Environment Archives - Page 102 of 107

Quebec rail disaster shines critical light on oil-by-rail boom

By Scott Haggett, Dave Sherwood and Cezary Podkul

(Reuters) – The deadly train derailment in Quebec this weekend is set to bring intense scrutiny to the dramatic growth in North America of shipping crude oil by rail, a century-old practice unexpectedly revived by the surge in shale oil production.

At least five people were killed, and another 40 are missing, after a train carrying 73 tank cars of North Dakota crude rolled driverless down a hill into the heart of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, where it derailed and exploded, levelling the town centre.

It was the latest and most deadly in a series of high-profile accidents involving crude oil shipments on North America’s rail network. Oil by rail – at least until now – has widely been expected to continue growing as shale oil output races ahead far faster than new pipelines can be built.

Hauling some 50,000 barrels of crude, the train was one of around 10 such shipments a month now crossing Maine, a route that allows oil producers in North Dakota to get cheaper domestic crude to coastal refiners. Across North America, oil by rail traffic has more than doubled since 2011; in Maine, such shipments were unheard of two years ago.

“The frequency of the number of incidents that have occurred raises legitimate questions that the industry and government need to look at,” said Jim Hall, managing partner of consultants Hall & Associates LLC, and a former chairman of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

“The issue here is: are they expanding too rapidly?” he said. “Are they in a rush to accommodate and to make the economic advantage of carrying these?”

MUCH AT STAKE

There are many unanswered questions about the Quebec disaster that will likely shape the public and regulatory response, including why a parked freight train suddenly began rolling again, and why carloads of crude oil – a highly flammable but not typically explosive substance – caused such widespread disaster.

“There may have been some vapours, maybe? I don’t know. We don’t know exactly what happened,” Edward A Burkhardt, chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, said in an interview on Saturday when asked about why the tankers may have exploded.

Apart from the human toll, the disaster will draw more attention to environmental risks of transporting oil.

Much is at stake: Oil by rail represents a small but important new source of revenue for big operators like Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd (CP.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Warren Buffett’s BNSF, which have suffered a drop in coal cargo. It is also a flexible and cheaper option to more expensive European or African crude for refiners like Irving Oil, which confirmed on Sunday that the train was destined for its 300,000 bpd plant in Saint John, New Brunswick.

And for producers like Continental Resources Inc (CLR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) which have pioneered the development of the Bakken fields in North Dakota, railways now carry three-quarters of their production; new pipelines that can accommodate more oil are years away.

Saturday’s train wreck may also play into the rancorous debate over the $5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Midwest, which is hinging on President Barack Obama’s decision later this year.

Obama said last month that approval for the line would ultimately depend on its impact on carbon-dioxide emissions. An earlier draft report from the State Department suggested that rejecting the project would not affect emissions because crude would still be shipped by rail.

As a result, the incident may strengthen the resolve of those opposed to the Keystone pipeline rather than soften resistance. The oil industry at large is already broadly supportive of both rail and pipeline transport.

“Committed critics … could conceivably seize upon the Lac-Megantic incident – in tandem with recent pipeline spills – to argue against oil production, irrespective of its mode of transport,” said Kevin Book, managing director of Research at ClearView Energy Partners.

MOVE IT BY RAIL

The railway industry has this year mounted a more robust effort to counter the suggestion that rail is a riskier way to transport crude than pipelines.

The American Association of Railroads has declined to comment on Lac-Megantic, but previously said its spill rate – based on the number of gallons of crude oil spilled versus every million miles of transport per barrel – is less than half that for pipelines.

The AAR also said the number of train accidents involving the release of hazardous material has dropped by 26 percent since 2000, and by 78 percent since 1980.

Since the beginning of the year, U.S. railroads moved nearly 360,000 carloads of crude and refined product, 40 percent more than in 2012, according to the AAR. In Canada, year-to-date traffic is up 24 percent.

With that growth has come a number of high-profile spills and accidents, many on Canadian Pacific Railway’s network, which runs through Alberta, the largest oil exporter to the United States, and the Bakken field.

Canadian Pacific suffered the industry’s first serious spill in late March, when 14 tanker cars derailed near Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, and leaked 15,000 gallons of crude. Regulators have not released the results of their investigation into the incident, and Canadian Pacific declined to comment.

Even before Saturday’s disaster, the practice of shipping oil by rail was stirring opposition in Maine.

“It’s a wake-up call of the worst kind,” said Meaghan LaSala, an organizer with 350 Maine, a group that opposes the hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – technology that makes shale production possible. “They say rail is the safest method, but there simply is no guaranteed way to transport such highly toxic and explosive materials.”

TOO SOON TO SAY

Many observers say it is too soon to say if the Lac-Megantic disaster will quell the crude-by-rail boom. Refiners not connected to the Midwest pipeline network will still use rail to access the cheapest crudes.

“On the face of it this should be a boost for pipeline solutions, especially given the improvements in pipeline technology over the past five decades,” said Ed Morse, managing director of commodity research at Citi Group.

But he and other analysts noted that not every devastating tragedy leads to new policy.

