Category: Newsletter

One of the Worst Fires in State History Ravages Southern California

Swamp Stomp

Volume 18, Issue 2

Over 230,000 square acres and upwards of 1,000 structures in urban southern California have been burned in what is now recognized as one of the worst wildfires in California state history. At least 200,000 residents from the towns of Ventura, Ojai, and Montecito, all to the northwest of Los Angeles, have been evacuated as the flames continue to be driven west by the desiccating Santa Ana winds, annual gusts that blow from the southwest deserts over the Santa Ana mountain range and into coastal California in the winter. “It’s not like someone-pointing-a-gun-at-you scared,” said Montecito resident Charles McCaleb referencing the approaching wildfire. “Its more of a controlled fright where you know what’s happening.”

Numerous factors are contributing to these intense wildfires, not least of which includes the fact that this summer and fall have been both the hottest and driest on record for California. “The [relative] humidities right now along the coast are much drier than what you’d normally see in the interior desert in the summertime,” said Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist. “Once you get down to 1% or 2%, you’re down almost as low as is physically possible.” After a historically wet winter last year that allowed more grass and underbrush to grow throughout the state than normal, the extreme heat and dryness of summer and fall killed off the majority of this vegetation, building up an excess of natural dry tinder that the current wildfire has been able to continuously feed off of. Even though California’s wet season was supposed to begin in October, precipitation has been below the historical average, further exacerbating the wildfires. “Normally if we had a little bit of rain, there’s some moisture in the soil to recover,” Swain said. “But there is no rain in sight, about as far as I can possibly say about the weather.”

While it is too early to determine, human-induced climate change is thought to be a culprit in contributing to California’s extreme weather conditions, with studies showing that climate change contributed strongly to the state’s drought in 2012. In accordance with climate change models, annual variations of precipitation and temperature, like the kind California has seen in the past decade, are expected to increase, exaggerating the differences between wet and dry years and increasing the risk of wildfires.“ This is looking like the type of year that might occur more often in the future,” said A. Parker Williams, a climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, who led one of the studies investigating climate change’s impact on California’s drought.

Some meteorologists argue that climate change may not be to blame, citing a ridge of air over the Pacific Northwest influenced by the naturally occurring La Niña cycle as the reason for southern California’s abnormal weather. Yet according to Dr. Williams, due to the warming effect of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, “whatever happens, it’s all superimposed on a warmer world.”

Sources:

  1. Fountain, Henry. “In a Warming California, a Future of More Fire.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 7 December 2017. Web. 10 December 2017.
  2. Lai, K.K Rebecca, Derek Watkins and Tim Wallace. “Where the Fires are Spreading in Southern California,” The New York Times. The New York Times, 8 December 2017. Web. 10 December 2017.
  3. Serna, Joseph. “For some, Thomas fire triggers ‘controlled fright.'” The Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times, 11 December 2017. Web. 11 December 2017.
  4. Serna, Joseph. “Why is Southern California burning in December? A climate scientist’s answer.” The Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times, 7 December 2017. Web. 11 December 2017.

Duck Hunting Decreasing Across U.S.

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 52

Delta Waterfowl has conducted a study that reports that the number of duck hunters on the North American continent is steadily decreasing.  This indicates that the future of conservation projects and, ultimately, the numbers of waterfowl that continent can support are going to fail.

The report was published in the spring issue of Delta’s quarterly magazine.  The story was titled, ‘Looming Crisis: Falling waterfowl hunter numbers threaten the future of hunting and conservation.’ According to Delta’s research, only 998,600 hunters pursued ducks in the United States in 2015. In comparison, 2 million hunters did so in 1970.

The decline in the number of duck hunters started in the mid-1990s. The number of duck hunters has declined almost every year since 1997 when the number of hunters was 1.41 million.

