As wildfire smoke from Canada plagued parts of the United States for the second time this summer, expanding into parts of the Midwest and East Coast, cities were caught unprepared. While a few put out alerts, outreach was limited. People walked through the smoke, often with little understanding of the health risks. Once the risks were clear, some people donned masks to prevent lung damage.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) announced on Wednesday that at least 45 percent of tap water nationwide is likely contaminated with one or more type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, a family of harmful “forever chemicals” that do not break down in the environment and can now be widely detected in water supplies and virtually all of our bodies.
Papua New Guineans have been challenged to “actively contribute” towards development projects like the Boroko Transformation Project if citizens want to see change in the Pacific’s largest country.
Prime Minister James Marape issued this challenge this week when launching the National Capital District Commission’s Boroko Transformation Project in Port Moresby.
“This must happen. We all have a job to do, a role to play. Not just here in Port Moresby, but also around the country,” Marape said.
“If you want Papua New Guinea to develop, you have a job to do as well. Take care of Boroko.
“Don’t spit betel nut spittle here. We do not have other cities, we only have this city.”
Betel nut is the seed of the fruit of the areca palm with distinctive blood-red juice. It is chewed with betel leaf and lime for their effects as a mild stimulant, causing a warming sensation in the body and slightly heightened alertness.
It is popular across Papua New Guinea and in neighbouring countries.
24-hour business hub
The Boroko Commercial Business District will undergo major developments to enable it to achieve the status of a 24-hour business hub that is clean and safe for residents, businesses and visitors.
NCD Governor Powes Parkop said this project is part of NCDC’s Vision 2030 to transform Port Moresby.
“This city carries our name. It is our image, our pride. It is the first place of arrival and the last place of departure for all our friends, investors and tourists from all over world,” he said.
“They define our people and our country by this capital city of ours. That is why it is very important that we lift this capital city leaving no stones behind.”
According to City Manager Ravu Frank, the plans for the Boroko Transformation Project were drawn up in November last year and since then, more than K400,000 (NZ$186,000) has been spent in major clean-ups and road work programmes, setting the foundations for developments expected in the future.
“The Boroko Transformation project is all geared to achieve our desire, wish and objective of a clean, safe, healthy and a planned Boroko for a liveable environment,” Frank said.
On Monday this week, Boroko was declared a “betel nut-free zone” and other similar regulations will kick in as the transformation project unfolds.
Republished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Pastor Philip Schmitter waited more than 20 years for the Environmental Protection Agency to do its job. In 1992, he’d filed a civil rights complaint to halt the construction of a power station that would spew toxic lead into the air of his predominantly Black community in Flint, Michigan. Decades passed without a response, so he joined four other groups around the country in a lawsuit to compel…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
By Giff Johnson, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal and RNZ Pacific correspondent
Following widespread media coverage of the collapse of what was a more than US$70 million trust fund for Bikini islanders displaced by American nuclear weapons testing, the United States Congress has demanded answers from the Interior Department about the status of the trust fund.
Four leading members of the US Congress put the Interior Department on notice last Friday that Congress is focused on accountability of Interior’s decision to discontinue oversight of the Bikini Resettlement Trust Fund.
In their three-page letter, the chairmen and the ranking members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and the House Committee on Natural Resources — which both have oversight on US funding to the Marshall Islands — wrote to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland with questions about what has happened to the Bikinians’ trust fund.
It was initially capitalised by the US Congress in 1982 and again in 1988 for a total investment of just under US$110m.
Protests in Majuro
The Congressional letter is the first official US action on the Bikini Resettlement Trust Fund and follows several demonstrations in Majuro over the past six weeks by members of the Bikini community angered by the current lack of money to support their community.
The letter notes that on November 16, 2017, Interior accepted Kili/Bikini/Ejit Mayor Anderson Jibas and the local council’s request for a “rescript” or change in the system of oversight of the Resettlement Trust Fund.
As of September 30, 2016, the fund had $71 million in it, the last audit available of the fund.
“Since then (2017), local officials have purportedly depleted the fund,” the four Senate and House leaders wrote to Haaland.
“Indeed, media reports suggest that the fund may have been squandered in ways that not only lack transparency and accountability, but also lack fidelity to the fund’s original intent.
“If true, that is a major breach of public trust not only for the people of Bikini Atoll, for whom the fund was established, but also for the American taxpayers whose dollars established and endowed the fund.”
They refer to multiple media reports about the demise of the Resettlement Trust Fund, including in the Marshall Islands Journal, The New York Times, Marianas Variety and Honolulu Civil Beat.
No audits since 2016
The Resettlement Trust Fund was audited annually since inception in the 1980s. But there have been no audits released since 2016 during the tenure of current Mayor Jibas.
The lack of funds in the Resettlement Trust Fund only became evident in January when the local government was unable to pay workers and provide other benefits routinely provided for the displaced islanders.
Since January, no salaries or quarterly nuclear compensation payments have been made, leaving Bikinians largely destitute and now facing dozens of collection lawsuits from local banks due to delinquent loan payments.
‘Fund is in jeopardy’
The letter from Energy Chairman Senator Joe Manchin and ranking member Senator John Barrasso, and Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman and ranking member Raul Grijalva says American lawmakers “have a duty to oversee the management of taxpayer dollars appropriated for the resettlement and rehabilitation of Bikini Atoll”.
The letter also repeatedly makes the point that the money in the trust fund was only to rehabilitate and resettle Bikini Atoll, with projects on Kili or Ejit islands limited to only $2 million per year, subject to the Interior Secretary’s prior approval.
“Regrettably, the continued viability of the fund to serve its express purpose now appears to be in jeopardy,” the US elected leaders said.
The US leaders are demanding that Haaland explain why the Interior Department walked away from its long-standing oversight role with the trust fund in late 2017.
Specifically they want to know if the Office of the Solicitor approved the decision by then-Assistant Secretary Doug Domenech to accept the KBE Local Government’s rescript “as a valid amendment to the 1988 amended resettlement trust fund agreement.’
They also suggest Interior’s 2017 decision has ramifications for US legal liability.
Key questions
“Does the department believe that the 2017 rescript supersedes the 1988 amended resettlement trust fund agreement in its entirety?” they ask.
“If so, does the department disclaim that Congress’s 1988 appropriation to the fund fully satisfied the obligation of the United States to provide funds to assist in the resettlement and rehabilitation of Bikini Atoll by the people of Bikini Atoll?
“And does that waive any rights or reopen any potential legal liabilities for nuclear claims that were previously settled?”
They also want to know if KBE Local Government provided a copy of its annual budget, as promised, since 2017.
The letter winds up wanting to know what Interior is “doing to ensure that trust funds related to the Marshall Islands are managed transparently and accountably moving forward?”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
By Jimmy Ellingham, RNZ News reporter
Fifty years ago 242 men left New Zealand on a mission to Moruroa Atoll in French Polynesia.
The crew of HMNZS Otago, and later the frigate Canterbury, were sent there to protest against French nuclear testing.
Little did they know that the fallout from the mission would continue decades later, with health problems and worries about the effects on their children and future generations.
Prime Minister Norman Kirk farewelled the Otago on 28 June 1973.
Twenty-year-old sailor Tony Cox was on board.
“I was standing on the deck along with a lot of other guys, and Norman Kirk was with the skipper, talking to various members of the crew.
“He said to me, ‘Don’t worry about anything, son. Nothing’s going to happen, but if it does, we will look after you’.”
Witnessed atmospheric test
A month later the Otago witnessed an atmospheric test just over 20 miles away.
The crew initially sheltered below deck.
“As soon as the flash had gone they said we could go up and have a look, so [we went] up the ladder and opened the door and out we went,” Cox said.
“It was a bit disappointing. It wasn’t like the movies. It was almost a straight line to start with, then it started to form into a mushroom. It had a pinky, grey colour to it.”
Fellow Otago crewman Ant Kennedy turned 20 at Moruroa.
“I got married at Honolulu. I didn’t know I was going to be married then. We were on the way to southeast Asia to be part of New Zealand’s deployment there.
“Then we were called back and it was jokingly called Norm’s Mystery Tour.”
Labour government opposed
France started nuclear tests in the Pacific in the 1960s and Kirk’s Labour government was staunchly opposed.
Cabinet Minister Fraser Colman travelled there on the Otago, and transferred to the HMNZS Canterbury when it took over protest duties.
Aboard the Canterbury, Gavin Smith also witnessed a test.
“We were inside a gas-tight citadel for the explosion. We never thought about the consequences of it until much later, and then people started dying and getting crook.
“We realised that the seawater around there was contaminated. The seawater was used on board for washing vegetables. We washed in it, bathed in it.”
The water was desalinated, but that didn’t remove radiation, as Cox recalls.
“The water around us was contaminated. We didn’t know that,” he said.
