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Staff Reporter

The World of Sports: Waving goodbye to excessive water usage

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A proposed surf park, dubbed “Coral Mountain,” in the city of La Quinta in Coachella Valley was rejected unanimously by the City Council mid-September. 

Thank god. The last thing Californians need is a gigantic water-wasting project like this. 

The project, proposed by luxury real estate company Meriwether Co., would consist of a hotel, several hundred homes and a gigantic water basin with technology to bring the ocean a hundred miles or so inland. 

Pro surfer Kelly Slater’s company developed the hydrofoil generator that creates the waves, which can reach up to 8 feet high. According to the Kelly Slater Wave Co. website, “The wave form is inspired and designed by world class ocean waves.”

I don’t know if this means the ocean waves themselves got involved in this, admittedly cool, concept but if so, they didn’t consider the problems with building such a pool in one of the driest areas of the country. 

California is in the middle of a megadrought that has seen three consecutive dry years with another projected to be on the way. As the water year comes to a close, experts predict that this fall will see above average temperatures and a warm and dry winter. 

In Coachella Valley, residents actually use about three times more water than the state average per person. There are 124 irrigated golf courses in Palm Springs and Coachella Valley, which as a whole makes up less than one percent of Southern California’s population yet contains 28 percent of the region’s golf courses. Those golf courses use between 750,000 and 1 million gallons of water a day. While the golf industry employs over 8,000 workers and generates almost $750 million in golf-related spending per year, it is clear that its pristine courses are major water wasters in the region. 

So, to add a luxury surf park that would waste even more water would be a slap in the face to residents who aren’t involved in the tourism industry. 

Residents of Riverside County already face fines for going over their allotted outside water budget. It seems wrong for a company made up of just 10 employees, including its owners, to benefit from such a large increase in water usage for the enjoyment of wealthy snowbirds and visitors. 

Because while everyone loses in a drought, it’s the poorest communities that are hit the hardest, according to a report from the Legislative Analyst’s Office, California’s nonpartisan policy advisor. 

“The communities most impacted by drinking water challenges during the last drought were small and rural,” the report says. “Many of the communities that lost, or remain vulnerable to losing, access to safe drinking water contain high proportions of both lower-income and Latino residents.” 

Blaine Carian of the Coachella Valley Resource Conservation District claims that Coachella Valley’s water supply is better off than most regions in California, stored in the underground water aquifer. 

“We have a lot of years of water in our storage basin,” Carian said in an interview with KESQ News.

According to the Desert Water Agency, if no water conservation efforts were made, there would still be around 100 years’ worth of water stored up in the underground basins. As beneficiaries of the Colorado River, La Quinta and surrounding towns are well-equipped to handle drought. 

But perhaps the Desert Water Agency should talk to those living in mobile home parks near the Coral Mountain site, whose water is contaminated with toxic arsenic and unsafe to drink.

So perhaps Coachella Valley will survive the drought, new golf courses and surf parks or not. However, the drought transcends just one area  — it’s a multi-state issue that will continue to grow more dire as the climate continues to dry up. 

There are plenty of places for people to surf — we don’t need to make the desert one of them. Wealthy people already account for disproportionate water usage, adding a surf resort would only add to that problem. Go to Venice Beach, I hear there are some pretty good waves there.

Patrick Warren is a senior writing about the intersection of sports and climate change. His column “The World of Sports” runs every other Wednesday.”



Originally Appeared Here

Good Works, Green Street to Break Ground on Loudoun’s Most Energy Efficient Building

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Loudoun-based attainable housing developer Good Works and Maryland-based Green Street Housing on Friday plan a groundbreaking for Waxpool Apartments, a 52-unit affordable apartment building and, they say, possibly the most energy-efficient building in the county.

According to the developers, it will be the first building in Loudoun County certified by four separate green building programs: National Green Building Standard Silver, U.S. Department of Energy’s EnergyStar Multifamily New Construction standards and Zero Energy Ready program, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Indoor airPLUS. Those certifications variously examine energy, water and resource efficiency, renewable energy use, lot development, operations and maintenance, and indoor air quality.