While this may seem like a win for some people, the decrease in duck hunters does cause some issues to arise.  While the decrease in hunting might not cause an issue on its own, but couple that with a record boom in the duck populations and problems occur. While hunter numbers were similar in 2015 to what they were in 1990, in 1990 one of the lowest duck populations since records have been kept occurred. It has been estimated by biologists that fewer than 30 million ducks inhabited the North American continent in 1990. That number has increased to nearly 50 million ducks in 2015.

John Devney, vice president of U.S. policy for Delta Waterfowl believes that one of the causes of the decrease in numbers is because adult hunters do not have access to productive hunting grounds, so they do not take their kid’s hunting.  Since adults are not introducing children to hunting, it leads to problems recruiting hunters later on.

“If we want waterfowl hunter numbers to grow or remain stable, we need recruitment to keep pace with the losses,” he said. “To recruit new hunters, we need to foster a social structure and peer support that allows a kid to stay in the game.

“We tell folks to support conservation — to replace the ducks they shoot every year. We should also be telling them that you must replace yourself as a duck hunter. That’s as big a part of the job as buying a federal duck stamp.”

Devney is mainly concerned that the hunter numbers are declining despite the record duck numbers. Starting in the mid-1990s, hunters have enjoyed liberal season lengths and bag limits because population numbers have been so high. An entire generation of hunters has no idea what it’s like to hunt when regulations are much more restricted.

“And we’re still losing hunters,” Devney said. “What happens when the prairies dry out and we have shorter duck seasons? It scares me to death. Mallards are doing well, but duck hunters are doing terribly.”

What do you think should be done about the increasing duck population?  What is your biggest concern regarding the decrease in the number of duck hunters?

Source: Masson, Todd. “Duck Hunter Numbers Declining Significantly in Louisiana, Nationally.” NOLA.com. The Times-Picayune, 22 Mar. 2017. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

US Honeybee Population Still Low but Rising

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 51

All is not lost regarding the American honeybee population. A step in the right direction regarding the resurgence of their population occurred when winter losses were the lowest in more than a decade, according to a U.S. survey of beekeepers released May 25, 2017.

The annual Bee Informed Partnership survey found that the beekeepers lost 21 percent of their colonies over last winter. Though this number is still too high, it is the lowest winter loss percentage since the survey started in 2006 and an improvement from nearly 27 percent the winter before.

The ultimate goal of the U.S. government is to keep losses under 15 percent in the winter.

“It’s good news in that the numbers are down, but it’s certainly not a good picture,” said survey director Dennis vanEngelsdorp. “It’s gone from horrible to bad.”

vanEngelsdorp, a University of Maryland entomologist, believes that the lower percentage can be attributed to the reduction in varroa mites, a lethal parasite. According to him, a new product to combat the mite and better weather for pesticide use is the reason for the decrease in the parasite.

The average over a 10-year span for winter losses is 28.4 percent.

“We would of course all love it if the trend continues, but there are so many factors playing a role in colony health,” said bee expert Elina Lastro Nino at the University of California Davis, who wasn’t part of the survey. “I am glad to see this, but wouldn’t celebrate too much yet.”

There has been a steadily increasing decline in bees and other pollinators over more than ten years. Scientists blame the decline on a mix of parasites, disease, pesticides and poor nutrition.

Though the largest losses to bee colonies occur during the winter, these losses happen year round. Another good sign is that the survey found that the yearly losses were also down, but not to record lows. The survey found that around one third of the honey bee colonies that were around in April 2016 did not survive the year. This is improvement to last year when the yearly loss rate was higher than 40 percent.

The survey was started by the U.S. government but is now run by a nonprofit. The survey collects its data from nearly 5,000 beekeepers who manage more than 360,000 colonies. University of Montana’s Jerry Bromenshenk believes that the study gives too much weight to backyard beekeepers rather than commercial beekeepers.

Source: Borenstein, Seth. “Survey Finds US Honeybee Losses Improve from Horrible to Bad.” ABC News. ABC News Network, 25 May 2017. Web. 29 May 2017.