‘No fish, no seabirds’
“There were no fish there, so that was a waste of time. There were no sea birds anywhere. They were well dead, gone. It was totally different to all the different oceans I’ve been through over the years.”
Kennedy said his health was okay, but he knew he was one of the lucky ones.
He remembers one fellow sailor needing surgery.
“He had this bad cancerous stuff on his face. And a guy called Cloggs. He was a signalman on Canterbury. He was at one of our reunions, and basically he came to that and that was that.
“He was younger than me.
“I thought, holy hell. This seems to be a bit out of the ordinary. You’d expect fit, young sailors to live into their 80s.”
About 20 years ago Cox’s oncologist told him he had a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Excessive doses of radiation
“[He said], ‘The only time you get this type of cancer is from excessive doses of radiation. Where would you have got that from?’
“I said, ‘I did go to a nuclear bomb test,’ and he said, ‘That’ll do it’.”
Veterans’ costs are covered for sickness arising from service.
But as Smith, the president of the Moruroa Nuclear Veterans group, said, there was concern about subsequent generations.
The group, formed in 2013, is active in trying to get recognition for possible effects on their families.
“Our children and grandchildren have oddball illnesses and we would like to know if that was a result of our service at Moruroa,” Smith said.
“Are we passing on bad genes or are we not?
Asking for DNA testing
“All we ask is for DNA testing to be done and when science can prove that fact one way or another we have an answer.
“If science does prove we have passed on bad genes we would simply like our children and grandchildren and the next generations to be looked after if they have an illness that’s related to our service.”
So far, that has not happened, despite regular lobbying of officials and ministers.
For Donna Weir, whose father Allan Hamilton was aboard the Canterbury, that concern was real.
Hamilton died in 2021 from aggressive cancer.
“I have had fertility problems, multiple miscarriages and things like that. We have kids who have problems that nobody can explain, if that makes sense.”
That included stomach and vision problems.
So much trouble
Weir said one older sister, who was conceived before 1973, had no such trouble.
The nuclear test veterans deserved greater recognition for their service, she said.
“They’re some of New Zealand’s most forgotten heroes, I think.
“I asked Dad if he knew then what we now know, would you have gone. His answer was quite simply, ‘I signed up to serve my country and that’s what I did.’”
French nuclear tests in the Pacific went underground from 1974, but continued until 1996. France conducted a total of 193 nuclear tests at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in the Pacific, 41 of them atmospheric.
Veterans’ Affairs has been approached for comment.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Statement from Lana Goldberg, Ontario Climate Program Manager
Toronto | Traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Huron-Wendat – As wildfires continue to burn across the country and air quality has become an urgent concern in Ontario, the province’s recent gas plant expansions and extensions are utterly irresponsible. Ontario does not need any more fossil gas, it can easily meet its growing electricity demand with clean sources like wind and solar power, which would be less expensive for residents too.
While Ontario’s Energy Minister indicated that new gas projects would require municipal resolutions in support, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The recent capacity expansions have gone ahead without such support and likely any consultation at all. Both Toronto and Brampton City Councils seem to have been caught off guard by the announcements and are rightly concerned about the impact these new contracts will have on their ability to meet emissions reduction targets. Instead of supporting municipalities in meeting their targets, the province is steamrolling them by expanding the lifespan of polluting gas projects that they don’t want or need.
The good news is that the Ontario government’s interest in new gas plants appears to be encountering some hurdles. The IESO was only able to drum up proposals to meet half of its intended new gas generation capacity during its expedited contract process. This may be due to the anticipated Federal government’s Clean Electricity Regulations that will likely require grids across Canada achieve net zero emissions by 2035. The province needs to face the reality that the only way forward is to focus on building clean electricity projects like wind and solar.
Background information:
Find out more about Ontario’s gas problem at NoMoreGasPlants.ca
ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.
– 30 –
For more information or to request an interview, please contact:
Carolyn Townend, Environmental Defence, media@environmentaldefence.ca
The post Statement on IESO’s Continued Push for Polluting Gas Power appeared first on Environmental Defence.
This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.
As guilt mounts over humanity’s inaction in the face of the climate crisis, industrialized capitalists have adapted their tactics to meet the demands of a more environmentally conscious market; by selling the image of sustainability!
Touted as the green transportation of the future, demand has exploded for electric cars. This has, in turn, increased the demand for lithium and other rare earth metals, with corporations rushing to open as many new mines as possible. Indigenous elders have been at the forefront of resistance to this latest wave of extractive capitalism, particularly in Peehee Mu’huh also known as Thacker Pass, Nevada, where the Ox Sam Indigenous Women’s camp has been resisting the construction of what would be North America’s largest lithium mine.
Later, subMedia’s nihilist weather droid, UV-400 brings us the latest updates in the climate crisis with a global weather report. Included are record-breaking wildfires in Canada, a heatwave and devastating floods across China and an earthquake in Haiti.
Finally, in so-called Peru, Indigenous warriors seized oil tankers in yet another flare up of the ongoing tensions with Canadian oil company PetrolTal.
For more information on the Ox Sam Indigenous Women’s Camp visit OxSam.org.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by subMedia.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
By John Mitchell in Suva
Fiji got to celebrate World Oceans Day this week — a day when our conscience gets the occasional prick on matters related to the value of the ocean in sustaining life.
I like to brag about growing up surrounded by the sea and those unique moments during childhood I spent rowing across Qamea’s picturesque and mangrove-fringed Naiviivi Bay, plucking seashells from shallow tide pools and digging up vetuna (sandworm) from the sand.
Yes, the sea is a way of life for all of us.
Think of this.
The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the planet.
It is our life source, supporting humanity’s sustenance and existence, and that of every other organism on earth.
The ocean produces much of the oxygen we breath and need to survive, it is the habitat of most of earth’s biodiversity and is the main source of meat protein for more than a billion people around the world.
40 million ’employees’
The ocean is key to our economy with an estimated 40 million people to be employed by ocean-based industries by 2030.
In Fiji, an estimated 60 percent of the 900,000 population are thought to live in coastal communities, surviving on activities linked to the ocean, and our fisheries and tourism sectors are so intrinsically connected to the health of the ocean.
But the ocean we call our home is facing a variety of threats that challenges its existence and endangers humanity.
United Nations statistics say that we have depleted 90 percent of big fish populations and destroyed 50 percent of coral reefs.
“We are taking more from the ocean than can be replenished. We need to work together to create a new balance with the ocean that no longer depletes its bounty but instead restores its vibrancy and brings it new life,” the UN says.
With such dreadful reality in the backdrop, the 2023 WOD theme seemed timely and relevant — “Planet Ocean: tides are changing”.
It provides us with an opportunity to rethink what we’ve done, what we need to do and how to work together with world leaders, decision-makers, indigenous leaders, scientists, private sector executives, civil society, celebrities, and youth activist to make the health of the ocean a public agenda.
Clean up day
On Wednesday this week, The Fiji Times’ front page photo was of Josaia Waqaivolavola, a Year 2 student from Veiuto Primary School who was captured on camera participating in a beach clean up at My Suva Picnic Park along the Nasese foreshore.
His group collected 10 trash bags filled with plastics, among others.
It’s when we see the amount of rubbish along our coastlines and in the sea around us that we begin to realise that all the talk about “putting rubbish in the bin” is not working.
We talk about responsible citizenship but plastics continue to pollute our communities, roads, streets and parks, and our oceans.
Plastics have become so cheap to produce that we are producing things we don’t intend to keep for long.
In other words, we are producing plastics only to throw them away.
We are now mass producing disposable plastics at a phenomenal rate that the world’s waste management systems are finding hard to keep up.
40% of plastics disposable
It is estimated that about 40 percent of the now more than 448 million tonnes of plastics produced every year is disposable and used in products intended to be discarded virtually soon after purchase.
Just go to the beach and you’ll find them on the sand.
World statistics estimate that each day billions upon billions of plastic material find their way into our rivers, streams and eventually into our oceans.
During my childhood years on Qamea, my family’s livelihood depended on the sea.
At a time, when village canteens had no refrigerators to store meat, the sea was our main source of daily meat protein.
Many years ago, scientists and environment experts were warning us that the amount of plastics in the world’s ocean would increase 10 times by 2020.
That was three years ago.
Too polluted for fish
They further advised that by 2050, if statistical predictions remain true, we’d have so much plastics in the sea and our oceans would too polluted that fish and other delicacies would be unsafe to eat or we’d not be able to even swim anymore.
Cleaning the ocean is good but may not be good enough.
We need to nip this spiralling issue in the bud.
We need to work before the plastic reaches the ocean.
We need to work on land where they are produced before we go to the ocean.
In Fiji, the concern over disposable plastic waste is the same as the threat in other countries of the world — we are using more disposable plastics at a rate faster than we are able to effectively dispose them that our waste managing systems are struggling to contain the problem.
