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How Social Media Often Supports Animal Cruelty and the Illegal Pet Trade
21 June 2019
Insights + Opinion
A chimpanzee in Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Kenya. Ray in Manila / CC BY 2.0
By Ashley Edes
Whether you find it fascinating or disquieting, people recognize the inherent similarities between us and our closest primate relatives, especially the great apes. As a primatologist I regularly field questions ranging from how strong gorillas and chimpanzees are (very) to whether monkeys throw poop (not yet observed in the wild) to how smart they are (let's just say I can't compete with their puzzle-solving abilities).
<p>Interspersed with the fun and interesting facts I share about primates, I also try to help people become more discerning consumers of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/animals/">animal</a> photos, videos and other content, especially on social media. A little bit of context can help people avoid unintentionally supporting <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> trafficking or other harmful practices through a like or a share.</p><p>We've all seen images and videos of primates that go viral — a chimpanzee bottle-feeding a baby tiger, a monkey having makeup applied, slow lorises eating rice balls and holding tiny umbrellas. Most recently, widely circulated videos have shown juvenile chimpanzees dressed in clothes and hugging former caretakers or scrolling through Instagram on a smartphone. Whether due to their similarities to us or to the fact that most of our animal experience is with domesticated species, many viewers erroneously believe these pictures and videos are not only cute and innocuous but that they depict animals in positive, healthy situations.</p><p>Unfortunately, this is often not the case.</p><p>One of the best ways to gauge animal welfare in zoos and sanctuaries (and more broadly on social media) is to use the Five Freedoms, which were first presented in 1979 by the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council. Essentially, positive welfare means animals experience:</p><ol><li>Freedom from hunger or thirst — access to water and species-appropriate food;</li><li>Freedom from discomfort — appropriate environments with shelter and resting areas;</li><li>Freedom from pain, injury or disease — diagnosis, treatment and prevention when possible;</li><li>Freedom to express normal behaviors — enough space and appropriate social housing to facilitate these behaviors (within reason, as not every natural behavior can be accommodated);</li><li>Freedom from fear and distress — avoid mental suffering.</li></ol><p>With these Five Freedoms in mind, you can pick out some of the welfare concerns that wildlife experts see in these viral images and videos. Wearing clothing is not a normal behavior and is an immediate red flag. Primates that are strongly bonded to humans often are not in appropriate environments, meaning those locations and situations aren't designed to help them express normal behaviors with members of their own species. (Occasionally humans in zoos and sanctuaries must care for neglected or orphaned infants, but these animals are socialized and housed with members of their own species as soon as possible.)</p><p>Other issues may be harder to recognize, which is why the expertise of those with specialist knowledge is so valuable. For example, videos of slow lorises frequently violate the Five Freedoms — rice balls are not appropriate food sources for this species and those shown reaching for tiny umbrellas are exhibiting a fear display, information about their biology and behavior the public would not typically have.</p><p>While these problems are not unique to primatology, our abundant similarities lead people to believe they can accurately judge how their evolutionary cousins are feeling. But those big open mouth "smiles" aren't expressions of happiness, they're "fear grimaces" (formally termed 'silent bared teeth displays'), which primates display to signal subordination to a larger, stronger individual, usually in contexts where aggression has occurred or is likely. These expressions are especially prevalent in the entertainment and greeting card industries; I encourage you to think about the treatment received behind-the-scenes to get displays of submission and fear in front of a camera.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTYxNDYwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwNjE3Mzc1OH0.i7ICCj63dq4Vsf1RiEtqnHbOI6mR7EgEbfYgxGQSZ0Y/img.jpg?width=980" id="9ea03" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="23eab565597faf5e909fa8713be2e048" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The rhesus monkeys in these photos are not smiling; they're displaying "fear grimaces" (formally termed 'silent bared teeth displays'), which are expressions of subordination typically shown in situations where an individual is threatened or has received aggression. The first photo shows a fear grimace up close, while the second shows a whole family displaying fear grimaces toward the approaching alpha male.
Photo: Amanda Dettmer, used with permission
<p>Many believe that engaging with social media posts such as these through liking, sharing or even commenting has no impact on animal <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation">conservation</a>. But these videos and images actually do threaten species, many of which are already in peril. Likes and shares are noted by those in the exotic pet trade, and comments like "I want one" encourage viewing wildlife as suitable pets and fuels the continued removal of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/endangered-species">endangered species</a> from their homes.</p><p>Research by primate conservationists has documented the devastating effects social media can have on primate populations (you can read some of the scientific papers for free <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118487" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0208577" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069215" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0022050" target="_blank">here</a>). For example a <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118487" target="_blank">2015 study by Katherine Leighty and colleagues</a> demonstrated that viewing pictures of primates in a stereotypical office setting both increased people's desire to have these animals as pets and decreased their likelihood of believing the animals to be endangered. By comparison, primates depicted in forests or away from humans were perceived as happier. This and studies like it demonstrate that the pictures and videos we see on social media do affect public perception.</p><p>It's important to understand just how drastically the pet trade can threaten the survival of vulnerable and endangered species. For example, infant chimpanzees are targeted for the pet trade because adults are dangerously strong and can be very aggressive. Because adults will fight to protect them, whole troops are regularly killed to capture one or two infant chimpanzees. These infants rarely survive long enough to be sold, either due to the traumatic experience, the poor conditions following capture, or a combination of both.</p><p>There are many other awful realities of the primate pet trade, such as slow lorises, which are the only venomous primates, having their teeth cut out with nail clippers so they cannot bite (check out more on the plight of slow lorises at the <a href="http://www.nocturama.org/en/welcome-little-fireface-project/" target="_blank">Little Fireface Project</a>).</p><p>You don't have to be an animal welfare expert to fight back against the pet trade. Below are simple, easy steps individuals or organizations can take to support the conservation of endangered species.</p><ul><li>Don't like, share or comment positively on questionable media. Look for those red flags indicating the Five Freedoms of animal welfare are being violated. If you aren't sure, you can <a href="http://spidermonkeytales.blogspot.com/2017/06/is-that-cute-animal-picture-depiction.html" target="_blank">consult this guide</a> or reach out to a primatologist or wildlife biologist — there's a whole big community of us on social media and we're happy to help (you can find me on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ashley_edes?lang=en" target="_blank">@ashley_edes</a>).</li><li>If you are following accounts that regularly share questionable media, unfollow them.</li><li>Challenge others who share questionable media. You can share this essay or some of the many other excellent ones that have been written on this topic (see pieces by <a href="http://news.janegoodall.org/2019/04/25/inappropriate-videos-on-social-media-are-hurting-chimpanzees/" target="_blank">the Jane Goodall Institute</a>, <a href="https://www.discoverwildlife.com/news/viral-videos-pet-lemurs/" target="_blank">DiscoverWildlife</a> and <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2019/05/social-media-enables-the-wildlife-pet-trade-in-malaysia/?fbclid=IwAR3guK5pVAtE8AqOXtMjrk92xsYrz-1mUrUbjXDWNqdh3YKXIT84vBMgJdc" target="_blank">Mongabay</a>).</li><li>Do not purchase greeting cards or items depicting animals in poor welfare situations (e.g., wearing clothes, smoking, riding bicycles) and <a href="http://primatesanctuaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Greeting-Cards.pdf" target="_blank">educate others if you receive such items</a>.</li><li>Avoid tourist activities allowing close interaction with wild animals. While there are exceptions, in many of these situations the animals are drugged or cruelly trained to be docile and pose for pictures with tourists (see <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/06/global-wildlife-tourism-social-media-causes-animal-suffering/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=twitter::cmp=editorial::add=tw20190515ngm-wildlifetourismfeature::rid=&sf212722331=1" target="_blank">this piece from National Geographic</a> and <a href="https://www.sandiego.edu/news/detail.php?_focus=72135" target="_blank">recent research on pet lemurs and wildlife tourism</a> for more).</li><li>Follow reputable zoos and sanctuaries for wildlife content. Zoos and sanctuaries share amazing pictures and videos on social media every day. Engaging with these posts spreads media that have a positive impact on captive animal welfare and the conservation of their wild counterparts. One of the easiest ways to identify reputable organizations is to look for accreditation from <a href="https://www.aza.org/" target="_blank">AZA</a>, <a href="http://zaa.org/" target="_blank">ZAA</a>, <a href="https://biaza.org.uk/" target="_blank">BIAZA</a>, <a href="https://www.eaza.net/" target="_blank">EAZA</a>, <a href="https://www.waza.org/" target="_blank">WAZA</a>, <a href="https://www.sanctuaryfederation.org/" target="_blank">GFAS</a> and/or <a href="http://primatesanctuaries.org/" target="_blank">NAPSA</a>. These organizations donate millions to conservation efforts every year, and institutions accredited by them have higher standards of animal care.</li></ul><p>When we truly care about wildlife, we want them to thrive. As difficult as it may be, we need to make sure our desire to be near to and connect with wildlife doesn't jeopardize their ability to live and thrive in the wild. Rethinking and changing our engagement with wildlife content on social media — not just as individuals but as a culture — can have real, positive impacts on the animals we are trying to save.</p><p><em>The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of </em><em>The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.</em></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">'Commonsense' Bill Would Make Animal Cruelty a Federal Crime <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AnimalCruelty?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AnimalCruelty</a> <a href="https://t.co/9vyHCI0xo3">https://t.co/9vyHCI0xo3</a></p>— Green Bean (@iamgreenbean) <a href="https://twitter.com/iamgreenbean/status/1090671871794630656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/social-media-illegal-pet-trade/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Grey reef sharks. Joe Boyd / CC BY-SA 2.0
By David Shiffman
How can we better protect sharks and rays from overfishing?
These related species — which, along with chimaeras, are known collectively as chondrichthyans — include some of the most threatened marine fishes in the world. Sharks and rays face a variety of threats depending on where they live and swim, but the biggest risk comes from overfishing, which takes a noticeable toll on these slow-growing, slow-to-reproduce animals. As a result, nearly 1 in 4 species of chondricthyan fishes is estimated to be, or assessed as, threatened, according to the IUCN Red List.