Senate Tax Bill Includes Provision to Drill Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 50

Senate Republicans passed a tax reform bill early Saturday morning with a provision opening up parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas development. The provision, introduced by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, passed 51-49 along party lines, save Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tennessee) who voted against the bill. The measure represents a “critical milestone in our efforts to secure Alaska’s energy future,” Murkowski said in a statement.

Established by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1960, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR, spans across 19 million square acres of Alaska’s North Slope, making it the largest wildlife refuge in the United States. Often referred to as the “Serengeti” of North America, the refuge is home to over 200 species of wildlife, including caribou, arctic foxes, wolves, and a variety of bird species that migrate from all over North and South America to roost there in the summer months.

The ANWR is also the only refuge in the country where one can see black bears, grizzly bears, and polar bears in the same place, and serves as a wildlife corridor for species to move between the Canadian Yukon territory to the east and the Chukchi Sea to the northwest. A number of Alaska Native tribes, such as the Gwich’in, continue to rely on caribou herds that migrate through the refuge for sustenance.

After former President Jimmy Carter expanded the refuge in 1980, Congress designated 1.5 million acres on the north coast of the refuge as a Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, after the fears of oil shortages intensified following the Arab oil embargo and Iranian Revolution of the 1970s. Geologists estimate the SPR contains around 12 million barrels of accessible crude oil, potentially worth around $685 million.

Senate Republicans argue that the drilling would only minimally impact the environment since only tracts within the SPR would be eligible for sale to gas companies and citing newer, cleaner extraction technologies that supposedly are more environmentally friendly.

Yet Democrats and environmentalists remain unconvinced, referencing the fact that oil spills remain incredibly common and that the SPR is virtually the only spot in all of Alaska where caribou calve in the spring. The measure to allow drilling in the ANWR was attached without debate to the tax reform bill rather than being presented as a stand alone bill. Since the tax reform bill has a direct impact on the national budget, it only needed a simple majority to pass, rather than the usually 60-vote filibuster threshold applied to all other legislation.

“Little wonder Senate Republicans rushed the vote: it wouldn’t survive the light of debate,” said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, of the legislation.

About a week before the Senate’s vote, twelve House Republicans had written a letter to both the House and Senate arguing against drilling the ANWR, saying that the refuge’s resources “simply are not necessary for our nation’s energy independence.”

Now that both the House and the Senate have voted on a tax reform bill, they will come together in the coming weeks to work out the differences and discrepancies between their two bills before submitting a bill to President Trump’s desk to either sign or veto.

Sources:

  1. Howard, Brian Clark and Sarah Gibbens. “See the Alaska Wildlife Refuge Targeted for Drilling by Tax Plan.” National Geographic. National Geographic, 2 December 2017. Web. 3 December 2017.
  2. Gardner, Timothy. “Drilling in Alaska refuge liklier as Senate clears tax bill.” Reuters. Reuters, 2 December 2017. Web. 3 December 2017.
  3. Koss, Geof and and Kellie Lunney. “Procedural knots tie up ANWR, reform push.” E&E Daily. E&E News, 1 December 2017. Web. 2 December 2017.
  4. Solomon, Christopher. “America’s Wildest Place is Open for Business.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 November 2017. Web. 3 December 2017.
  5. Westneat, Danny. “How to drill for oil in Alaska’s wildlife refuge: Sneak it through in tax bill.” The Seattle Times. The Seattle Times, 22 November 2017. Web. 3 December 2017.

Military Bases Provide Thriving Environment for a Rare Butterfly

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 49

The U.S. military is helping a tiny rare butterfly flourish by providing the living space for these butterflies on their military bases; right next to tanks and other military vehicles.

The butterfly is called a frosted elfin and it has a wingspan of an inch. They choose to call several military bases home because of the way the military manages open spaces, said Robyn Niver, an endangered species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Military training requires vast open areas, so these bases are some of our last great wild places,” Niver said.

The butterfly has been confirmed to be living at Westover Air Reserve Base and Camp Edwards in Massachusetts; Fort McCoy in Wisconsin; Fort Bragg in North Carolina; and the New Hampshire State Military Reservation, she said.

