us with an opportunity to radically rethink the structure of our economies. Even the sceptics who point to the changing ecology of the Tundra as evidence that climate change could make previously uninhabitable environments fit for habitation, must concede that too would require a great deal of planning and preparation.One of the surprising realisations following life in lockdown is the extent to which we often rely on the office for human contact. If the discontent of the 80s and the pandemic teaches us anything, it’s we desire the communities created at work as much as the work itself. If a Green New Deal aims to put people first, we need a bipartisan transition programme that equips individuals with as much time as possible to prepare for the ensuing radical transformation of the workforce. A Universal Basic Income might liberate the worker, but it won’t tackle our need for community.
Kerry: U.S. ‘hopeful’ it can work with China to tackle climate change (Reuters) – U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said the United States was hopeful it could work with China to tackle climate change, despite longstanding disagreements that have affected the bilateral relationship. “Our hope is that we’re going to be able to deal with yes, China,” Kerry told reporters during a visit to the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi on Saturday. “President Biden has made it clear and I’ve made it clear: none of the other issues we have with China — and there are issues — is held hostage to or is engaged in a trade for what we need to do on climate.” Sino-U.S. relations have been strained in recent years by disagreements about trade, China’s treatment of its Uighur minority, as well as China’s actions in Taiwan and Hong Kong. China has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060 while U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration is expected to announce a new target for reducing emissions at a global climate summit on April 22. Kerry will take part in a climate dialogue for the Middle East and North Africa hosted by Abu Dhabi on Sunday. The UAE said the dialogue would focus on national and regional preparations ahead of a United Nations climate summit to be held in Glasgow in November. Kerry said the countries would discuss how to reduce a reliance on coal, as well as how to “raise ambitions” on climate change ahead of November’s conference. “I think the next generations are screaming at us to fulfill our promise,” he added.
Revealed: The Climate-Conflicted Directors Leading the World’s Top Banks The majority of directors at the world’s biggest banks have affiliations to polluting companies and organisations, a DeSmog investigation shows. The findings raise concerns over a systemic conflict of interest at a time when the international financial sector is under increasing pressure to stop funding fossil fuels. DeSmog’s analysis found 65 percent of directors from 39 banks had 940 past or current connections to industries that could be considered climate-conflicted. Directors with affiliations to companies involved in extracting oil, gas and coal – the world’s most polluting energy sources – were well-represented across bank boardrooms, with 16 percent of all board members having current or previous roles in the polluting energy sector. There were also significant ties to banks and investment vehicles supporting polluting industries, as well as to thinktanks and lobbying groups with a history of campaigning against climate action. Geoffrey Supran, Research Associate in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University, said the existence of such ties is “predictable, yet shocking”. “The fossil fuel industry has a well-established track record of ingratiating itself with society’s opinion leaders and decision makers, and because of the revolving doors between the corporate leaderships of incumbent industries,” he told DeSmog. “Having its fingers in all the pies allows the fossil fuel industry to quietly put its thumb on the scales of institutional decision making, helping delay action and protect the status quo.” The investigation assessed the employment history and affiliations of 565 bank directors from the boards of major retail banks in the UK, US, Canada, Europe, South Africa, China and Japan. Directors were found to have a wide range of experience in high carbon sectors, including in polluting energy, aviation, mining, manufacturing, and banks and investment companies known to support the fossil fuel industry. These positions ranged from director and advisory roles, to employment by the companies, and trade association or thintank memberships or affiliations (with data collected up to January 31, 2021). Banks are increasingly saying they will decarbonise by 2050, yet a large number continue to finance fossil fuels, the primary source of carbon emissions. To accelerate action, shareholder activists have filed climate resolutions for upcoming AGMs at three of the institutions analysed. UK bank Barclays and Japan’s biggest bank Mitsubishi UFJ (MUFJ) are considering resolutions for stricter regulations on lending. US bank Wells Fargo is facing a resolution to remove its Chair.