Recycling not effective
Our recycling initiatives are not effectively solving our disposable plastic dilemma.
During this year’s WOD celebrations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the ocean as “the foundation of life”.
That pretty much sums everything up.
If the ocean is life, then why can’t we get out act together.
The ball is in everyone’s court and the time to act is now.
Until we meet again, stay blessed, stay healthy and stay safe!
John Mitchell is a Fiji Times journalist and writes the weekly “Behind The News” column. Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
Record-breaking Canadian wildfires continue to fill skies across much of North America with smoke, putting about 100 million people under air quality alerts. New York City recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world as a result of the haze. Around the world, air pollution is already responsible for as many as 10 million deaths per year, and the problem is likely to get worse, says New York Times opinion writer David Wallace-Wells. He explains how today’s smoky skies are a glimpse of our future in the climate crisis, when warmer temperatures and dry conditions will continue to increase the size and severity of wildfires across the globe. “It’s not just that we’re getting more fires, and it’s not even that they’re getting larger. They’re also getting much more intense, which means that they are cooking much of the landscape,” says Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. We also hear from Cree/Iroquois/French journalist Brandi Morin, who just returned from reporting on the wildfires raging in the remote Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan in Canada’s North, which she calls the “epicenter of the effects of climate change because it’s downstream from one of the largest oil production developments in the world, Alberta’s oil sands.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! Audio and was authored by Democracy Now!.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
During the second round of negotiations for a global plastics treaty in Paris this week, diplomats have clashed over competing priorities — including the role of recycling and how to address toxic chemicals. But some experts are arguing that one issue in particular should anchor the ongoing talks: climate change. “It’s not just a plastics crisis; it’s a climate crisis,” said Kristen McDonald…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday vetoed legislation pass by congressional Republicans and corporate Democrats to stop the federal government from protecting public health and the planet, blocking a resolution passed by both chambers last month to gut water protections.
Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.), and Jon Tester (Mont.) joined former Democrat Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and every Republican in the Senate to pass H.J. Res. 27 last week, following the bill’s passage in the GOP-controlled U.S. House.
The legislation rejected the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition of the “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) that are protected under the Clean Water Act, as “traditional navigable waters, the territorial seas, interstate waters, as well as upstream water resources that significantly affect those waters.”
The regulation, introduced in December, is expected to restore protections for millions of marshes and other waterways after the Trump administration wiped out those regulations, permitting increased industrial pollution in nearly half of all wetlands across the country.
Biden’s veto, said the president will protect Americans’ right to clean water.
\u201cI just vetoed a bill that attempted to block our Administration from protecting our nation’s waterways \u2013 a resource millions of Americans depend on \u2013 from destruction and pollution.\n \nLet me be clear: Every American has a right to clean water.\n \nThis veto protects that right.\u201d— President Biden (@President Biden) 1680809643
Republicans would need a two-thirds majority to override Biden’s veto—a level of support they’re unlikely to get.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday claimed that a presidential veto would allow EPA officials to regulate pollution “way outside the authority that Congress actually provided in the Clean Water Act,” and expressed hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately rule that the government cannot protect navigable waters from industrial pollution.
The veto is the second of Biden’s presidency. Last month he vetoed a resolution that attempted to overturn a rule allowing retirement fund managers to consider the impact of their investments on the climate and planet.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
The chemical compound ethylene oxide is manufactured and used in hundreds of facilities across the United States. Linked to lymphoma, leukemia, and breast cancer, the carcinogen is used to sterilize about half of all medical devices in the country. Over the last few years, as evidence of its toxicity has become more clear, regulators have attempted to step up enforcement against ethylene oxide…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
This is the first part of a two-part series exploring fossil fuel company Perenco’s impact on communities and the environment across the world.
A fossil fuel company made the news this week when it polluted the waters of a UK natural harbour in the South of England. On Sunday 26 March caused a major incident in the second largest natural harbour in the world. The company currently operates 70 wells at the Wytch Farm onshore oilfield in Dorset. The Anglo-French firm spilled 200 barrels of oil and water from a pipeline under Poole Harbour. Using Perenco’s figures, iNews estimated that the company discharged at least 4,740 litres of oil into the water.
However, the spill was not isolated incident. Perenco operates in 15 countries across the world, and has caused environmental destruction and harm to communities in many of these places. Moreover, by contrast to the spill in Poole Harbour, the company has rarely taken responsibility for these ecocidal crimes and human rights violations.
In the town of Muanda on the Atlantic coast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hundreds of oil spills have devastated the rivers and pastures of the mangrove region. Perenco operates at least 250 oil wells here. The exact number is unknown. Perenco states that, at its onshore fields alone, it has commissioned an average of 25 wells per year since 2002. This would put the number at somewhere over 500 wells. However, residents estimate they number closer to 800.
Unlike at Wytch Farm, Perenco has not released information on the scale of the oil leaks in Muanda. Investigative non-profit group Disclose states that records suggest Perenco has caused at least six crude oil spills. The company took over the end-of-life oil assets from Chevron in the early 2000s.
However, after 167 pollution incidents in the DRC, Perenco has failed to clean up the environmental damage. Instead, to get justice for the communities living there, in November 2022 two French civil society organisations took Perenco to court.
In other words, while Perenco is responding to the pollution they’ve caused in a wealthy county in the South of England, their operations continue to devastate multiple communities and critical biodiversity hotspots in the Global South. And they do so with impunity.
Perenco has donated tens of thousands of pounds to Dorset conservation non-profits for their local work. The fossil fuel company has been doing so to ensure it can continue to operate its Wytch Farm well-sites through to 2037.
In order for Dorset County Council to extend their permits, Perenco had to agree to provide £1.7m to local community nature and biodiversity schemes. The contribution was to offset the:
residual adverse impacts of the proposed continued operation of the oilfields.
This is perhaps ironic, in light of the current environmental circumstances. Yet while it might be opportunistic greenwash, the local council has at least ensured that Perenco is investing in nature and the community in Dorset. Whereas, the community in Muanda have not been so fortunate. French NGO CCFD Terre-Solidaire refers to the town as “the poorest oil city in the world”.
In 2014, the non-profit wrote a report in French about the impact Perenco was having on the community there. The title of the report roughly translates to ‘Oil in Muanda: Cheap Justice’.
Investigative media outlet Multinationales paraphrased the group’s findings, which said that Perenco’s operations in the area did:
nothing to lift the inhabitants of Muanda out of poverty. Malnutrition and the absence of infrastructure and the most basic services (water, electricity, waste) remain the rule there. The official unemployment rate there is 95%.
Instead, it said that the report found that:
the operations of Perenco cause pollution, environmental degradation and social upheavals that affect the fundamental rights of these populations
Meanwhile, as Perenco fails to address the poverty that persists in oil-rich Muanda, the owners of the company have been making billions.
The French Perrodo family own the fossil fuel firm. Ka Yee (Carrie) Wong Perrodo inherited the company from her husband in 2006, after he died in a hiking accident. In 2020, their net worth was US $3bn. Additionally, in 2022 the Sunday Times Rich List showed that the family ranked 38th richest in the UK. Moreover, throughout the pandemic the Perrodo’s have been increasing their wealth.
At the time of publication, Forbes Real Time Billionaires data showed that Carrie Perrodo and her family were the 224th richest in the world. According to Forbes, they have a current net worth of US $8.8bn.
Yet while Perenco’s owners swell their billions, the company’s operations threaten the livelihoods of multiple communities worldwide.
In Gabon, Perenco has caused multiple oil spills and pollution in the Étimboué region. In January 2021, a coalition of locals and NGOs lodged two complaints against the company in Gabon’s economic centre, Port Gentil. The local community had previously raised how the pollution was destroying people’s agricultural and fishing livelihoods.
In a video the community published on Facebook in November 2020, farmer Lydie Rebela stated:
For years now, there have been oil leaks all over the place. They spread throughout the area during the rainy season, when the polluted areas are flooded and the water carries toxic substances everywhere. My crops are gradually losing yield
Meanwhile, as the Poole Harbour Commissioners advised local harvesters to pause the sale of shellfish from the area, local fishers in Gabon continued to suffer the long-term impacts of spills. One local fisher voiced the impacts Perenco oil spills were having on their livelihood:
In 2012, there was a big pollution in the Nkomi lagoon, and many dead fish were found floating on the surface of the water. Since then, it is as if the fish have fled the area.
Even after the community lodged its complaints, in April 2022 Perenco caused another significant oil spill in the region. While Perenco estimate approximately 200 barrels of oil pollute the waters of Poole Harbour, the company discharged 300,000 barrels before containing a leak on the west central African headland.
Globally, Perenco has endangered the health and livelihoods of multiple communities.