It is not just coincidence that has the frosted elfin choosing to live at multiple military bases. All of these bases manage their vegetation through controlled burns, which create the perfect conditions for wild blue lupine and indigo to grow, the frosted elfin caterpillar’s two host plants.

The small butterflies were first seen at Westover in Chicopee, Massachusetts, about 20 years ago, according to Jack Moriarty, the base’s chief of environmental engineering.

The reason for the strict vegetation control at the base is because it is critical for the safety of the massive C5 military transport aircraft that are housed there. If the vegetation is cut too short, it attracts geese and gulls, increasing the risk of aircraft strikes. If it is allowed to grow too tall, turkeys, deer, and coyotes move in. Lupine and indigo are just the right height.

Though there have been stories of earlier sightings, the frosted elfin was official confirmed at Camp Edwards on Cape Cod just this spring, said Jake McCumber, the Massachusetts Army National Guard’s natural resources manager.

“It was pretty exciting. I was thrilled,” he said. “Our grasslands are in the headquarters area, so it’s probably the busiest part of the base.”

The area is used for the setup of field artillery equipment and helicopter exercises.

The frosted elfin has lived in Fort McCoy for about two decades but it appears that recently the population has exploded, said Tim Wilder, the base’s endangered species biologist. An annual count found about 130 of the insects on the base this spring, the most since the survey began in 2009.

Frosted elfins –which live anywhere from New England to Florida, and as far west as Texas — are not on the federal list of endangered species, but they are headed there, Niver said. Several states already list them as protected, and they have disappeared completely from others.

The hope is that the knowledge gained about the populations of frosted elfins — and a whole host of other rare insects, birds, bats and turtles that thrive on military bases — can be replicated elsewhere.

“Our next step now is finding out how we can work with other partners besides the military to try to boost numbers of rare species on other lands as well,” Niver said.

Source: Pratt, Mark. “Rare Butterfly Thrives On, and Because Of, U.S. Military Bases.” The Denver Post. The Denver Post, 03 July 2017. Web. 03 July 2017.

COP23 Climate Conference: Small Island Nations Voice Concerns

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 48

Diplomats, government representatives and members of civil society convened in Bonn, Germany from November 6th to 17th to attend the twenty-third annual UN Climate Change Conference, or COP23.

The purpose of the conference, presided over by Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama, is to showcase how UN member states have been implementing solutions to meet the climate change mitigation objectives laid out by the Paris Climate Change agreements of 2015, as well as to build further collaborations between governments, private organizations and communities in reaching the goals of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable Development, which includes climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

During his opening speech, Prime Minister Bainimarama emphasized the dire need for international cooperation in addressing climate change, saying “we must preserve the global consensus for decisive action enshrined in the Paris Agreement and aim for the most ambitious part of that target – to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above the pre-industrial age.”

As President of the conference, Bainimarama and the Fijian delegates, as well as other members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), have emphasized the particular plight small island nations face as the effects of climate change grow, from more frequent and powerful storms to sea level rise submerging large swaths of low-lying territory and salinizing sources of fresh water.

For many such islands, including Fiji, more than just natural resources and land are at stake of being lost to rising oceans; coastal villages that have been inhabited by humans for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years are often home to ancestral burial sites that have significant religious and culture meaning to the living. As small islands take steps to relocate these villages to higher ground, this connection between people and their land is compromised, if not lost altogether.

Sailosi Ramatu, headmen of the recently relocated Fijian village of Vunidogoloa, told E&E news that “we cherish our culture and religions in the village and [those are] two main things that we continue to teach our children today, as it is what we will be known for.”

While internal relocation remains an option for island nations with higher ground to move to, lower-lying islands, such as the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and Kiribati in the Pacific, face the stark choice of fortifying their islands against the tides or leaving their homelands altogether.