A Top U.S. Seller of Carbon Offsets Starts Investigating Its Own Projects – Following concerns that it is facilitating the sale of meaningless carbon credits to corporate clients, the Nature Conservancy says it’s conducting an internal review of its portfolio of carbon-offset projects. The nonprofit owns or has helped develop more than 20 such projects on forested lands mostly in the U.S., which generate credits that are purchased by such companies as JPMorgan Chase & Co., BlackRock Inc., and Walt Disney Co., which use them to claim large reductions in their own publicly reported emissions. The self-examination follows a Bloomberg Green investigation last year that found the world’s largest environmental group taking credit for preserving trees in no danger of destruction. The internal review is a sign that it’s at least questioning some practices that have become widespread in the environmental world, and could carry implications for the broader market for carbon credits. While the Nature Conservancy declined to answer specific questions about the review, it said in a statement that it aims to meet the highest standards with its carbon projects and that the inquiry will be led by scientists and a “team of experts with deep project knowledge.” Selling credits for well-protected trees potentially undermines the sustainability efforts of some of the world’s biggest companies. Each carbon offset is supposed to represent the reduction of one ton of planet-warming emissions that would have otherwise spewed into the atmosphere without intervention. Around the world, a wide variety of offset projects do everything from protect mangrove forests to destroy heat-trapping gases from landfills and coal mines. But offset payments channeled to already safe ecosystems don’t fundamentally change the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. “The way the Nature Conservancy has gone about this is unconscionable,” says Charles Canham, a forest ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and a longtime board member of a local chapter of the Conservancy. For forest offsets, the difference between the existing trees and the theoretical trees in the baseline scenario determines the amount of carbon credits that get to be sold. But lax rules have allowed project developers to make unlikely claims that huge numbers of well-protected trees were going to be cut. In the case of the Conservancy, many of its projects claim the forests would have been harvested aggressively – much as a commercial timber company would do – in the absence of carbon payments. While this allows the nonprofit to sell more carbon credits, Canham says it doesn’t realistically reflect how a conservation group would manage its land.
Tribes talk priorities with ‘formidable guardian’ Haaland – (AP) – Native American leaders told U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland they see her as a “formidable guardian” and steward of their interests Tuesday during the pueblo woman’s first official trip to her home state, an emotional visit that focused on pandemic relief and underscored the significance of her confirmation. Dozens of tribal leaders gathered in the courtyard of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque for a discussion with Haaland, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico Indian Affairs Secretary Lynn Trujillo and members of the state’s congressional delegation. Tribal leaders told the group their prayers were answered when Haaland was chosen to head the Interior Department, which has broad authority over Native Americans. Haaland is the first-ever Native American cabinet secretary. She wiped tears from her eyes during her introduction and received a standing ovation. “Help is on the way,” she told the group – a refrain that Joe Biden’s administration has been echoing from coast to coast during the many visits White House officials and others have been making to tout the federal government’s latest COVID-19 relief package. Haaland reiterated that every federal agency must recognize its responsibilities to tribes. She also acknowledged the devastating effects of the pandemic on New Mexico’s pueblos and said the Interior Department also lost employees to COVID-19. She placed her hand over her heart as she listened to stories from pueblo leaders and took notes. More broadly, Haaland pressed for addressing climate change and moving toward a clean energy economy. Tribal governors told Haaland that protecting Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico is a top priority, saying they are frustrated that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management hasn’t done more to stem oil and gas development.
Electric school buses: a part of Biden’s infrastructure plan with big benefits – President Joe Biden’s new infrastructure proposal has a lot going on: replacing lead pipes, expanding broadband, improving roads and trains, investing in green energy technologies, and permanently altering the tax landscape to pay for it.But one of its smartest provisions has mostly flown under the radar – a proposal to switch at least one-fifth of the school bus fleet from diesel to electric.It may seem like a minor idea, bundled with other provisions in the plan’s splashy electric vehicle push, but it’s a low-key consequential one. There’s substantial evidence that breathing diesel fumes puts kids at risk and harms their performance at school. Until recently, the battery technology just wasn’t there to switch buses over to electric – but now it is. And Congress should make sure it’s in the final version of the infrastructure bill.It’s no secret that air pollution is bad for people. But more and more research suggests we still underrate its impacts – air pollution really is more harmful than we know. Breathing polluted air causes short-term harm: People exposed to fumes struggle with cognitive tasks and focus. It also causes long-term harm: The more pollution a person breathes in, the greater their odds of hospitalization, health complications, and death.Meta-analyses of hundreds of studies have found strong associations between low levels of air pollution and deadly cardiorespiratory diseases. One recent study looked at the effects of diesel cars that were supposed to meet emissions guidelines, but did not, and suggested that even the slight increase in air pollution from one cheating car meant more kids hospitalized and more babies born prematurely.Another study found that air pollution worsens dementia substantially. And another found that dust pollution in Africa drives a 22 percent increase in child mortality. While hospitalization, life-threatening emergencies, and death are the most dramatic effects of air pollution, there’s a lot of evidence that it’s affecting the rest of us, too. That’s what has driven some researchers to say there is no safe level of air pollution.