<p>To fight this threat, nations have increasingly turned to a popular policy tool called a marine protected area — a part of the ocean where fishing is restricted or banned entirely. Between 2016 and 2018 the total area of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans">ocean</a> designated as MPAs to protect sharks and rays <a href="https://www.sharkconservationfund.org/stories/the-first-ever-practical-guide-to-making-shark-and-ray-mpas-more-effective-goes-live/" target="_blank">doubled</a> to more than 8.1 million square miles.</p><p>However, not all MPAs are created equal. Some ban all fishing, while some only ban certain types of fishing gear. Some are focused on a particular habitat, while others are enormous and aim to protect a large ocean area. Many actually fail to protect the ocean, often because of preventable problems that occurred when they were being designated.</p><p>"There may be a lot of shark- and ray-focused MPAs, but very few of them have been demonstrated to be effective," said marine scientist Cassandra Rigby of James Cook University.</p><p>The MPAs that succeed, on the other hand, tend to have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/faf.12337" target="_blank">a few things in common</a>, according to a paper published last year. Researchers found that sites that were most likely to accomplish their biological goals of protecting the ocean also include socioeconomic goals and incorporate stakeholder input.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTU4NDEwMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjQ1MTYyNn0.qSQSAeygNyrAf05ziLdtGgG0tfXocEvfzwWxHgfZ1yw/img.jpg?width=980" id="40a58" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="743a1d5512e60dbdd4b8a711b5fd55f3" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Sand tiger shark
NOAA
<p>Now conservationists hope to replicate what we know about those successes and take future efforts to the next level. Last month the World Wide Fund for Nature and James Cook University published a new handbook called "<a href="https://sharks.panda.org/images/PDF/WWF_MPA_Guide2019.pdf" target="_blank">A Practical Guide to the Effective Design and Management of MPAs for Sharks and Rays</a>" which summarizes the science about what works — and what doesn't — and provides tips and tricks for future decision makers who want to get this right.</p>
<h2>What Makes an MPA Effective for Sharks?</h2><p>The authors found that in general it takes a lot of time, planning, engagement and consideration of stakeholders like fishermen, who may lose their source of income and food security if an MPA doesn't provide an alternative livelihood.</p><p>Rigby, the guide's lead author, explains that effective MPAs also need "committed and sufficient resources," which can include scientific research, government monitoring and enforcement, expert scientific advice, stakeholder outreach, and, of course, the money to pay for it all.</p><p>Without that commitment, Rigby warns, MPAs could become "paper parks" — protected sites that exist on maps but don't actually do anything to reduce threats to sharks and rays.</p><p>In addition, Rigby said, MPAs "should be designed to meet the goals using the most relevant available science on movement, biology and habitat use." She says easily accessible information for a wide range of shark and ray species is available to help make this planning possible.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTU4NDExMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDYwODM1MX0.aR2boHCXDouja29B8hyHSrZDefoAtKMAuEqxDqyAxVg/img.jpg?width=980" id="3b39c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7a857863c48f25500a4834b82ead8a43" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Blacktip reef shark
Mark Nadon / NOAA
<p>Finally, it's important to regularly check in and see how an MPA is doing through monitoring and adaptive management. "There should be ongoing evaluation of the MPA to ensure it is accomplishing its goals," Rigby said.</p><p>Although the guide is specifically aimed at shark <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/conservation">conservation</a>, it offers tools that have a broad application. As experts point out, a properly executed MPA can be a highly effective way to conserve a wide range of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/marine-life">marine life</a>, including apex predators such as sharks, which help ensure a healthy ecosystem.</p><p>"MPAs that are strategically placed, well-resourced and highly protected from human impact can help protect areas of biodiversity and habitat critical to buffering our oceans from the effects of global climate change," said conservation scientist Beth Pike, who manages the <a href="http://www.mpatlas.org/" target="_blank">Atlas of Marine Protection</a> and was not involved with the new guide.</p>
<h2>What <em>Doesn't</em> Work?</h2><p>Shark and ray MPAs that don't succeed in their goals tend to repeat the same mistakes. According to the guide, some MPAs don't even <em>have</em> stated goals, making it impossible to measure success. Sometimes they don't incorporate the best available science — for example, an area designed to protect a species isn't particularly useful if the species isn't actually found there.</p><p>In addition, many MPAs are designated through a top-down, heavy-handed approach, without first building support from local communities affected by a fisheries' closure. This can lead to higher levels of illegal fishing if community members feel disenfranchised by the process.</p><p>But the most common problem identified by the new guide is when governments announce a new protected area without actually putting in the work to ensure it succeeds.</p><p>"Designation of MPAs without the commitment of adequate resources can lead to poor planning, lack of engagement of the local communities, and then relying on enforcement to achieving compliance," Rigby said. "This is not realistically achievable in many of the developing countries with large shark and ray MPAs, where the ocean area is larger than the land area."</p><p>Here's something else that doesn't work: banning <em>all</em> shark and ray fishing.</p><p>According to the guide and experts interviewed for this article, the best available science says that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982216314646" target="_blank">we shouldn't</a> flat out ban all fishing in MPAs or other areas except in cases where specific species are in need of recovery in a given habitat. While unsustainable fishing is common, sustainable shark fisheries exist and serve as important sources of employment and food. In many cases we can stop unsustainable fishing without banning all fishing — and in the process build support for future conservation efforts.</p><p>In particular, many small island nations don't have the resources to patrol and enforce huge no-fishing zones, making it all the more important to get fishermen to support the new rules. "Fishers might be supportive of a much larger area where controls on catching sharks aim to achieve sustainability than they would a no-take zone," explained Andy Cornish, a coauthor on the guide and leader of <a href="https://sharks.panda.org/" target="_blank">WWF's shark and ray initiative</a>.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTU4NDExOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTkxMDQzM30.uU_ULKxqK_mlH4VGHcrLdNF5bo6fNFYXPpLHVD-9ZX8/img.jpg?width=980" id="3520f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="878e8ec2c94d312b16289d64c9a3dfc5" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
White cheek sharks slaughtered for the illegal shark fin trade.
Interpol
<h2>Swimming Forward</h2><p>Rigby and Cornish say they're optimistic that their new guide will help future shark- and ray-focused MPAs get it right from the start and also help to improve existing MPAs. They hope it will be read by environmental activists and concerned citizens pushing for new marine protected areas, as well as by decision-makers who create and implement the programs and sites.</p><p>With so many shark and ray species at risk of extinction, the authors suggest that implementing new MPAs and fixing existing ones could be the most effective tool to protect these ecologically important predators. And that, in turn, could help all marine species — and human stakeholders — gain the edge they need to survive for decades to come.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Shark Fishing Tournaments Devalue Ocean Wildlife and Harm Marine Conservation Efforts <a href="https://t.co/mCgWWF9T9H">https://t.co/mCgWWF9T9H</a></p>— TheRightBlue (@therightblue) <a href="https://twitter.com/therightblue/status/1080515991073779712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 2, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/protect-sharks-overfishing/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
- Shark Week 2018: Interactive Map Shows How Commercial Fishing ... ›
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A 2017 flood in Elk Grove, California. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources
By Tara Lohan
It's been the wettest 12 months on record in the continental United States. Parts of the High Plains and Midwest are still reeling from deadly, destructive and expensive spring floods — some of which have lasted for three months.
Mounting bills from natural disasters like these have prompted renewed calls to reform the National Flood Insurance Program, which is managed by Federal Emergency Management Agency and is now $20 billion in debt.
<p>The program was established in 1968 as a way to provide <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding" target="_self">flood</a> insurance to properties with high flood risk — some of which is <a href="http://www.pciaa.net/docs/default-source/default-document-library/nfip_white_paper_june2011.pdf?sfvrsn=2" target="_blank">subsidized by taxpayers</a> — and to use management programs to help reduce risk.</p><p>But Jessie Ritter, director of water resources and coastal policy at the <a href="https://www.nwf.org/" target="_blank">National Wildlife Federation</a>, says the program has unintentionally done the opposite over the years. By offering government-funded insurance where private companies wouldn't, it's made it easier to build in flood-prone areas. Local land-use decisions in some places haven't helped, either.</p><p>Most people agree that some reform of the National Flood Insurance Program is needed. Four former FEMA administrators recently <a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/05/13/document_daily_01.pdf" target="_blank">sent a letter to Congress</a> asking for just that. But legislators — who disagree how to accomplish that goal — have been <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/blogs/right-street/2018/07/09/494466.htm" target="_blank">kicking the can down the road</a> by issuing short-term extensions since the program's last five-year authorization lapsed in September 2017.</p><p>Most recently the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/443716-house-votes-to-extend-flood-insurance-program" target="_blank">House of Representatives voted</a> May 14 to approve the 11th <a href="https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20190513/BILLS-116hr2578-SUS.pdf" target="_blank">short-term extension</a>. If the Senate agrees, the program would then carry on as-is until September 30.</p><p>Meanwhile homes and communities continue to flood and the insurance program's losses keep stacking up.</p><p>"In the absence of reforms, costs in taxpayer dollars and lives lost will only get worse," the former FEMA administrators wrote in their letter urging action.</p><p>It's past time to make the necessary changes, Ritter says. "Congress has been unable politically to get to a place where we can meaningfully reform this program and address some of the underlying symptoms that are making disasters so costly in our country," she said. "A perpetuation of the status quo makes no sense at a time when we are spending billions annually on relief in response to a continual string of disasters." This spring the most destructive Mississippi River floods in 25 years resulted in thousands of lost homes, damaged businesses and flooded farms.</p><p>House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters said the most recent extension, which she co-authored, gives more time for a bipartisan bill to attempt a larger reform of the program — and that this will be the last short-term extension. Waters has been a longstanding advocate for reforming the program and sponsored 2017 legislation that cancelled $16 billion of its debt, which had <a href="https://www.fema.gov/media-library-data/1522167351921-a5e457454262dd100e2f15a7210d21c5/Watermark_FY18_Q1_v6_508.pdf" target="_blank">climbed to $30 billion</a> that year in the wake of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricane-harvey" target="_self">Hurricane Harvey</a> and other disasters. Further reforms promised by Congress that year did not materialize.</p>