“As of right now, I think it is safe to say the Waxpool project is certainly in rarified air; less than three in the state would be a good guess,” Conway Energy President Chris Conway stated. His firm will be responsible for monitoring and testing throughout construction to ensure the building meets all those standards.

“It will require about 700 pages of documentation to get this building fully certified,” he stated.

All 52 units at the four-story Waxpool Apartments building will meet Universal Design standards, and 236 rooftop solar panels will provide more than 150,000 kWh of onsite power generation, offsetting nearly 70% of the projected need for the building’s common areas and public lighting. Parking will be underneath the building.

It also provides all of the county’s required Affordable Dwelling Units for the Waxpool Crossing development, plus 39 more, altogether three times the number of ADUs required. It is financed in part with a $2.5 million loan from the Loudoun County Housing Trust Fund.

The apartment building is planned at the corner of Waxpool Road and Ashburn Village Boulevard, less than a mile walk to the new Ashburn Metrorail Station. In addition to a playground on site, the building’s future residents will also have access to the amenities of Waxpool Crossing including a basketball court, outside grilling area with a fire pit, a larger community playground, bocce ball court, trike track, dog park, and walking trails.

“Once upon a time, attainable housing had a bad reputation for being poorly built,” Good Works Managing Partner Kim Hart stated. “While keeping our construction costs within the strict limits of Virginia Housing, we are proving that new construction in Loudoun County can still be green and sustainable. I hope this will help attract young people to our industry and make those who live here feel very proud.” 

“The unit mix at the project consists of one-bedroom and two-bedroom units,” Green Street Housing co-owner Tom Ayd stated. “Our goal is to provide workforce housing to those individuals and families who will be attracted to this location so close to the Metro.”

Occupancy is planned for late fall of 2023. The waiting list for new residents will open next summer.



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Toxins study notes Clean Water Act’s ‘unfulfilled promise’

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The lower Cape Fear River and Cape Fear Memorial Bridge as shown Tuesday from the Wilmington waterfront. Photo: Jennifer Allen

DOWNTOWN WILMINGTON — North Carolina is home to two of the top five watersheds in the country that had the highest amounts of toxins discharged in 2020 – the upper New River and the lower Cape Fear River, a new report finds.

With the Cape Fear River as a backdrop in downtown Wilmington, advocates released the findings of the study, “Wasting Our Waterways: Toxic pollution and the unfulfilled promise of the Clean Water Act,” published Sept. 28, to a handful of journalists Tuesday morning on the riverwalk.

“We’re here today along the banks of the Cape Fear River because North Carolinians deserve clean water. Our waterways should be safe for swimming, fishing and drinking, and our children deserve a toxic free future,” North Carolina Public Interest Research Group Education Fund State Director Katie Craig told reporters. 

“Yet today, 50 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, we continue to allow companies to use chemicals linked to a wide range of health threats, including cancer, developmental damage, reproductive damage and more.” 

NCPIRG is a state-based, citizen-funded advocacy group that is an advocate for the public interest. Environment America Research & Policy Center and U.S. PIRG Education Fund produced the report based on data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxics Release Inventory, or TRI.

There were 10,266,141 pounds of toxins released in the upper New River watershed located in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia and 5,017,810 pounds in the lower Cape Fear that year, according to the report. 

Industrial facilities released at least 193.6 million pounds of toxic substances into U.S. waterways in 2020, including many known to cause cancer, reproductive problems and developmental issues. Of the top ten 10 states by total releases of toxic substances, North Carolina came in at No. 6 with 9,746,239 pounds behind Texas, Indiana, Virginia, Louisiana and Alabama.

The report finds North Carolina to have the highest levels in the country of dumped toxins linked to developmental delays, Craig said. These toxins cause developmental effects that interfere with the processes of growth and change in the body from conception through adolescence. 

“In 2020, over 4.5 million pounds of developmental toxins were released by industrial and government facilities into our waterways across the country,” she said, adding that facilities in the state released the most developmental toxins of any state at over 600,000 pounds.