While its owners reap billions in profit, the company also exploits workers in its operations across the globe. For instance, it has discriminated against workers in both Cameroon and the DRC. In Columbia the company reportedly illegally outsourced work in an attempt to undercut unionising workers. Additionally, during the pandemic in 2020, the company put workers’ health at risk. Employees at one of Perenco’s offshore rigs in Trinidad and Tobago reported that they were being forced to work after testing positive for coronavirus (Covid-19).
Naturally, communities and supporting civil society organisations have turned to the courts for justice. Cases over Perenco’s operations in the DRC, Gabon, and Ecuador show the challenges of holding big oil to account. The powerful industry can retaliate, and in 2008, Perenco did exactly that when the Ecuadorian government increased the windfall tax on its soaring oil and gas profits.
Then-president Rafael Correa argued that an increase to the oil and gas windfall tax was necessary to account for:
the extraordinary benefits that the investors haven’t done anything specific to receive.
Most of the existing oil contracts had been agreed when oil prices averaged US $24 a barrel. In 2007, these had risen to US $90. When Perenco refused to pay the new windfall tax, the Ecuadorian government seized its assets. Consequently, Perenco initiated an arbitration under the France-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) over its lost profits. Perenco won the case. As a result, Ecuador is due to pay US $351m to Perenco by the close of 2023.
The arbitration with Ecuador and the litany of human rights and environmental impacts worldwide show how Perenco is holding communities to ransom. Whether it’s funding greenwashing in the UK or alleged collusion with repressive state forces and corporate courts in the Global South, Perenco has utilised every means at its disposal to ensure it can keep extracting every last drop of oil.
Human rights and environmental campaign organisation Sherpa and Friends of the Earth France continue to seek justice for the communities in the DRC. Executive director of Sherpa Sandra Cossart said that the Perenco case is:
emblematic of the impunity of corporate groups whose activities negatively impact the environment and the rights of communities. In Muanda, according to numerous sources, air, water and soil pollution affect the living conditions of communities. It is now up to the Court to determine the liability of the French company, taking into account notably its so-called environmental commitments.
The oil spill in Poole Harbour should be a lesson, and not just about the damage Perenco is causing to people and the environment here in the UK. The company’s environmental and human rights record internationally shows that ending fossil fuel infrastructure at home isn’t enough. Moreover, the communities Perenco is hurting across the world deserve our support. In the fight for justice against fossil fuel goliaths, we don’t win this alone – we do it together.
Part two of this series will explore Perenco’s impact on indigenous communities. It will also delve into the way it funds and allegedly colludes with repressive military forces to oppress local communities fighting the company’s extractive projects.
Sign the Greenpeace and 350.org petitions calling on the president of the DRC to stop the development of new oil fields in the Congo rainforest. As of January 2023, Perenco had yet to rule themselves out of the auction for these oil and gas blocks.
Featured image via Youtube/Sky News
This post was originally published on Canary.
I’m back at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport Oregon, part of the Oregon State University campus harboring marine mammal-fisheries-benthic-ocean researchers and students.
The topic: How humans decimated whale populations through hundreds of years of industrial whaling, leaving some species and populations on the brink of extinction. But despite these impacts, many whale populations have made remarkable recoveries, demonstrating the ability of threatened and endangered species to bounce back from intense human pressure.
The presenter: Joshua Stewart, a new faculty member at OSU’s Marine Mammal Institute, PhD from Scripps Institute of Oceanography.
The running joke with Stewart last night was he WAS not Bradley Cooper, and so he let people know not to be too disappointed that instead of that overpaid undertalented Holly-Dirt guy (my phrasing) we were in for a presentation by a nerd, a passionate whale guy, and young at that!
He’s been focusing on the Southern Right whale and the Antarctic minke, but his interest is also around the many species of whales/cetaceans not recovering despite whaling and hunting of those species having been stopped decades ago.
The history of whaling as a commercial endevour goes back to the Basques, a thousand years ago, going after the Right Whale, so called southern Right whale. Then after a few centuries with simple boats, things got going, and in fact the Basques went for Northern Right whales with larger ships. They had a 500 year monopoly on commercial whaling.
The big push in whaling occurred in the 1700s, Nantucket, and that included the big ships of Moby Dick fame. Then, into the 1800s and 1900s the ships had steam engines, and alas the range for these whalers extended far and wide. Processing ships were introduced, with diesel engines and factories on board, and with the advent of massive industrialization for the two “great” wars, the whalers got explosive harpoons and fast engines.
So, whereas for more than 700 years the blue and fin whales were too fast for the simple whalers, hence they were not being decimated by the whalers of that age. In the 1950s, however, as Stewart stated, more than three million whales were killed, which he calls the largest cull of wild mammals in the world. Many species became “commercially extinct,” i.e., the few numbers left in these species were not profitable enough for the big commercial operations.That included blues, sperms and fin whales.
I cut my teeth in the early 1970s on fighting whaling, that is, the commercial whaling tyranny. That effort globally — stopping whaling — super-charged the first Earth Day:
We are now 53 years later, and guys like Stewart, 35, is looking at declining whale populations, including the Southern Resident Orcas:
There are 73 (total) of these distinct salmon eaters left, and the issues around climate change, habitat degradation and their prey availability play into any researcher’s tool chest. Many of these iconic animals generations ago were part of the live capture “industry” to supply killer whales to theme parks.
The issue around sea traffic, the noise from that traffic, the pollutants in that Salish Sea (Vancouver and Seattle area), the food stock (Chinook salmon) and climate change play into the degradation of the Southern Residents, as their offspring are coming out smaller, stressed, and a skinny whale triples the probability of dying in the first year of life.
There were around fifty of us there, March 23, and the auditorium allowed for the first time the beer and wine drinkers to bring in their libations. There were fellow researchers in attendance, as well as students, both graduate and undergraduate. As far as the public, it seems that most people going to these talks are associated with academia or marine research. As I point out time and time again — where are the K12 kids? This was a 6 pm event. Stewart’s slide show/Power Point was good, and he is young (he kept alluding to the fact he is doing research on the backs of old-timers still working as researchers). This is an existential crisis in my mind. Having like minded, fellow marine wonks at an event is NOT enough in 2023. It’s barely anything, really. There are no outreach programs for K12 and families and fisher folk, and since this is after school hours, there seems to be no way in hell of getting high schools students who are interested in science and math and engineering in general to come out to these events. America is a cultural waste land, and one with dream hoarders ruling over the rest of us.
This is the echo chamber that is science, in my estimation. I can’t fault the students there from OSU, or the retired faculty or the active faculty, but this sort of event I have attended in the hundreds over the course of 50 years as a diver, then student of marine sciences, journalist, writer, educator and sustainability “wonk.”
There are no avenues now in 2023 built-in to go above and beyond, and surely, the happy hours/social hour from 5 to 6 pm could have been an hour where students got a little tour of the Hatfield which does have a public access educational center:
Yes, we have the Oregon Aquarium, a commercial marine park of sorts. And the Hatfield Visitor Center does get public attendance, but the K12 schools here in Lincoln county need to do outreach. We also need crab and fisher folk here to to have an open discussion with these wonky folk like Joshua Stewart who may or man not agree with the mitigation ideas, including limiting catches, closing seasons, biodegradable lines, and more.
Here’s my piece on the Oregon Aquarium: Depth of Experience? 20 years with Oregon Coast Aquarium gives CEO deep blue view of world
And, I’ve covered many of the researchers at Hatfield and in our Coastal area:
I am finding many of my stories I did for Oregon Coast Today have vanished from the sister company, Discover Our Coast. This is disturbing, the culling of my work, as always. However, I have a book with all those stories captured in their original form, here: Coastal People inside a Deep Dive: stories about people living on the Central Coast and other places in Oregon.
Back to Stewart, AKA “not” Bradley Cooper: His work looks at the last two decades of declines with spring chinook salmon, through the San Juan Islands up to Vancouver Island. That’s an 85 percent decline in those salmon. As the orcas’ food stock, that means their lives are now in peril because of all those other factors, including food availability.
Here on the Coast we have the iconic gray whales, coming from breeding grounds in Mexico and Central America, making their way to the Arctic. We have whale watching as one tourist attraction, as the gray whales hang out here and push volumes of water into the sand to eat the anthropods that make small tubes as their feeding ritual. The only whale — a baleen whale, filter feeder, that is — which does this sort of feeding is “our” gray whale. ((Here’s another piece: Gray Whales Are Dying: Starving to Death Because of Climate Change; and another: Understanding the ocean’s web of life; and another: Experts paint sobering potential for sea change.))
So, those gray whales, while in a state of recovery and delisted from the Environmental Species Act list, are still experiencing massive die offs, and the food they get in the Arctic is losing its own biomass, that is, the body weight has declined by one-third in the last fifty years.