“We need all forms of transportation for oil, whether they’re rail, whether they’re pipeline, and no system is failsafe,” Charles Drevna, president of American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, said in a phone interview.

For Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway, crude oil shipments are a relatively new phenomenon. With just 510 miles of line, the small railway primarily carried paper and forest products until the financial crisis, and had suffered in the years after until the shale boom came along.

In the first four months of the year, it carried about 16,500 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, 10 times more than a year before and up from zero in early 2011, according to data from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

“In the 10 years or so we’ve been in business, this is the only serious derailment we’ve ever had,” Burkhardt told Reuters in the interview.

Henry Posner III, a former business partner who invested with Burkhardt in a railroad in Estonia, said he could not recall any incidents similar to what happened in Quebec during the 5-1/2 years they were in business together.

“Safety is the most important component of railway culture in North America and that’s one of the things we’re most proud of having exported to Estonia,” said Posner, who chairs Railroad Development Corporation, a Pittsburgh-based company that invests in railroads.

(Reporting by Scott Haggett in Calgary, Alberta, Dave Sherwood in Portland, Maine, and Cezary Podkul in New York; additional reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago, Jonathan Leff in New York and David Ljunggen in Ottawa; editing by Tiffany Wu and Matthew Lewis)

Navajo Nation declares drought emergency

Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – The nation’s largest American Indian reservation is awash in extreme drought, and that has forced its leaders to declare an emergency.

Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly signed the emergency declaration Monday along with a memorandum directing all executive branch agencies to develop plans for responding to the drought and educating the public about its effects.

“We are going to do everything we can to bring our people through this drought. We have many needs, and we are a strong people,” Shelly said in a statement. “Water is precious, and we have to learn how to conserve and change our practices to make sure we prevail through these drought conditions.”

Over the last month, drought on the Navajo Nation – from the tribe’s lands in New Mexico and Arizona to southeastern Utah – has gone from bad to worse. The latest federal drought maps show extreme conditions covering the Four Corners region.

Some areas of the reservation have seen just over one-third of their normal precipitation this year. The soil is dry and wells aren’t producing water like they have in the past, Shelly said.

Making matters worse is summer forecasts are predicting continued high temperatures and below average precipitation for the area. Navajo emergency management officials said that will likely result in lower river flows, which could have negative effects for livestock and municipal wells.

There are about 5,000 stock ponds across the reservation, and officials said as water supplies dwindle, more pressure will be placed on the tribe’s windmills and drinking water wells.

The tribe’s commission on emergency management said drought conditions have already created a critical shortage of water and feed for livestock.

“The land condition will continue to deteriorate and the socio-economic framework of the Navajo Nation will be negatively impacted,” the commission stated. “The livestock owners and farmers will need to plan to protect and preserve their land and their livestock.”

The declaration makes available emergency funds for Navajo communities and clears the way for the tribe to seek a federal disaster declaration.

The genetically modified food debate: Where do we begin?

Nathanael Johnson, Grist

I’ve lingered at the fringes of the debate over genetically modified foods since the ’90s, hoping that some solid fact would filter out and show me clearly who was in the right. But that hasn’t happened. Every shred of information, it seems, is contested, and all this turbulence keeps the water muddy.

Now the debate is coming to a head again. Britain is reconsidering its restrictive position. Here in the U.S., bills to require the labeling of GM foods were introduced to the legislatures in 28 states this year. Now that I’m writing on food for Grist, I can’t keep waiting on the sidelines for someone else to clear this up. I’m going to have to figure it out for myself.

A project like this requires humility. Many people — including, I’m sure, many of you — may have greater expertise in this area than I do. If so, let me know where you think I should be pointing the searchlight. Or, if you’re like me, and just want to get reliable information from someone who’s not bent on convincing you one way or the other, well, come along for the ride.

My goal here is to get past the rhetoric, fully understand the science, and take the high ground in this debate — in the same way that greens have taken the high ground in talking about climate. It’s hard to make the case that we should trust science and act to stem global warming, while at the same time we are scoffing at the statements [PDF] of *snort* scientists on genetic modification.

Now that doesn’t mean we have to stop thinking, and simply accept everything that the voice of authority lays in front of us. I’m going to look at the science critically, and take into account the efforts of agricultural corporations to cant the evidence. When Mark Lynas made his speech saying that he’d changed his mind about genetic engineering, I was unconvinced, because he didn’t dig into the evidence (he provides a little more of this, though not much, in his book). Lynas did, however, make one important point: There are parallels between opposition to GM crops and other embarrassingly unscientific conspiracy theories. If there are grounds to oppose genetic engineering, they will have to be carefully considered grounds, supported by science.

Of course people who are concerned about genetic engineering don’t have a monopoly on error and overstatement. As the journal Nature put it in a special issue in on transgenic crops:

People are positively swimming in information about GM technologies. Much of it is wrong — on both sides of the debate. But a lot of this incorrect information is sophisticated, backed by legitimate-sounding research and written with certitude. (With GM crops, a good gauge of a statement’s fallacy is the conviction with which it is delivered.)