<h2>Mapping the Flood Line</h2><p>The program's growing debt is only part of the issue.</p><p>FEMA has been criticized for using outdated flood maps that don't accurately portray the risk that communities face, either now or in the near future. <a href="http://www.resilientbayarea.org/kathy-schaefer" target="_blank">Kathleen Schaefer</a>, a researcher at the University of California, Davis who spent a decade working as regional engineer for FEMA producing flood insurance maps for California, says that the current process to update maps is time-consuming, bureaucratic and costly.</p><p>And the data that the agency does have isn't granular enough to communicate property-level risk.</p><p>"One property to the next may have very different levels of risk based upon their actual elevation," explains Ritter. Soil type and land use on each property can also affect flooding. "And right now FEMA just doesn't have that level of sophistication in their flood maps."</p><p>It's not that the technology to do that doesn't exist — <a href="https://www.gislounge.com/predictions-match-reality-power-lidar-flood-warnings/" target="_blank">North Carolina is using it</a>— but it hasn't been mandated nationally for FEMA.</p><p>Another issue is the accuracy of the maps. If a property falls into what FEMA determines is a 100-year floodplain, owners with federally backed mortgages are required to purchase flood insurance. "Some of those maps are super outdated, and that floodplain line in some places, because of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change" target="_self">climate change</a>, is probably no longer accurate," said Ritter.</p><p>The floodplain line also creates a false sense of security for those who own property outside of it and aren't required to purchase flood insurance but may still have some level of risk. FEMA's current system reduces flood risk to "in" or "out" — black or white. "And that's not how risk works," said Ritter. "Risk is shades of gray."</p><p>Schaefer and other researchers from the UC Davis Natural Hazards Research and Mitigation Group looked at severe <a href="https://californiawaterblog.com/2016/08/28/new-baton-rouge-flood-map-show-limits-of-current-risk-and-planning-methods/" target="_blank">flooding that claimed 13 lives in the Baton Rouge</a> area in 2016. They found that a third of the flooding was outside FEMA's 100-year flood zone.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTUzOTg2MS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDg2MjA3MH0.aGhq0XsJYmqxUQtZeRT2p3PD6m5ev3Yyk7MBNGHQSfE/img.jpg?width=980" id="e661f" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b07daccc1f93ff914ccf0f5aab212343" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Extensive flooding in southeast Texas from Hurricane Harvey
Photo by Penn State, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
<p>"Many floodplain residents and political leaders falsely believe that flooding cannot occur beyond the mapped 100-year line," the researchers wrote. "But nationwide, roughly 25 percent of National Flood Insurance Program flood-damage claims occur outside of 100-year zones."</p>
<h2>Environmental Costs — and Solutions</h2><p>It's not just bad for property owners and taxpayers. There are environmental implications, too.</p><p>"Subsidizing insurance rates inadvertently encouraged development in floodplains that never should have been developed in the first place," said Ritter. "Not only does that decrease community resilience, it impacts habitat and wildlife." Natural floodplains are incredibly rich ecosystems that support fish, birds, plants and a host of other species.</p><p>Ritter says her organization would like to see more money from the program spent trying to prevent flood damages instead of paying billions to rebuild after a disaster — especially in areas with recurrent flooding. There's also a lot of untapped potential to restore natural features such as wetlands and floodplain habitat, which can reduce flood risk, protect communities and create environmental benefits, she says.</p><p>"Where those types of nature-based approaches can work, they should be incentivized and given first consideration," said Ritter. "If communities can reduce their rates by proactively reducing their risk, then it's a win-win across the board for everyone."</p>
<h2>Moving Forward</h2><p>Having worked at FEMA, Schaefer thinks the 50-year-old federal program, tied to the congressional rulemaking process, can't provide the localized approach that's currently needed.</p><p>"Any changes that you're going to make to the program, you'd have to make on a nationwide scale," she said. "And people on the Gulf Coast think about their flood risk differently than people in California's Central Valley — you're not going to be able to find the compromise that is going to get you where you need to go."</p><p>Schaefer instead sees an opportunity for a bigger role for the private market and <a href="https://www.rff.org/publications/reports/a-proposed-design-for-community-flood-insurance/" target="_blank">community flood insurance programs</a> that would allow for more detailed modeling to assess and mitigate risk.</p><p>Climate change should be creating a sense of urgency for program reforms, said Ritter. Average temperatures are increasing and the U.S. is seeing <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sea-level-rise" target="_self">rising sea levels</a> in some coastal communities. It's also getting wetter — 2018 was the sixth year in a row that average rainfall in the U.S. was more than the 20th-century average. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/hurricanes" target="_self">Hurricanes</a> are predicted to get stronger with climate change and natural disasters are already <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/06/natural-disasters-cost-91-billion-in-2018-federal-report.html" target="_blank">costing a fortune</a> — $91 billion in the U.S. alone last year. Hurricanes Michael and Florence accounted for $49.4 billion of those costs and resulted in more than 100 deaths.</p><p>"There is an important link between the National Flood Insurance Program and climate resiliency," said Ritter. Reforming the program "is a big opportunity to improve how we as a nation respond to and prepare for worsening impacts of climate change."</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">For grassroots organizing on this issue follow <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/VeteransforClimateJustice?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#VeteransforClimateJustice</a> via Army/Air Force Vet <a href="https://twitter.com/ColleenBoland?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ColleenBoland</a> <br><br>Flooding of Nebraska Air Force Base Illustrates Security Risk Posed by Climate Change <a href="https://t.co/ZCVyaRZc5x">https://t.co/ZCVyaRZc5x</a></p>— Dr. Sandra Steingraber (@ssteingraber1) <a href="https://twitter.com/ssteingraber1/status/1108358875206565889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><em>Tara Lohan is deputy editor of The Revelator.</em><br/></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/flood-insurance/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Climate Narrative Project at the Harker School in San Jose, California. Photo by Jeff Biggers
By Tara Lohan
We have a big job ahead of us. The perils of climate change will require that we craft new policies, fund robust scientific research and dramatically rethink most of the infrastructure we rely on — everything from energy to food to transportation. Supporters of a Green New Deal have insisted that we need a World War II-scale mobilization to put the brakes on a fossil-fueled economy. All of this may conjure the work of engineers, urban planners, designers, scientists and policymakers.
But that's not all. We'll also need more storytellers, says Jeff Biggers.
<p><a href="http://www.jeffrbiggers.com/" target="_blank">Biggers</a>, a journalist, playwright and historian, has written hundreds of articles and eight books, including <em><a href="http://www.counterpointpress.com/dd-product/resistance/" target="_blank">Resistance: Reclaiming an American Tradition</a></em> and <em>Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. </em>He's spent decades deeply entrenched in movements for environmental protection and justice, but says he still felt we were falling short on inspiring the change needed to meet the scale of the problem.</p><p>So in 2014 he started the <a href="http://www.jeffrbiggers.com/climatenarrativeproject/" target="_blank">Climate Narrative Project</a>, which works with high schools, universities and communities across the country to fuse <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/">science</a> and art into new narratives about climate change and solutions that cut across disciplines and media.</p><p>We spoke with Biggers about his work helping to train climate storytellers and how it's changing communities.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTM5MDU5OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NzQ4NzkzMX0.ouU0LQRtCmIuvALP9CHQBBtVf_tvZP38z1_1dGhiaW8/img.png?width=980" id="f0474" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8c4a2398d368658d287a3e1e9a0511e7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Jeff Biggers reads from his book, Resistance. Photo courtesy of the author
<p><strong>What led you to start the Climate Narrative Project?</strong></p><p>I feel like we have a climate communication crisis as much as a climate crisis. We're not just up against a formidable lobby of oil, gas and coal, but somehow we need to rise above the noise, the distractions and the globalization of indifference to injustice in daily life. While the majority of Americans recognize the growing problem of climate change, <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22012019/climate-change-survey-impact-now-americans-extreme-weather-george-mason-yale" target="_blank">surveys</a> have found that most people rarely discuss it or know how to engage in real action.</p><p>I'd seen this for years — decades — as a long-time organizer and environmental justice chronicler in coal country. We had often failed at communicating the right story to galvanize enough support to change destructive policies or hold outlaw coal companies and their bankrolled politicos accountable.</p><p><strong>What do you hope the project will achieve?</strong></p><p>Returning to my roots as a storyteller, I felt we needed to bring together science, humanities and the arts to come up with new climate narratives that could galvanize action and envision ways for regenerative solutions: in effect, to train a new generation of climate storytellers as community organizers.</p><p>Based in Iowa, I've worked with campuses, community groups and planners in towns and cities across the country, from Appalachia to the steel mills of Gary, Indiana, to rural Arizona to cities in Silicon Valley. I train with artists in all forms of storytelling — dance, theatre, film, spoken word and creative writing, visual arts and radio — in order to rethink our ways in regards to energy, food, waste, urban design and transportation, and our connection to our local history and nature. Then we <a href="https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/article/ecopolis-iowa-city-envisioning-regenerative-city-heartland/" target="_blank">envision a roadmap through stories</a> in how we can transition toward creating carbon neutral <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/opinion/cities-and-states-lead-on-climate-change.html" target="_blank">regenerative cities </a>and campuses — ways in which we don't simply "do less harm," but actively repair the environmental destruction and replenish our natural resources.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTM5MDYwNC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTc0NDUyMX0.dfWsTi-RI05V_h0qv4SQl212Y15yiK92PWneABXfozs/img.png?width=980" id="61f82" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="31cce0a6998b53c8bedbd4d5aed9983f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
A mural from the "Ecopolis" project in Gary, Indiana. Photo by Jeff Biggers
<p><strong>What has been one of your favorite stories that has been told through the project?</strong></p><p>In one of my Climate Narrative Project cadres an art student in Iowa stunned her audience by displaying a beautiful painting she had done of the prairies, spoke about her interviews at Standing Rock and then poured black oil all over it to demonstrate the impact of pipeline bursts.</p><p><strong>What kind of effects have you seen on audiences or in the communities where these projects have been created?</strong></p><p>On a community level, I was blown away by the "Ecopolis" stories composed by a group of urban farmers, rappers, educators, jazz musicians and artists in Gary, Indiana, who brought together an unusually diverse coalition — mainstream environmental groups, churches, teachers and students, business people, city administrators — with their vision of the famous steel city as a carbon neutral regenerative city, walking us through a decade of transitions to green-enterprise zones and circular economies, soil mitigation and local food, rewilding and reconnecting to the extraordinary and biodiverse Indiana dunes.</p><p>After the multimedia theater event at a solar-powered church, the local groups sat down for a lunch hosted by urban farmers and began the process of making this vision a reality.</p><p>On a campus level, I've been amazed by the <a href="https://theappalachianonline.com/2019/04/03/climate-stories-collaborative-hosts-second-climate-stories-showcase/" target="_blank">Climate Stories Collaborative</a> at Appalachian State University, which followed up our Climate Narrative Project training as an initiative to bring together 23 different academic units and departments to engage students and faculty with story-driven climate actions.</p><p>As climate impacts increase and this issue hits home for more and more people, do you think art and culture will play a bigger role in how we understand the problem and craft the solutions we want to see?</p><p>If we're serious about engaging communities for climate action and environmental justice, storytelling and all the arts must play a key role in our initiatives. I tell every organization, community and interfaith group, school and university, and especially town and city councils: Don't waste your resources on bureaucrats, task forces and commissioning studies that no one reads — invest in the arts, storytellers, writers, playwrights and farmers.</p><p>Every organization, campus and city should have a climate storyteller-in-residence, a climate artist-in-residence, a farmer-in-residence, etc. If we are to meet the urgency of climate action, we must be training brigades of climate storytellers to astonish, inspire and organize our communities.</p>
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<p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/biggers-climate-narratives/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>From Your Site Articles
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Low-value plastic piles up in Surabaya, Indonesia. Photo by Stiv Wilson
By Tara Lohan
When you throw things away, do you wonder where "away" is? An upcoming film, to be released this fall by the nonprofit The Story of Stuff Project, traces the journey of our plastic products. It covers not just where our plastic goes but also where it comes from.
It's a lesson we need.