So, like orca, gray whales are being studied now with drone photography, and the body shapes can be tracked over entire lifetimes. The lower the weight, the tougher it is on the individual and species in general.
Line entanglements are a big issue, as fishers use lobster and crab “pots” in the tens of thousands on our coast and east coast, with a buoy at the surface. Whales get entangled, and some live days, months and even a year with the gear in tow.
And, ship strikes are becoming a bigger and bigger issue not just on the USA’s coast, but worldwide.
Obviously, if there are more Fraser River spring Chinook salmon, then there will be a healthier Southern Resident Killer Whale population. But fish stocks are declining, and so many other factors play into the marine mammals’ overall health worldwide.
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all. Why then do you try to ‘enlarge’ your mind? Subtilize it.
–Hermann Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 74 – “The Sperm Whale’s Head”
While gray whales were almost hunted to extinction, with 1,000 left, they have been delisted from the ESA — now estimated to be around 20,000 total population. However, researchers like Joshua are looking at these UME’s, Unusual Mortality Events.
2019-2023 Gray Whale Unusual Mortality Event along the West Coast and Alaska: Since January 1, 2019, elevated gray whale strandings have occurred along the west coast of North America from Mexico through Alaska. This event has been declared an Unusual Mortality Event (UME).
There are so many issues that marine mammals face in this industrialized, highly toxic and waste heavy modern society. Lobster/crab gear entanglements are possibly a small problem when compared to the microplastic now found in the zooplanton’s, anthropods’ and the whale’s bodies. Add to that mercury and PCBs, and we have a triple toxic soup for the mammals.
We can imagine what the carrying capacity is for one whale species, and these researchers have “cool” jobs when they get to go out to sea and chase whales and tag them and photograph them and collect their feces, for sure. Here, yet another piece from my work attending these Science on Tap Hatfield events: Whales and People: A Tragedy! (note: you will see two live links referenced here in this story, which are now no longer available; I have a sneaking suspicion that the university’s thugs, PR spinners, got to the publisher of Discover Our Coast, to knock out all articles tied to OSU that I wrote!)
At the end of the talk, I asked Joshua to look at the glass half EMPTY. A few in the crowd were not happy about “ending on a negative note” (Yikes, this is academic in a nutshell). His biggest fear is climate change, which is warming seas, that is, where certain areas of the ocean are heating up faster than others. Sea ice is melting earlier and capping over later (according to the past 80 years or more data), and food stocks for marine mammals are become less and less.
This is the continuing story of extinction, and the supreme right of homo sapiens consumopithecus to rule the world, rule all species, and rule even a majority of our own species in this criminal and corrupting and colluding Capitalism. And, well, green washing and green pornography have taken center stage, man, in the so called sustainability arena. I was head of many sustainability initiatives. Here, a long time ago: Sustained Discussion And, from a standing column I headed up, Metro Talk: Facing uncertainty, the Inland Empire needs more than a global warming bucket list
I showed many a class as a college teacher, Empty Oceans Empty Nets
The film is 2002!
So much work put into research and documentary making. But is it all echo chamber, now that the world is run totally by banks, hedge funds, Blackrock, Vanguard, Pharma-Media-Military-Congressional-Mining-Oil-Gas-Prison-Insurance-Surveillance-IT-AR-Digital Complex? Empty Nets, Emptying Oceans, Farming the Sea, and Soylent Green is People?
On a happy note, the crowd at Hatfield drank locally produced IPA’s, Oregon wine and locally backed pasteries. There was not mention of Greta’s honory doctorate from Helsinki, and Putin was not blamed for the the UME’s.
All was well at OSU, as if the world outside was outside of the bubble that is academia. Your choice, Stewart or Cooper!
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
A new report by the EPA’s internal watchdog has exposed Trump administration appointees that meddled in the agency’s science to weaken “the toxicity assessment of PFASs.” If not for the Biden administration, which discovered this egregious complicity by political appointees and the chemical industry to weaken standards of toxicity, Americans would be unnecessarily exposed to dangerous chemicals beyond the abhorrent levels of exposure already extant.
Shortly after taking the oath of office, Trump grabbed a baseball bat and waddled over to EPA, eviscerating the agency created under President Richard Nixon’s administration in 1970 to protect the country from too much toxicity and carefree abuse/dumping anything and everything into the environment, e.g., Lake Erie considered a “dead lake” in the 1960s.
Trump chased many EPA senior scientists out, some fled to France. “The nation’s top environmental agency is still reeling from the exodus of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during the Trump administration.” (“Depleted Under Trump, a ‘Traumatized’ E.P.A. Struggles With its Mission,” New York Times, Jan. 23, 2023)
As research continues to expose the dangers of PFASs, it’s become the new symbol of toxicity in America. A recent study by Environmental Working Group scientists uncovered disturbing levels of PFASs in America’s freshwater fish found throughout the country from coast-to-coast. Every citizen of America is already subject to exposure to this dangerous chemical that Trump wanted to let loose beyond established principles of science on the public.
According to numerous studies, PFASs accumulate in human tissue, showing up years later potentially as testicular, kidney, or pancreatic cancer, weakened immune systems, decreased fertility, endocrine disruption, elevated cholesterol, increased risk of asthma, thyroid disease, and puzzling weight gain. PFAS chemicals have contaminated drinking water for nearly one-half of America’s population. American cases of chronic illnesses at nearly 50% of the general population support that fact.
According to the EPA: “PFAS are a group of manufactured chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s because of their useful properties. There are thousands of different PFAS, some of which have been more widely used and studied than others… PFAS can be present in our water, soil, air, and food as well as in materials found in our homes or workplaces.”
While the Trump administration feverishly worked to weaken the foundation of EPA rules and regulations, the EU was considering a much stronger stance on PFASs. According to the Health and Environment Alliance/Europe: “PFAS pollution is out of control and exposure to several forever chemicals have been linked to an array of adverse health impacts, from liver damage to reduced response to routine vaccination by children and certain cancers. PFASs have contaminated the entire planet and are found in the bodies of most people around the globe.”
Meanwhile, according to an expose in the Guardian, March 23, 2023, regarding the Trump administration: “Scientists say the episode is part of larger rot at the agency.” EPA scientists claim that several employees “willingly worked with the Trump appointees to weaken the assessment.” Ibid. EPA insiders claim career staff worked hand-in-glove with industry to weaken EPA standards.
“The controversy centered around a 2021 toxicity report for PFBS, a type of PFAS compound that is toxic at low levels. Research has linked the chemical to kidney disease, reproductive problems and thyroid damage, and it has been found throughout the environment,” Ibid.
“In its recent report, the EPA’s office of inspector general described ‘unprecedented’ interference by former Trump-appointed EPA chief Andrew Wheeler and other political appointees, who ordered the alteration of the PFBS toxicity value just as the assessment was about to be published in late 2020,” Ibid.
Trump changes would have resulted in less costly but insufficient cleanup by industry allowing “higher levels of the chemicals in the environment.” Scientists say it would have put human health at risks that could otherwise be prevented.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate how significant it is to the health and welfare of the country that Biden defeated Trump for the presidency. In February 2021, the Biden administration pulled the Trump-based EPA assessment, declaring it was “compromised by political interference as well as infringement of authorship” and republished the assessment using what it said is “sound science” and declared the issue resolved.
The election of Trump opened a doorway to a mecca of interference by industry in cahoots with politically appointed Trump EPA administrators to water-down long-established regulations by the EPA that were specifically constructed to safeguard Americans. Now, Trump wants to be president once again.
Can the environment vote?
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
When Australia – vassal be thy name – assumed responsibilities for not only throwing money at both US and British shipbuilders, lending up territory and naval facilities for war like a gambling drunk, and essentially asking its officials to commit seppuku for the Imperium, another task was given. While the ditzy and dunderheaded wonders in Canberra would be acquiring submarines with nuclear propulsion technology, there would be that rather problematic issue of what to do with the waste. “Yes,” said the obliging Australians, “we will deal with it.”
The Australian Defence Department has published a fact sheet on the matter, which, as all such fact sheets go, fudges the facts and sports a degree of misplaced optimism. It promises a “sophisticated security and safety architecture” around the nuclear-powered submarine program, “building on our 70-year unblemished track record of operating nuclear facilities and conducting nuclear science activities.”
This record, which is rather more blemished than officials would care to admit, does not extend to the specific issues arising from maintaining a nuclear-powered submarine fleet and the high-level waste that would require shielding and cooling. In the context of such a vessel, this would entail pulling out and disposing of the reactor once the submarine is decommissioned.
Australia’s experience, to date, only extends to the storage of low-level waste and intermediate-level waste arising from nuclear medicine and laboratory research, with the low-level variant being stored at over a hundred sites in the country. That situation has been regarded as unsustainable and politically contentious.