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing a series of pieces, attempting to highlight legitimate concerns and identify the arguments that should be taken out back and … retired. In the courtroom, a judge will often work with both sides to determine a set of facts that all can agree upon, before moving on to argue about how the law should apply to those facts. I’d like to do something similar here: sort out established facts, and gain a sense for what the bulk of the science indicates.

I’m going to start with the most politicized issue: Is there any evidence that genetically modified food is directly harmful to people who eat it? There’s a one-word answer to this: no.

If you aren’t prepared to take my word for it (especially that particular word), things get a bit more complicated. The most persuasive evidence is that millions of people have been eating genetically modified foods for the past 20 years without any obvious ill effects. If anyone exhibited acute symptoms after eating GM food, we would have seen it.

At the same time, the absence of evidence of harm does not prove safety. If the effects were subtle and chronic, and showed up in only a small subset of the population, it’s possible that we could have missed something. And we don’t know what to look for.

That’s the point Margaret Mellon made when I called her at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in Washington, D.C. Mellon has been critical of U.S. policies on genetically engineered crops.

“People need to understand how hard it is to use the scientific method to address the issue of, ‘Is genetic engineering safe?’” she said.

The problem: It’s not a yes or no question.

“It does not appear,” Mellon said, “that there’s any risk that applies across the board to all genetically engineered food and to all people. Each plant is different, each gene insertion is different, each person’s response is different.”

In other words, every GM food could be wonderfully healthy until one particular gene insertion causes things to go awry in just such a way that it messes with the immune system of one particular person. How do you deal with this?

“You need to make a list of all the things that might be potential problems and analyze each of these risks in a wide variety of genetically engineered products,” Mellon said.

Dozens of scientific advisory panels have done this sort of brainstorming. The World Health Organization [PDF], for example, reached the fairly common conclusion that the problems in genetically engineered foods are fundamentally the same as the dangers that arise naturally in plant breeding. Each relies on mutations randomly mixing up the genome. Each sometimes provides unexpected outcomes — try to make corn disease-resistant, end up with too many toxins in the kernels. In both GM and conventional breeding, scientists rely on screening to weed out the bad cobs.

However, researchers generally acknowledge that there’s something a little different about genetic engineering. The United Kingdom’s 2003 Genetic Modification Science Review [PDF], led by David King, puts it this way: “By virtue of the different processes involved, there will be some sources of uncertainty and potential gaps in knowledge that are more salient with respect to GM food production techniques.”

If you have no idea what that means, that’s because it’s incredibly vague. Sure, King is saying, there’s something unusual about transferring a firefly gene into a tomato — that kind of thing doesn’t happen very often in nature. (Although it does happen, amazingly– scientists have found examples of genes moving between different species.) But we don’t know what that difference implies. The report goes on to say that the science so far suggests that those implications have amounted to nothing so far. All the same, this unique technique does create “uncertainty and potential gaps in knowledge.”

The quest for greater certainty on genetic engineering leaves you chasing shadows: When you’re dealing with gaps in knowledge, rather than hard data, it’s hard to tell what’s an outlandish hypothetical, and what’s the legitimate danger. Anything, of course, is possible, but we shouldn’t be paralyzed by unknown risks, or we’ll end up huddled in our basements wearing tinfoil hats. Exhibit A:

There’s no way to completely eliminate risk. The real question is, have we thought through the realistic potential for problems, and put regulatory safety nets out to protect ourselves?

Trying to answer that opens another can of worms. Critics like Mellon say that, right now, the producers of GM crops aren’t required to do any testing at all. GM boosters say that regulations are so onerous they stifle innovation. Clearly, someone is wrong here. I’ll take that up in my next post.

Train explosion in Quebec stokes debate about oil transport

Reuters/Mathieu BelangerA firefighter walks past a burning train at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. — Reuters/Mathieu Belanger. A firefighter walks past a burning train at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec.

John Upton, Grist

The latest disaster caused by the transport of oil across North America has wrecked the town of Lac-Mégantic in Quebec. A driverless train loaded with crude from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota derailed and exploded early Saturday in the town’s center.

Dozens of buildings were leveled and at least five people were killed, while 40 more were still missing as of Monday morning. The fracked oil was en route to New Brunswick, which is home to the largest oil refinery in Canada. From Reuters:

The train, which did not have an engineer aboard when it derailed, was hauling 72 tanker cars of crude from North Dakota to eastern Canada. It rolled downhill from an overnight parking spot, gathered speed and derailed on a curve in the small town of Lac-Megantic at 1 a.m. on Saturday.

Each car carried 30,000 gallons of crude oil. Four caught fire and exploded in an orange and black fireball that mushroomed hundreds of feet into the air and flattened dozens of buildings, including a popular bar.

“It looks like a war zone here,” said Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The disaster plunged the media into debate: Is it safer to move oil through underground pipelines (à la Mayflower, Kalamazoo, and Keystone XL), or to move it by rail?