Biden plan calls for $100 bln in new EV consumer rebates -email (Reuters) – The Biden administration’s $174 billion proposal to boost electric vehicles calls for $100 billion in new consumer rebates and $15 billion to build 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations, according to a U.S. Transportation Department email sent to congressional staff and seen by Reuters. The EV rebates, part of a $2.3 trillion infrastructure and jobs proposal, could be a big boost to U.S. automakers, especially General Motors and Tesla Inc, which no longer qualify for $7,500 tax credits after they sold more than 200,000 zero-emission models. The White House declined to say how the $100 billion would be distributed or how much the grants will be. In 2019, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer proposed awarding $392 billion in subsidies for owners to trade in gasoline-powered vehicles at least eight years old and in driving condition for electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid or fuel-cell cars. The old vehicles would be scrapped. The Biden plan also calls for $20 billion for electric school buses, $25 billion for zero emission transit vehicles and $14 billion in other EV tax incentives. Treasury said in a report the proposed incentives are “to encourage people to switch to electric vehicles and efficient electric appliances.” Senator Debbie Stabenow and Representative Dan Kildee, both Michigan Democrats, have been working on a bill to revise and expand the EV tax credit, they said in a recent joint interview with Reuters. Kildee wants to skew the credit in favor of vehicles with more affordable vehicles with longer range, to “democratize the electric vehicle market.” He said they are “looking at ways to make the credit more accessible to middle- and lower-income families, potentially even making the credit refundable.”
The U.S. is facing a lithium-ion battery shortage as electric vehicle production ramps up — As automakers continue to grapple with a semiconductor shortage, some experts say the next supply chain crisis for the U.S. could involve lithium-ion batteries.As companies like GM, Ford and a slew of start-ups ramp up their electric vehicle ambitions, current battery production in the U.S. won’t be able to keep up with demand.Though the U.S. has a handful of large-scale battery manufacturing facilities, including Tesla‘s Gigafactory that operates in partnership with Panasonic, a trade dispute between two Korean battery makers, LG Chem and SK Innovation, threatens the future of a new battery factory in Georgia.Watch the video to learn why the U.S. has fallen behind China and Europe, and what needs to happen in order to avoid a bottleneck in EV production.
Betting Big On Electric Vehicles, Biden Faces Fraught Decision On Ga. Battery Plant : NPR –President Biden is pushing hard to get more Americans to buy electric vehicles to rein in global warming and spur domestic manufacturing.The $2 trillion infrastructure plan he is trying to sell to Congress includes about $174 billion to boost electric vehicle sales and production – more than the president proposes spending on roads and bridges.But Biden has now been pulled into a global trade dispute over the fate of lithium ion battery factories in Georgia that threatens his electric vehicle goals for the United States and the Democratic Party’s fragile success in the key swing state.The South Korean corporation SK Innovation has built a large battery factory about 70 miles northeast of Atlanta, in the city of Commerce, population 7,000. Another factory alongside it is under construction, and a third is in the works. All told, they are expected to represent 2 million square feet of manufacturing space.Yet earlier this year, SK said its Georgia operation may shut down because of a ruling against the company by the U.S. International Trade Commission in a dispute with LG Chem, a competitor also based in South Korea.Even with the deep political divisions in the state, Georgia Democrats and Republicans have found common cause in trying to save the factories.Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said the ITC decision “threatens seriously” the future of the project in Commerce and Biden’s own goals.”We would lose 2,600 clean energy jobs in the short term, and 10,000 in the long term,” he said during a Senate Commerce Committee meeting earlier this year. In a letter to the Biden administration, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp requested that the president overrule the trade commission, which he has the power to do.
Biden’s plan to rev up the electric car market is complicated by battery supplies – President Biden’s ambitious plan to jump-start the U.S. electric vehicle market faces a roadblock: a weak supply chain that is making it difficult for American automakers to get enough batteries to scale up production.And that shortage could get worse, depending on whether Biden intervenes this week in a dispute between two top South Korean manufacturers over moves by one to open a battery plant in Georgia to serve the U.S. market. Hanging in the balance are plans by Volkswagen and Ford to roll out about 340,000 new electric vehicles over the next several years.The two South Korean rivals, SK Innovation and LG Energy Solution, are fighting over a factory that SK has been building in Commerce, Ga., to serve VW and Ford, among others. LG accused SK of stealing trade secrets, and the U.S. International Trade Commission agreed, ruling that SK can make batteries in Georgia for only four years before it must essentially shut down its new plant.”Remember that old proverb,” Biden said in February when he signed an executive order to review supply chain issues involving electric car batteries. ” ‘For want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.’ And it goes on and on until the kingdom was lost, all for the want of a horseshoe nail. Even small failures at one point in the supply chain can cause outside impacts further up the chain.”Many companies are eager to answer Biden’s call, offering myriad solutions, including scooping up rare minerals that lie in softball-size nodules on the ocean floor, changing battery chemistry and assembling and packing battery cells in factories around the United States.”There is an arms race around the world to build as much lithium capacity as possible to gain dominance in the electric vehicle space,” said Simon Moores, managing director of London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, specializing in lithium-ion batteries and the electric vehicle supply chain.The decision in the trade case, which was before the U.S. International Trade Commission, would force SK to shut down its Georgia plant. Moores, who was paid by SK to study the U.S. market, says closing that factory would take 15 percent of batteries off the market this year and 8 percent in 2030, reducing U.S. capacity by more than 50,000 vehicles a year.