The department admits that the storage and disposal of such waste and spent fuel will require necessary facilities and trained personnel, appropriate transport, interim and permanent storage facilities and “social license earned and sustained with local and regional communities.” But it also notes that the UK and the US “will assist Australia in developing this capability, leveraging Australia’s decades of safely and securely managing radioactive waste domestically”.
That’s mighty good of them to do so, given that both countries have failed to move beyond the problem of temporary storage. In the UK, the issue of disposing waste from decommissioned nuclear submarines remains stuck in community consultation. In the US, no option has emerged after the Obama administration killed off a repository program to store waste underneath Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The reasons for doing so, sulked Republicans at the time, were political rather than technical.
Where, then, will the facilities to store and dispose of such waste be located? “Defence – working with relevant agencies including the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency – will undertake a review in 2023 to identify locations in the current or future Defence estate that could be suitable to store and dispose of intermediate-level waste and high-level waste, including spent fuel.”
The various state premiers are already suggesting that finding a site will be problematic. Both Victoria and Western Australia are pointing fingers at South Australia as the logical option, while Queensland has declared that “under no circumstances” would it permit nuclear waste to be stored. “I think the waste can go where all the jobs are going,” remarked Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable, is it?”
Western Australia’s Mark McGowan, in furious agreement, suggested that a site “somewhere remote, somewhere with very good long-term geological structure that doesn’t change or move and somewhere that is defence lands” narrowed down the options. “[T]hat’s why Woomera springs to mind.”
South Australia’s Premier, Peter Malinauskas, insists that the waste should go “where it is in the nation’s interest to put it” and not be a matter of “some domestic political tit-for-tat, or some state-based parochial thing.”
When it comes to storing nuclear waste, parochialism is all but guaranteed. The Australian government is already facing a legal challenge from traditional owners regarding a 2021 decision to locate a nuclear waste site at Kimba in South Australia. The effort to find a site for the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility intended for low and intermediate radioactive waste produced by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation at Lucas Heights, New South Wales, took three decades.
According to members of the First Nations group opposing the decision, the proposed facility risks interfering with a sacred site for women. Dawn Taylor, a Barngarla woman and Kimba resident, told the ABC that, “The Seven Sisters is through that area.” She feared that the waste facility would end up “destroying” the stories associated with the dreaming.
The federal resources minister, Madeleine King, has stated with little conviction that a cultural heritage management plan “informed by the research of the Barngarla people” is in place. “There are strict protocols around the work that is going on right now to make sure there is no disturbance of cultural heritage.”
Local farmers, including the consistently vocal Peter Woolford, are also opposed to the project. “We just can’t understand why you would expose this great agricultural industry we have here in grain production to any potential risk at all by having a nuclear waste dump here.”
The Australian security establishment may well be glorifying in the moment of AUKUS, itself an insensibly parochial gesture of provocation and regional destabilisation, but agitated residents and irate state politicians are promising a good deal of sensible mischief.
The post Spent Matters: The AUKUS Nuclear Waste Problem first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Xcel Energy in late November told Minnesota and federal officials about a leak of 400,000 gallons of water contaminated with radioactive tritium at its Monticello nuclear power plant, but it wasn’t until Thursday that the incident and ongoing cleanup effort were made public.
In a statement, Xcel said Thursday that it “took swift action to contain the leak to the plant site, which poses no health and safety risk to the local community or the environment.”
“Ongoing monitoring from over two dozen on-site monitoring wells confirms that the leaked water is fully contained on-site and has not been detected beyond the facility or in any local drinking water,” the company added.
The Monticello plant, adjacent to the Mississippi River, is roughly 35 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
Asked why it didn’t notify the public sooner, the Minneapolis-based utility giant said: “We understand the importance of quickly informing the communities we serve if a situation poses an immediate threat to health and safety. In this case, there was no such threat.”
But Excel wasn’t the only entity with knowledge of the situation. The company said it alerted the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and state authorities on November 22, the day the leak was confirmed.
According to The Star Tribune: “A high level of tritium in groundwater was reported to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission when first discovered, which published the ‘nonemergency’ report in its public list of nuclear events the next day. The listing said the source of the tritium was being investigated.”
As Minnesota Public Radio explained, “The NRC’s November public notice was not in a news release” and was only visible “online at the bottom of a list of ‘non-emergency’ event notification reports.”
Asked why they waited four months to inform residents, state regulators who are monitoring the cleanup said they were waiting for more information.
“We knew there was a presence of tritium in one monitoring well, however Xcel had not yet identified the source of the leak and its location,” Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) spokesperson Michael Rafferty said Thursday.
The source of the leak—a broken pipe connecting two buildings—was detected on December 19 and quickly patched.
“Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater, and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information,” said Rafferty.
None— (@)
Dan Huff, assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), said, “If at any time someone’s health is at risk, we would notify folks immediately.” However, he continued, “this is a contained site underneath the Xcel plant and it has not threatened any Minnesotans’ health.”
Echoing Xcel and MDH officials, MPCA said in a statement: “The leak has been stopped and has not reached the Mississippi River or contaminated drinking water sources. There is no evidence at this time to indicate a risk to any drinking water wells in the vicinity of the plant.”
Kirk Koudelka, MPCA assistant commissioner for land and strategic initiatives, declared that “our top priority is protecting residents and the environment.”
“The MPCA is working closely with other state agencies to oversee Xcel Energy’s monitoring data and cleanup activities,” said Koudelka. “We are working to ensure this cleanup is concluded as thoroughly as possible with minimal or no risk to drinking water supplies.”
Since reporting the leak, Xcel has been pumping, storing, and processing contaminated groundwater, which “contains tritium levels below federal thresholds,” according to The Associated Press.
As the news outlet reported:
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that occurs naturally in the environment and is a common by-product of nuclear plant operations. It emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the NRC. A person who drank water from a spill would get only a low dose, the NRC says.
The NRC says tritium spills happen from time to time at nuclear plants, but that it has repeatedly determined that they’ve either remained limited to the plant property or involved such low offsite levels that they didn’t affect public health or safety. Xcel reported a small tritium leak at Monticello in 2009.
Xcel said it has recovered about 25% of the spilled tritium so far, that recovery efforts will continue and that it will install a permanent solution this spring.
“Xcel Energy is considering building above-ground storage tanks to store the contaminated water it recovers, and is considering options for the treatment, reuse, or final disposal of the collected tritium and water,” AP noted. “State regulators will review the options the company selects.”
As MPR reported, news of the leak “comes as Xcel is asking federal regulators to extend Monticello’s operating license through 2050—when the plant will be nearly 80 years old.”
The company says that doing so “is critical to meeting a new state law mandating fully carbon-free electricity by 2040,” The Star Tribune reported.
But on social media, commentators pointed out that such pollution “doesn’t happen with solar and wind.”
“Building more nuclear power plants is a bad solution to the climate crisis,” one user from Minnesota tweeted. “A good solution is more wind turbines and solar panels.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that officials are proposing putting limits on levels of PFAS chemicals in drinking water for the first time, marking a win for environmental advocates who have long been warning about the detrimental health effects of the “forever chemicals.” The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing limits for six of the most toxic PFAS compounds.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
High-income countries have long sent their waste abroad to be thrown away or recycled — and an independent team of experts says they’re inundating the developing world with much more plastic than previously estimated. According to a new analysis published last week, United Nations data on the global waste trade fails to account for “hidden” plastics in textiles, contaminated paper bales…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
A coalition of more than three dozen progressive advocacy groups based in the United States and the European Union on Monday implored E.U. policymakers to stop pursuing challenges to the Inflation Reduction Act and urged governments on both sides of the Atlantic to start prioritizing decarbonization over corporate-friendly trade rules.
“As part of any E.U.-U.S. transatlantic sustainable trade initiative, we urge the E.U. to refrain from challenging the IRA with trade instruments. And we call on the U.S. and E.U. to commit to a Climate Peace Clause to protect climate policies around the world from trade disputes, as well as to make good on climate financing and green technology transfer to countries in the Global South,” says a letter sent to the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council.
The letter comes as European Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis travels to Washington, D.C. for meetings this week with top U.S. officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
Amid an ongoing disagreement over North American electric vehicle manufacturing incentives, renewable energy tax credits, and other green provisions in the IRA, Dombrovskis plans to “negotiate better outcomes for the E.U.,” according to Politico, just as the U.S. Treasury Department prepares to release “a list of criteria for what qualifies as a free trade agreement, potentially making more countries eligible to receive tax credits under the IRA,” which was passed by congressional Democrats and signed into law by President Joe Biden last August.
“Countries desperately need to enact bold climate measures and cannot allow outdated trade rules to get in the way.”
The letter’s 41 signatories—including the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Transnational Institute, and other civil society organizations representing millions of people—noted that “at the most recent meeting of the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council, the Global Trade Working Group announced its intent to embark on a transatlantic sustainable trade initiative.”