<p>We're at a reckoning point with plastic waste. Many countries that once accepted our discards are now turning it away. Islands of <a href="https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/03/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-is-growing/556562/" target="_blank">plastic are growing</a> in the <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/oceans" target="_self">ocean</a>, and it's being eaten by animals living in the <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/02/deep-sea-creatures-mariana-trench-eat-plastic/" target="_blank">farthest reaches</a> of the planet. The current rate of plastic production is "incongruent to planet Earth," says <a href="https://storyofstuff.org/about/stiv-wilson/" target="_blank">Stiv Wilson</a>, director of campaigns for The Story of Stuff Project. And yet industry is planning to ramp up production fueled by the availability of <a href="https://therevelator.org/plastics-fracking-climate/" target="_blank">cheap natural gas</a>.</p><p>So what to do? According to Wilson, we need to lift up the voices of those who live in the most affected places. They already know what solutions work best.</p><p>Bringing those voices to the front is at the heart of The Story of Stuff's new film, he says. But to find those people, they had to travel far and wide. The journey took them to the oilfields of Karnes County, Texas; a pipeline route through western Pennsylvania; the ship channel of Houston; the ghost towns in China that are turning away plastic waste; Jakarta, where plastic pollution is dozens of feet deep; and India, where plastic-burning incinerators spew toxic chemicals into the air.</p><p>We talked with Wilson about the upcoming movie and his journey to produce it.</p>
<p><strong>What are you hoping this film will accomplish?</strong></p><p>For a long time, I think, the plastic pollution issue has been framed as an ocean issue, and what we haven't really talked about enough is what the whole system of plastic looks like. Plastic pollutes at every stage of its life cycle.</p><p>I don't think most people know that if you want it to stop plastic from going into the ocean in Indonesia you need to ban <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fracking/" target="_self">fracking</a> in the Ohio River valley. The U.S. is the largest exporter of oil and gas as feedstocks for plastic — we feed China, we feed Europe — because of the fracking boom here.</p><p>So our intention with the film is to show the entire system of plastic and that includes every stage and also that upstream the human health concerns are way more significant than eating fish that's eaten plastic — living next to a refinery for plastics is going to be far more dangerous.</p><p>But all along the life cycle of plastics there's people fighting back. These are people whose stories you don't often hear and they are the people who actually have the solutions to the problem.</p>
<p><strong>Were there places that really impacted you personally?</strong></p><p>The hardest thing I witnessed on this whole trip was outside of Delhi. There was an open dump, which was bigger than the pyramids at Giza — you can see it 20 miles away. And at the base of that is an urban dairy farm. Then right adjacent to it is an incinerator where the toxic bottom and fly ash is going straight into the dump. Then it rains and that goes into water that cows are drinking. There was this one scene where I saw a baby cow drinking from its mother at the base of this dump with the incinerator in the background. And I'm talking to people who work on this urban dairy farm and they're saying that you die 30 years earlier if you live here, but they have no other choice — this is their livelihood.</p><p>You go down the Ci Liwung River in Jakarta, Indonesia and you see the stratification of plastic bags 15-30 feet deep in the soil. Sadly, plastic is part of the geological record at this point.</p><p>It's one thing to witness this as just an everyday citizen, but when you come at it from an activist perspective like myself, you're looking at the whole system that created this. How many bad decisions in a row got us to this point, and how entrenched is it? And how do you stop this?</p>
<p><strong>What's the balance between cleanup and prevention at this point?</strong></p><p>Every year we have this feel-good day in September for international coastal cleanup. And every year we realize that more and more plastic is on the beach. And it feels like a dog chasing its tail. But now with the <a href="https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/" target="_blank">Break Free From Plastic</a> movement, which is 1,400 NGOs globally that are all operating from the same strategy, vision and principles, we've instituted a kind of hack to those cleanups to start reporting brand data. And that flips the narrative of who's responsible for the stuff. It's no longer that just everyday people are the problem — it's the companies that produce this stuff.</p><p>I don't believe that any cleanup efforts are going to work if we don't prevent the problem in the first place. Industry will say it's a management problem, but this is unmanageable. There's way too much plastic in the system.</p><p>So the first message is, you have to stop this massive petrochemical buildout that's looking to put 40 percent more plastic into commerce by 2025. Because we just can't deal with that as a global society.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTMzMDk2NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NzE3Nzc1Mn0.mBhYJXBfszyPF3zN5VVLRrqzW1aS7MO6UrO4KUOhoRM/img.jpg?width=980" id="e4c66" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="67e6a1764ef6c4108208bb12d8d83981" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Plastic waste in Surabaya, Indonesia is openly burned or used as fuel for furnaces to boil water for tofu factories, with no environmental controls.
Photo by Stiv Wilson
<p><strong>With fewer and fewer countries willing to accept our plastic, is recycling in jeopardy?</strong></p><p>There's so much plastic in the system that it doesn't have much value for recycling any more. If the supply far exceeds the demand and it's exponentially growing, you're never going to solve the problem. You're never going to make the economics of recycling really work. China closed its doors and now, on the West Coast of the United States, we're stockpiling plastic. There's nowhere for it to go, so it's being landfilled.</p><p>We need to build circularity into our economy — stop waste exports, do domestic recycling and ban problematic products.</p><p>There's this idea that recycling will save us. It's wrong. It's a good thing to recycle if you have good environmental controls and good protocols for human rights, but you don't have that in the developing world. You don't have either of those things because the margins are so small on recycling that you have to cut corners, and those corners that are cut affect both people and planet.</p>
<p><strong>What did you find that was hopeful?</strong></p><p>When you look at the people fighting back in the system, I think if we can elevate those voices, we can win. I see the unsung leaders from developing nations getting to the world stage and talking about real solutions.</p><p>For instance, we saw a decentralized waste-management program in the Philippines that provides basic collection and source segregation for materials. It was a very poor neighborhood that was filled with so much plastic you couldn't see the ground, and now it's absolutely immaculate. Waste pickers have been turned into civil servants.</p><p>It's a very simple system that's scalable and economic. It's also 85 percent cheaper because all organics are composted and all materials that have markets for recycling are recycled. So you're down to 10 to 20 percent residual waste, which means you're sending one to two trucks to the landfill instead of 10, which saves a tremendous amount of money. You can see how this can be scaled at the country level and would work for other countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam.</p><p>Elsewhere there are also some really progressive policies that are starting to mandate that you put recycled content into new packaging applications so that you don't need the feedstocks — you don't need all the fracking.</p><p>At every part of the system you have people with really genius interventions, and it's all about scaling this up through stories in media, popularizing those and then just implementing them because the solutions are there. It's right in front of our face.</p><p>I'm also heartened by the Break Free From Plastic movement that's building a lot of solidarity and power. It's very intersectional. We're finally talking about the entire system of plastic, and we're crafting policy to address the entire system.</p><p>What makes me hopeful is that the scale of the movement responding to the problem is starting to match the scale of the problem itself. For many years we've been under-resourced and under-powered and that has changed. The movement is growing and it's gaining in power.</p><p>The good news is that the solution is right in front us. The bad news is the current system is very entrenched, and there's a lot of money behind it. So it's a big fight.</p>
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<p><em>Tara Lohan is deputy editor of The Revelator.</em></p><p><em></em><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/plastic-movie-stuff/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a></em><em>.</em></p>
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Produced water from gas drilling in the Marcellus shale. Tara Lohan
By Tara Lohan
We're living beyond our means when it comes to groundwater. That's probably not news to everyone, but new research suggests that, deep underground in a number of key aquifers in some parts of the U.S., we may have much less water than previously thought.
"We found that the average depth of water resources across the country was about half of what people had previously estimated," said Jennifer McIntosh, a distinguished scholar and professor of hydrology and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona.
<p>McIntosh and her colleagues—who published a <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aae6d8/meta" target="_blank">new study</a> about these aquifers in November in <em>Environmental Research Letters—</em>took a different approach to assessing groundwater than other research, which has <a href="https://grace.jpl.nasa.gov/applications/groundwater/" target="_blank">used satellites</a> to measure changes in groundwater storage. For example, a <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015WR017349" target="_blank">2015 study</a> looked at 37 major aquifers across the world and found some were being depleted faster than they were being replenished, including in California's agriculturally intensive Central Valley.</p><p>McIntosh says those previous studies revealed a lot about how we're depleting water resources from the top down through extraction, such as pumping for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/agriculture">agriculture</a> and water supplies, especially in places like California.</p><p>But McIntosh and three other researchers wanted to look at groundwater from a different perspective: They examined how we're using water resources from the bottom up.</p><p>The study may help close the gap about what we know and don't know regarding how much water is available deep underground, as well as its quality.</p><p>It also rings some alarm bells.</p><h2>A Different Approach</h2><p>Instead of examining how fast water tables were falling, as in previous studies, the researchers looked at water chemistry to determine how deep underground you could drill for freshwater or brackish water before that water became too salty to use.</p><p>"We looked at the bottom limit of groundwater resources," said McIntosh.</p><p>The researchers used information from the U.S. Geological Survey on the quality of groundwater across the country and looked specifically at salinity—how salty the water is. "We looked basin by basin at how that depth of fresh and brackish water changes across the United States," said McIntosh.</p><p>The results were about half as much usable water as previous estimates. That means that deep groundwater reserves are not nearly as plentiful as we'd thought in some places.</p><p>That's important because when shallow groundwater reserves become depleted or polluted, the strategy so far has been to drill deeper and deeper wells to keep the water flowing.</p><p>But we may not always be able to drill our way out of water shortages. "Tapping into these deep waters works for now, but the long-term prospects for using these waters are quite concerning," said the report's lead author, <a href="https://www.usask.ca/water/about/profiles/people/grant-ferguson.php" target="_blank">Grant Ferguson</a>, an associate professor in the department of Civil and Geological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan.</p><p>The problem isn't evenly distributed across the country. While a number of aquifers in the West have deep freshwater reserves, the water in parts of the eastern and central U.S. becomes salty at much shallower depths. "Drilling deeper water wells to address groundwater depletion issues represents no more than a stopgap measure in these areas," the researchers concluded in their paper. One area of particular concern the researchers noted was in the Anadarko and Sedgwick basins underlying parts of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, which has particularly shallow freshwater reserves.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTA4NTMwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTY3NDI1OX0.1hRXCMwTh5LNWxenwTgxkUtSnvsKF4piq2hWCexqGpw/img.jpg?width=980" id="814bf" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1c96c3e74348404bebd73ad293444387" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Depth to water with total dissolved solids (a) <3000 and (b) <10 000 mg l−1 based on median values in 100 m bins. (c) TDS distribution relative to the 50th and 95th percentile of water well depths</small></p><h2>Oil and Water<br></h2><p>The study looked at a total of 28 sedimentary basins across the U.S. that were chosen because they're known to contain oil and gas reserves.</p><p>The researchers found that the oil and gas industry uses fresh and brackish water, both of which are drawn from the bottom up. And that's another element of the research that could raise concern.</p><p>In some cases the industry pumps out brackish water as part of its drilling operations. Industry waste is then injected back underground into deep aquifers. As a result, water reserves are depleted from pumping and possibly contaminated during re-injection, the researchers found.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Deep groundwater resources can be threatened by oil and gas production or injection wells.</small></p><p>The depth between oil and gas activities and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drinking-water">drinking water</a> reserves varied greatly across the country. Wyoming and the Michigan basin were two places where oil and gas activities are relatively shallow and in close proximity to fresh and brackish water, which could increase the chances of contamination of water resources. Water contamination from <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032016/fracking-study-pavillion-wyoming-drinking-water-contamination-epa" target="_blank">oil and gas activity</a> has already been documented in Pavillion, Wyoming.<br></p><p>The authors suggest that carefully monitoring for potential contamination or overexploitation of water reserves may be crucial in these areas with minimal separation between groundwater and oil and gas wells used for either production or disposal.</p><h2>The Future Is … Saltier </h2><p>While brackish water can be used for some types of agriculture and by oil and gas activities, it hasn't been used much yet for drinking because it requires desalination (although not as intensively as seawater). But as water resources become more constrained, particularly in the arid West where some communities and farms rely exclusively on groundwater, brackish water may be a more valuable future resource and a larger part of the water supply.</p><p>"I think of it in terms of water security. Both fresh and brackish aquifers are part of our potential water source into the future," said McIntosh.</p><p>But further utilizing these deep-water resources will have "all kinds of policy and economic consequences because they aren't going to be replenished as quickly as other waters" closer to the surface, said Ferguson. And that may mean better monitoring of oil and gas activity is needed in those regions, along with a possible rethinking of how we permit and manage drilling into those deep waters. "That would change the nature of how we're using water in a lot of places," he said.</p><p>While this research adds to our growing knowledge of groundwater resources, there is still a lot we don't know about the chemistry of these deep aquifers beyond just salinity, said McIntosh. Addressing that knowledge gap, she said, will be important as we work to match water resources to our varying needs for drinking, industry and agriculture.</p><p>"This 'bottom up' approach is a novel one and will find great utility, but it does depend upon the availability of deep groundwater data," said <a href="https://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/" target="_blank">Michael Campana</a>, a professor and hydrogeologist at Oregon State University who did not participate in the study. And the deeper we go, the less data we have, said Ferguson.</p><p>Both the researchers and outside experts suggest that more research is needed. This is particularly true in areas not associated with oil and gas activity that weren't part of the study, Campana points out. But the authors say their results may still show the need for important changes on policy or behavioral levels regarding how we use our nation's groundwater.</p><p>"There was this idea that deeper groundwater would be more pristine, and it is to a point, but there are all kinds of natural salinity and hydrocarbon problems once you get into deeper and deeper groundwater systems," said Ferguson. "So we're working with that idea that maybe the window of freshwater is not as big as we thought and it's probably getting even smaller in a lot of areas."</p><p>In an age of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>, that's something that may play out sooner rather than later.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
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</p><p><em>Tara Lohan is deputy editor of The Revelator.</em><br></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/shrinking-groundwater/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>
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Glen Canyon Dam, Colorado River. Sharon Mollerus, CC BY 2.0
By Tara Lohan
In the last few weeks of 2018, the Trump administration set the stage for a big battle over water in the new year. At stake is an important rule that defines which waters are protected under the Clean Water Act. The Trump administration seeks to roll back important protections for wetlands and waterways, which are important to drinking water and wildlife.
