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Last coal-fired car ferry to keep dumping waste in Lake Michigan

by d2wk58 Posted on April 2, 2013

Last coal-fired car ferry to keep dumping waste in Lake Michigan

By John Upton

The S.S. Badger, still crossing Lake Michigan on coal power.

It’s bad enough that the S.S. Badger is still powered by coal — the only car ferry left in the country that runs on the dirtiest of fossil fuels. But what’s really going to blow your mind is how the ferry disposes of its coal ash after burning: It is mixed with water into a slurry and dumped overboard. More than 500 tons of it every year. Straight into Lake Michigan. Just like its operators have been doing since the 1950s.

In 2008, the U.S. EPA told Lake Michigan Carferry, the company that operates the Badger, to cut that crap out. The company must switch to another fuel or start dumping the waste somewhere on land, the EPA said. The ferry company responded by asking for more time to study how it would switch over to natural gas, and the EPA was all, OK, but just four more years, and that’s it.

That four-year grace period expired over the winter, and guess what Lake Michigan Carferry plans to do once the ferrying season begins next month? That’s right, it plans to continue dumping its coal ash into Lake Michigan. And the federal government is pretty much OK with that.

From the AP:

The company had applied for a permit to continue dumping the ash while researching how to retrofit the ship to operate on liquefied natural gas. Under a proposed consent decree [between the EPA and Lake Michigan Carferry] filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, the company would scrap that option in favor of onboard storage.

Disposal into the lake would be reduced over the next two years and stop altogether by the end of the 2014 sailing season.

After a 30-day public comment period, a judge will decide whether to approve the deal, which also would require the company to pay a $25,000 civil penalty for exceeding mercury pollution standards last year. Coal ash contains low concentrations of arsenic, mercury and other heavy metals, although it’s not classified as hazardous. The company denied violating federal or state mercury regulations.

“This consent decree offers the fastest and most certain path available to EPA to stop the discharge of coal ash from the Badger into Lake Michigan,” said Susan Hedman, EPA regional administrator.

The feds would like to know how you feel about this deal. From the Ludington [Mich.] Daily News:

“Now it’s important that our community step forward and start submitting its comments on this agreement between the EPA and carferry owners,” Ludington Mayor John Henderson told the Ludington Daily News recently. “I hope everybody sees there is true progress being made that totally eliminates that discharge into Lake Michigan and make it a more environmentally friendly operation.”

Here’s a comment for Lake Michigan Carferry: Join us in the 21st century! It isn’t so bad here. We’ve got cleaner air and cleaner water now, because other people started cleaning up their acts last century.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

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America’s infrastructure grade improves to a still very sad D+

by Gustavo Stanfield Posted on March 19, 2013

America’s infrastructure grade improves to a still very sad D+

The New York Times reports:

America is full of potholes, slumping levees, and fraying electrical grids. So it may surprise you to learn that the country’s physical infrastructure is actually apparently improving.

For the first time in 15 years, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the country’s infrastructure a higher grade than it did last time. Congrats, America, you’ve improved from a D to a D+! Soo you’ll still have to repeat the class.

deborahfitchett

Some connected trends have led to the shift, according to the engineering organization. It cited a rise in the private financing of public projects and renewed attention from state and local government to kick-start their own projects, rather than wait for Washington to send money. The jump in private investment was instrumental, for example, in the improved outlook for the nation’s rails, according to the report. That evaluation jumped to a C+ from a C-. The group also cited short-term increases in financing — a reference to President Obama’s economic stimulus package, which focused in part on “shovel-ready” projects like road and bridge repair.

“When investments are made and projects move forward, the grades rise,” the report stated.

Gregory E. DiLoreto, the group’s president, said, “A D+ is simply unacceptable for anyone serious about strengthening our nation’s economy,” but he added that the improvement “shows that this problem can be solved.”

In addition to the overall grade, ASCE handed out individual marks for specific kinds of infrastructure: near-failing D- grades for levees and inland waterways, and D grades for drinking water, hazardous waste, roads, transit, and wastewater, among others.

The highest grade, a shiny B-, was given for solid waste generation and recycling rates, as we’re now composting or recycling more than one third of the crap we toss.