Melinda St. Louis, the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, said Monday in a statement that if the U.S. and the E.U. are serious about this, “they first need to commit to ‘do no harm’ by refraining from attacking one another’s climate legislation.”
While the IRA “was far from the comprehensive legislation needed to address the urgent climate crisis,” states the letter, “it was the result of a difficult compromise negotiated in a narrow but historic window of political opportunity and is a critical step that the U.S. has taken to meet its climate commitments.”
Despite this, the E.U. “claims that the structure and the domestic content requirements of tax incentives for electric vehicle, electric battery, and renewable energy production offered through the IRA violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules,” the letter continues. “And it has repeatedly threatened to refer the matter to the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, attempting to force the U.S. to change this law. The E.U. even publicly complained about the incentives before the bill had passed, potentially threatening passage of the important legislation, which passed by the narrowest of margins.”
“Time is running out to meet our climate commitments,” it adds. “Investments in green jobs and production of green products will be needed to usher in the clean energy transition the world needs,” and that requires “adapt[ing] the rules to accelerate a just transition.”
\u201cAs @EU_Commission’s @VDombrovskis visits DC this week, US & EU groups call for a ceasefire on trade challenges to the IRA & other climate policies #ClimatePeaceClause https://t.co/NXiSpYI4ji\u201d— Trade Justice Education Fund (@Trade Justice Education Fund) 1677510296
“Will the Biden administration stand up to these trade threats and implement the law as intended to create green jobs and boost manufacturing in the clean energy economy?” asked St. Louis. “And will they commit to supporting other countries as they enact their own bold climate policies?”
Fabian Flues, a trade campaigner with PowerShift Germany, insisted that there is no other reasonable choice.
“This is simple: climate action has to take precedence over trade rules,” said Flues. “The E.U. would do the fight against climate change a huge disservice if it challenged the Inflation Reduction Act in trade tribunals. Instead, the E.U. should increase its efforts to pursue a genuine ecological and fair industrial policy. Such efforts must be accompanied by increased climate financing and green technology transfer so that countries in the Global South don’t lose out from increased climate action in the U.S. and E.U.”
According to the coalition:
As advanced economies and major current and historic emitters of greenhouse gases, it would be a powerful step for the U.S. and E.U. to agree to a Climate Peace Clause—a binding commitment by these governments to refrain from using dispute settlement mechanisms in the WTO or other trade and investment agreements to challenge each other’s climate policies. Not only should the E.U. refrain from using trade rules to challenge the IRA, but both should commit to refraining from challenging other countries’ policies meant to hasten the green transition. This would set an example and create the much-needed space for governments to adopt and maintain the climate policies needed to create green jobs and meet their commitments under the Paris climate agreement.
Such an agreement between these two powers must also include climate financing for countries in the Global South and the sharing of green technologies, as outlined in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris agreement, to support/contribute to climate solutions that are truly sustainable and equitable for all. This will be necessary to support the clean energy transition in countries that cannot afford similar subsidy-based incentives. A true transatlantic collaboration to address catastrophic climate change, and related global social, health, and biodiversity crises, will entail supporting—rather than undermining—green industrial policies on both sides of the Atlantic. Further, we must work together to meet commitments for financial support and technological transfer to developing countries and to transform inequitable global structures in order to facilitate a just transition for all.
This is not the first time labor and environmental groups have demanded that policymakers stop impeding sorely needed climate action by weaponizing global trade rules. As Biden hosted French President Emmanuel Macron just before a December meeting of the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council, activists held a protest outside the White House to denounce the leading role that Macron has played in fostering E.U. opposition to the IRA.
On the same day, the Sierra Club and the Trade Justice Education Fund published an analysis outlining the need for a Climate Peace Clause.
As the groups’ research explained, North American production requirements were key to securing the political support needed to enact the IRA, but progress on creating green jobs and slashing planet-heating pollution remains at risk of being derailed by Investor-State Dispute Settlement complaints and other objections filed at neoliberal trade institutions.
As Trade Justice Education Fund executive director Arthur Stamoulis said Monday, “Countries desperately need to enact bold climate measures and cannot allow outdated trade rules to get in the way.”
“By committing to not challenge other nations’ climate initiatives as violations of old trade rules,” Stamoulis added, “the United States can simultaneously encourage countries to take more ambitious climate action and better defend its own climate-focused industrial policy.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
We are in the midst of a climate crisis – that much is certain. Gone are the days where the existence of human-caused climate change could be debated. Climate catastrophes are happening throughout our planet, and are only projected to get more intense and more frequent, unless we get a handle on addressing the leading cause of this crisis: Fossil Fuels.
Despite accounting for just 5 per cent of Canada’s economy, the oil and gas sector is the largest and fastest growing source of climate pollution, accounting for 27 per cent of Canada’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions from the sector are rising; they have increased by nearly 20 per cent from 2005 levels.
Due to this unchecked increase in emissions from the oil and gas sector, combined with public pressure from environmental activists, in 2021 the Government of Canada finally committed to limit oil and gas emissions at a pace and scale needed to keep global average temperatures to below 1.5 degrees Celsius. What’s more, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault even committed to have this policy in place by the end of 2023.
The Government of Canada’s credibility on climate change depends both on if this policy is ambitious and robust, and on whether the government is able to implement this policy within the next year. Canada can’t afford any more delays on this key policy, nor can we afford to have a weak approach if we are to reach global climate targets.
What is the role of an emissions cap policy? It is evident that current policies regulating the oil and gas industry’s emissions are not up to the task, because the industry’s emissions have continued to rise. The oil and gas emissions cap policy, if implemented correctly, could be a key tool that is necessary to tackle Canada’s largest growing source of emissions.
A strong and equitable emissions cap policy can also be an important part of a strategy to help the Canadian economy transition from being over-reliant on fossil fuels towards a more competitive direction in the global context. It can also provide predictability to industry, workers, and communities, while providing opportunities for additional investments in climate solutions.
On the other hand, if this policy fails to hold the oil and gas industry accountable to reduce their own pollution at the levels that we need, this would place additional burden on other sectors, households and communities.
How is the oil and gas industry attempting to weaken the emissions cap? What should be a sure fire way to finally get the largest source of pollution in Canada in check, is under threat of being watered down due to constant misinformation and lies from the fossil fuel industry. The oil and gas industry, backed by their vast resources and lobbying groups, are trying to convince the federal government and the people of Canada that immediate emissions reduction is not the right move – going against the scientific community and leading experts at the United Nations. They keep pushing for delay – never mind what it will cost people in Canada, and around the world, in terms of their lives and livelihoods. What’s more is that they want additional support (i.e. public tax dollars) to finance speculative, costly and hard to scale technologies like carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).
It is well established that Canada, a wealthy and a high-emitting country, has benefited greatly through the extraction and production of oil and gas. This has lined the pockets of many oil and gas companies for decades. Even today, these companies are making record-breaking profits. However, this did not come without cost. Many Indigenous nations have been severely impacted due to the greed of oil and gas companies and the damage being done to the land, air and water. And of course it’s these companies who are driving the climate crisis – the vast majority of climate catastrophes are being faced by communities who didn’t benefit from fossil fuel extraction.
What we need in an emissions capWith that in mind, the Government of Canada must ensure that the proposed oil and gas emissions cap policy takes into consideration the urgency of the climate crisis and compels the oil and gas industry to do their fair share to reduce emissions. The Government of Canada is considering two policy options for the emissions cap: a cap and trade model, and a modified carbon pricing model. The stronger of the two options, cap and trade, will set out a hard limit on the sector’s pollution, which will decline over time. Allowable emissions would be put up for auction for companies to purchase if they want to continue operating. However, for the policy to be successful, it must include the following principles:
Without a strong emissions cap policy that ensures that the oil and gas companies are doing their fair share, Canada has little chance of meeting its climate commitments. This was reaffirmed by the Net-Zero Advisory Body in their first annual report to Minister Guilbeault in January 2023. We can’t afford to let the oil and gas companies continue spewing their misinformation and falsehoods to once again try and delay climate action.
The Government of Canada has a responsibility to ensure that everyone in Canada has access to a climate safe-future, healthy environments and thriving communities – not to protect the profits of oil and gas companies. And a climate-safe future depends on Canada being able to limit and reduce the pollution from the oil and gas sector.
Tell Canada we need strong emissions cap to reduce oil and gas pollution.
The post We need to limit ever growing oil and gas emissions appeared first on Environmental Defence.
This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.