“With facilities dumping so much pollution, no one should be surprised that so many of our rivers, lakes and streams are still unsafe for swimming and fishing and other recreational activities. But we should be outraged, North Carolinians’ waterways should not be a dumping ground for our polluters.”

She explained that the full scope of toxic pollution flowing into waterways was even greater than that reported to the inventory, which is data collected from the polluting facilities to the Environmental Protection Agency.

North Carolina Public Interest Research Group Education Fund State Director Katie Craig, left, UNCW professor Larry Cahoon and Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette. Photo: Jennifer Allen

“For example, the TRI data does not include releases of thousands of toxic PFAS chemicals, of which only a very small segment were reported for the first time to this report in 2020, and likely under reported at that, ” she said, adding toxic chemicals industrial facilities send to sewage treatments, toxins from stormwater and agricultural runoff are also not included.

“That’s why we’re calling on federal agencies like the EPA, as well as federal and state governments, and even manufacturers and retailers themselves to take action to drastically reduce the use of these toxic chemicals,” Craig said.

Craig said the restriction on the use of PFAS and other toxic chemicals needs to be dramatic, especially when safer alternatives already exist. The state and federal agencies need to update their abilities to hold polluters accountable and stop toxic chemicals from being permitted to end up in our waterways in the first place, she said.

Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette with Cape Fear River Watch said the local grassroots environmental nonprofit focuses on the water quality of the Cape Fear River.

“This report is especially important, and especially troubling,” Burdette said. “We drink this river, and we eat the fish out of this river and the shellfish out of this river. And we swim in the water from this river.”

The area has been drinking PFAS-contaminated water for 40 years, he said. 

“The technology exists to remove PFAS pollution. We can remove almost every nanogram of PFAS pollution created by polluters and we have to start doing that now. We can’t wait for more and more of these chemicals to be regulated,” Burdette said. “Even more important than removing the PFAS pollution that we create every day is stopping the production of what we know is an incredibly toxic class of chemicals.”

The report also highlights that nitrate pollution makes up about 90% of pollution in the country’s waterways.

“Nitrate pollution is important because it causes fish kills, algal blooms, sometimes toxic algal blooms and can even cause entire dead zones and waterways and estuaries and coastal areas,” Burdette said. 

He also expressed worry that, while the report covers an enormous amount of self-reported data from the Toxic Release Inventory, it’s clear there’s even more contamination in waterways across the US, and especially in the Cape Fear basin. 

“We’re the center of production in this country for poultry right now. North Carolina produces more poultry than any other state in the country, and the Cape Fear basin is the most densely concentrated area for swine production in the entire world,” Burdette said. “So while this report highlights reported pollution, there is an enormous amount of pollution that is unreported that combines with this reported pollution to impact water quality here in the Cape Fear River.”

Burdette noted that the Clean Water Act turns 50 years old this year, a significant accomplishment if not perfect.

“It dramatically improved water quality, but the Clean Water Act has a long way to go,” he said. “We still have a long way to go until the Cape Fear River and other waterways across the country are swimmable and fishable and drinkable. And we need to be moving in that direction. And this report really highlights the urgency there.”

About the Clean Water Act

Larry Cahoon, professor of biology and marine biology at the University of North Carolina  Wilmington, teaches marine and freshwater science to graduate students and undergraduates. His curriculum covers the Clean Water Act.

“I grew up before the Clean Water Act was passed. And so I had an opportunity to live through the experience of seeing waters that were multicolored every day. Waters you didn’t dare swim in or wait in or fish in,” he said.

Cahoon said the point he wants to drive home is that the Clean Water Act made it very clear that the waters do not belong to polluters or the government.

“The government is supposed to be the steward of that resource that belongs to us. And I want to get that point across to everyone who’s listening: This is our river. It belongs to us. We should be able to fish and swim in that river and drink its water safely and the fact that we can’t do that means we have a lot of work left to do under the Clean Water Act.”



