Brazilian researchers find ‘terrifying’ plastic rocks on remote island

Story by Reuters • 

The geology of Brazil’s volcanic Trindade Island has fascinated scientists for years, but the discovery of rocks made from plastic debris in this remote turtle refuge is sparking alarm.

Melted plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the island, located 1,140 km (708 miles) from the southeastern state of Espirito Santo, which researchers say is evidence of humans’ growing influence over the earth’s geological cycles.

“This is new and terrifying at the same time, because pollution has reached geology,” said Fernanda Avelar Santos, a geologist at the Federal University of Parana.

Santos and her team ran chemical tests to find out what kind of plastics are in the rocks called “plastiglomerates” because they are made of a mixture of sedimentary granules and other debris held together by plastic.

“We identified (the pollution) mainly comes from fishing nets, which is very common debris on Trinidade Island’s beaches,” Santos said. “The (nets) are dragged by the marine currents and accumulate on the beach. When the temperature rises, this plastic melts and becomes embedded with the beach’s natural material.”


Brazilian researchers find ‘terrifying’ plastic rocks on remote island

Melted plastic has become intertwined with rocks on the island. 

- Rodolfo Buhrer/Reuters

Trindade Island is one of the world’s most important conservation spots for green turtles, or Chelonia mydas, with thousands arriving each year to lay their eggs. The only human inhabitants on Trindade are members of the Brazilian navy, which maintains a base on the island and protects the nesting turtles.

“The place where we found these samples (of plastic) is a permanently preserved area in Brazil, near the place green turtles lay their eggs,” Santos said.

The discovery stirs questions about humans’ legacy on the earth, says Santos.

“We talk so much about the Anthropocene, and this is it,” Santos said, referring to a proposed geological epoch defined by humans’ impact on the planet’s geology and ecosystems.

“The pollution, the garbage in the sea and the plastic dumped incorrectly in the oceans is becoming geological material … preserved in the earth’s geological records.”

Advocates push for gender surgery funding within Alberta amid years-long backlog in Montreal

Story by Katarina Szulc • 2h ago

For most transgender Albertans, genital surgery procedures are usually done at a private clinic in Montreal and paid for by the Alberta government.


Statistics Canada shows Alberta's transgender population tops the national average, despite only offering out of province gender affirming surgeries.

© Peter Evans/CBC News

But for those not willing to hop on the four-year waiting list or who might prefer a different procedure method to the one offered at the Centre Métropolitain de Chirurgie, their options are limited and expensive.

Albertans getting surgery within the province or internationally have to pay out of pocket for costs upwards of $20,000. Advocates say in-province surgery should be funded by the provincial government to increase accessibility.

Donna Battaglia, 54, was overdue for a procedure to remove her bladder and scrotum, which were damaged by cancer treatments.

During a consultation, she mentioned to her surgeon that she was desperate for bottom surgery.

Battaglia had already transitioned and had breast surgery but was left waiting for an operating date in Montreal. She also had been given the green light by two psychologists and received funding from Alberta's Gender Reassignment Surgery Program.

Although Alberta does not fund in-province bottom surgery or have specialized clinics for the procedure, there are qualified and trained doctors in the province who can perform it.

Battaglia's surgeon was one of them. He agreed to perform genital surgery along with her cancer correction surgery.

"Here we have the people and the skill and the talent to do it," Battaglia said.

The surgeon who performed Battaglia's genital surgery declined an interview.

Related video: Transgender advocates push for gender affirming care covered by state (WMAR Baltimore, MD)
Expanding Medicare coverage for transgender community a group of
Duration 1:59
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Cathy Flood is a urogynecologist who specializes in bottom surgery recovery and most often treats patients who have had operations in Montreal.

She said having specialized clinics funded in Alberta would change the experience entirely.

"I feel like we could get a program going. We have the interest, we have the surgeons," Flood said. "But there has not been a push to get it done here from what I can see."