Frackers and tar-sands miners are extracting record amounts of oil in America and Canada. Existing pipelines can’t carry the whopping bounty to refineries, so energy companies are seeking to lay lattices of new pipes. Meanwhile, the glut of liquid hydrocarbons is being loaded onto trains, which are being sent vast distances — and are triggering high-profile spills and accidents.

The Toronto Globe and Mail argues in the wake of the Lac-Mégantic disaster that “[p]ipelines are the safest way of transporting oil and natural gas, and we need more of them, without delay.” The New York Times considers the pipeline-vs.-train question more impartially, quoting environmental experts:

Edward Whittingham, the executive director of the Pembina Institute, an environmental group based in Calgary, Alberta, said there was not conclusive research weighing the safety of the two shipment methods.

“The best data I’ve seen indicates,” he said, “depending on your perspective, both are pretty much as safe as each other, or both are equally unsafe. There’s safety and environmental risks inherent in either approach.”

Accidents involving pipelines, Mr. Whittingham said, can be more difficult to detect and can release greater amounts of oil. Rail accidents are more frequent but generally release less oil.

But the comparison obfuscates an obvious reality: The oil can’t be moved safely at all. (Same goes for natural gas.)

After a string of pipeline and rail accidents in recent years, it’s clear that letting the energy industry move incendiary bulk fluids around the continent is like tossing a book of matches into the crib to keep little Johnny happy while his folks stare at the television. And that’s without even considering the climate impacts of the fossil-fuel mining binge, or the many hazards of fracking.

The weekend tragedy is a reminder that the energy industry can’t be trusted to do anything safely, let alone transport oil.

Hundreds of Protesters Shut Down Oil & Gas Chemical Supplier to Protest Fracking

Source: Earth First! Newswire

On the edge of the western mountain range, protesters with Croatan Earth First! are currently occupying an industrial manufacturing facility owned by Momentive and located at 114 Industrial Drive. North Carolinians, who have been fighting to prevent hydraulic fracturing from coming to central North Carolina are joined in this action by people from around the country who also oppose shale gas extraction nationwide. Momentive is one of the largest worldwide distributors of “resin coated proppants,” a necessary component for fracking. Each fracturing stage requires approximately 136 tonnes of proppants.

“We are here to send a message to the oil and gas industries: we will not stand idly by as you destroy this land, or any other, for your personal profit. Respect existence, or expect resistance,” said an Earth First! activist.

The North Carolina legislature plans to begin permitting frack sites as early as March 2015 in the Cumnock Shale Basin located underneath Lee, Moore, Chatham, and surrounding counties. Fracking has been tied to water aquifer contamination in Pavilion, Wyoming according to an EPA study and linked to high levels of methane in Pennsylvania water wells according to a study by Duke University. Researchers with Cornell University found that fracking operations nationwide released massive amounts of methane (a greenhouse gas) straight into the atmosphere, and concluded that, if not curbed, would speed climate change faster than carbon emissions.

The NC legislature is negotiating on the possibility of legalizing toxic wastewater injection in state or transporting it elsewhere. The process uses 1-8 million gallons of clean water each time a well is fracked.

“We are under drought conditions already, yet the oil and gas industry is allowed to pump millions of gallons of water out of our streams. This is devastating life in our rivers and streams. To make matters worse they send this water back into the riverways poisoned with radioactive materials,” said organizer Lydia Nickles. “Preserving our waters is preserving our lives and all life. We want an end to shale gas extraction everywhere.”

Activists with the Earth First! Movement are calling on people nationwide to resist fracking where they live and organize solidarity actions.

“Even if you don’t have a rig in your area to shut down, you can affect the industry. Momentive and other companies that create proppants for the gas industry have facilities nationwide as well as internationally. It’s time to disrupt the chain of supply. Go to www.frackindustry.org and organize to take action now!”

Momentive’s worldwide headquarters are located in Columbus, Ohio and other locations can be found online at: http://www.momentive.com/locations_home.aspx?id=293

A message from Croatan Earth First!: “We are acting in solidarity with and take inspiration from the courageous many who have been standing together to take action in the North Carolina capital during Moral Mondays, and we encourage everyone to continue to show our collective power, acting up against the repressive corporate and legislative powers for the liberation of all and the integrity of land, water and air.”

Global threat to food supply as water wells dry up, warns top environment expert

Iraq is among the countries in the Middle East facing severe water shortages. Photo: Ali al-Saadi/AFP

John Vidal, The Guardian

Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world’s leading resource analysts has warned.

In a major new essay Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world’s people, are now overpumping their underground water tables to the point – known as “peak water” – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year.

The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: “Among the countries whose water supply has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. By 2016 Saudi Arabia projects it will be importing some 15m tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and barley to feed its population of 30 million people. It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.

“The world is seeing the collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of governments in the region to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them.”

Brown warns that Syria’s grain production peaked in 2002 and since then has dropped 30%; Iraq has dropped its grain production 33% since 2004; and production in Iran dropped 10% between 2007 and 2012 as its irrigation wells started to go dry.