<p>This is just one of the upcoming water battles that could serve to define 2019. It's also poised to be a year of reckoning on the Colorado River, which supplies water to 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of farmland. A long-anticipated multi-state agreement is close to completion after an ultimatum from the federal government. And it could also be a landmark year for water management in California, with several key issues coming to a head.</p><p>Big things may also happen on the water infrastructure front and in efforts to address clean-water concerns. Of course, underlying many of the water issues is the specter of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/climate-change">climate change</a>, which is bringing both severe <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/drought">droughts</a> and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/flooding">floods</a> and exacerbating water-supply problems.</p><p>Let's dive into some of the issues experts say we need to keep an eye on in the coming year.</p><h2>Clean Water Rule Change</h2><p>The biggest looming water issue this year has to do with a law passed nearly 50 years ago.</p><p>On Dec. 12 the Trump administration unveiled a proposal to redefine the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/wotus-rule" target="_blank">Waters of the U.S. Rule</a>, also known as the Clean Water Rule, which was adopted in 2015 by the Obama administration to set clear guidelines on how certain waterways and wetlands are regulated under the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/history-clean-water-act" target="_blank">1972 Clean Water Act</a>. The action came after two Supreme Court <a href="http://legal-planet.org/2017/07/03/the-epa-sets-in-motion-its-plan-to-rescind-the-waters-of-the-united-states-rule/" target="_blank">rulings</a> in the early 2000s created some uncertainty about what the Clean Water Act protects.</p><p>Obama's rule slightly widened what was protected under the Clean Water Act (much to the chagrin of many industry groups and developers). For example, the 2015 rule included automatic protections for wetlands and ponds that are "within 100 feet or within the 100-year floodplain of a protected waterway," Vox reporters Brad Plumer and Umair Irfan <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/2/28/14761236/wotus-waters-united-states-rule-trump" target="_blank">explained</a>. And they wrote last month, "In the past, tributaries of navigable rivers were evaluated on a case-by-case basis. But under the new rule, they're automatically protected if they have a bed, a bank and a high-water mark." Overall the change amounted to clarifying protections for about 3 percent of waterways.</p><p>The newly proposed Trump administration rule, however, would swing widely in the other direction, limiting protections to only major waterways, tributaries and adjacent wetlands. As written now, the new rule would strip protections from 18 percent of streams and just over half of the country's wetlands, but there's concern the final rule could be even more restrictive.</p><p>Industry officials praised the Trump plan. Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, called the Trump administration's proposal, "The Christmas present of a lifetime!"</p><p>Environmental groups had a very different opinion. The loss of protections, they said, threatens drinking water and wildlife, with the western U.S. poised to be affected most. In Nevada 85 percent of streams would lose protections, as would more than half in New Mexico and Arizona.</p>
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Cyndi Souza / USFWS)</small></p> <p>"The rollbacks to the Clean Water Act the Trump administration is proposing are the greatest threat to this nation's waterways in 50 years," said Dan Estrin, <a href="https://waterkeeper.org/" target="_blank">Waterkeeper Alliance</a> general counsel and advocacy director. This <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5410914-WAC-Comments-on-WOTUS-Repeal-9-27-17.html" target="_blank">industry-supported</a> proposal would "incentivize polluters to move pollution upstream, where they won't have to worry about federal or citizen enforcement," he said.<br></p><p>A 60-day <a href="https://www.epa.gov/wotus-rule/step-two-revise" target="_blank">public comment period</a> on the proposed regulation is underway. Meanwhile Republicans in the legislature are already attempting to push through <a href="https://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2018/12/19/stories/1060110073" target="_blank">their own version</a> of what kind of wetlands and waterways should be protected by the Clean Water Act—in this case, it would only cover permanently "navigable" waters.</p><p>It's not clear what will happen on this front, but however things move forward it will be critically important. "The Waters of the United States law will be tested, implemented, suspended or revoked," said Peter Gleick, president emeritus of the global water think-tank the <a href="http://pacinst.org/" target="_blank">Pacific Institute</a>. Expect the debate over the rule change to be contentious and the final product legally contested.</p><h2>Colorado River Agreement</h2><p>2019 will be a year of reckoning for the Colorado River. It has to be—both nature and the federal government have issued ultimatums.</p><p>First, nature's part: With the basin in a drought for nearly two decades, the river's flow has dropped almost 20 percent (human-caused <a href="https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2017/06/22/climate-change-is-shrinking-the-colorado-river" target="_blank">warming is responsible</a> for at about a third of this reduced flow). By 2020 Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the watershed, could fall low enough to <a href="http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/2018/12/dcp-by-the-numbers/" target="_blank">trigger shortages</a> to Arizona, Nevada and eventually California. In 2020 the water users must also begin a massive renegotiation of how the Colorado River is managed and how we prepare for a future with less water—an epic task that needs to be completed by 2026, when the current agreement expires.</p><p>The three states have been busy working on a <a href="https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2018/12/14/climate-change-looms-over-talks-colorado-river-drought-plan/2317125002/" target="_blank">drought contingency plan</a> to slow the decline of Lake Mead, a process that will need to be completed before the larger negotiations begin in 2020. One major snag has come from Arizona, which is trying to resolve <a href="https://www.azpm.org/p/home-articles-news/2018/12/28/143410-a-look-back-at-water-negotiations-at-years-end/" target="_blank">in-state disputes</a>.</p><p>Things are about to get even more interesting, though. At a recent meeting of Colorado River water users, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman set a deadline of Jan. 31 for the three states to settle their plan or else the federal government will step in, which would be a widely unwelcome scenario.</p><p>"This could be very messy," John Fleck, director of the University of New Mexico's Water Resources Program, wrote recently on his <a href="http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/" target="_blank">blog about Colorado River water</a> issues. "It suggests that either voluntarily (through interstate agreement) or imposed by the feds, we'll have new shortage guidelines in place by 2020 to slow the decline of Lake Mead."</p><p>Even if a new shortage agreement is reached in the next month, Gleick said we're still likely to see political conflict among basin water users as water levels in Lake Mead continue to fall. It's not just California, Nevada and Arizona duking things out—the river is also shared with upstream states Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico, as well as with Mexico downstream. What happens to the Colorado affects much of the West, including cities like Denver, Phoenix and Los Angeles.</p><p>And the drought contingency plan is also only a stopgap measure to give all the water users time to pause the crisis until the elephant in the room needs to be officially addressed: The Colorado River simply doesn't have enough water for all the claims made to it.</p><p>"Now, whether through ignorance or malfeasance, we now have communities that have come to expect that fictionally large supply, and few rules to determine who gets less, and how much," <a href="http://www.inkstain.net/fleck/2018/12/beyond-the-colorado-river-drought-contingency-plan/" target="_blank">wrote Fleck</a>.</p><p>This year's work will be a crucial one for setting the stage for these future talks and better understanding the new climate reality.</p><h2>Climate Change</h2><p>2018 ended with some momentum on climate action. International climate talks in December at COP24 in Poland limped to a close with an agreement in hand, but one that fails to meet the urgency and scale of the problem.</p><p>And while the U.S. was conspicuously absent from international dealings, more movement to address climate challenges are afoot on the home front, with increasing calls for political action and a <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/12/21/18144138/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez" target="_blank">Green New Deal</a>.</p><p>Significant climate legislation will likely be out of reach with a Republican Senate and White House, but climate change impacts will continue to make a mark, regardless, and could help to motivate more public action and pressure on elected officials and corporations.</p><p>"Somewhere in the U.S. we'll see unprecedented flooding and somewhere else, unprecedented drought, as climate change continues to worsen extreme hydrologic events," said Gleick. "Temperatures will continue to rise." And all of this will compound water woes like declining flows in the Colorado River, <a href="https://therevelator.org/trump-drinking-water/" target="_blank">harmful algal blooms</a> across the country, the vulnerability of our croplands and declining groundwater levels.</p>
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Drought-impacted forests in California's Sierra Nevada</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Photo by USGS</small></p>
<p>"I think that the overall story is that catastrophic times are here," said Kimery Wiltshire, CEO and director of <a href="http://www.carpediemwest.org/" target="_blank">Carpe Diem West</a>, a nonprofit that tackles water and climate issues. We need to accelerate the pace and scale of restoration to meet our ecological challenges, she said. "Fortunately, there are a number of communities taking smart, positive steps for water resiliency in the face of climate change."<br></p><h2>California's Grand Bargain</h2><p>In California several long-term and contentious decisions over future water management will be headline-generating in the coming year, and we could see either compromise or conflict between the state and the Trump administration.</p><p>California's Water Resources Control Board has been working on a plan that would increase the amount of water left in key rivers that drain to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the linchpin in California's vast water infrastructure network, to try to protect water quality and wildlife. It's a move that has made municipal and agricultural water users concerned.</p>
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Snow geese take flight above a field on Twitchell Island in the California Delta. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Kelly M. Grow/ California Department of Water Resources</small></p>
<p>But just before 2018 closed out a new "grand bargain" was beginning to emerge between state agencies, federal agencies, irrigation districts and urban water agencies.<br></p><p>If the deal comes to fruition, "it could be revolutionary" in terms of the region's water management, said Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and director of the <a href="https://www.ppic.org/water/" target="_blank">PPIC Water Policy Center</a>. The parties have committed to hammering out the agreement in 2019. "Federal, state and local parties are on the threshold of something really different and potentially much more impactful than what the regulatory situation can do on its own," said Hanak.</p><p>The plan would provide a funding stream for habitat restoration projects for ailing fish populations and also trim water exports from the watershed by urban and agricultural water users. Environmental groups, which were not part of the negotiations, think those water cuts are not nearly enough to protect fish, some of which are endangered.</p><p>"It appears that California's <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/salmon">salmon</a>, thousands of fishing jobs and the health of the Bay Delta estuary are the sacrificial lambs in these series of agreements between the Trump and the Brown administrations," Doug Obegi, a lawyer for the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org" target="_blank">Natural Resources Defense Council</a>, told <a href="https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article223114775.html" target="_blank">The Sacramento Bee</a>.</p><p>As the possible settlement is further negotiated this year, the Trump administration could throw another wrench into the plan as it attempts to roll back environment regulations for the delta in an effort to appease the agriculture industry.</p><p>"What's the state water board going to do if they enact stricter regulations just as Trump is undoing a bunch of environmental protections?" asked Chris Austin, publisher of <a href="https://mavensnotebook.com/" target="_blank">Maven's Notebook</a>, which chronicles California's water issues.</p><p>There are also two other major infrastructure issues where California may butt heads with the Trump administration (and others) in the new year. The first is an effort to raise the height of Shasta dam. Another is a $17 billion project to construct new water conveyance tunnels. Both will also be big decisions for the future of imperiled species.</p><h2>Infrastructure and Clean Water</h2><p>There's one more key issue that should dominate water discussions and policy in the next year: Many Americans still don't have access to safe drinking water. The American Society of Civil Engineers has given our nation's water infrastructure a <a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/drinking-water/" target="_blank">D grade</a>, and billions are needed to upgrade aging pipes, pumps and plants.</p><p>Hanak thinks that more progress will be made in efforts to address <a href="http://toxictaps.newsdeeply.com/" target="_blank">water inequities</a> in California, where hundreds of thousands of people, mostly in low-income and communities of color, have chronically contaminated drinking water.</p><p>Issues abound elsewhere, too.</p><p>"The ongoing saga of Flint, Michigan, will go on, and the discussion about the country's failing water infrastructure will continue, with new urban water quality challenges," said Gleick.</p><p>Will there be any progress this year? "There is a chance for some bipartisan action on water infrastructure as part of the broader push to pass infrastructure funding in the U.S. Congress," said Gleick. Like all of these issues, though, that could evaporate quickly as the Trump administration continues its attacks against environmental regulation and protection.</p>
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<p><em>What water issues do you think will matter most in the coming year? Share your thoughts on Twitter using the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23water2019" target="_blank">#Water2019</a>.</em><br></p><p><em>Tara Lohan is deputy editor of The Revelator.<br></em><em><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/water-2019/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></em></p>
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Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson swimming in Jamaica's seagrass. Photo by Jeremy McKane
By Tara Lohan
Oceans stretch across 70 percent of our planet, and the vast majority of the world beneath them is unmapped and unexplored. Their depths may still hold many secrets, but we know they face serious risks from overfishing and pollution. The biggest threat of all is climate change, which could affect billions of people in coastal communities, said marine biologist and conservation strategist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson.