CBC News asked Alberta Health why the province does not have widespread genital surgery or dedicated clinics. Spokesperson Scott Johnston said genital surgery is "a specialized field and there are very few surgeons in Canada who perform this procedure."

Flood said the years-long wait time for people to get their surgeries in Montreal can take an immeasurable toll on their mental health, something Battaglia can attest to.

"For myself and most of the other people I know this is something that we needed to do or we were going to be dead," she said. "I came close to suicide twice over it."

So far, clinics that specialize in gender-affirming genital surgery are only in Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto. Montreal is the only location that accepts out-of-province patients.

Flood said her Edmonton-based clinic has seen over 300 patients who have had surgery in Montreal since 2018. She said those could have been surgeries done in the province.

But she also said the Centre Métropolitain de Chirurgie does not offer training to interested surgeons. That means if a doctor wants to get trained in genital surgery, they have to travel to select places overseas.

Flood said trained practitioners in Alberta usually do not solely practice gender-affirming surgeries but the demand to do so is overwhelming.

"I think a lot of it is that there's just not the initiative, and we would be ready to start training tomorrow if we got the OK."

Because of the lengthy process, Battaglia worries many transgender people will suffer a poor quality of life.

"Before the surgery my entire body and my entire being felt like I was made of barbed wire and I was trying not to get stabbed, hurt, and poked by it all the time," she said.

Since her surgery, Battaglia says she finally feels complete.

"I was blown away, I never thought I'd be able to feel so complete in my body."

Rio Tinto appoints directors with mining, renewable energy experience

Story by Reuters • 

(Reuters) - Rio Tinto has appointed two non-executive directors, the miner said on Thursday, in response to its chairman's call for more members with experience in mining and renewable energy on the company's board.


Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) annual conference in Toronto© Thomson Reuters

Dean Dalla Valle and Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz, the latest appointments, will join Rio's board on June 1, the miner said.

Valle was previously chief commercial officer of BHP Group. and CEO of Australian rail freight operator, Pacific National.

Earlier this month, he was appointed as chair of hydrogen electrolyser technology company, Hysata.

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Lloyd-Hurwitz served as the chief executive officer and managing director of ASX-listed property firm Mirvac Group for a decade before stepping down recently.

Most of the directors on Rio's board are experienced in finance, capital markets, law and oil and gas.

Chairman Dominic Barton said last October that Rio needed more members with mining and renewable energy experience and with a more diverse geographical background.

"Dean and Susan will deepen the board's capabilities and experience in key areas we had identified that needed strengthening," Barton said in a statement.

(Reporting by Harish Sridharan in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Savio D'Souza)

ITS THE LEAK THAT'S THE PROBLEM NOT PRESS RELEASES

Federal and Alberta governments to study oilsands tailings leak communication

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 

EDMONTON — The Alberta and federal governments say they will work together to understand what happened around a nine-month delay in notifying the public about toxic seepage from an oilsands tailings pond.


Federal and Alberta governments to study oilsands tailings leak communication

© Provided by The Canadian Press

" (Alberta Environment) Minister (Sonya) Savage and (federal Environment) Minister (Steven) Guilbeault reiterated a dual commitment to review information exchange processes and committed to maintaining open communication channels with Indigenous communities in the area with updates on water sampling and other monitoring results," said a news release Wednesday from the Alberta government.

The release contained no direct quotes from Savage. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.

"Minister Guilbeault underlined that Imperial Oil’s own stated failures of communication were unacceptable and have raised broader concerns regarding the efficacy of (Alberta's) existing notification systems," said Kaitlin Power, Guilbeault's spokeswoman.

Tuesday evening, Savage and Guilbeault discussed seepage and a leak from Imperial Oil's Kearl oilsands mine about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, Alta.

The seepage was discovered in May, but neither politician was told about it until nine months later. They learned of it from an environmental protection order issued by the Alberta Energy Regulator after a second release of 5.3 million litres of oilsands wastewater at Kearl from a catchment pond.