Originally Appeared Here

Cooper Union stages exhibition on architectural models, and more

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Happy Tuesday! And welcome back to another daily news roundup of this week’s art, landscape, architecture, and planning news. Here’s what you need to know today:

American Society of Landscape Architects announce 2022 Professional Awards

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced the winners of its 2022 Professional Awards. This year, 28 winners were selected out of 506 entries, withe projects by firms including James Corner Field Operations, OJB, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, and others. Of the 28, three projects received Awards of Excellence, RIOS for its Palm Springs Downtown Park in the General Design category and GLS Landscape | Architecture for both the Edwin M. Lee Apartments in San Francisco, recognized in the Residential Design category, and Hope SF, a public housing development for veterans that came out on top in the Urban Design category.

The ASLA selected Hargreaves Jones Landscape Architecture’s rehabilitation of Crissy Field in San Francisco as the winner of the 2022 Landmark Award. Crissy Field, a tidal marsh on San Francisco’s north shore, was filled in with asphalt for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915 and later, used as an airfield for the U.S military. It wasn’t until 2001 that the original wetland was restored under the supervision of Hargreaves Jones and the area was reopened to the public.

“These award winners underscore how landscape architects are problem-solving some of the biggest challenges facing communities around the globe,” said ASLA CEO Torey Carter-Conneen in the awards announcement. “From equitable community gathering spaces to addressing climate change, these winners represent the cutting edge of our industry.”

The winners of the Professional Award will have their projects archived in the Library of Congress and will be invited to attend the ASLA’s 2022 Conference on Landscape Architecture which will be held in San Francisco from November 11 to 14. The full list of winners and their respective projects can be viewed here.

Lehigh University completes new health and science building

Lehigh University, a private research university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, announced the completion of its new Health | Science | Technology (HST) building, designed by the Boston-based architecture firm HGA. The HST is located on the northeast corner of the University’s campus and will house the University’s new College of Health.

The building’s five floors and 189,000-square-foot floor-plan will be used by undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty researching a variety of topics including public health, chemistry, materials science, and biology. This layout fosters interdisciplinary study and collaboration, providing ample study space as well as moveable tables and overhead gas lines which anticipate lab rearrangements to meet future research needs.

The HST was built to meet clean energy specifications laid out by the U.S Green Building Council, incorporating chilled beams, neutral temperature supply air design, heat shift chillers, and high efficiency condensing boilers into the building’s infrastructure. These technical specifications are accompanied by features designed to improve the quality of student life such as the building’s walkability, indoor air quality, daylighting, and healthy cafeteria options.

Model Behavior exhibition now on view at the Cooper Union

Cooper Union has announced a new group exhibition titled Model Behavior which will display architectural models from 45 artists and architects, including Olafur Eliasson, Isamu Noguchi, Ekow Nimako, Peter Eiseman, Höweler+Yoon, Eyal Weizman, among others. The exhibit is curated by Anyone Corporation, a nonprofit architecture think tank that publishes two magazines—ANY (Architecture New York) and Log. Log’s 50th issue was devoted to architectural models.

Cynthia Davidson, the exhibition curator and editor of Log explained in a press statement: “We are at a critical juncture, a time when we need to examine the models that have long been in use. As Thomas Demand has said, without models there would be chaos, but our current world models have led to the climate crisis, extreme poverty, and homelessness. We need to rewrite those models, especially now as architecture is questioning its methods and intentions.”

The exhibition will feature six pieces staged within Cooper Union’s colonnade and dozens of architectural models within the gallery space that were created using a variety of mediums, physical and digital including laster-cut plexiglass, paper, animation, and video. The purpose of the exhibition is to explore the social relations and behaviors evoked by architectural models—hence the title, Model Behavior.

“Model making is central to all architectural education and practice, but our role as architects and educators is to consider the societal and environmental impact of design, and that starts with this foundational and iterative component of the design process,” commented Hayley Eber, Dean of The Irwin School of Architecture at Cooper Union.

To complement the exhibition, the School of Architecture is holding two public lectures in Cooper Union’s Great Hall. The first lecture on October 10 will feature art historian Annabel J. Wharton and Princeton architecture professor Sylvia Lavin. The second lecture will take place on November 8 and will be delivered by architect Kiel Moe and Canadian-born author and professor Sanford Kwinter.