<p>Johnson is the founder and president of <a href="https://www.oceancollectiv.co/" target="_blank">Ocean Collectiv</a>, a strategy consulting firm that looks at conservation solutions through a social justice lens. Developing those solutions has never been more necessary. As Johnson said, "The lack of public and corporate reaction and response to the recent <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/" target="_blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report</a>—which tells us we have 12 years maximum to avoid catastrophic climate change—is terrifying."</p><p>We talked to her about what's at stake and the types of solutions she thinks are most promising.</p><p><strong>In order to protect our oceans, what policy changes do we need at the national and international levels?</strong></p><p>The top three are ending the use of <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels">fossil fuels</a>, closing the high seas to fishing and protecting 30 to 50 percent of the coastal ocean.</p><p><strong>Beyond policy, what else should we be focusing our efforts on? Enforcement? Public engagement? Technology?</strong></p><p>We need to be pressuring corporations to adopt <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/sustainability">sustainable</a> practices ASAP and to raise the bar for what qualifies as sustainable. For example, some of the fisheries being certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council are far from deserving of that label.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODkxNjEzNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzI1MTU5NX0.xhJBn0uL2UV5mOFvuuC5y-Gk5lRU0jkx2LCmF0Qxobo/img.jpg?width=980" id="68655" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="5df3345dc1b8a9335b0c8f30f9f85382" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Community consultations for ocean zoning in Barbuda with the Blue Halo Initiative </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Photo by Will McClintock</small></p><p><strong>From an environmental-justice standpoint, who stands to lose the most if we fail to adequately protect ocean and coastal ecosystems?</strong><br></p><p>Poor people and people of color in coastal communities will be <a href="https://www.facebook.com/StrongOpinionsLooselyHeld/posts/332030680681721/" target="_blank">most at risk</a>. Sea-level rise, overfishing, pollution and coastal development affect them first and worst, and they have the fewest options for alternative livelihoods or relocation.</p><p><strong>What ocean-related issues did you follow in this year's election cycle?</strong></p><p>Climate change! I'm excited that Jared Polis has been elected governor of Colorado on a <a href="https://polisforcolorado.com/energy/" target="_blank">platform</a> of getting Colorado to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040, the most ambitious goal yet for any state.</p><p>On the flip side, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/11/07/ballot-measures-taking-aim-climate-change-fall-short/?utm_term=.b4996b834632" target="_blank">ballot measures</a> across the country to restrict drilling and accelerate shifts to <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/renewable-energy/">renewable energy</a> failed amidst heavy oppositional funding from the fossil fuel industry.</p><p>However, because the Democrats won the House, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, who <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/11/eddie-bernice-johnson-science-returns-to-the-house/" target="_blank">lists climate change science and mitigation as priorities</a>, is poised to take the helm of the science committee, which is cause for hope.</p><p><strong>What's one of the best solutions you've seen used to combat an ocean-related problem or to help people who depend on the ocean?</strong></p><p>Ocean farming. Regenerative ocean farming, as pioneered by <a href="http://www.greenwave.org/" target="_blank">Greenwave</a> and others, means growing seaweed and shellfish (oysters, mussels, clams)—not constructing more <a href="https://therevelator.org/british-columbia-wild-salmon/" target="_blank">salmon farms</a>. Seaweed and shellfish don't need to be fed; they grow with just sunlight and the nutrients and plankton already in seawater.</p><p>As pioneering ocean farmer <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/the-coming-green-wave-ocean-farming-to-fight-climate-change/248750/" target="_blank">Brendan Smith put it</a>, "the real kicker" is that these low-maintenance ocean plants and animals "require no fresh water, no deforestation and no fertilizer," plus they improve water quality and create habitats for other species.</p><p>Because seaweed grows so quickly (kelp can grow <a href="https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animal-guide/plants-and-algae/giant-kelp" target="_blank">over one foot a day</a>) it can provide healthy food and clean biofuels while being a significant part of the climate solution. And developing this industry creates good jobs. (There's more about this in my recent article in Scientific American, co-authored with my mom: "<a href="http://bit.ly/SciAm07" target="_blank">Soil and Seaweed: Farming Our Way to a Climate Solution</a>.")</p><p>Also, <a href="http://www.baltimorewaterfront.com/healthy-harbor/water-wheel/" target="_blank">Mr. Trash Wheel</a>. It collects trash from rivers or harbors before it ends up in the sea. So practical and effective—solutions don't need to be high-tech.</p>
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<p><em>Tara Lohan is deputy editor of The Revelator and has worked for more than a decade as a digital editor and environmental journalist focused on the intersections of energy, water and climate.</em><br></p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/oceans-challenges/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>
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Background photo by Sven Lachmann / Pixabay
By John R. Platt
It's election season, and we all need something to read after we're done combing through our midterm voters' guides. Here are our votes for the 16 best environmental books coming out this month, covering everything from wolves to wolverines and climate change to animal rights. Some of these books are intended for professional conservationists, while others may appeal to kids, mystery lovers, history buffs or fans of wildlife. And while many of these books are admittedly dark and depressing, you'll find more than a few solutions in the mix as well. We hope you enjoy them. (Now if we can just get our politicians to read some of these books, too…)
<h3>Wildlife and Endangered Species:</h3><p><strong><a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5732.htm" target="_blank"><em>Keepers of the Wolves</em></a> by Richard P. Thiel </strong>— The first edition of this classic book, originally published in 2001, was a first-person account of the early days of wolf recovery in Wisconsin. Thiel's update takes us to the present, including the start of wolf hunting in 2012, and looks to the future of this embattled species.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/lauren-e-oakes/in-search-of-the-canary-tree/9781541617421/" target="_blank"><em>In Search of the Canary Tree: The Story of a Scientist, a Cypress, and a Changing World</em></a> by Lauren E. Oakes</strong> — Climate change has started killing off Alaska's old-growth yellow cedar trees. The author, an ecologist, examines the threat in her new book, and in the process uncovers reasons for hope.</p><p><strong><a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250128102" target="_blank"><em>Dreaming in Turtle: A Journey Through the Passion, Profit, and Peril of Our Most Coveted Prehistoric Creatures</em></a> by Peter Laufer</strong> — An examination of endangered turtles around the world and the people who both value them and are failing them. Oh, and the ones who are helping them, too.</p><p><strong><a href="https://scribepublications.com/books-authors/books/the-re-origin-of-species" target="_blank"><em>The Re-Origin of Species: A Second Chance for Extinct Animals</em></a> by Torill Kornfeldt</strong> — A worldwide look at the scientists behind the <a href="https://therevelator.org/digging-deep-de-extinction/" target="_blank">de-extinction</a> movement, which seeks to resurrect the mammoth and other long-gone species.</p><p><strong><a href="http://www.davebutlerwriting.com/" target="_blank"><em>No Place for Wolverines: A Jenny Willson Mystery</em></a> by Dave Butler</strong> — The murder of a wolverine researcher kicks off this ecological crime novel, which pits a poacher-hating Canadian national park warden against an American corporation and the shadowy political puppets pushing to create a ski hill in an important wildlife habitat. Just like real life!</p><h3>Climate Change:</h3><p><strong><a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/urgency-anthropocene" target="_blank"><em>Urgency in the Anthropocene</em></a> by Amanda H. Lynch and Siri Veland</strong> — Most people describe the Anthropocene as an apocalypse in the making. But what if it's the opposite, and it's actually an age of enlightenment and emerging coexistence with nature? Either way, we'd better learn the answer to that question pretty darned quickly (hence the title).</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Climate-Change/Beattie-McGuire/p/book/9781138484528" target="_blank"><em>The Psychology of Climate Change</em></a> by Geoffrey Beattie and Laura McGuire</strong> — Why do some climate initiatives fail? The authors examine the mental factors that cause people to deny climate change and prevent global action, while also illustrating how to overcome these issues and create positive action.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.eli.org/eli-press-books/legal-pathways-deep-decarbonization-united-states-summary-and-key-recommendations" target="_blank"><em>Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States</em></a> edited by Michael B. Gerrard and John C. Dernbach</strong> — The full book by this title, coming up in early 2019, promises to provide the "technical and policy pathways for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050." There's no need to wait until next year, though, to take action. This month's shorter edition provides easy (and early) access to the main volume's key recommendations and summarizes its 35 chapters (a third of which are <a href="https://johndernbach.com/2018/10/legal-pathways-to-deep-decarbonization-in-the-united-states-a-preview/" target="_blank">already online</a>). Both books will be must-reads for the lawyers helping to save our planet from climate change.</p><p><strong><a href="https://islandpress.org/books/designing-climate-solutions" target="_blank"><em>Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy</em></a> by Hal Harvey</strong> — Why wait for new technologies when communities can start taking action now? This book offers "policymakers, activists, philanthropists and others in the climate and energy community" a guide of proven solutions to help fight climate change, with case studies on previous success stories.</p><h3>Food and Agriculture:</h3><p><strong><em style=""><a href="http://www.soulfirefarm.org/media/farming-while-black/" target="_blank">Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land</a> </em>by Leah Penniman</strong> — A how-to guide for ending racism and injustice in our country's food system, both on farms themselves and in nutrition-starved Africa-American communities. Bonus: The same techniques improve the soil, treat livestock humanely, preserve rare plant varieties and provide benefits for the climate.</p><h3>Pollution:</h3><p><strong><a href="https://kristaschlyer.com/2018/03/27/river-of-redemption-coming-fall-2018/" target="_blank"><em>River of Redemption: Almanac of Life on the Anacostia</em></a> by Krista Schlye</strong><strong>r </strong>— A photographic look at a terribly polluted and neglected river in Washington, D.C., and a reminder that watersheds are an important and vital part of our social and ecological communities.</p><h3>Fossil Fuels and Energy:</h3><p><strong><a href="https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/oil-power-and-war/" target="_blank"><em>Oil, Power and War: A Dark History</em></a> by Matthieu Auzanneau</strong> — An in-depth history of the fossil fuels that are robbing us of our future.