Residents of East Palestine, Ohio are voicing alarm and mistrust of officials after a 150-car train carrying hazardous materials — including vinyl chloride — crashed in their small town, prompting emergency evacuations and a “controlled release” of chemicals into the air to prevent a catastrophic explosion. Norfolk Southern, the company that owns the derailed train, has insisted that public health…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Last week a train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, sending 50 cars carrying toxic chemicals careening off their tracks. The resulting fire burned for days, forcing hundreds of evacuations and blanketing the small village on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border in smoke. Runoff from the site contaminated two streams nearby. Over the next week, as officials worked to avoid a deadly explosion that could…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
“Natural” gas is not clean or green, as its misleading name implies
Every reputable environmental organization and energy agency around the world is saying we can’t build new gas projects if we want to avoid complete climate chaos.
Fossil gas, or “natural gas,” as it’s been cunningly branded, is a fossil fuel that causes warming and is harmful to human health. Its mainstream name is nothing more than a clever marketing scheme by Big Oil to make the fuel sound natural, safe, and clean. It is none of those things.
In Ontario, fossil gas is used primarily for generating electricity, for heating buildings (residential and commercial), and for industrial uses (for heating substances and as a raw material). While some industrial processes will take time to change, we can immediately transition electricity generation and heating to non-emitting sources powered by renewables like wind and solar.
But Ontario is in the process of expanding the use of fossil gas, not phasing it out.
In fact, Ontario is planning to build new gas plants and extend expiring gas plant contracts to produce electricity.
The province is also expanding gas infrastructure (like pipelines) to bring fossil gas to additional locations for the purpose of heating buildings, gas cooking, and industrial uses.
This is a huge problem. Why? Many reasons!
It is responsible for one third of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions, making it one the province’s worst climate change contributors.
Methane leaks when gas is extracted, produced and transported, adding to the warming of the planet.Methane is over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the first 20 year period so its shorter-term climate impacts are immense.
The pollution from fracking can also cause health problems in neighbouring communities. Possible health impacts can include birth defects, asthma, and cancer. Being close to fracking operations, rural and Indigenous communities are disproportionately impacted by the release of toxic chemicals.The increase in fracking operations are contributing to the spike in methane emissions which are quickly warming the planet.
Gas plants emit nitrogen oxides which increase smog and can cause respiratory problems for people living nearby. Using gas appliances at home creates indoor air pollution and can lead to asthma in children.
Gas plants are often the top emitters of nitrogen oxides in communities.In the home, gas stoves and ovens release Nitrogen Dioxide in amounts above safe limits. Even when they are turned off, gas appliances release many other toxic chemicals that are linked to illnesses such as asthma and cancer. A recent study found that gas stoves are responsible for almost 13 per cent of childhood asthma in the United States.
We could continue to see volatility and high prices at the whim of global events. In Ontario, fossil gas prices have doubled or almost tripled in the last two years, depending on the area. This is mostly the result of the war in Ukraine which has limited fossil gas supply from Russia, the largest gas exporter.
In turn, the United States is shipping out more liquefied “natural” gas and its demand for Canada’s “natural” gas has increased, both of which are pushing up prices in North America.Fossil gas prices are expected to continue to be volatile, and can always be impacted by other future international conflicts and geopolitical developments.
Like I said, fossil gas is bad! But, the good news is that there are excellent alternatives for the three main uses of fossil gas.
1. For electricity: renewable sources like wind and solar, along with current storage technologies, can replace the use of gas plants, providing reliable power at a lower and decreasing price. That means cheaper electricity rates for us consumers.
2. For home heating: we can install electric heat pumps which draw energy from the electricity grid. And for home cooking, we can switch to highly-praised induction stoves or good old electric stoves, both powered by the grid. Electric heat pumps are much cheaper to use than fossil gas in the long run, while the price of gas and induction stoves are comparable and powering either of them is relatively inexpensive.
3. For industries: that currently use fossil gas to create the high heat required for manufacturing, most can use other methods. For products that use fossil gas as a raw material, some alternatives and safer materials exist and others will have to be found.
We can immediately pursue a cleaner path using readily available technologies for electricity generation as well as residential and commercial heating and cooking.
We need to both clean up the grid and electrify everything to bring down our emissions. For example, if we don’t have a clean electricity grid then even electrifying heating and cooking will still lead to warming.
For these changes to materialize, the government of Ontario needs to take action. This must start with the province building a clean electricity system, rather than building new polluting gas plants.
The provincial government must also fund and support the move to non-emitting options for heating buildings and cooking. This could take the form of grants as well as info guides on how to go about getting these retrofits. This would take the burden off of homeowners and small business owners to adopt the cleaner options.
Instead of ramping up the use of fossil gas, Ontario must choose clean and renewable technologies and put our province on a healthy and sustainable path.
You can help by asking the Federal government to step in.
The post Five Reasons “Natural” Gas is Bad for You and the Environment appeared first on Environmental Defence.
This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres made clear Monday that securing a livable planet depends on stopping the “bottomless greed of the fossil fuel industry and its enablers.”
In a speech to the General Assembly, Guterres called for an end to “the merciless, relentless, senseless war on nature” that “is putting our world at immediate risk of hurtling past the 1.5°C temperature increase limit and now still moving towards a deadly 2.8°C.”
2023 must be “a year of reckoning,” the U.N. chief said as he outlined his priorities for the months ahead. “It must be a year of game-changing climate action. We need disruption to end the destruction. No more baby steps. No more excuses. No more greenwashing.”
Scientists have warned repeatedly that scaling up the extraction and burning of coal, oil, and gas is incompatible with averting the most catastrophic consequences of the climate emergency. Nevertheless, hundreds of corporations—bolstered by trillions of dollars in annual public subsidies—are still planning to ramp up planet-heating pollution in the years ahead, prioritizing profits over the lives of those who will be harmed by the ensuing chaos.
“I have a special message for fossil fuel producers and their enablers scrambling to expand production and raking in monster profits: If you cannot set a credible course for net-zero, with 2025 and 2030 targets covering all your operations, you should not be in business,” said Guterres. “Your core product is our core problem.”
“We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence,” he added.
In order to halve global greenhouse gas emissions this decade, the U.N. chief said, the world needs “far more ambitious action to cut carbon pollution by speeding up the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy—especially in G20 countries—and de-carbonizing highest emitting industrial sectors—steel, cement, shipping, and aviation.
In addition, he continued, the world needs “a Climate Solidarity Pact in which all big emitters make an extra effort to cut emissions, and wealthier countries mobilize financial and technical resources to support emerging economies in a common effort to keep 1.5°C alive.”
“We need a renewables revolution, not a self-destructive fossil fuel resurgence.”
“Climate action is impossible without adequate finance,” Guterres noted. “Developed countries know what they must do: At minimum, deliver on commitments made at the latest COP. Make good on the $100 billion promise to developing countries. Finish the job and deliver on the Loss and Damage Fund agreed in Sharm El-Sheikh. Double adaptation funding. Replenish the Green Climate Fund by COP28. Advance plans for early warning systems to protect every person on earth within five years. And stop subsidizing fossil fuels and pivot investments to renewables.”
Like the 26 annual U.N. climate meetings that preceded it, COP27 ended last November with no commitment to a swift and just global phase-out of coal, oil, and gas.
In an effort to avoid a repeat performance at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates this December, Guterres intends to convene a “Climate Ambition Summit” in September.
“The invitation is open to any leader—in government, business, or civil society,” Guterres said Monday. “But it comes with a condition: Show us accelerated action in this decade and renewed ambitious net-zero plans—or please don’t show up.”
“COP28 in December will set the stage for the first-ever Global Stocktake—a collective moment of truth—to assess where we are, and where we need to go in the next five years to reach the Paris goals,” he continued.
Guterres added that “humanity is taking a sledgehammer to our world’s rich biodiversity—with brutal and even irreversible consequences for people and planet. Our ocean is choked by pollution, plastics, and chemicals. And vampiric overconsumption is draining the lifeblood of our planet—water.”
In 2023, the world “must also bring the Global Biodiversity Framework to life and establish a clear pathway to mobilize sufficient resources,” said the U.N. chief. “And governments must develop concrete plans to repurpose subsidies that are harming nature into incentives for conservation and sustainability.”
“Climate action is the 21st century’s greatest opportunity to drive forward all the Sustainable Development Goals,” Guterres stressed. “A clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is a right we must make real for all.”
Guterres’ speech was not limited to the climate and biodiversity crises. He also emphasized the need for a “course correction” on devastating wars and raging inequality, calling for a new global economic architecture that foregrounds the needs of the poor instead of allowing the richest 1% to capture nearly half of all newly created wealth.
“This is not a time for tinkering,” said the U.N. chief. “It is a time for transformation.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
Gliding through the shallow channel on the north side of Corpus Christi Bay, you will see stubborn remnants of a barrier island estuary that was once home to vast oyster beds, seagrass meadows, teeming fish nurseries and abundant alligators. You will see dolphins, terns, maybe even a roseate spoonbill. “You still see glimpses of the natural beauty,” said Jennifer Hilliard, 56, over the growl of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.