The exhibition will open with a reception on October 4 and will continue with free public admission until November 18.

(Andre Carrotflower/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Cedarland Development Group to transform historic Eckhardt building in Buffalo

Buffalo, New York’s Eckhardt building, an art moderne relic from 1940, will be converted into affordable housing and retail space by local property management company Cedarland Development Group. Originally home to Eckhardt’s department store, the building was later used by Sears and Kobackers. The 39,000-square-foot building will provide relief to low income families who have been struggling due to the rising cost of living in the upstate New York city. Similarly, a dead shopping complex, also once a Sears, in nearby Rochester also recently announced plans to transform the retail space into senior housing.

Art moderne, or streamline moderne as it is sometimes known, is a late iteration of art deco which was popularized in the 1930s. During the Great Depression, builders and designers opted to remove the ornament that was typical of art deco, choosing to streamline buildings and reduce them to basic building materials such as concrete and glass.

Buffalo was once home to another art moderne department store—the W.T Grant Store—which was unfortunately demolished in 1980. The Cedarland Development Group is accomplishing two social goods at once, preserving historic architecture while simultaneously providing affordable housing to low income families.

H/t to WKBW

Three landscape and planning firms compete to design Lake Monona waterfront in Madison, Wisconsin

Three firms, Agency Landscape + Planning, James Corner Field Operations, and Sasaki Associates, are competing to redesign the waterfront stretching from Law Park to Olin Park on Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin. All three firms have designed public waterfronts before in cities such as New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The three firms will publicly display their preliminary ideas on November 7 at the Frank Lloyd Wright–Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center and will have their final designs complete by January 26 for display at Olin Park Facility.

The purpose of the project is to make the shores of Lake Monona a more appealing place for public recreation. In April of 2023, the Lake Monona waterfront ad-hoc committee will choose one of the three designs.

Mike Sturm, the project’s manager at Madison’s Parks Division told WKOW, “It’s public shoreline that’s directly adjacent to downtown and other communities, and it has much more potential to serve the community, to serve Madisonians. We’re relying on the design teams to really help create a new vision.”

H/t to WKOW



Originally Appeared Here

Wausau Water Works Commission Hears Funding Proposals for GAC Filtration System | WSAU News/Talk 550 AM · 99.9 FM

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Wausau Water Works

WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — The Wausau Water Works Commission took no action regarding potential funding for a granular activated carbon filtration system to be installed at the city’s new drinking water treatment plant in the next five years.

Representatives from Ehlers Financial were on hand to present their findings on how to come up with the $17 million for the project, including one option that would have the utility borrowing the full amount and two others that rely on funding from the state’s safe drinking water loan program along with a combination of safe drinking water loans and ARPA funding.

While the data they presented showed the average quarterly bill for 15,000 gallons going from around $85 to between $111 and $117, many on the commission noted that those numbers should not be taken as gospel just yet. “We have so many variables in here so we need to make sure we address as many as we can up front,” said Robinson. “Those rates don’t necessarily reflect the universe of our costs, we will want to be careful,” he added.

Public Works Director Eric Lindman adds that there is also the issue of how to fund the move, saying it’s likely that the utility will have to do some short-term borrowing to cover a gap from the time work starts on the system to when funding becomes available.

Mayor Katie Rosenberg, who chairs the Commission, added that if the move comes with a significant cost increase for customers they may want to consider a change from quarterly billing to monthly.