Infrastructure spending can give a real boost to the economy, as The Economist points out: “a study by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2009 found that every $1 billion spent on infrastructure creates 18,000 jobs, almost 30% more than if the same amount were used to cut personal income taxes.”

The Economist laments that declining gas-tax revenue means there’s less infrastructure funding available. It looks at more “creative” — i.e. private-public-partnership — solutions to America’s failing everything. For example, in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) isn’t pushing municipal bonds but rather private investments from “foreigners, charities and pension funds” in things like school lightbulbs. Other cities and states are rethinking their gas taxes, and increasing their (really regressive) sales taxes to fund transportation.

The number of “public-private partnership” (PPP) projects under way around the country, although still low by European standards, has jumped in recent years. They include a tunnel under construction in Florida, a commuter rail scheme in Colorado and road improvements in Texas and Virginia. The Center for American Progress, not normally a cheerleader for red-blooded capitalism, reckons it should be possible to mobilise at least $60 billion a year in private infrastructure investment. That would be a huge step up from the paltry total of $10 billion raised through such schemes between 1990 and 2006.

The Economist calls for doing an end run around Congress, and I don’t blame it. But America’s infrastructure needs are in the $250-400 billion-ish range annually, and relying wholly on private companies to invest that amount seems … optimistic. And those PPPs might be nice for classroom lighting, but am I the only one who doesn’t trust multinational companies (and their intrinsic profit motives) to restore our all-important levees?

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Minnesotan towns say ‘no’ to a fracking sand mine

by Sylvesterax6 Posted on March 14, 2013

Minnesotan towns say ‘no’ to a fracking sand mine

By John Upton

Mulad

The main strip in the city of St. Charles, Minn.

The fracking industry can’t seem to buy itself any love.

While lawmakers in New York, Vermont, Fort Collins, Colo., and elsewhere consider or implement bans on hydraulic fracturing, companies that mine the sand that’s used by frackers are also finding themselves rejected. And dejected.

Minnesota Proppant is one such company. It wanted to open one of the world’s largest frac-sand processing and rail-loading facilities in St. Charles Township in rural southeastern Minnesota (population 629). Sand in that area is highly prized by the fracking industry: It is just the right size and strength to be pumped with water and chemicals at high pressure into gas-rich shale, where it wedges into cracks that are opened up and holds them open, allowing natural gas to escape.

Unfortunately for the company, townsfolk weren’t too keen on the pollution it was expected to produce. Nor were they thrilled that well water would be liberally pumped out of the ground by the miners. Concerns were raised about lung diseases that could be caused by airborne silica. And they worried that the local tourism industry could take a hit.

Do you suppose company officials took a hint and moved on?

They did not.

Instead, the company looked to the next city over. It promised abundant jobs and economic progress to the city of St. Charles (population 3,735) if lawmakers there would just annex the potential sand-mining land into city limits, and permit the proposed mine to open.

But on Tuesday evening, the city council rejected that proposal. From the Star Tribune:

Mayor Bill Spitzer said the issue was tearing the community apart. His biggest reason for saying “no” to the project, he said, was to stay on good terms with the township. “Once you start destroying relationships, you can’t move forward,” Spitzer said.

What Spitzer perhaps didn’t realize was that his city’s move would destroy other relationships — those precious relationships of onetime business partners who had joyously come together to scoop sand out of the ground so it could be sold to frackers. From a followup story in the Star Tribune:

The collapse of a major frac sand proposal in Winona County has caused a split among investors in the project, with one faction pulling out in frustration over Minnesota’s anti-frac sand sentiment.

“Me and my partners split up. They went to Wisconsin,” said Rick Frick, one of two remaining principals in Minnesota Proppant LLC. “Were they fed up? Yes, that had a lot to do with it.”

Wisconsin, he said, has embraced the industry more warmly than Minnesota has — to the point where some communities are “tickled pink” about upswings in jobs and taxes. In the past four years, the nation’s oil and gas fracking boom, which relies on silica sand as a main drilling ingredient, has coincided with the permitting of almost 100 new mining facilities in Wisconsin.