EPA to propose vehicle emissions standards to meet ‘the urgency of the climate crisis’ by July’s end — The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to propose stricter emissions standards for vehicles by the end of July, EPA Administrator Michael Regan said Tuesday. Regan told Bloomberg News in an interview that the new standards would be sufficient to meet “the urgency of the climate crisis.” “We need to go as far as we can to meet the demands of the day,” Regan added. “The science indicates we have a short window in time to reverse the path that we’re on and mitigate against certain climate impacts.” An EPA spokesperson told The Hill that the timeline was dictated by an executive order from President Biden that requires the administration to review the former Trump administration’s rule that relaxed the emissions limits by July. The spokesperson confirmed that the EPA is on track to meet that timeline. That rule also loosened the requirement for fuel economy standards, which dictate how much gasoline per mile that the U.S. fleet can consume, which the Biden administration could also tighten. The executive order also requires a review this month of the decision to revoke California’s ability to set its own tailpipe emissions standards, which have been stricter than the federal government’s standards and adopted by a number of other states. Regan told Bloomberg that he is “a firm believer in the state’s statutory authority to lead.” According to the news outlet, he also did not rule out the possibility for additional regulations in the future that would essentially ban new conventional gas-powered cars. “We’re taking a strong look at what the science is urging us to do. We’re looking at where technologies are,” the administrator said. “We’re marrying our regulatory policy and what we have the statutory authority to do with where the science directs us and where the markets and technology are.” The transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country, making up 28 percent of the country’s emissions as of 2018, meaning that these standards could have major impacts on the country’s contribution to climate change.
Ford Transit to Be First Russia-Built Electric Vehicle – A spokesman for Russian automaker Sollers says the Ford Transit BEV will be built simultaneously with the diesel-powered version of the van. Planned production volumes and other details of the project have not been disclosed.
Ohio Paint Factory Explosion Injures Eight — Multiple people injured in paint plant explosion in northeast Columbus – YouTube –An explosion at an Ohio paint factory injured eight people, two of them critically.The fire ignited just after midnight on Thursday at Yenkin-Majestic Paints in Columbus, Ohio, NBC4 reported. Firefighters arriving on the scene were met with employees exiting the building, five of whom were injured and needed to be taken to a hospital.”Two other employees were trapped inside the building and had to be rescued. They are in critical condition at OSU Main,” Columbus Fire Battalion Chief Steve Martin told ABC News.Everyone harmed in the fire are plant employees. One person remains missing; the Columbus Division of Fire wrote on Facebook that they had searched the entire building.Martin told the paper that firefighters were doing everything they could to find the missing person. About 40 employees were in the plant when the fire started, The Columbia Dispatch reported.The explosion that started the fire damaged part of the building where it ignited, making the search and rescue effort more difficult. The spreading fire triggered other explosions, including one in another building within 100 feet from the first building that caught fire.Firefighters managed to contain the blaze by 5:15 a.m., according to the Columbus Division of Fire.”There will still be visible black smoke rising from the original fire building as we let some of the products burn off,” the division wrote on Facebook.The cause of the fire remains under investigation. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) workers checked the surrounding air and water for chemicals, WBNS reported.
Texas Storm Is Windfall for Some Wall Street Firms – WSJ -A handful of Wall Street firms that bet big on the power sector in recent years made millions in paper profits when the winter storm in Texas boosted demand for the electricity generated by plants they own. SoftBank Group Corp.’s Fortress Investment Group LLC and Kennedy Lewis Investment Management LLC, a $3 billion credit hedge fund in New York, were two of the biggest winners in the trade. Other significant investors include Avenue Capital Group, Guggenheim Partners LLC, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset-management arm and Pacific Investment Management Co.In February, when subfreezing temperatures forced the state’s grid operator to call for widespread blackouts, some natural-gas plants in Texas were still able to sell electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes, often at higher than usual prices. Collectively, two companies – Temple Generation I and TexGen Power – that own many of the plants made more than an estimated $200 million over the storm’s course, according to investors in the power-generation companies.Owning more than 90% of Temple and TexGen are overlapping sets of investment firms.In the wake of the Texas storm, there have been state hearings and public outrage at energy price increases that were pushed onto retailers. Some of the state’s largest power-generation companies lost hundreds of millions of dollars each as they grappled with outages and gas supply issues.The plants largely owned by Wall Street firms took steps in the days before the storm to increase the chances they would remain operational. In the end, they were among the few to actually make money.Fortress, Kennedy Lewis, Avenue, Guggenheim, JPMorgan’s asset-management arm and Pimco declined to disclose the return on their investment or speak publicly about any profits.