“Iran is already in deep trouble. It is feeling the effects of shrinking water supplies from overpumping. Yemen is fast becoming a hydrological basket case. Grain production has fallen there by half over the last 35 years. By 2015 irrigated fields will be a rarity and the country will be importing virtually all of its grain.”

There is also concern about falling water tables in China, India and the US, the world’s three largest food-producing countries. “In India, 175 million people are being fed with grain produced by overpumping, in China 130 million. In the United States the irrigated area is shrinking in leading farm states with rapid population growth, such as California and Texas, as aquifers are depleted and irrigation water is diverted to cities.”

Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvest prospects in China, which rivals the US as the world’s largest grain producer, says Brown. “The water table under the North China Plain, an area that produces more than half of the country’s wheat and a third of its maize is falling fast. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region’s deep aquifer, which is not replenishable.”

The situation in India may be even worse, given that well drillers are now using modified oil-drilling technology to reach water half a mile or more deep. “The harvest has been expanding rapidly in recent years, but only because of massive overpumping from the water table. The margin between food consumption and survival is precarious in India, whose population is growing by 18 million per year and where irrigation depends almost entirely on underground water. Farmers have drilled some 21m irrigation wells and are pumping vast amounts of underground water, and water tables are declining at an accelerating rate in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.”

In the US, farmers are overpumping in the Western Great Plains, including in several leading grain-producing states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Irrigated agriculture has thrived in these states, but the water is drawn from the Ogallala aquifer, a huge underground water body that stretches from Nebraska southwards to the Texas Panhandle. “It is, unfortunately, a fossil aquifer, one that does not recharge. Once it is depleted, the wells go dry and farmers either go back to dryland farming or abandon farming altogether, depending on local conditions,” says Brown.

“In Texas, located on the shallow end of the aquifer, the irrigated area peaked in 1975 and has dropped 37% since then. In Oklahoma irrigation peaked in 1982 and has dropped by 25%. In Kansas the peak did not come until 2009, but during the three years since then it has dropped precipitously, falling nearly 30%. Nebraska saw its irrigated area peak in 2007. Since then its grain harvest has shrunk by 15%.”

Brown warned that many other countries may be on the verge of declining harvests. “With less water for irrigation, Mexico may be on the verge of a downturn in its grain harvest. Pakistan may also have reached peak water. If so, peak grain may not be far behind.”

Can bringing wetlands back to our coasts protect us from future megastorms?

ShutterstockBeach house in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Far Rockaway, N.Y.

By Jared Green, Source: Grist

Kevin Shanley says too many cities have an outdated approach to storm protection that makes them vulnerable to the coming mega-storms. The CEO of SWA Group, an international landscape architecture, planning, and urban design firm, Shanley is an advocate of using “green infrastructure” — human-made systems that mimic natural ones — as bulwarks.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, people are taking note. Some experts believe New York City would not have sustained such severe damage had the original wetlands that lined the coasts not been uprooted by development. In fact, some parts of Staten Island remained relatively unscathed because they were protected by the massive Fresh Kills Park and its wetlands.

What’s needed, Shanley says, are policy shifts “rooted in a natural system-approach that work with nature’s tremendous forces.” Beyond policy changes though, Shanley has also worked on projects, in Texas and elsewhere, that show how these human-made systems could work. But he cautions that more research is needed if communities’ lives and livelihoods are to rely on human-made nature.

Shanley was recently in Washington, D.C., speaking at the Renewable Natural Resources Foundation on improving the resiliency of our coasts in an effort to protect them from increasingly damaging storms and sea-level rise brought on by climate change. I caught up with him there.

Q. What were the lessons of Hurricane Sandy?

A. There are real-world lessons and then “should-be” lessons. The real-world lesson is that everybody is at risk. These storms don’t just happen to Florida or Bangladesh. They can hit New York City. The storm could have hit Washington, D.C., with disastrous results. We’re not ready.

The other lesson we need to learn is quite important: We forget really quickly. Katrina happened, now eight years ago. Some structural changes were made to the levee system, but all of the really great plans to rebuild New Orleans as a more sustainable community, a better community, a more integrated community came to nothing.

The key is finding a way to rebuild strategically and learn lessons from these disasters to shape our future plans.

Q. New York City’s new climate adaptation plans calls for both “hard” infrastructure, like seawalls, and “soft,” green infrastructure. In a recent Metropolis magazine piece, Susannah Drake described soft infrastructure as “transforming the waterfront from a definitive boundary into a subtly graded band.” How well will this work?

A. Soft green infrastructure along coastal fringe areas can play a really important role in restoring ecological functions to our coastlines. Our coastlines have been severely degraded from an ecological point of view. But using these systems to protect urban areas needs really serious science and engineering studies. Just how effective is a coastal marsh of several hundred yards wide? We’re not talking about miles wide. We’re talking probably several hundred yards or hundreds of feet. What is the benefit to, say, Manhattan? Can we take a blended approach to soften our edges and create redundant and resilient strategies?