Take it easy there, buddy. Not everybody in Wisconsin loves your kind. Just last month the town of Bridge Creek, Wis., rejected plans to open a similar frac sand mine there.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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blogs about ecology

. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants:

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Mississippi poised to pass ‘Anti-Bloomberg’ bill banning healthy food regs

by nension Posted on March 12, 2013

Mississippi poised to pass ‘Anti-Bloomberg’ bill banning healthy food regs

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Mississippi is just the kind of place one might expect to find a backlash against the “organic agenda.” Apparently spurred on by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s (newly tossed out) pet ban on big sodas, Mississippi is currently on the verge of passing a bill that would bar every local government in the state from requiring that restaurants post calorie counts or cap portion sizes.

A far-reaching, big-government bill to counter other far-reaching, big-government bills? Uh, sure, Mississippi. NPR has the full scary deets:

“The Anti-Bloomberg Bill” garnered wide bipartisan support in both chambers of the legislature in a state where one in three adults is obese, the highest rate in the nation.

The bill is expected to be signed by Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican. It was the subject of intense lobbying by groups including the restaurant association, the small business and beverage group, and the chicken farmers’ lobby.

“The chicken farmers’ lobby” could be a caption for an unfunny New Yorker cartoon, but in Mississippi it’s also apparently a powerful business group — though hardly the only one with skin in this game.

Mike Cashion, executive director the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association, says the bill is a direct reaction to Bloomberg-style government intervention in public health.

“If you look at how menus have changed, whether it be in fast food or family dining, you are seeing more and more healthy options,” Cashion says. “Not because of legislative mandates or regulatory mandates, but because of consumer demand. Our industry has always been one to respond to the marketplace.”

Cashion is on a real free-market trip! But free markets and consumer demands always seem to go hand in hand with business profits, and Cashion’s loyalties are with the restaurants, not with the people who eat at them. The Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association’s website proclaims that the “industry is represented by a team of government affairs experts that is dedicated to protecting you from harmful legislation while promoting legislation that will benefit the industry. We estimate that our Government Affairs victories have saved the average restaurant over $10,000 over the past 4 years.”

This isn’t a story about how Mississippians don’t want to know what they’re eating. It’s yet another example of business buying government — the food business has proven to be pretty good at that over the years. And in that way, it’s hardly news at all.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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NYC judge throws out Bloomberg’s big sugar drink ban

by DenaeTina858 Posted on March 11, 2013

NYC judge throws out Bloomberg’s big sugar drink ban

Good news, soda lovers and Bloomberg haters!

Reuters reports that New York State Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling threw out New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pet ban, calling it “arbitrary and capricious,” in response to lawsuits brought by the American Beverage Association and other unapologetic sugar peddlers business groups.

Passed last September, the measure would’ve banned the sale of certain sugary drinks bigger than 16 ounces (sweetened iced tea and soda, but not alcoholic drinks or fruit juice) from certain locations (restaurants and movie theater concessions, but not convenience stores). Sweet-toothed sellers defying the ban would’ve faced $200 fines starting in June.

Bloomberg sold the “Big Gulp” ban as an obesity-fighting measure, though it didn’t outlaw fatty fast-food milkshakes or “Big Gulp” drinks themselves.

So what’s next for arbitrary ‘n capricious Bloomy? Perhaps a ban on Styrofoam cups? Because I’m sure they don’t have a powerful industry lobby at all…

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

NYC judge throws out Bloomberg’s big sugar drink ban

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How one fracking company bullies residents and elected officials alike

by BayalaHillesland628 Posted on February 19, 2013

How one fracking company bullies residents and elected officials alike

By Philip Bump

chriswaits

Indeed.

When the EPA last year dropped its inquiry into methane seepage from wells fracked by Range Resources, it seemed like an unusual move. Texan Steve Lipsky’s water supply was bubbling over with the explosive gas, after all, which seemed like the sort of thing an agency built around protecting the environment should look into. But Range Resources threatened to pull out of a key fracking study, and the EPA backed off.

Because, according to a report from Bloomberg, that’s the game the frackers at Range Resources play: bullying, threatening, intimidating.

Critics say the Fort Worth-based company, which pioneered the use of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale, has taken a hard line with residents, local officials and activists. In one case it threatened a former EPA official with legal action; in another it stopped participating in town hearings to review its own applications to drill, because local officials were asking too many questions and taking too long.