FERC seeks more input on PJM capacity market construct, possible reforms – Following up on discussions during a technical conference in March, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is seeking additional input on capacity market constructs as state policies are increasingly affecting resource entry and exit, including whether new market rules could be implemented in PJM Interconnection without delaying its December capacity auction. Grid operators and stakeholders for the most part supported doing away with minimum offer price rules, as currently constructed and imposed on capacity markets in the Eastern regional transmission organizations, during a March 23 commissioner-led technical conference, the first in a series planned to help modernize electricity market design. Conversations focused on PJM’s expanded MOPR revealed mixed opinions as to what should follow, with participants offering a range of views on how the 13-state grid operator’s multi-billion-dollar capacity market can support states’ varying decarbonization strategies.FERC in an April 5 notice (AD21-10) invited interested parties to submit post-technical conference comments by April 26, with reply comments due May 10.While the notice said comments could be filed on any topic discussed at the technical conference, which also looked at ISO New England and New York Independent System Operator’s capacity markets, the commission specified 22 questions it would like answered on the implications of retaining PJM’s existing MOPR and prospective alternative approaches that could replace the current framework.FERC, through the notice, asked commenters to reflect on the urgency in which they believe PJM’s capacity market rules must be reconciled with state policies. Among the questions was whether a phased approach should be adopted, and if so, should short-term actions include eliminating the expanded MOPR and replacing it with a targeted MOPR.S&P Global Platts Analytics maintains that the current MOPR’s impact on PJM’s upcoming capacity auction for the 2022-23 delivery year will be “negligible.””The amount of renewables subject to MOPR and thereby removed as price takers from the supply curve is not sufficient to materially impact clearing prices RTO-wide,” analyst Kieran Kemmerer said in an April 6 email. “Additionally, existing nuclear resources receiving subsidies and subject to a non-zero offer price floor [in Illinois and Ohio] have struggled to clear in recent auctions, and thereby an imposition of an offer price floor is unlikely to alter offer behavior or influence clearing prices relative to delivery year 2021-22.” Kemmerer added that Platts Analytics is bearish in its outlook for RTO clearing prices, “driven primarily by updates to [PJM’s demand curve, or variable resource requirement,] and an influx of new gas-fired generation in western PJM.”
After passing a landmark climate law, Mass. officials now face the hard part: how to wean the state off fossil fuels – Over the coming decades, the state’s largest utilities have plans to spend billions of dollars upgrading a vast network of aging pipes and mains that distribute natural gas, after billions they’ve already spent in recent years.But much of those plans clash with a landmark bill that Governor Charlie Baker signed last month that requires the state to effectively eliminate its carbon emissions by 2050.Some environmental advocates and lawmakers fear that continued investments in gas infrastructure could hinder the transition to renewable energy and leave ratepayers covering the costs of an obsolete energy system for decades. They support repairing leaky pipes and those that pose a danger to the public, but they’re pressing the utilities to spend far more on zero-emissions technologies.”It’s just fiscally irresponsible, and it sets up a classic utility death spiral,” said Zeyneb Pervane Magavi, co-executive director of HEET, a Cambridge nonprofit that specializes in energy efficiency. “As people move off the gas system, you have fewer people paying for it, meaning they will be shouldering more of the costs. It’s a disaster.”Officials at the largest gas companies have issued mixed messages, saying in public they fully support the state’s efforts to drastically reduce the use of fossil fuels. But in private meetings with industry colleagues they have suggested they would resist efforts to curtail the use of gas, which has been a cash cow for utilities. It’s now up to state officials to decide how and when to compel utilities to phase out their reliance on gas, which they long touted as a “bridge fuel” to an emissions-free era, as it releases less carbon than oil and coal. Gas now heats more than half of all homes in Massachusetts.
Seward plant enters consent agreement with DEP, pays $108,000 civil penalty – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said Wednesday that it entered into a consent order and agreement with Seward Generation LLC to resolve outstanding violations to the Air Pollution Control Act at its waste coal-fired, steam electrical generation station in East Wheatfield Township.In the consent order dated March 31, DEP said Seward Generation LLC agreed to pay a $108,000 civil penalty, submit a plan approval application for the modification and submit detailed information about operating conditions for the preceding month, at the plant across the Conemaugh River from Seward.According to the order, Seward has 60 days to submit to DEP “an administratively complete plan approval application that contains an analysis of the best available technology for reduction” of sulfur dioxide emissions from two circulating fluidized bed wste coal-fired boilers. “Companies are required to install and maintain the best available technology to minimize the emissions from air pollution sources,” said John Holden, acting director of DEP’s Northwest Regional Office in Meadville, which covers Indiana County. “They are also responsible for anticipating changes to their operations to avoid violating the conditions of their permits.”Under a contract with Seward Generation, NRG Maintenance Services LLC operates that station at 595 Plant Road, between Seward and New Florence boroughs on the Indiana County side of the Conemaugh River.