I’ve seen some beautiful renderings of the edge of Manhattan as it could be. There would be dramatic changes in ecological performance and a transformation in public perception about the city as a green place. There are a lot of wonderful aspects to this. But from a surge and hurricane risk-protection standpoint, we need to be careful not to set up false expectations. To what extent do coastal marshes protect us when a surge comes in that is 15 or 20 feet above those marshes? The green infrastructure could impede the wave action and the movement of the water, or even exacerbate the run-up of a surge in shallow waters. The Gulf Coast of the North American continent has a long, shallow coastal run-up, which tends to exacerbate wind-driven surge.

Also, rising water levels drown coastal marshes. That’s what has happened in the Galveston Bay complex in Texas. Because of subsidence caused by groundwater withdrawal, we lost square miles of emergent coastal marsh. The bottom dropped out and it drowned the marshes. One can say, “Well, the marsh will just march inland.” Well, will it? Does the actual geography allow it to just march inward? These are important questions.

Q. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants to spend $400 million to buy up homes in New York City, demolish them, and then preserve the flood-prone land as undeveloped coastline. Does this approach make sense?

A. It’s a potentially very powerful tool. Speaking globally, the British and Dutch have been at it for decades. It’s called “managed retreat.” It’s about getting out of harm’s way. FEMA has been funding buyouts like that for a while now. It’s a really good program to remove the most at-risk structures, particularly federally insured structures that time after time are repeat sinks for federal flood insurance claims.

What needs to be thought about, however, if you’re talking about scaling it up, is how to replace the economic value of the development that’s being removed from harm’s way. There are sales taxes based on the occupants, all kinds of revenue to the community. This revenue pays for schools, sewer systems, security, and all of the other things that we take for granted in government. Coastal real estate is expensive because it’s attractive. If you take that out of the equation, you’ve got to be ready to think how to replace that.

That’s the challenge facing all of us. Great ecological strategies need to be considered economically, and vice versa.

Q. Respected scientists argue that sea levels could rise four feet by 2100. How does this change the timeline for action on improving coastal resiliency?

A. Sea-level rise is like watching the hour hand move. We are like grammar school students: The hour hand doesn’t seem to move during class. Our time horizons are measured in just a few years at best. If we’re forward-thinking, we might think out 10 years. Will public policymakers be able to think out beyond a year or even 10 years to 100-year thresholds? The dialogue is there, but I don’t see it coming down to meet real public policy changes yet.

Q. What’s holding back these policy shifts? Where are the biggest obstacles at the federal and local levels?

A. The biggest obstacle is the lack of public awareness … there needs to be clear communication about the risks. That can be through things like flood insurance rate maps, but it also needs to be through public education and policy. There needs to be clear disclosure on every real estate transaction. There was an effort in the Clear Lake City area, which is in the Houston metro region where NASA’s Johnson Space Center is located. They actually put up signs, little colored pylons, that indicated “This is the water level for a category four storm. This is the water level for a category five storm.” You see it there and you would wonder, “Gee, should I buy a house here?” or certainly “Gee, should I make sure I renew my flood insurance?” A local politician, at the behest of the real estate community, insisted they be taken down.

Q. The Buffalo Bayou Promenade in Houston really set the example for how to turn a trash-soaked eyesore into a beautiful piece of parkland that also supports flood control. What led to the changes in Houston’s approach to its waterways and green space?

A. In Houston, the new riverfront has been the result of years of work by lots of individuals, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. Each main bayou in the city has its own citizen advocacy organizations. Some of them are fairly significant and have permanent staff, whereas others are purely volunteer citizen groups. There have been willing ears in the public agencies. More recently, there has been support at an elected official-level, including a very supportive mayor right now. That’s very encouraging. But we have a long ways to go. We’re just starting on this effort. We have 2,000 miles of open stream channels in Harris County alone, so we’re just beginning.

Q. You’ve done a lot of work in China. What is your impression about how the Chinese are approaching coastal resiliency? Is there a uniquely Chinese approach to these issues that we can learn from in the West?

A. The country is doing great wetlands restoration projects. Wetland parks are all the rage across China. Kongjian Yu, FASLA, principal at Turenscape and professor at Beijing University, probably has a dozen wetland parks on his desk in his office at any given time. We’re working on a number of them. It puts to shame anything we’re doing here. On the other hand, one has to balance that against the unbelievable rate of urbanization and its impact on the environment in China. It’s maybe only a drop in the bucket toward mitigating the impacts of urbanization that are going on right now.

You take the whole climate issue in China. China’s doing some of the most progressive carbon-capture energy production in the world. For a while, they were the largest producer of solar cells. They’re the largest producer of wind generating equipment. There are all these sort of extremes of what they are doing. Yet in the global sense, they’re producing more carbon dioxide than anybody on a more rapid basis. They’re increasing their carbon and energy footprints. They’re still below us on a per-capita basis, but they’re working very hard to catch up to our own huge footprints. So you will find a really mixed bag in China.

What can we learn from China? We ought to be studying what they are doing right and trying to learn from their successes. To the extent they’re interested in partnering so they can learn from us, we ought to be sharing those solutions with them. It’s a wild ride, like a rollercoaster, and one whose end we can’t see from our vantage point.