Area First Nations have also said they were not updated after initial notification of discoloured water found on the site.

Power said Ottawa also wants to see a federal-provincial-Indigenous working group, with participation from the oil companies, to address the immediate concerns around the Kearl releases "to restore trust and give transparency."

Details on that group are expected soon.

Savage has repeatedly promised to get to the bottom of how it took so long for news of the significant leaks to be released.

"It’s an unfortunate incident that happened at Kearl, and I think we need to learn from it and do better," Savage told a legislature committee on March 9.

"I think there are probably some gaps that need to be looked at and processes fixed and improved."

But New Democrat environment critic Marlin Schmidt said the public deserves to know what questions will be asked and how those fixes will be made.

"Be forthright with what the scope of the investigation is," he said Wednesday. "Tell us when they expect it will be concluded."

Aside from what he called "clues" in the environmental protection order, Schmidt said, it's not even clear what is being investigated.

Savage has said she couldn't say anything for fear of affecting the regulator's investigation.

Schmidt also called on the government to release the basis for its repeated assurances that no wildlife or waterways were affected by the seepage.

"They need to release all of the data they have to this point," he said. "I think they're hiding the data."

He said the province should take responsibility for dealing with the problem itself.

"The provincial government is clearly washing its hands of it and asking the federal government to take care of the problem," he said.

The province's news release Wednesday said Alberta Environment and Protected Areas has sent officials to the site to conduct independent water sampling, in addition to monitoring already in place.

Environment Canada, which has said the released tailings are harmful to fish, also has inspectors on the site.

"Environment and Climate Change Canada will be closely engaged with the Alberta Energy Regulator to review Imperial Oil’s remedial action plan to ensure it complies with the Fisheries Act," Power said in an email.

Imperial released an update Wednesday evening that said it has toured community leaders and government officials through the affected area and has nearly 200 people working on seep mitigations and cleanup, including on the overflow at Kearl.

The company said the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo has declared drinking water to be safe in the community of Fort Chipewyan and that its own monitoring and water sampling data shows no impacts to local waterways or drinking water.

Imperial said there has been no indication of effects on wildlife or fish.

"All seven Indigenous communities have been invited to site for tours and to conduct independent monitoring and water sampling; in-community meetings are occurring," the release said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 15, 2023.

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

How the last banking tumult fuels today’s populist politics

“There are no libertarians in the financial crisis,”

By WILL WEISSERT

yesterday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Pence and Bernie Sanders are hardly political allies.

But in the aftermath of two large bank failures, the conservative former vice president and the democratic socialist senator are striking remarkably similar tones. Pence, a Republican, bemoaned that “we live in a world where certain politically favored businesses are propped up, backstopped and bailed out by government.” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said “we cannot continue down the road of more socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for everyone else.”

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Their sentiment reflects the populism that has coursed through both political parties in the 15 years since shaky financial institutions last spurred anxiety about the broader economy. The 2008 financial crisis unleashed a political realignment that rejected perceived elites and establishment figures, often with unpredictable results for Democrats and Republicans alike.

“There is rising discontent with corporate greed, which is less about left versus right than top versus bottom,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was the first national group to endorse Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s populist-infused 2020 presidential campaign.

In the wake of the 2008 crisis, the Republican Party was overtaken by the tea party movement, which clamored for smaller government and limits to federal spending. Donald Trump was eventually elevated at the expense of more established leaders like Jeb Bush, John Boehner and Paul Ryan.

Among Democrats, Occupy Wall Street activists drew attention to the party’s longstanding ties to big business and went on to help energize Sanders’ aggressive challenge to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. Warren rose from a Harvard University bankruptcy expert to a national political figure who helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That was such a centerpiece of her White House bid that supporters sometimes chanted “CFPB” at her rallies.