Feds yank Okla. mining oversight after tribal lands ruling — Wednesday, April 7, 2021 — The Interior Department told Oklahoma last week that it will take over coal mine regulations on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation after a Supreme Court ruling last year reestablishing tribal jurisdiction over land in the state.
White House Climate Advisor Sees A Path To Clean Energy Through Coal Country -For decades now, rhetoric around action on climate change has been about things like saving the planet, or saving polar bears. Just think: How many times have you seen an image of ice crashing into the sea from a melting glacier, or a sad-eyed seal atop a floe, as part of a climate change message? But Gina McCarthy – the veteran environmental policy maker President Joe Biden has picked as his top climate advisor – is making a very different case for climate action. “I want people to know that this isn’t about a planet. This is about our people. This is about our families,” McCarthy said in our recent interview. Forget about polar bears and seals. McCarthy wants to talk about plumbers and steelworkers and the other blue-collar Americans who could play a part in greening the country’s infrastructure and economy. It’s not that melting ice caps and the like don’t matter for her – they do. But she’s more interested in making action on climate change something that ordinary working people can feel that they have a stake in, rather than something they have to worry about as a potential threat to their livelihoods. “We do have to act, we have to act on climate,” she said. “But we also have to act to make sure that there’s no worker and no community left behind.” The coal and gas producing parts of the Ohio Valley and Appalachia are, arguably, among the most likely to feel left behind by a clean energy transition. Communities there have long depended on extracting and burning fossil fuels for jobs and revenue. Fears about the job losses that could come from climate action became ready fodder for Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns. Kudzu grows near a coal preparation plant in eastern Kentucky. But the region’s coal sector has suffered years of steady declines, even in the absence of a cohesive national policy on climate change, and even with the support of a friendly Trump administration.
Bill requiring utilities to keep 30-day coal supply under contract moves closer to passage – The West Virginia House Energy and Manufacturing Committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would require coal-fired power plants owned by public electric utilities to keep at least 30 days of coal supply under contract for the lifespan of those plants. Senate Bill 542, which now goes before the full House of Delegates, also would require public electric utilities to give notice to the West Virginia Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, the state Public Service Commission and the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Government and Finance before announcing the retirement or proposed shutdown of an electricity-generating unit.
Some lawmakers want to change how natural resources are taxed – but it would end up costing local governments – Two bills to change how West Virginia’s natural resources are valued for property tax purposes are moving through the Legislature. Proponents say the measures – which would probably lower the taxes companies pay – are necessary to address statutory and constitutional requirements. But it could also reduce the tax money that goes to counties, and many local officials are balking at the price tag. “There’s a lot of legislation this session that would impact counties financially, and it seems like it’s all coming at once,” said Jennifer Piercy, executive director of the County Commissioners’ Association of West Virginia. “Counties want to be involved in these conversations, because we’re directly affected.” Piercy said many counties are already struggling financially. Most have seen declining populations that lead to less property tax revenue, on top of high jail costs and losses driven by the pandemic, such as by dips in hotel-motel tax revenue, she said. “I think that the fundamental question here people have to ask [is], ‘Are the large companies going to pay these taxes?'” said Delegate David Pethtel, D-Wetzel. “Or is the county commission and school board? Do they have to raise the levy rate and put this back on individual property homeowners?” State property must be assessed equally and uniformly, per the West Virginia Constitution. According to state law, property must also be assessed at its “true and actual value.” A pair of industry-supported bills have been introduced, sparked by concern that these standards are not being met. House Bill 2581 would change the way the state’s oil and gas wells are taxed, while House Bill 2493 would change coal property’s taxation. The bills have been gaining momentum: both have passed the House of Delegates and still have a chance of passing the Senate before the session ends late Saturday. The state Tax Department estimated that a former version of the oil and gas well bill would have cost counties more than $9 million total in its first full year, with most of the losses congregated in a handful of counties. A fiscal note for the bill says that some losses to county school boards would be offset by the state School Aid Formula, which is funded through the state’s general revenue. But local school boards would still see an overall decrease of $5.2 million for schools alone and would cost the state $1.1 million in the 2023 fiscal year under the Public School Support Plan. But the decision over changes has been delayed. An amendment approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday afternoon delays any changes, leaving the role of developing such a rule to the state Tax Department. The bill has now been sent to the Senate Finance Committee for consideration.