The Maldives, whose islands average a mere 1.5 meters above sea level, is opting for the former choice, selecting some of their islands to be buttressed by sea walls and artificially constructing others. In 2014, Kiribati made plans for the latter, buying 8 square miles of land from Fiji in the event of mass evacuations. “We would hope not to put everyone on [this one] piece of land but if it became absolutely necessary, yes, we could do it” then President of Kiribati Anote Tong told the Associated Press.

Due to the financial burden climate change is expected to impose upon less developed countries, wealthier countries during the Paris Climate Change agreements agreed to provide 100 billion US dollars towards funding adaptation in less developed countries. While this is a non-binding agreement, evidenced by President Trump’s removal of the United States from the agreements earlier this year, countries like China and Germany have continued to fund adaptation and mitigation strategies in poorer countries.

At the beginning of the conference in Bonn, Germany pledged 50 million euros to the Least Developed Countries Fund as well as an additional 50 million euros to the Adaptation Fund, making it the largest donor to the Adaptation Fund. Commenting on these donations, German Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said: “With this pledge of support we are sending a clear signal that Germany stands in solidarity with those people and countries particularly affected by climate change. I hope that this pledge will lend good momentum and inspire a constructive atmosphere for the negotiations.”

Sources:

  1. Chemnick, Jean. “Islanders face severe threat. Can they convince the world?” Climatewire. E&E News, 9 November 2017. Web. 10 November 2017.
  2. “UN Climate Change Conference 2017 Aims for Further, Faster Ambition Together.” UN Climate Press Release. United Nations Climate Change, 5 November 2017. Web. 10 November 2017.
  3. “UN Climate Change Conference begins: Germany supports developing countries in climate change adaptation.” Current Press Release. Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, 6 November 2017. Web.  10 November 2017.

Trump Moves to Shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 47

President Trump recently confirmed with lawmakers in Utah that he is planning to shrink the size of two national monuments in the state, according to a press release from the office of Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R). The announcement comes in response to the recommendations laid out by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who in April was tasked by President Trump via executive order with reevaluating all national monuments over 100,000 acres in size designated since 1996.

Currently twenty-seven such monuments across the country, including several marine parks, are on Secretary Zinke’s list for proposed policy changes or boundary modifications. “We believe in the importance of protecting these sacred antiquities,” Hatch said in response to the announcement. “But Zinke and the Trump administration rolled up their sleeves to dig in, talk to locals, talk to local tribes and find a better way to do it. We’ll continue to work closely with them moving forward to ensure Utahns have a voice.”

The two national monuments in Utah, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears, were both designated by executive order, the former by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and the latter by President Barack Obama in 2016. Both national monuments have been objects of intense controversy in Utah state politics.

Critics of the monuments, including Sen. Hatch, have argued that the designations represent federal overreach into the state’s affairs and that they unfairly restrict land use, such as mining and grazing, that could otherwise bring money into the state. In the case of Grand Staircase-Escalante, extractive industries hoping to mine the estimated 30 billion tons of coal on the monument’s Kaiparowits Plateau were particularly put off by the designation.

“It sounds like the voices of western communities are finally being heard and the promise to preserve grazing inside monuments might finally be kept by the federal government,” wrote Ethan Lane, director of the Public Lands Council at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, in an email to The Washington Post. “This action would be a win for any western community that depends on ranching to stay afloat.”

Supporters of the monuments, including many Native American tribes from the region, argue that the designations are justified for both environmental and culture reasons; not only are Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears breathtaking sights of natural beauty rich in biodiversity, but the land encompassing the Bears Ears monument in particular is considered sacred by many southwestern tribes, including the Diné (Navajo), Hopi, and Ute, from whence the state of Utah gets its name.

“It was always and has been a spiritual place,” said Al Yazzie, a tribal member of the Navajo Nations’s Low Mountain chapter, about Bears Ears. “It’s the white people that came and tried to nullify that. And we had to fight to get it – to play the game the Western way, the government way, to have it reestablished as a national monument, as a sacred place for us.”