Meanwhile, a new generation of younger lawmakers aligned with democratic socialists, including New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, joined Congress, often toppling longtime incumbents.

The result is a deeply fractured political environment in which members of each party are responding to a base of voters who are skeptical of institutions and uninterested in the political niceties that once ruled Washington.

At the White House on Monday, President Joe Biden sought to navigate those forces by insisting that taxpayers won’t be on the hook for any assistance to failing banks.

“This is an important point: No losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” said Biden, whose early days as vice president under Barack Obama were consumed by the response to the financial crisis.

The current turmoil is different from that era. While the 2008 crisis centered on souring mortgages held by many banks, this week’s trouble seems more narrowly confined to institutions that weren’t properly prepared for rising interest rates.

And while some of Wall Street’s most prominent firms, including Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns, collapsed in 2008, there’s little concern now about the strength of firms that are considered “too big to fail.” That’s because reforms adopted in the wake of the crisis intensified the scrutiny of such institutions, subjecting them to greater regulation, tougher capital requirements and regular stress tests that examine whether they can survive sudden traumas.

Some of the most dramatic moments of the 2008 crisis — including a rare White House meeting between then-President George W. Bush, Democratic nominee Obama and GOP nominee John McCain — happened just weeks before the election. This time, the instability is playing out with the presidential campaign in its infancy.

But those eyeing the White House in 2024 are nonetheless stoking many now-familiar populist themes.

Pence, who has yet to formally declare a presidential campaign, said Biden was “disingenuous” in saying that taxpayers wouldn’t ultimately be responsible for the government’s response to bank failures.

Nikki Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador who declared her presidential campaign last month, was more direct: “The era of big government and corporate bailouts must end.”

Trump, who is mounting his third presidential campaign, turned to stoking fear, predicting another a 1930s-style depression, in a way similar to how he did amid the 2008 crisis.

“WE WILL HAVE A GREAT DEPRESSION FAR BIGGER AND MORE POWERFUL THAN THAT OF 1929,” he wrote on his social media platform. “AS PROOF, THE BANKS ARE ALREADY STARTING TO COLLAPSE!!!”

Asked about Warren and other top Democrats arguing that banking regulations imposed after the 2008 crisis, which Congress reduced during his administration, helping to prevent current problems, Trump told reporters Tuesday that “rollback was a good thing.”

“Otherwise you’d have a lot more banks right now in trouble because they were being eaten alive by regulation,” said Trump, who also complained that interest rates were too high.

Ahead of a widely anticipated presidential campaign, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has pushed the GOP’s populist bent into so-called culture wars around race and gender. Without presenting any evidence to support his claim, he said diversity, equity and inclusion requirements at the failed Silicon Valley Bank “diverted from them focusing on their core mission.”

Green said that, just as Warren rode outrage over the 2008 crisis to national political prowess, “Donald Trump clearly has a strategy of out-flanking fellow Republicans and neutralizing Joe Biden on economic populist issues, like he did with Hillary Clinton.”

If regulators are able to quickly tame the current banking tumult, the longer-term political implications may be limited. But the force of populist politics will endure, especially as Congress must decide later this year whether to raise the debt limit, a once routine ritual that now threatens to become a standoff if Republicans refuse to lift the nation’s borrowing authority. Failure to do so would cause a potentially devastating default.

James Henry, a global justice fellow at Yale University and managing director at Sag Harbor Group, an information technology consulting firm, blamed Silicon Valley Bank’s failure on decades of weakened regulations and a “tiny elite” of venture capitalists and bankers connected to top leaders of both parties.

But Henry also said the Biden administration had no choice but to step in, given potentially greater financial threats spreading throughout the tech sector — making the failure fallout difficult to diagnose along ideological lines.

“There are no libertarians in the financial crisis,” Henry said. “Both sides are trying to be bailed out.”