More U.S. Coal Power Retired Under Trump Than in Obama 2nd Term -Remember all of Donald Trump’s promises to put coal miners back to work? Turns out, his repeated attacks on the environment to try and bail out dirty fuels were all for naught. More coal-fired power was taken off the grid under Trump’s presidency than under former President Barack Obama’s second term, a new analysis from Global Energy Monitor shows.Trump’s only been out of office for a couple months, but it’s kind of wild to remember just how hard Trump worked to do favors for the coal industry. In addition to rolling back more than 100 environmental regulations over the course of his term, let’s not forget how cozy he was with coal executives – and how his Department of Energy tried to check off items from a literal “wish list” of suggestions to save the industry from coal baron Bob Murray.But the new report, which is the 2020 version of an annual release from Global Energy Monitor, a non-governmental organization that keeps track of fossil fuels, has the cold, hard truth: A coal-friendly Washington was no match for the market forces that were dragging down coal, plus a pandemic in Trump’s last year that hit the industry hard.”The fact that coal plant retirements under Trump exceeded Obama shows that coal is in structural decline in the U.S.,” Christine Shearer, the Program Director for coal at Global Energy Monitor, said in an email. “Coal simply cannot compete with lower-cost alternatives, even with a presidential administration that did everything in its power to increase coal use and prolong the life of coal plants.”Over the four years Trump was in office, a total of 52.4 GW of coal-fired power was retired, compared to 48.9 GW in Obama’s second term. (Only 18 GW of coal power was retired under Obama’s first term.) This is a little different from the number of coal plants: 289 coal-fired units retired in Obama’s second term, versus 172 in Trump’s term. But those numbers alone don’t tell the story: “A lot of small coal units retired under Obama, and the units that retired under Trump were bigger on average,” Shearer explained.Before you celebrate, there is some bad news on the global coal front. According to the report, the world actually added coal capacity development last year for the first time in five years, despite coal plants falling like flies in the U.S. and other countries. Most of this new development was in China, which commissioned 38.4 GW of new coal plants last year – 76% of the world’s total new construction.
China Started More Coal Plants Than The Entire World Retired In 2020 – Despite commitments to become a net-zero emission economy by 2060, China – the world’s biggest carbon emitter – commissioned more coal-fired capacity last year than the rest of the world retired, a new report showed this week.China’s coal boom in 2020 more than offset the retirements in coal capacity in the rest of the world, leading to the first increase in global coal capacity development since 2015, a report led by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found.China commissioned 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal plants in 2020, offsetting the record-tying 37.8 GW of coal capacity retired last year, the report showed.China’s coal boom accounted for 76 percent of the global 50.3 GW new coal capacity. Globally, commissioning of new plants plunged by 34 percent annually in 2020 due to difficulties obtaining financing and delays due to the pandemic. India, which continues to rely on coal, saw coal power capacity increase by just 0.7 GW in 2020, with 2.0 GW commissioned and 1.3 GW retired, according to the report. China also has 88.1 GW of coal power under construction. Another 158.7 GW is proposed for construction. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is retreating from coal capacity and is announcing coal retirements.Last year, the retirements were led by the U.S. with 11.3 GW and the EU with 10.1 GW of retired coal capacity.
Texas radioactive waste disposal company seeking break from state fees and surcharges – Depending on who is interpreting it, legislation moving closer to a vote in the Texas House and Senate would either shut the door to the state ever becoming home to high-level radioactive waste or carve at a path to bring it in.Two separate but similar bills – one in the House and the other in the Senate – seek to lower state fees and surcharges imposed on a company called Waste Control Specialists that operates a storage and disposal site in Andrews County, near Texas’ border with New Mexico. Federal regulators are reviewing plans to sell retiring nuclear reactors to nuclear waste management company for quicker decommissioning. Questions have been raised about whether the companies have the experience and funds to do the job. (May 21) (Photo: AP)The site houses low-level radioactive waste from facilities such as nuclear power plants, sundry industries and from health care facilities that use x-ray and radiation therapy for care of their patients.Waste Control Specialists says it needs the financial breaks that would cost the state about $1.4 million a year to remain competitive. But environmental groups opposing both bills argue that the breaks would leave Texas short of money in the event WCS should go belly up and taxpayers would be stuck with the bill for managing the site for centuries into the future.The environmentalists have an unlikely ally in one of Andrews County’s oldest traditional energy companies and its largest private landowner, Fasken Oil and Ranch Ltd.The legislation’s chief authors. Odessa Republican Brooks Landgraf in the House and Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, in the Senate, say it contains safeguards to prohibit high-level radioactive waste from ever being shipped to Andrews County for disposal. “A person, including the compact waste disposal facility license holder, may not dispose of or store high-level radioactive waste or spent nuclear fuel in this state,” a section in both bills reads. Landgraf’s version, House Bill 2692, has passed out of committee and is awaiting placement on the full House’s calendar. Committee consideration of the Senate version, S.B. 1046, could come as soon as Thursday.