Interior Approves Large-Scale Wind Energy Project on Arizona Public Lands

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

On June 28, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced the approval of a major wind energy project in Arizona that, when built, will provide up to 500 megawatts to the electricity grid—enough energy to power up to 175,000 houses—and create approximately 750 jobs through construction and operations.

The project advances President Obama’s comprehensive plan to reduce carbon pollution and move the country’s economy toward domestic-made clean energy sources, thus hopefully slowing the effects of climate change.

As part of his comprehensive climate action plan, Obama challenged the U.S. Department of the Interior to approve an additional 10,000 above the original goal of 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy production on public lands by 2020.

The project, proposed by BP Wind Energy North America, Inc., would erect up to 243 wind turbines on federal lands for the Mohave County Wind Farm, which would be located in northwestern Arizona about 40 miles northwest of Kingman.

“These are exactly the kind of responsible steps that we need to take to expand homegrown, clean energy on our public lands and cut carbon pollution that affects public health,” said Secretary Jewell. “This wind energy project shows that reducing our carbon pollution can also generate jobs and cut our reliance on foreign oil.”

With this recent announcement, Interior has approved 46 wind, solar and geothermal utility-scale projects on public lands since 2009, including associated transmission corridors and infrastructure to connect to established power grids. When built, these projects could provide enough electricity to power more than 4.4 million homes and support over 17,000 construction and operations jobs.

Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has identified an additional 14 active renewable energy proposals slated for review this year and next. The Bureau recognized these projects through a process that emphasizes early consultation and collaboration with its sister agencies at Interior—the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service—demonstrating President Obama’s and Interior’s ongoing commitment to “smart from the start” planning.

The decision to approve the Mohave County Wind Farm paves the way for right-of-way grants for use of approximately 35,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land and 2,800 acres of Bureau of Reclamation land.

The company agreed to undertake significant mitigation efforts to minimize impacts to wildlife and other resources, including reducing the project’s footprint by about 20 percent from the original proposal. The smaller footprint will protect golden eagle habitat and reduce visual and noise impacts to the Lake Mead National Recreational Area. In particular, the Interior’s decision bars the installation of turbines within designated sensitive areas to avoid golden eagle nesting locations, as well as provides for a 1.2-mile buffer zone to protect the nests.

Additionally, no turbine will be closer than a quarter-mile to private property. “The project reflects exemplary cooperation between our Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation and other federal, state and local agencies, enabling a thorough environmental review and robust mitigation provisions,” said Bureau of Land Management Principal Deputy Director Neil Kornze. “This decision represents a responsible balance between the need for renewable energy and our mandate to protect the public’s natural resources.”

“I added my signature of approval for this vital project on the same week that President Obama challenged Interior to intensify its development of clean, renewable energy,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Michael L. Connor said. “Reclamation’s hydropower resources are a centerpiece of the nation’s renewable energy strategy. We are pleased to also play a significant role in this important wind energy project.”

Elsipogtog War Chief John Levi jailed until Monday

Sock and supporters of John Levi in front of Moncton Courthouse. Photo: Miles Howe

Mike Howe, Halifax Media Co-op

Elsipogtog War Chief John Levi was today sent to jail until Monday morning at 9:30am, which, according to the presiding judge, was the “earliest convenient time” to set bail.

Levi stands accused of two charges, both related to an anti-shale gas action that took place on June 21st. The first, mischief, is most likely related to the actions of four people, three of whom went out onto highway 126 into the path of SWN Resources Canada’s seismic testing trucks. These four people were arrested – along with eight others on that day – and Levi stands accused of telling protesters to “stand their ground”.

It was three later arrests that broke through an RCMP line and attempted to halt the moving trucks. One woman was also arrested and subsequently punched in the mouth by RCMP, as she attempted to get to her partner, who had thrown himself under the bumper of a moving truck.

Levi also stands accused of obstructing justice, which, actually, is allegedly related to him and I leaving highway 126 together in his truck on June 21st. For that day, I stand accused of ‘threatening’ an RCMP officer. Yesterday, when I was first charged at RCMP ‘Codiac’ station in Moncton, I was also charged with ‘resisting arrest’. This was later changed to ‘evading arrest’ and then subsequently to ‘obstruction of justice’ for alllegedly walking away from the officer that I allegedly threatened, who then allegedly arrested me.

That I was not charged with anything until yesterday, July 4th, suggests that officer Richard Bernard, who allegedly did the arresting, kept the matter of my charges – and subsequently at least one of John Levi’s charges – totally to himself.

There have been ample opportunities to charge me – and Levi – with whatever the RCMP might have liked. Why they chose not to do so, and then arrest us two weeks later, must remain in the realm of conjecture for the moment.

For example:

On June 22nd I was pulled over and my licence was run by the RCMP. There was no charge against me.

On June 24th I was highly visible at an anti-shale gas action in Browns Yard, New Brunswick. No officer approached me to inform me of my arrest.

On June 30th, I gave two RCMP officers a statement in relation to a fire to which I was the first responder. Not only was there no charge at this time, but these RCMP officers then offered me “financial compensation” if I would alert them to information related to the fire or any plans I might hear of that might endanger people or equipment.