In low-wage Portugal, Europe’s housing crisis bites deep

By HELENA ALVES and BARRY HATTON

1 of 20
A woman cries after her makeshift house was demolished by municipal workers in Loures, outside Lisbon, Monday, March 6, 2023. Seven families, mostly immigrants from Sao Tome & Principe, were evicted and had their illegal houses demolished. They had built their houses in the last couple of years when unable to pay the rising rents being asked coupled with the increasing cost of living. 

(AP Photo/Armando Franca)

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Like a growing number of people in Portugal, Georgina Simoes no longer earns enough money to afford a place to live.

The 57-year-old nursing home carer earns less than 800 euros ($845) a month, as do about a fourth of the country’s workforce. For the last decade, she got by because she’s been paying just 300 euros a month for her one-bedroom apartment in an undistinguished Lisbon neighborhood.

Now, with rents soaring in the capital, her landlord is evicting her. She says she’s not budging because finding another place near work will be too expensive.

“You live in this state of anxiety,” she says in her apartment with its partial view of the River Tagus. “Every day you wake up thinking, ’Am I staying here or do I have to leave?”

Simoes and many others, increasingly including the middle class, are being priced out of Portugal’s property market by rising rents, surging home prices and climbing mortgage rates, fueled by factors including the growing influx of foreign investors and tourists needing short-term rentals. Deepening fears in recent days about the health of financial institutions, as well as the prospect of continuing high inflation, have added more uncertainty.

Portugal’s center-left Socialist government last month unveiled a package of measures to address the problem, and some of them are set to be approved by the Cabinet on Thursday.

Between 2020 and 2021, house prices in Portugal shot up by 157%. From 2015 to 2021, rents jumped by 112%, according the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat.

But the rising cost of real estate tells only part of the story.

Portugal is one of Western Europe’s poorest countries and has long pursued investment on the back of a low-wage economy. Just over half of Portuguese workers earned less than 1,000 euros ($1,054) a month last year, according to Labor Ministry statistics.

Across the EU, the recent spike in inflation, especially rising food and energy prices, and the lingering economic and labor consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have aggravated the housing dilemma in the 27-nation bloc.

More than 82 million households in the EU have difficulty paying their rent, 17% of people live in overcrowded accommodations and just over 10% spend more than 40% of their income on rent, the the bloc says.

Hit hardest by unequal access to decent, affordable housing are young people, families with children, the elderly, those with disabilities and migrants.

In Portugal, the problem has been magnified by tourism, whose robust growth before the pandemic has come roaring back, as well as an influx of foreign investors who found relatively low real estate prices in Lisbon and have been driving up prices that force local people out of their neighborhoods.

After attracting a record 25 million foreign tourists in 2019, Portugal drew 15.3 million last year — a 158% rise after the previous year of pandemic restrictions. Analysts expect a 33% rise this year.

For some people, that long-awaited national success with foreign vacationers is a case of being careful what you wish for.

Rosa Santos, a 59-year-old born and raised close to Lisbon’s 14th-century St. George’s Castle overlooking the port city, says most homes in her neighborhood are occupied by short-term vacation rentals, largely for foreign tourists. It’s common to see and hear visitors dragging suitcases over the cobblestones.

Daisy, background right, and Vania, foreground left, argue with riot policemen supporting municipal workers arriving to demolish the two women's makeshift houses, in Loures, outside Lisbon, Monday, March 6, 2023. Seven families, mostly immigrants from Sao Tome & Principe, were evicted and had their illegal houses demolished. They had built their houses in the last couple of years when unable to pay the rising rents being asked coupled with the increasing cost of living.

 (AP Photo/Armando Franca)

The locals’ rich traditions are gone, and there’s not even a bakery or grocery store there now, Santos says.

“It’s not a neighborhood anymore,” she said. “This isn’t a city, it’s an amusement park.”

On a recent rainy day, police helped municipal workers using backhoes demolish several illegal makeshift dwellings on Lisbon’s outskirts with no power or running water. The families forced by necessity to live in them pleaded for them to stop.