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Phase three of safe drinking water improvement begins in Tyendinaga Territory

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The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte – Kenhtè:ke Kanyen’kehá:ka will soon have more reliable safe drinking water at 320 more residences thanks to 21 kilometres of new water main infrastructure.  Chief Donald Maracle and the Council of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte (MBQ) hosted a sod-turning ceremony

(This article continues…)

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USIBWC Awards Contract to Kick Off San Diego – Tijuana Water Infrastructure Projects

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October 4, 2022

United States Commissioner Maria-Elena Giner of the International Boundary and Water Commission, United States and Mexico (IBWC) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator Martha Guzman today announced the U.S. Section of the Commission (USIBWC) has awarded a $4,659,432.00 contract to Arcadis, U.S., Inc. to start work on border water infrastructure improvements at San Diego, California – Tijuana, Baja California. This marks important progress toward implementing a recently signed binational IBWC agreement known as Minute No. 328, “Sanitation Infrastructure Projects in San Diego, California – Tijuana, Baja California for Immediate Implementation and for Future Development,”  

The contract will lay the groundwork to double the size of the USIBWC’s South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant (SBIWTP) in San Diego, California, which currently provides treatment to U.S. standards for 25 million gallons per day of wastewater from Tijuana. Under Minute 328, this plant expansion is part of a package of projects in both countries expected to result in a 50% reduction in the number of days of transborder wastewater flow in the Tijuana River and an 80% reduction in the volume of untreated wastewater discharged to the Pacific Ocean six miles south of the border.

“This is an important first step to fix the region’s border sanitation problem,” said Commissioner Giner.  “This work will prepare us to use available funds efficiently and to move quickly to the next phase – design and construction of the expanded treatment plant. I am committed to transparency in how we implement this project and to keep our stakeholders informed.”

“This contract represents a critical step towards controlling the transborder pollution that has long burdened communities in the region and harmed Tijuana River Valley ecosystems” said EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman. “The effort to expand the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, which this contract supports, will mean residents on both sides of the border will have a healthier, cleaner environment for years to come.”

Under the contract, Arcadis will:

  • Determine required upgrades and repairs to the existing plant
  • Provide professional recommendation on the maximum size of the plant expansion with available funding
  • Review and recommend the best procurement method for design and construction of the plant and any required upgrades to the existing plant
  • Prepare design and construction cost estimates
  • Prepare a detailed project scope of work for the plant expansion

This Phase 1 pre-design work will enable USIBWC to solicit bids for design of the SBIWTP expansion by summer 2023. The contractor may also provide Program Management and deliverable reviews as part of the Design and Construction phases.  

The SBIWTP expansion is a major element of the Minute 328 projects, which also include constructing a new treatment plant in Mexico and rehabilitating and replacing aging sewer lines and pump stations in Tijuana.



Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: EPA

U.S. Supreme Court power-plant ruling won’t affect Washington — yet

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In June the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate power plants, prompting widespread questions about the broader environmental implications.

But in Washington, where lawmakers have doubled down on greenhouse-gas emission regulations in recent years and the only coal-fired power plant is expected to close its coal-fired boilers soon, experts say the effects will likely be minimal — at least initially.

“Why people are so troubled by this decision is that it’s just looming like a specter out there,” said Dennis McLerran, environmental attorney for Cascadia Law Group and former EPA regional administrator for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska under former president Barack Obama.  “We don’t know what it will mean eventually.”

The ruling was related to the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era regulation under the Clean Air Act that set carbon-dioxide emission guidelines for power plants. It was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2016 and never went into effect. The Supreme Court’s June ruling — West Virginia v. EPA — stated that Congress did not give the EPA the specific authority to adopt this type of regulation. Although the EPA still has the authority to regulate power plant emissions within each facility’s boundaries and the agency is expected to pursue additional regulations in the future, McLerran said, much of the enforcement comes at the state level.

Washington has one of the cleanest power grids in the country, with hydroelectric power making up about two-thirds of its electricity generation from utility-scale and small-scale facilities in 2020 and wind power accounting for about 8%, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But it also relies on such resources as natural gas and coal, some of which is imported from out of state and Canada.

In 2019, Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Clean Energy Transformation Act, which requires utilities to be greenhouse-gas emissions-neutral by 2030 and produce 100% clean electricity by 2045. The state’s only coal-fired power plant, TransAlta in Centralia, has shuttered one of its two boilers and is expected to stop burning coal altogether by 2025, following a 2011 legislative decision.

But that doesn’t mean Washington will be completely untouched by the Supreme Court’s decision.