“Range Resources is different from its peers in that it chooses to severely punish its critics,” said Calvin Tillman, the former mayor of Dish, Texas, and an activist who has been subpoenaed and issued legal warnings by Range. “Most companies avoid the perception of the big-bad-bully oil company, while Range Resources embraces it.”

The Bloomberg article outlines some of that bullying. A lawmaker who criticized Range had emails leaked to the local paper. And Steve Lipsky, he with the methane water, was sued.

[Range] argued in local court that Lipsky conspired to defame the company by getting his air and water tested by Alisa Rich, president of Wolf Eagle Environmental consultants, and taking that complaint to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and to the media.

“The object of the conspiracy was to make false and damaging accusations that Range’s operations had contaminated Lipsky’s water well,” the company said in its suit, filed in July 2011.

While the case is still being fought in court, Lipsky stands by his charge of Range’s culpability: “It’s ludicrous,” he said, referring to the case. “They’re ruthless.”

As Bloomberg notes, there’s a potential downside to alienating citizens and politicians for a company that relies on permitting and leasing land. Tangling with the EPA, however, seems to carry very little cost at all. At least to Range Resources.

Source

Texas fracker accused of bully tactics against foes, Bloomberg

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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During the coldest week in decades, some Sandy-damaged homes still don’t have heat

by Pauline80x Posted on January 25, 2013

During the coldest week in decades, some Sandy-damaged homes still don’t have heat

By Philip Bump

It has been 87 days since Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast. The past three of those days have fallen during the coldest week in New York City in 17 years.

From The New York Times:

As the region suffers through a brutal cold snap this week, with temperatures so punishing that uncovered slivers of flesh feel like paper cuts and the slightest wind can send a chill through the teeth like a Popsicle, the best solution seems not to leave home. But for many people whose boilers were flooded by seawater during Hurricane Sandy and still languish, awaiting repair, home is as frigid as the outdoors.

Residents who have made do with cold homes under extra blankets and triple socks since the storm hit in October face new challenges as the thermometer continues to dip. Temperatures this week have been about 10 to 15 degrees lower than midwinter averages, according to the National Weather Service, and are expected to slide into the teens over the next few nights, and could even fall into the single digits in parts of the region.

As of Tuesday, New York City’s Rapid Repairs construction teams had restored heat, hot water or power to 12,247 residences in 7,112 buildings, according to Peter Spencer, the spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery. But work is continuing in an additional 1,893 buildings, a substantial portion of which, Mr. Spencer estimated, remain without heat.

Daniel Choi’s house doesn’t have heat, the Times reports. Neither does Devon Lawrence’s. Retired nurse Hazel Beckett is warming bricks on her stove to stay warm.

dvids

Breezy Point, Long Island.

Most of the still-powerless homes are in the areas of New York along the coast, the neighborhoods deluged by storm surge: the Rockaways, Staten Island, Breezy Point. For years before the storm hit, these were the neighborhoods understood to be most at risk, but little was done to prepare them. Now New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) is reluctant to rebuild in them. Again, the Times:

“There are some parcels that Mother Nature owns,“ he said earlier this month in his official State of the State speech. “She may only visit once every few years, but she owns the parcel and when she comes to visit, she visits.”

To deal with such intrusions, the governor wants to give homeowners in these areas a choice. New York will help them rebuild a better house — on stilts, for example, higher than future floodwaters. Or they can sell what’s left of their homes to the state and move to higher ground.

Details of his proposal — called the Recreate NY-Smart Home program — are still being worked out, and it is hard to say how many New Yorkers will take him up on his offer to relocate. It is also hard to know how much money Mr. Cuomo will be able to spend per house, since this program will be part of a larger Sandy package that includes protecting subways and utilities and creating a fuel reserve to manage future gas lines.

Should Cuomo need ready-made stories in his push for smarter rebuilding, he could turn to elderly Hazel Beckett and her warmed-up bricks. This is a scene that should never have happened — much less three months after the fact.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Americans are consuming less high-fructose corn syrup

by DenaeTina858 Posted on January 24, 2013

Americans are consuming less high-fructose corn syrup

High-fructose corn syrup was our sweetener of choice in the late ’90s, when we were all high on junk food and the potential for this crazy new thing called The Internet. Those were fast times!