The shacks stood just a few kilometers (miles) from luxury condominiums being built on the Lisbon waterfront, where a four-bedroom apartment sells for 2.4 million euros.

Not far away, in the Camarate low-income district close to Lisbon airport, missionary worker Jose Manuel helps needy families, some of whom can’t afford to pay for a room, let alone a house, and are consequently being pushed out of the city.

“We are talking already of a room in Camarate for 400 euros, a house for 600 or 700 euros,” he said. “Those who are on a minimum wage cannot afford a house.”

Prime Minister Antonio Costa says cities that lose their inhabitants forfeit their “authenticity” and become “a Disneyland” for tourists.

Among the measures that his government hopes will bring about a market correction:

— Forcing the owners of unoccupied properties to rent them out, granting priority to renters under 35, single-parent families or families whose income has dropped by more than 20%.

— Capping increases in new rental contracts to 2% above the previous contract.

— Ending the government’s “golden visa” program, which grants residence permits to wealthy foreign investors who buy property in Portugal

— Halting new licenses, except in rural areas, for short-term vacation rentals through tourist accommodation platforms.

— Switching commercial property to housing use.

The proposals have stirred controversy: Some see them as heavy-handed and misguided, others say they lack detail on how they will work. And some are angry.

Hugo Ferreira Santos of the Portuguese Association of Real Estate Developers and Investors said foreign investment has ground to a halt as people wait to see how the golden visa changes shape up.

“What I have been hearing from international investors is that Portugal is not a credible country,” he said. “It is a country that changes the rules of the game halfway through and a country where foreign investment is not welcome.”

Small-time investors in apartments for short-term vacation rentals also are aggrieved.

“There are people that left their lives, set up their own businesses, generated jobs, have workers and suddenly one day they are knocked down without any prospect,” said Eduardo Miranda, head of a Portuguese association representing their interests, said.

Some measures will require parliament’s approval, and others could be sent to the Constitutional Court for vetting.

TikTok dismisses calls for Chinese owners to sell stakes

today

The icon for the video sharing TikTok app is seen on a smartphone, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023, in Marple Township, Pa. TikTok was dismissive Wednesday, March 15, of reports that the Biden administration was calling for its Chinese owners to sell their stakes in the popular video-sharing app, saying such a move wouldn't help protect national security. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — TikTok was dismissive Wednesday of reports that the Biden administration was calling for its Chinese owners to sell their stakes in the popular video-sharing app, saying such a move wouldn’t help protect national security.

The company was responding to a report in The Wall Street Journal that said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., part of the Treasury Department, was threatening a U.S. ban on the app unless its owners, Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., divested.

“If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,” TikTok spokesperson Maureen Shanahan said. “The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting, and verification, which we are already implementing.”

The Journal report cited anonymous “people familiar with the matter.” The Treasury Department and the White House’s National Security Council declined to comment.

Late last month, the White House gave all federal agencies 30 days to wipe TikTok off all government devices.

The Office of Management and Budget called the guidance a “critical step forward in addressing the risks presented by the app to sensitive government data.” Some agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State, already have restrictions in place. The White House already does not allow TikTok on its devices.

Congress passed the “No TikTok on Government Devices Act” in December as part of a sweeping government funding package. The legislation does allow for TikTok use in certain cases, including for national security, law enforcement and research purposes.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in both the House and Senate have been moving forward with legislation that would give the Biden administration more power to clamp down on TikTok.

Rep. Mike McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, has been a vocal critic of the app, saying the Chinese Communist Party is using it to “manipulate and monitor its users while it gobbles up Americans’ data to be used for their malign activities.”

“Anyone with TikTok downloaded on their device has given the CCP a backdoor to all their personal information. It’s a spy balloon into your phone,” the Texas Republican said.