McLerran explained that this decision could impact federal agencies’ rulemaking abilities under such statutes as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. There is now the chance the court could respond by saying, “They didn’t have authority to do that, they needed more direct congressional authorization,” he said.

There have been many instances in which leadership in Washington implemented rules building on environmental federal statutes, he explained. And without the federal statutes, the state’s own policies could come under threat.

It is also important to remember that Washington does not function in a bubble, and will be impacted by environmental regulations far beyond its borders.

“If the nation does not have laws that drive down emissions, then Washingtonians still experience the impacts of climate change,” said McLerran. “The higher temperatures in streams, the loss of snowpack, the loss of glaciers, impacts to salmon — all of those things that flow from climate change, if the country is not able to address those, Washingtonians are impacted.”

Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision, Inslee said it was as though the justices took a “wrecking ball” to the EPA’s ability to curb pollution, and that it emphasized just how important state-level restrictions have become.

Miles Keogh, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, compared the situation to a boat that must continue steering with some of its oars removed. Now, he said, states like Washington that are taking the climate crisis seriously have to row even harder.

They must take key steps like cultivating their electric-vehicle industries and dramatically decreasing greenhouse-gas emissions from factories and power plants, Keogh said.

But Washington state Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, said in a statement soon after the decision that this simply comes down to the rule of law and putting power back into the hands of elected officials.

“It is up to Congress to authorize new regulations that the EPA has been implementing on its own, especially regulations that carry billions of dollars in economic ramifications,” he said. “Executive-branch officials don’t get to do this themselves.”

In January the state is set to implement its Climate Commitment Act, a cap-and-invest program that is expected to involve increasingly stringent limits on greenhouse-gas emissions for the largest polluters along with a system of allowances. That month also marks the start of the Clean Fuel Standard law, which, similarly, requires fuel suppliers to reduce the carbon intensity of their fuels. By 2038, they are expected to be 20% below 2017 levels.

Washington is also working to follow California’s lead and require all new cars and trucks sold in the state be zero-emission by 2035.

State Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon, a Democrat who sponsored the clean fuel standard legislation, said state policies have already surpassed those that would have been implemented under the national Clean Power Plan. Now is the time to focus on “(implementing) them successfully and show other states that you can decarbonize your economy and still have a really healthy economy and be a great state to live in,” he said.

Joel Creswell, climate policy section manager at the Washington Department of Ecology, said the state has become a leader in these types of environmental policies and a model for states looking to craft similar legislation.

“There is very much this sort of mentorship ethic and dynamic of sharing information and expertise across the states because ultimately we’re not in competition,” he said. “We all need to get our emissions down to zero and so the more we can help other states do that, the better off we’ll all be because the climate is something we share.”

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EPA releases 2-year milestone evaluations on Chesapeake Bay cleanup effort; cites challenges, progress, potential

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PHILADELPHIA (Oct. 4, 2022) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the results of its evaluation of the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions’ two-year milestones today, noting that although most of the Bay states are not on track to meet the 2025 water quality restoration goals, 2022 saw new significant successes at the state level that will improve the restoration trajectory.

The two-year milestone reports are prepared by the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions – Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. These two-year milestone reports represent key check-in points on the way to having all pollutant reduction measures in place by 2025, a goal established by the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) Partnership.  The CBP Partnership is composed of the seven Bay jurisdictions, and dozens of local governments, federal partners, organizations and academic institutions.

“Although the results are mixed overall, there are more positive developments in the mix than ever. Most of the partnership is not on track for the 2025 targets, but we are encouraged by significant recent progress made in the states,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz. “We applaud the historic new programs, laws, and funding in Pennsylvania to help farmers.  Those achievements will help us accelerate restoration in the local streams that need it the most.”

Based on EPA’s review, the District of Columbia and West Virginia are on track to meet their overall cleanup goals by 2025, but the other jurisdictions are not on track to meet all the cleanup goals.