Texas lawmakers want to ban dangerous radioactive waste. The proposal would give a nuclear waste company a big financial break. – As a nuclear waste company’s plan to store the most dangerous type of radioactive waste in West Texas moves forward at the federal level, state lawmakers are aiming to ban the materials from entering the state.Environmental and consumer advocates for years have decried a proposal to build a 332-acre site in West Texas near the New Mexico border to store the riskiest type of nuclear waste: spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants, which can remain dangerously radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.A bill advancing in the House, filed by Rep. Brooks Landgraf, R-Odessa, whose district includes Andrews County – where the proposed facility would be located – seeks to stop the plan by banning that type of radioactive waste from being disposed of or stored in Texas. But House Bill 2692 would also give that same company a big break on state fees it pays for its existing disposal facility for lower-risk radioactive waste. “This bill bans high-level waste altogether,” Landgraf said during a committee hearing in March, “and focuses on making low-level waste the safest and best, most competitive and most efficient facility it can be.”Waste Control Specialists has been disposing of the nation’s low-level nuclear waste, including tools, building materials and protective clothing exposed to radioactivity, for a decade in Andrews County. The company is currently pursuing, with a partner, a federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to store spent nuclear fuel on a site adjacent to its existing facility.Interim Storage Partners applied for the license in 2016. Scientists agree that spent nuclear fuel, which is currently stored at nuclear power plants, should be stored deep underground, but the U.S. still hasn’t located a suitable site. The Interim Storage Partners plan proposes storing it in above-ground casks until a permanent location is found. It expects federal regulators to make a decision sometime this year.
NRC fines Fla. utility $150K over falsified nuclear records — Friday, April 9, 2021 —The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a $150,000 fine against Florida Power & Light Co. after finding that workers at a nuclear plant in Miami-Dade County deliberately put wrong information on maintenance records two years ago.
Japan Comes Clean, Admits Dumping Fukushima Radioactive Water In Pacific Ocean Is Now “Unavoidable” –While Japan last month marked the 10th anniversary of the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami with solemn ceremonies, the government has also been stressing the successes of its recovery efforts in the country’s northeast. In truth, however, the country is still coping with the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, which has already cost Japan trillions of yen and whose exclusion zone will require up to 40 more years to fully rehabilitate.And with contaminated water continuing to build up at the ruined Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga says that the government must finally begin dumping it into the Pacific Ocean.With nuclear waste and fuel rods still contaminating the area, over one million tons of radioactive waste water continue to seep from the facility, according to The Japan Times, forcing authorities into what Suga describes as the”unavoidable” position of having to dump the water.Officials claim that the water would be purified to the maximum extent possible, but environmentalist groups like Greenpeace warn that the water contains hazardous material that could damage human DNA and the health of marine life.Fishermen also fear that consumers will refuse to buy fish caught in contaminated waters, worsening their plightamid a restriction of imports from Fukushima prefecture imposed by 15 countries and regions.
Man who claims he had bomb outside nuclear plant arrested – A Michigan man who drove to a nuclear power plant outside Cleveland and claimed he had a bomb has been arrested.The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement released Thursday that a 33-year-old man from Adrian, Michigan, drove to the entrance of the Perry Nuclear Power Plant around 6 p.m. Wednesday and refused to leave.He told plant security officers he had a bomb in the trailer attached to his pickup truck, officials said. No bomb was found.The Sheriff’s Office said there was no ongoing or imminent threat to the plant in North Perry Village. The man could face false alarms and aggravated trespassing charges, officials said. He is being held in the Lake County Jail.An independent company called Energy Harbor took ownership of the plant and other FirstEnergy Corp. assets in February 2020 as part of a deal struck in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.The plant is roughly 35 miles (56 kilometers) northeast of downtown Cleveland.
Perry Nuclear Power Plant incident: Michigan man arrested —A 33-year-old man from Adrian, Michigan, has been arrested for his alleged role in a “law enforcement situation” that took place at the Nuclear Power Plant in Lake County on Wednesday.The Lake County Sheriff’s Office announced Thursday morning that Michael Fogelsong was booked into the Lake County Jail on charges of making false alarms (a third-degree felony) and aggravated trespass (a first-degree misdemeanor). Additional charges may follow pending an investigation, authorities said.”Upon arrival, it was found that the male had driven a pickup truck pulling an enclosed trailer to the entrance of the facility,” according to a press release from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office. “When confronted by plant security, the male claimed to have a bomb in the trailer.”Neither the truck nor the trailer contained any dangerous materials “after a detailed inspection by the Lake County Bomb Squad.”Authorities say their investigation led to Fogelsong’s arrest, but investigators are still looking into the situation. “We want to ensure everyone that there is no ongoing threat or imminent threat to the Perry Nuclear Power Plant,” authorities said. “This appears to be an isolated incident.” Falls Communications, which handles public relations for Energy Harbor Nuclear Corporation (the owner of Perry), previously reported that the situation involved two people who mistakenly drove onto the property.
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