</p><p><strong><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Farewell-King-Coal-industrial-climatic/dp/1780460775/" target="_blank"><em>Farewell, King Coal: From Industrial Triumph to Climatic Disaster</em></a> by Seaton Anthony</strong> — A history and obituary of the coal industry detailing the closure of Britain's last deep coal mine in 2016 and looking ahead to our future health threats under the effects of coal-driven climate change.</p><h3>Culture and Society:</h3><p><strong><a href="https://lernerbooks.com/shop/show/16286" target="_blank"><em>Earth-Friendly Engineering Crafts</em></a> by Veronica Thompson</strong> — Here's a fun book for the science-minded kids in your life, offering tips on turning your recycling into interesting projects like airplanes and wind socks. The physical book is just 32 pages, but it comes with supplementary digital content to help keep the projects (and the learning) moving along.</p><p><a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674979970" target="_blank"><em><strong>The Republican Reversal: Conservatives and the Environment from Nixon to Trump</strong></em></a><strong> by James Morton Turner</strong> — Not a horror novel, but it sure sounds like one.</p><p><span></span><strong><a href="https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/changemakers-books/our-books/striking-at-the-roots-10th-anniversary-edition" target="_blank"><em>Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism</em></a> by Mark Hawthorne</strong> — The heavily updated tenth anniversary edition of this classic text offers guidance on taking direct action to save species and speak out for animal rights.</p><p>__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________</p><p>That's our voting list for this month. For dozens of additional recent eco-books, <a href="https://therevelator.org/tag/revelator-reads/" target="_blank">check out our "Revelator Reads" archives</a>.</p><p>Did we miss any of your recent favorites? Post your own candidates in the comments — but only after you've voted in the midterms!</p><p> <em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/environmental-books-november-2018/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a></em><i><em>.</em></i></p>
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OSCE Parliamentary Assembly / CC BY-SA 2.0
By Tara Lohan
How little do elected officials care about climate change? Look no further than a recent U.S. Senate hearing about the biggest threats facing the country, where lawmakers asked a single question about global warming during the entire three-hour event.
<p>Sadly, this hearing occurred just days after the world's leading scientific body on climate change <a href="http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf" target="_blank">warned</a> that the world has a mere dozen years to avoid catastrophic impacts.</p><p>Despite the urgency of the climate crisis, getting elected officials in the U.S. to commit to genuine solutions has been slow going, to say the least.</p><p>Nathaniel Stinnett has some idea of why and what to do about it.</p><p>Stinnett worked for years as a consultant and advisor on political campaigns and for advocacy nonprofits. A few years ago he noticed that polls showed that climate change and environmental issues were usually last among priorities for likely voters.</p><p>But that's not because Americans don't care about those issues, he said. Polls of American adults show that tens of millions do care deeply about those issues. They're just not good voters compared to people who vote on issues like immigration, which is the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/20/17485162/pew-research-center-poll-immigration-issue-2018-midterms" target="_blank">top priority among voters in this year's midterm election</a>.</p><p>So in 2015 Stinnett launched the <a href="https://www.environmentalvoter.org/" target="_blank">Environmental Voter Project</a> with the goals of identifying environmental advocates who don't vote and then turning them out for any and all elections.</p><p>The group calculated that close to 16 million environmentalists didn't vote in the 2014 midterms, and around 10 million didn't vote in 2016's presidential election.</p><p>It's hoped that the more people vote, the more action will finally be taken by the politicians who get elected. "More facts or fancy arguments are not going to convince politicians to lead on climate change," he said. "All they care about is getting enough votes, so that's all we care about."</p><p>In just a few years of effort, the results are already encouraging.</p><h3>The Strategy</h3><p>Most other voting-oriented initiatives follow two typical strategies. Some groups focus on registering people who have never voted. Others, including nearly everyone running a political campaign or advocating for an issue, focus on turning out likely voters who align with their candidate or cause.</p><p>That means that very few organizations (if any) end up talking to people who are registered but simply don't show up on Election Day. There's a reason for that: "If I'm trying to elect you governor of California, I'm not going to spend your money talking to people I know aren't going to vote," said Stinnett. "That's how I get fired."</p><p>And that's where the Environmental Voter Project's mission differs. They don't endorse candidates or lobby for issues. They aren't trying to win any elections. They don't even try to convince people to care more about climate change and the environment.</p><p>Instead they find people who already believe in the cause but don't currently vote.</p><p>"And instead of changing their minds, we change their behavior and turn them into more consistent voters," he said. "We don't focus on elections. We focus on changing the electorate."</p><p>In other words, the Environmental Voter Project plays the long game.</p><p>That's because politicians are only interested in issues that are important to voters, not nonvoters. "Nothing motivates a politician more than winning or losing an election," said Stinnett. "If you get more environmentalists to vote, you're going to get more politicians leading on environmental issues. Our goal is to have real environmental leadership not just at the federal level, but also at the state and local level."</p><p>The organization uses extensive polling and publicly available data to build predictive models that can identify people who are likely to say that climate change and environmental issues are one of their top two priorities. Then they check that list against voting records to find their targets.</p><p>After that staff and 1,800 volunteers use a combination of contact methods including calling, texting, door-to-door canvassing, direct mail and digital advertising.</p><p>It's hard work, and while some people may be frustrated by the sheer number of people who care about the environment but don't vote, Stinnett sees a tremendous opportunity.</p><p>"We live in a world where it's increasingly hard to get people to change their minds, especially when we're talking about climate change and other environmental issues," he said. "But if we're talking about finding people who are already with us and slightly tweaking their actions, it's a little bit easier."</p><h3>The Results</h3><p>The Environmental Voter Project tested out its methods for the first two years in Massachusetts before expanding last year to Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.</p><p>How effective have their efforts been? The group reported that by using mail and digital advertising, it was able to increase turnout between 2.8 and 4.5 percent. In-person canvassing bumps up turnout by 4.9 to 6.9 percent.</p><p>And because the group was focusing on every single election, big or small, there were some people who got contacted for four elections in a single year. "By then end of the fourth election there were people that were voting at a 12.1 percent higher rate than our control group," Stinnett said.</p><p>The reason that number is so high, they believe, is that others took notice of their results. It only takes two months after you vote for your name to show up on voter records, so after nonvoters start turning out for elections, other campaigns begin to identify them as likely voters.</p><p>"It was like the cavalry would come in and we were sending this signal to the marketplace that these people were now voters," said Stinnett. "And then all these well-funded campaigns were coming in and turning out these people at no cost to us."</p><h3>The Lessons</h3><p>And here's the unexpected thing about EVP's strategy and success: Even though it's targeting environmentalists, its messaging rarely ever mentions the environment. Instead it plays on people's desires to fit in with their peers.</p><p>This kind of social-norms messaging is used a lot these days. There are apps that motivate you to work out by comparing your run to your friend's or get you to save electricity by telling you how much energy your neighbor uses.</p><p>The Environmental Voter Project employs similar tactics to turn out voters.</p><p>For example, a target might receive a mailing letting her know how many people in her building voted in the last election. "Sometimes we remind them that whether they vote or not is public record, sometimes we'll even send them copies of their voter records and tell them we'll follow up after the election," said Stinnett.</p><p>The project also uses <a href="https://www.environmentalvoter.org/sign-the-pledge" target="_blank">voter pledges</a>, which he says work surprisingly well in convincing people to keep their promise and vote. "Most people want to be known as honest promise keepers," he said. And that relates to another concept they employ: expressive choice theory.</p><p>Instead of rationally trying to convince someone of the importance of their vote (which would be rational choice theory), EVP focuses on changing the person's behavior to take advantage of how they want to express themselves or how they want to view themselves, Stinnett explains.</p><p>While that all may sound a bit pushy, Stinnett doesn't care. "It isn't like the climate crisis is a small thing," he said. "If getting a little aggressive with social-pressure techniques can dramatically increase the number of environmentalists that vote, you better believe we're going to do it."</p><p>Right now people in the U.S. are fixated on Nov. 6 and what the midterm election may bring, but Stinnett and his colleagues are already shifting their focus to the mayoral elections of spring 2019.</p><p>Every election, he believes, is an opportunity to change behavior and eventually policy.</p><p>"The climate crisis is not some disease for which we have no cure," he said. "All we're missing is political leadership. We already have all the policy solutions. We just don't have people willing to enact them."</p><p>Stinnett believes that voting, which takes the average American just 14 minutes, is one of the most significant actions you can take to save the planet.</p><p>"Simply by becoming a voter on public voter records you become a part of the (unfortunately very small) group of Americans who drive policy," Stinnett said. And while some people who care about the environment have made lifestyle changes to tread more lightly on the planet, they still haven't shown up to vote en masse.</p><p>"But once we start doing that, it's amazing how quickly things can change," he said.</p><p><em><a href="https://therevelator.org/author/taralohan/" target="_blank">Tara Lohan</a> is deputy editor of The Revelator and has worked for more than a decade as a digital editor and environmental journalist focused on the intersections of energy, water and climate. Her work has been published by The Nation, American Prospect, High Country News, Grist, Pacific Standard and others. She is the editor of two books on the global water crisis.</em></p><p><em><span></span>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/change-electorate-election/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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Bloede Dam removal in process. Maryland Department of Natural Resources Fishing and Boating Services / YouTube
By Tara Lohan
For much of the 20th century humans got really good at dam building. Dams—embraced for their flood protection, water storage and electricity generation—drove industry, built cities and helped turn deserts into farms. The United States alone has now amassed more than 90,000 dams, half of which are 25 feet tall or greater.