Now we are jaded and less interested in the sweet stuff. According to the USDA, this year only 4.5 percent of the U.S. corn crop is expected to be used for production of high-fructose corn syrup, the lowest amount since 1997.

Fuck you, soda!

Corn costs have tripled since 2004, making the syrup a less cost-effective sweetener. And some health advocates say efforts to combat obesity have helped to curb HFCS consumption, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s much-despised and much-lauded big soda ban.

From Bloomberg the news source, not Bloomberg the mayor:

Americans consumed an average of 131 calories of the corn sweetener each day in 2011, down 16 percent since 2007, according to the most recent USDA data. Meanwhile, consumption of sugar, also blamed for weight gain, rose 8.8 percent to 185 calories daily, the data show.

Even with the increase in sugar use, total U.S. sweetener production remains down 14 percent from a 1999 peak, according to the USDA.

“We’re seeing a real decline, and that people aren’t just switching to sugar,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington.

Let’s not celebrate just yet, though — the full picture on our sweet habits is a bit more grim.

This week, researchers in Philadelphia found a 70 percent increase in diabetes rates for kids under age 5 over a 20-year period. That scary rise has leveled off over the last decade, as has our taste for corn syrup. Good news, sure, but that decade of living the high life on high fructose has given us a serious public health hangover. And diet cola isn’t going to make it feel any better.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

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Big 50-year plan could make Detroit greener and healthier

by HarralGeidl697 Posted on January 10, 2013

Big 50-year plan could make Detroit greener and healthier

Detroit’s city leaders, backed by deep-pocketed foundations, have laid out a new plan for remaking Motor City into a thriving and sustainable metropolis. From Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson:

[P]rops to Mayor Dave Bing and the Detroit Works project he has championed for telling Detroiters the truth about their limited options for redeeming Michigan’s largest city — and reminding them how quickly those options will narrow if Detroit’s elected leaders fail to seize the moment.

The Detroit Future City report unveiled Wednesday is best understood as a municipal triage plan. Squarely confronting the chasm between residents’ expectations and the city’s capacity to meet them, the report’s authors have done their best to apportion the city’s dwindling resources across a sprawling landscape of deprivation. …

Nobody will be forced to move … But if implemented, the Future City plan would codify the tale-of-two-cities scenario that already exists, formalizing the boundary between neighborhoods that retain critical mass and the more sparsely populated hinterlands where the amenities associated with urban living are generally unavailable.

The new Detroit Works Project 50-year plan for the city is sprawling and ambitious, but unlike a lot of huge strategic plans, it actually doesn’t seem completely insane. Put together after hundreds of meetings, thousands of surveys, and tens of thousands of snippets of community input, the 350-page “Detroit Future City” report is full of big, green ideas.

The plan’s recommendations for a future Detroit include building “blue and green infrastructure” to help address water and air-quality issues, creating new open space networks, including local wildlife habitat, and diversifying the city’s public transportation modes. The W.K. Kellogg, Kresge, and Ford Foundations have pledged millions to help the plan become reality.

“This is the most comprehensive framework ever established for an American city,” said Toni Griffin, director of the Technical Planning Team at the Detroit Works Project.

The report calls for adding new, large areas of greenspace, but it’s also emphatic about the need to reuse old buildings (whereas other shrinking cities have taken the approach of knocking them down en masse). From the report:

Vacant land and buildings are among Detroit’s most valuable assets for its future … Turning vacant land from burdens to assets will take more than changes in specific policies and practices. ALL PUBLIC AGENCIES—WHETHER CITY, COUNTY, OR STATE—WILL NEED TO CHANGE HOW THEY THINK ABOUT LAND, AND MAKE EQUALLY FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES TO THE WAY THEY ACQUIRE, MANAGE, AND DISPOSE OF LAND AND BUILDINGS, AND THE WAY OTHER PUBLIC AGENCIES REGULATE THEM. Without such a change in thinking and practice, the inventory of vacant land and buildings in its current condition will not only fail to become an asset, it will continue to act as a roadblock to the implementation of creative strategies for land use, environmental restoration, economic growth and neighborhood revitalization.

Yeah, I’ll get behind any strategic plan for reuse and sustainability that yells at backward-thinking public agencies in bold, all-caps.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for