This does raise the question:

If no one in the RCMP, save perhaps officer Rick Bernard, knew that I was charged with anything, then how could John Levi have possibly known that he was obstructing justice by having me in his truck when we drove away from the site of the 12 arrests on June 21st?

Levi, for his part, has also suffered numerous threats from the RCMP since June 21st.

“He’s received a lot of phone calls and texts from RCMP, demanding and even threatening him.” said Amy Sock, one of the encampment’s spokespeople, outside of the Moncton courthouse.

“[The RCMP have been saying] they want to see him today, and if not today then they’re going to catch him one day.”

It is also important to note that Levi was never charged with anything until I was charged yesterday. I was arrested at 12:34pm; Levi’s parole officer was served with a notice to appear at approximately 2pm.

Levi is currently on probation for attempting to exercise Treaty fishing rights.

It is also important to note that both my arrest and Levi’s arrest just so happen to have occured yesterday, July 4th. This is the first day that SWN Resources Canada has worked in over a week.

In court this morning, Norma Augustine, Levi’s aunt, attempted to plead with the judge to overturn the decision to imprison her nephew until Monday. The presiding judge stood up while Augustine – an Elder in the Elsipogtog community – was in mid-sentence, and walked away. Many in the nearly packed courtroom turned their backs on the judge as he exited.

“Just because he’s in jail does not mean that this fight will be over. In fact it means more support. More people will be here,” said Sock. “Look at all these people that came here and left at 8 o’clock this morning for John Levi. Because we believe in him and we believe in what he’s doing.”

SWN work update

Unconfirmed sources say that SWN Resource Canada has halted work for the day on ‘Line 5′, the back woods seismic line west of highway 126. The work stoppage is apparently related to a threat for workers’ safety.

Media Co-op reporter Miles Howe released from police custody; Mi’kmaq war chief also arrested

A photo taken by Miles Howe on June 21st, when 12 arrests were made near the sacred fire encampment in Elsipogtog.

Ben Sichel, Halifax Media Co-op

Media Co-op reporter Miles Howe has been released from police custody after being detained near Elsipogtog, New Brunswick yesterday afternoon – but Howe says he thinks police are trying to prevent him from reporting news from a controversial shale gas exploration site.

Howe has been in New Brunswick since early June reporting on protests against shale gas exploration near the Mi’kmaq community. He faces charges of uttering threats to a police officer and obstruction of justice.

“I think they’re trying to restrict my access to seismic testing sites,” said Howe.

According to Howe, RCMP chief Rick Bernard approached him this afternoon as he stood next to Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) news reporter Jorge Barrera. The two were waiting for press access to a site where seismic testing, a precursor to hydraulic fracturing or fracking, was said to be taking place.

Bernard then informed Howe that he was under arrest for allegedly uttering threats against a police officer on June 21st.

APTN’s Jorge Barrera tweeted that Bernard arrested Howe “after shaking Miles’ hand.”

The Media Co-op’s Howe “has been doing the bulk of reporting in #Elsipogtog on anti-shale gas protests and has been taken in by the Mi’kmaq community,” Barrera also tweeted.

RCMP Cpl. Chantal Farrah confirmed to CBC that Howe’s arrest was indeed related to an incident on June 21st. The RCMP has not responded to the Media Co-op’s request for comment as to why his arrest was not made for 13 days.

According to Howe, the timing of the arrest is odd, since he has been in contact with police in New Brunswick twice since the alleged June 21st incident without being notified that police wanted to arrest him.

In particular, Howe says he gave a statement to police regarding a fire he witnessedon June 25th, involving equipment owned by SWN, the Texas-based company currently exploring for shale gas in New Brunswick.

“Police went to my house in Halifax seeking a statement about the fire I had seen, since I was the first respondent [at the scene],” Howe said. “When I heard that I went to the police here and they took a statement from me about what I had seen. They knew exactly who I was, yet there was no indication that I was wanted by them for any incident on June 21st.

“After they took my statement, they also mentioned that they’d be able to offer me financial compensation for information [related to the ongoing protests],” Howe added.

Howe also notes that his charges changed over the several hours he was in custody, from resisting arrest to evading arrest to obstruction of justice. He had no comment on the charges themselves.

War chief John Levi also arrested

Howe expressed concern for Mi’kmaq war chief John Levi, who was also charged today with obstruction in relation to Howe’s own arrest.

“He’s basically been charged with abetting me [over the past several days],” Howe said, despite Levi not knowing until yesterday that Howe was accused of a crime.

Howe described the charges against Levi as “trumped-up.”

“They may be using me to get at him,” Howe said. “This is a dangerous situation for Levi, who’s been an important leader for the people here.”

Anti-Fracking protests continue

There is an open invitation to a “Celebration of Unity with Elsipogtog” gathering this Saturday at 10 a.m. by a Facebook group called Walk for a Ban on Fracking.

“In the end [my arrest today] is just one small incident,” Howe said. “People here continue to show amazing strength.

“I’m not the story here,” Howe said.