“We applaud West Virginia and the District of Columbia, and we will continue to partner with the other states to keep accelerating to expand on our successes,” said Ortiz. “More than two decades ago, virtually no streams were getting healthier. Now 40% of them are getting better thanks to our interstate collaboration.”

Overall, the Partnership has already achieved 100% of targeted sediment reductions, and practices are in place to achieve 49% of the nitrogen reductions and 64% of the phosphorus reductions.

“We are dedicated to reducing pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and we also understand the complexities each state faces with technical assistance, data verification, staffing and funding,” added Chesapeake Bay Program Director Dr. Kandis Boyd.  “Although there is good news, there are also new challenges – such as addressing our evolving climate, increased population in the watershed, and advancing air/land/water monitoring and modeling – that hinder sustainable environmental and economic progress. We are committed to working with our partner states and agencies to address these challenges to restore our national treasure.”

For more details on the milestone reports and ongoing Bay cleanup efforts, visit https://www.epa.gov/chesapeake-bay-tmdl



Originally Appeared Here

Filed Under: EPA

Judge dismisses Flint water crisis cases against ex-officials

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A circuit court judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against former state and Flint officials for their roles in the water crisis that gripped the city beginning in 2014. The result had been a likely outcome after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in June that state prosecutors incorrectly used a one-man grand jury to issue indictments last year.

Felony charges against former Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon, former MDHHS employee Nancy Peeler, Rich Baird, a top aide to former Gov. Rick Snyder and other former officials were dismissed by Genesee Circuit Judge Elizabeth Kelly in a written order.

Kelly cited the Supreme Court order in dismissing the cases, issuing a six-page order Tuesday. Kelly had previously canceled a hearing on the cases, instead opting to issue a written order. In total, cases for seven former state and Flint officials were dismissed.

“If the People seek future charges against Defendants, they must follow one of the proper charging procedures outlined by the Supreme Court,” Kelly wrote.

Kelly, however, did not dismiss the cases with prejudice, meaning state prosecutors could file the charges again if they choose to. State prosecutors, led by Solicitor General Fadwa Hammoud, have previously indicated they will continue to seek charges against the officials.

A spokesperson for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2021, Genesee County Circuit Judge David Newblatt charged the group without a preliminary examination, which allows for cross-examination of witnesses before trial. Appeals to Newblatt’s decisions were rejected before the Michigan Supreme Court sided with the defense. The participating justices were unanimous in saying a judge cannot act as a one-man grand jury, with one justice writing in a separate opinion that prosecutors could not afford to “cut corners” in a case of this magnitude.

More:Michigan Supreme Court: Judge erred in Flint water crisis indictments, one-man grand jury

The Supreme Court’s decision stymied prosecutor efforts, although Hammoud and Nessel had vowed to continue pursuing charges. In a response to a motion for dismissal filed by Jarrod Agen, Snyder’s former chief of staff who was charged with felony perjury, prosecutors wrote the defense was conflating the dismissal of the indictments brought by Newblatt as “the dismissal of a case in its entirety.”

Nessel, after taking office in 2019, tossed out previous charges brought forward by her predecessor, Attorney General Bill Schuette, relaunching an expanded probe. At the time, Nessel said in a statement to Flint residents, “justice delayed is not always justice denied.”

The Flint water crisis started in 2014 when the city switched water sources and lead, a neurotoxin particularly dangerous to children, leached into the city’s water supply. As the city struggled with water quality, it also saw an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and deaths.

Lyon, former director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, was charged with nine felony counts of involuntary manslaughter and one misdemeanor count of willful neglect of duty.

Peeler, who was an early childhood health section manager at MDHHS, was charged with two felony counts of misconduct in office and one misdemeanor count of willful neglect of duty.

Baird, who was considered Snyder’s right-hand man as a senior adviser, was charged with four separate felony counts — one of perjury, one of misconduct in office, one of obstruction of justice and one of extortion.

Others who had their felony charges dismissed Tuesday include Agen, former Flint emergency managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Early and former MDHHS medical executive Dr. Eden Wells.

This story will be updated.

Contact Arpan Lobo: [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @arpanlobo.

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Originally Appeared Here