<p>
Decades ago, dams were a sure sign of "progress." But that's changing.
</p><p>
Today the American public is more discerning of dams' benefits and more aware of their long-term consequences. In the past 30 years, 1,275 dams have been <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/american-rivers-website/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/13103254/Dam-List-2017_narrative_Final.pdf" target="_blank">torn down</a>, according to the nonprofit American Rivers, which works on dam-removal and river-restoration projects.
</p><p>
Why remove dams? Some are simply old and unsafe—the average age of U.S. dams is 56 years. It would cost American taxpayers almost <a href="https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Dams-Final.pdf" target="_blank">$45 billion to repair our aging, high-hazard dams</a>, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. In some cases it's simply cheaper to remove them.
</p><p>
Other dams have simply outlived their usefulness or been judged to be doing more harm than good. Dams have been shown to fragment habitat, decimate fisheries and alter ecosystems.
</p><p>
Depending on the size and scope of the project, dam removal may not be an easy or quick fix. Getting stakeholders onboard, raising the funds and performing the necessary scientific and engineering studies can take years before actual removal efforts can begin.
</p><p>
And some projects are controversial and may never get the green light. For decades stakeholders have debated whether to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington. The dams provide about four percent of the region's electricity, but also block endangered salmon from reaching critical habitat. The fish are a key food source for the Northwest's <a href="https://therevelator.org/killer-whales-face-killer-toxins/" target="_blank">beleaguered orcas</a>.
</p><p>
The debate over the Snake River dams is ongoing, but with each new dam removal researchers are learning important lessons to help guide the next project. One of the most important lessons gleaned so far is that rivers bounce back quickly. Recent research has shown that "changes in the river below the dam removal happen faster than were generally expected and the river returned to a normal state more rapidly than expected," said Ian Miller, an oceanography instructor at Peninsula College and a coastal hazards specialist.
</p><p>
Miller has worked on studies both before and after the <a href="https://therevelator.org/elwha-dam-removal/" target="_blank">removal of two dams</a> on Washington's Elwha River, which is the largest dam-removal project thus far. But more projects, including a big one, may soon be grabbing headlines.
</p><p>
Here are four that we're watching closely that show the diversity of dam-removal projects across the country.
</p><h2>1. Klamath</h2><p>
The most anticipated upcoming dam-removal project in the U.S. will be on the Klamath River in California and Oregon. It's the first time four dams will be <a href="http://www.klamathrenewal.org/" target="_blank">removed simultaneously</a>, making it an even bigger endeavor than those on the Elwha.</p>
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODc0MjA4OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDM2NzMyMn0.bjIHWQbut9TeV81cc2gTW6Ma0fP8VCB5Fj_wITckLm8/img.png?width=980" id="8bab4" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="604a7e02505364858b5ff5381b049134" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
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<p>The hydroelectric dams—three in California and one in Oregon—range in height from 33 feet to 173 feet.<br></p><p><span></span>"We've never seen a dam-removal and river-restoration project at this scale," said Amy Souers Kober, communications director for American Rivers.
</p><p>
Local tribes may be among the most enthused for the dams' removal. Their communities depend on salmon as an economic and cultural resource, but fish populations began to crash after the first dam on the Klamath River was constructed 100 years ago.</p>
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODc0MjA3OC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNjY4NDI4MX0.yEM_H42VCyCGiD96SHWOxxHmIkwB29NK98mPcarBiNY/img.jpg?width=980" id="d5f4d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d4132215340d05e09229892f284c1094" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A 2006 protest by Klamath Basin Tribes and allies. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Patrick McCully / CC BY 2.0</small></p>
<p>While the removal of the dams won't make the Klamath River entirely dam-free (there will be two more upstream dams remaining), it will open up 400 miles of stream habitat for salmon and other fish. It's also expected to help improve water quality, including reducing threats from toxic algae that have flourished in the warm water of the reservoirs.<br></p><p>
The project is hailed for the huge coalition for stakeholders that have become collaborators. "This has been decades in the making, with so many people involved, from the tribes, to commercial fishermen, to conservationists and many others," said Kober. "Dam removals are most successful when there are a lot of people at the table and it's a truly collaborative effort."
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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and an independent board of consultants are now reviewing the plan for the Lower Klamath Project, a 2,300-page <a href="http://www.klamathrenewal.org/definite-plan/" target="_blank">analysis</a> of the dam removal and restoration effort. And the project is also working on receiving its last permitting requirements. If all proceeds on track, the site preparation will begin in 2020 and dam removal in 2021.
</p><h2>2. Patapsco</h2><p>
On September 11, as the Southeast readied itself for approaching Hurricane Florence, a blast of explosives breached the <a href="http://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/pages/fishpassage/bloede.aspx" target="_blank">Bloede Dam</a> on the Patapsco River in Maryland. Crews have been working to remove the rest of the structure and restoration efforts are expected to continue into next year.
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The dam—the first submerged hydroelectric plant in the country—was built in 1907 and is located in a state park and owned by Maryland Department of Natural Resources. For the past decade concerns have mounted over public safety, obstructed fish passage and other aquatic habitat impacts from the dam, prompting a plan to remove it.<br>
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The removal of the dam is "going to restore alewife and herring and other fish that are really vital to the food web and the Chesapeake Bay," said Kober. Researchers expect to study the results of this ecosystem restoration for years to come.
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There's another reason to watch this project: The dam's removal also involves some interesting science and technology. Researchers have employed <a href="https://theconversation.com/drones-to-track-one-of-the-largest-dam-removals-on-the-eastern-seaboard-100071" target="_blank">high-tech drones</a> to help them understand how much of the 2.6 million cubic feet of sediment from behind the dam will make its way downstream and at what speed. With the sensitive ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay just 8 miles downstream, sediment inflow is a big concern.
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"Just the idea the we can fly drones over this extended reach with some degree of regularity means that we can see evidence of sediment movement from the pictures alone," explained Matthew Baker, a professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, who is helping to lead this effort. "We can track the movement just by taking low-altitude aerial photos and we can try to model that within a computer and estimate the amount of sediment and the rate of movement."
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This kind of research lowers the cost of monitoring, says Baker, and can help future dam-removal work, too. "I think it's going to be employed regularly," he said.
</p><h2>3. Middle Fork Nooksack</h2><p>
About 20 miles east of Bellingham, Wash., a <a href="https://www.cob.org/services/environment/restoration/middlefork/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">dam removal</a> on the Middle Fork Nooksack River is the "next biggest important restoration project in Puget Sound," said Kober.
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The diversion dam, built in 1962, was constructed to funnel water to the city of Bellingham to augment its primary water supply source in Lake Whatcom—but at the expense of fish, which cannot pass over or through the dam.
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Bald eagles and other birds on the Nooksack River. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Mick Thompson / CC BY-NC 2.0</small>
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Since the early 2000s the city, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Lummi Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe have worked on a plan to remove the dam in order to restore about 16 miles of spawning and rearing habitat for three fish listed on the Endangered Species Act: spring Chinook salmon, steelhead and bull trout.<br>
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The primary purpose of the dam removal "is recovery of threatened species," said April McEwen, a river restoration project manager at American Rivers. "The goal of the project is to provide critical habitat upstream for those salmon species to be able to spawn." It's also hoped that more salmon will reach the ocean and help the same <a href="https://therevelator.org/orca-grief-call-to-arms/" target="_blank">endangered orcas</a> affected by the Snake River dams. The whales depend on the fish for food and are at their lowest population in 34 years.
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But a critical part of the dam-removal project is continued water supply for the city.
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Currently the dam creates a "consistent and reliable municipal water flow," said Stephen Day, project engineer at Bellingham Public Works. The current project design has identified a new diversion about 1,000 feet upstream where water can be withdrawn with similar reliability but without the need for a dam.
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The design phase of the project is currently being finalized, and McEwen said they hope to have all the permits by March 2019 and the dam removed later the same year. But first, the project still needs to secure some needed state funds.
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The dam removal is "a really big deal" for the entire Puget Sound ecosystem, said McEwen. "Salmon are keystone species. If their numbers are down, we all suffer, including humans and especially orca whales."
</p><h2>4. Grand</h2><p>
A project that has been in the works for a decade could put the "rapids" back in Grand Rapids. More than a hundred years ago, the construction of five small dams along a two-mile stretch of the Grand River in the Michigan city drowned the natural rapids to facilitate transporting floating logs to furniture factories along the banks.
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Those factories long ago closed, and the aging dams are now more of a safety hazard than a benefit for the city.
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<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A Grand dam. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Matthew Sutherland / CC BY 2.0</small>
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The idea of removing the dams came as part of a larger effort initiated in 2008 to green the city. "Early on the main focus was recreation, looking at ways to bring back rapids for kayaking," said Matt Chapman, director and project coordinator of the nonprofit <a href="https://grandrapidswhitewater.org/" target="_blank">Grand Rapids Whitewater</a>, which has been leading the river-restoration effort. "But as the project has evolved and as we've learned and studied the river, we've realized there are so many other benefits to a project like this."<br>
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"The more we found out about the river, the more we realized how impaired it is biologically," said Wendy Ogilvie, director of environmental programs at the <a href="https://www.gvmc.org/" target="_blank">Grand Valley Metropolitan Council</a>. "We hope through the revitalization there will be some recreational opportunities, but a lot is fish passage and a better habitat for native species."
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The dams set to be removed may be small—the largest is about 10 feet tall—but the project isn't simple. For one thing, the presence of the Sixth Street dam, the tallest, has blocked the further invasion of parasitic <a href="https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/aquatics/lamprey.shtml" target="_blank">sea lamprey</a> (<em>Petromyzon marinus</em>), which have spread from the Atlantic Ocean throughout the Great Lakes over the past two centuries. The project is working to create a new structure that will prevent the lamprey from migrating further upstream and preying on native fish after dam removal.
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Project managers discovered that the federally listed endangered snuffbox mussel (<em>Epioblasma triquetra</em>) also makes its home in this stretch of river. The project hopes to carefully remove and relocate the mussels to suitable habitat during the construction process, which is expected to take about five years. The mussels may be returned after construction and restoration. The dam removal is also expected to help state-listed threatened lake sturgeon (<em>Acipenser fulvescens</em>) return to their original spawning grounds upstream and benefit smaller fish like logperch, which have been blocked by the dam and are vital for mussels.
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The river-restoration process is also spurring a greater revitalization effort along the riverfront to provide more accessible green public space and economic opportunities.
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"It's not just restoring the river, but also how the community gets to the river from the neighborhoods," said Chapman.
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He said they hope to have all the necessary permits in hand to begin working on habitat improvements in the lower part of the river next summer, including finalizing a plan for the mussels' relocation. It will likely be another three or four years before the sea lamprey barrier is complete and the Sixth Street dam will be removed following that.
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Much work has been done over the years to clean up the river and curb pollution, said Ogilvie. The next step is helping to restore the ecology and recreational opportunities. "The best part about the project is having people value the river and think of it as a resource," she said. "If we could see sturgeon coming back up the river … that would be pretty amazing, too."
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<em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://therevelator.org/dam-removal-projects/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>. </em><em></em>
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