Despite President Trump’s proposed cuts, it is not yet clear if the president has the power to modify national monuments without permission from Congress. Under the Antiquities Act of 1906, the president may act to preserve lands that are scientifically, historically or culturally significant, yet it says nothing about the ability to rescind formerly designated monuments and natural parks.

The last president to modify natural monument boundaries was president John F. Kennedy, who in the 1960’s rearranged the borders of the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. However, this occurred before the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, which legal experts say may bar the president from reducing or abolishing any preexisting designation.

“The president simply does not have the authority to modify these land and ocean treasures,” said Peter Shelley, a senior counsel at Conservation Law Foundation. “More than 120 legal scholars agree that the purpose of the Antiquities Act is clear: to protect areas of scientific, cultural or historical value – not to decimate them.”

A number of environmental organizations and businesses, including the Wilderness Society, Southern Utah Wilderness alliance and outdoor gear companies Patagonia and REI have threatened to bring legal action against the Trump administration should any changes to the monuments be made.

At the heart of this issue over public lands in the west, which has been raging for decades, is how much power the federal government should have in deciding how a state’s lands are allowed to be used. This is of critical concern in western states because, compared to eastern states, a greater percentage of their land’s are federally owned; no state west of the Rocky Mountains except Hawai’i has less than 29% of their land owned by the federal government. In the east, the state with the most federally owned land is North Carolina at only 11.8%.

Even as President Trump and Secretary Zinke move forward with the monument amendments, it could take five to six years to fully effect them, according to legal experts. “This process will be very legally vulnerable because it will have to deal with all the scientific, environmental and social conclusions produced during the first round of management plan creation,” said Randi Spivak, public lands program director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “This would be a massive hurdle for the administration.”

Sources:

  • Barringer, Felicity and Geoff McGhee. “Tracking Proposed Monument Reductions in the West.” Public Lands & The West Blog. The Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University, 21 September 2017. Web. 28 October 2017.
  • Eilperin, Juliet. “Environmental and outdoor groups vow to fight national monument reductions.” The Washington Post. The Washington Post (WP Company LLC), 18 September 2017. Web. 18 November 2017.
  • Friedman, Lisa, Nadja Popovich and Matt Mccann. “27 National Monuments Are Under Review. Here are Five to Watch.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 16 August 2017. Web. 28 October 2017.
  • Friedman, Lisa and Julie Turkewitz. “Interior Secretary Proposes Shrinking Four National Monuments.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 August 2017. Web. 18 November 2017.
  • Yachnin, Jennifer. “National Monuments: Angry greens promise lawsuits if Trump acts on Zinke memo.” E&E News PM. E&E News, 18 September 2017. Web. 28 October 2017.
  • Yachnin, Jennifer. “National Monuments: Trump to slash Bears Ears, Grand Staircase – Hatch.” E&E News PM. E&E News, 27 October 2017. Web. 28 October 2017.

New Steps Being Taken To Combat Deadly Bat Disease

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 46

I recently visited Craters of the Moon National Park in Idaho and was really excited to explore these unusually landscape as well as the extensive caves. You can imagine my surprise when I was asked if any of the clothing I was currently wearing had been worn while I was in any other cave since 2005. It was explained to me about how a lot of bat species around the world have been affected by a fungus that causes white nose syndrome which is deadly to bats and they were trying to prevent the spreading of the disease. When I got back I knew I had to include an article in the newsletter and I am so happy to be able to include one about what is being done to try and help the bats.

It was announced on July 17, 2017 that the Fish and Wildlife Service has increased their efforts to fight a devastating fungal disease that is threatening the U.S. bat population. They are creating grants that total a little over $1 million for state-level programs targeting white-nose syndrome.

The total dollars going to these grants is $1,016,784. The grants are being spread across 37 states and the District of Columbia. The size of the allocations going to individual states ranges from $12,440 for Arizona to $30,000 each for several states including Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

“Bats are beneficial in many ways,” Jeremy Coleman, national white-nose syndrome coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a statement. “While state natural resource agencies are on the front lines of bat conservation, many have limited options for responding to this devastating disease without these funds.”

Some of the money for the grants is coming from the FWS’s “Science Support” component, which the Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal would get rid of.

A fungus called Pseudogymnoascus destructans is the cause of white-nose syndrome, which affects most but not all bat species. It was estimated that more than 6 million bats have died from the disease through 2012, and officials say many more have died since then.

White-nose syndrome has been found in more than 30 states and five Canadian provinces, endangering the insect-gobbling animal that’s helpful to farmers. It has also captured the attention of Congress, with lawmakers holding hearings, touring caves and using past budgets to direct funding for research (Greenwire, April 6, 2012).

The fungus was not discovered in U.S. until the winter of 2006-2007, when it was located in New York. Since the discovery, the FWS has distributed some $7 million in related grants. The funding is part of what the agency describes as “a Service-led, cooperative, international effort involving more than 100 state, federal, tribal, academic and nonprofit partners.”

“Funding from the Service provides state fish and wildlife agencies with critically important support to manage and mitigate the spread of the disease to new areas of the country,” Nick Wiley, president of the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies and executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said in a statement.

Nick Sharp, a biologist with the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, added that “we simply would not have the capacity to do this work” without the federal funding.

More bats were discovered earlier this year to have white-nose syndrome. These bats were the Southeastern bat population in a cave in Shelby County, Ala. With this new species discovered, a total of nine hibernating bat species in North America are known to be afflicted by the fungus. The Endangered Species Act protects three of the nine species.

FWS and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation have created the Bats for the Future Fund, a competitive grant program to fund research.

Source: Doyle, Michael. “Devastating Bat Disease Targeted by New Federal Grants.” Greenwire. E&E News, 17 July 2017. Web. 17 July 2017.

FERC Approves Atlantic Coast Pipeline

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 45

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given the green light to the construction of the contentious Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a multi-billion dollar energy project designed to transport fracked natural gas from the shale-rich Marcellus basin in West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina.

This comes less than a month after North Carolina governor Roy Cooper and the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality rejected the ACP’s environmental plan submitted by regional energy companies Dominion Energy, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and Southern Company Gas on the grounds that it did not meet the state’s erosion and sediment control requirements.

Under the Clean Water Act, states have the right to deny permits to large-scale projects if they deem them a threat to their water quality, though FERC has the authority to override the states’ decision. The energy partners have 15 days after receiving the letter of disapproval to resubmit the plan with additional information required by the N.C. DEQ, or 60 days to challenge the agency’s decision and request a court hearing.

The FERC’s decision, while consistent with its past record of approving the majority of pipeline proposals it reviews, was not unanimous. In a surprise dissenting vote, Obama-appointed commission member Cheryl LaFleur, who had never voted against any proposal in her previous seven years of working on the commission, determined that the ACP developers had not provided sufficient evidence that the pipeline “as proposed is in the public interest.”

The proposed 600 mile pipeline is set to pass through thousands of streams and creeks, many of which feed into the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and into North Carolina’s coastal wetlands. The proposed route also passes through West Virginia’s Monongahela National Forest and Virginia’s George Washington National Forest in addition to 2,900 private properties in all three states.

Dominion energy and their partners argue that the ACP will “support 17,240 jobs during construction and 2,200 operation jobs” in the economically depressed areas that the project will pass through, and highlight that the project is necessary to support the growing natural gas demand from public utilities, small businesses and a growing population in Virginia and North Carolina.

Yet many prominent environmental groups and companies say that the economic benefits of the pipeline are exaggerated; the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that only 39 permanent local jobs will be created by the project’s construction, and PJM, the company charged with managing the mid-Atlantic region’s electric grid, projects that demand for natural gas will remain flat for the coming decade as sources of renewable energy become cheaper.

Of particular concern to landowners in the path of the ACP, many of whom are minorities who rely upon agriculture for a living, is the potential for Dominion Energy to exercise eminent domain over their lands now that the FERC has deemed the pipeline “in the interest of the public.” Dr. Ryan Emanuel, a member of the Lumbee Tribe in North Carolina and professor of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University, highlights the issue in a letter to Science magazine, writing that “the Atlantic Coast Pipeline developer’s preferred route disproportionately affects indigenous peoples in North Carolina. The nearly 30,000 Native Americans who live within 1.6 km of the proposed pipeline make up 13.2% of the impacted population in North Carolina, where only 1.2% of the population is Native American.”

As of now, due to the permitting set backs from the N.C. DEQ, Dominion Energy and partners have pushed back the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s starting date from late 2018 to late 2019. Unless the FERC eventually decides to override North Carolina’s decision, however, the future of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline remains unclear.

Sources:

Puerto Rico’s National Forest Devastated by Hurricane Maria: Long Recovery in Sight

Swamp Stomp

Volume 17, Issue 43

After being devastated by hurricane Maria last September, Puerto Rico’s El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the United States Forest Service system, may take a long time to fully recover according to ecologists from the International Institute of Tropical Forestry and the US Forest Service.

El Yunque, pronounced “el jun-kay”, is a 28,000 square acre forest on the eastern side of the island that was almost completely defoliated by Maria’s 155 mph winds. It is home to 240 different species of trees, 23 of which are only found in Puerto Rico, as well as 50 species of birds including the endemic and critically endangered Puerto Rican Parrot.

In past hurricanes, bird populations have suffered temporarily as the fruit bearing trees that they rely upon for food struggle to regrow. After Maria, however, ecologists surveying the forest found scores of dead birds lying on the ground, suggesting that they had been killed by the hurricane’s vicious winds rather than by starvation.

This population reduction could in turn hinder the proper regrowth of the forest; as pollinator species, birds, as well as bats, assist in plant reproduction and forestation by consuming fruit and dispersing their seeds via excrement to other parts of the island. If these pollinator species’ populations sustained large enough losses during the hurricane, the natural process of seed dispersal could be compromised, ultimately taking the forest longer to recover.

Yet charismatic flora and fauna are not the only ones who will suffer from the rainforest’s destruction. Due to the canopy’s almost complete defoliation, the moist, acidic soil of the forest floor that is normally shaded is now exposed to the sun’s withering heat for the first time in decades, desiccating the soil and potentially interfering with the ecosystem services the rainforest provides to humans.

Chief amongst these services is the capacity to absorb, filter and distribute into rivers the billions of gallons of rainwater that fall on the island annually; El Yunque is the headwaters of eight other rivers that provide drinking water to 20% of Puerto Rico’s citizens.

Yet this ecosystem service relies upon the growth of bryophyte mosses on the trunks of trees to capture that rainwater, a service now hindered after Maria stripped most of the trees’ bark bare of the moss. With only 60% of the island’s wastewater treatment centers functional and 37% of residents lacking access to clean water after the hurricane, the damage to the rainforest’s water processing capabilities only exacerbates the island’s growing humanitarian crises.

In the long term, El Yunque’s slow recovery could do harm to Puerto Rico’s already beleaguered economy, which relies heavily on tourism and increasingly on eco-tourism. An estimated 1.2 million people visit the national forest annually to hike, camp, bird watch and hang glide, contributing to the $1.8 billion the territory earns annually from tourism. As large swaths of the forest remain inaccessible by road from debris scattered by hurricane Maria’s rain and winds, the national forest remains closed to visitors for the foreseeable future.

Sources:

  1. Ferré-Sadurní, Luis. “Another Victim of Hurricane Maria: Puerto Rico’s Treasured Rainforest.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 11 October 2017. Web. 14 October 2017.
  2. Roig-Franzia, Manuel and Arelis R. Hernández. “Three weeks since Hurricane Maria, much of Puerto Rico still dark, thirsty and frustrated.” The Washington Post. The Washington Post (WP Company LLC), 11 October 2017. Web. 14 October 2017.