TikTok remains extremely popular and is used by two-thirds of teens in the U.S. But there is increasing concern that Beijing could obtain control of American user data that the app has obtained.

The company has been dismissive of the ban for federal devices and has noted that it is developing security and data privacy plans as part of the Biden administration’s ongoing national security review.

How coconuts protect the Jersey Shore, other eroding coasts

By WAYNE PARRY

March 12, 2023

1 of 5
Logs of coconut husk known as coir sit on the bank of the Shark River in Neptune, N.J., Jan. 31, 2023, where the American Littoral Society doing a shoreline restoration project incorporating coconut fibers. The material is being used in shoreline stabilization projects around the world. 

(AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

NEPTUNE, N.J. (AP) — Coastal communities around the world are adding a tropical twist to shoreline protection, courtesy of the humble coconut.

From the sands of the Jersey Shore to the islands of Indonesia, strands of coconut husk, known as coir, are being incorporated into shoreline protection projects.

Often used in conjunction with other measures, the coconut material is seen as a cost-effective, readily available and sustainable option. This is particularly true in developing countries. But the material is also popular in wealthy nations, where it’s seen as an important part of so-called “living shorelines” that use natural elements rather than hard barriers of wood, steel or concrete.

One such project is being installed along a section of eroded river bank in Neptune, New Jersey, about a mile from the ocean on the Shark River. Using a mix of a federal grant and local funds, the American Littoral Society, a coastal conservation group, is carrying out the $1.3 million project that has already added significantly to what was previously a severely eroded shoreline in an area that was pummeled by Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

“We’re always trying to reduce wave energy while shielding the shoreline, and whenever we can, we like to employ nature-based solutions,” said Tim Dillingham, the group’s executive director. “This material is readily available, particularly in developing countries and it’s relatively inexpensive compared with harder materials.”

Coir is made of the stringy fibers of coconut shells, and spun into mats or logs, often held together with netting. In developing areas, discarded or ripped fishing nets can be incorporated.

Its flexibility allows it to be molded and contoured as needed on uneven areas of shoreline, held in place by wooden stakes.

The coconut-based material biodegrades over time, by design. But before it does, it is sometimes pre-seeded with shoreline plants and grasses, or those plants are placed in holes that can be punched into the coir logs.

The logs hold the plants in place as they take root and grow, eventually breaking down and leaving the established plants and sediment around them in place to stabilize the shoreline.

Coconut-based materials are being used around the world for erosion control projects.

One of them is in Boston, where Julia Hopkins, an assistant professor at Northeastern University, is using coconut fibers, wood chips and other material to create floating mats to blunt the force of waves, and encourage growth of aquatic vegetation. A pilot project has four such mats in waterways around Boston. Hopkins envisions a network of hundreds or even thousands of mats linked together to protect wider areas.

She’s pleased with what she’s seen so far.

“Coconut fiber is organic material, it’s relatively cheap and it’s a discard,” she said. “It’s actually recycling something that was going to be discarded.”

Two projects in East Providence, Rhode Island, used coconut logs in 2020, and 2,400 feet (731 meters) of shoreline in New York’s Jamaica Bay that were eroded during Superstorm Sandy were stabilized in 2021 by a project that also included coconut coir logs.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts, did a similar project last year, and the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control is offering funding to help landowners, homeowner associations and others install living shorelines made of materials that can include coconut fibers.

A project in Austin, Texas, stabilized part of the Lake Austin shoreline; monitoring from 2009 to 2014 showed decreased erosion and the healthy growth of native plants at the water’s edge.

Indonesia is the world’s largest coconut producer, with more than 17 million metric tons in 2021. Scientists from the Oceanography Program of Bandung Institute of Technology used coconut husk material to help build a sea wall in the Karangjaladri village of Pangandaran Regency in 2018.

Residents of Diogue Island in Senegal are using wooden structures and coconut fronds and sticks to reclaim eroded sections of beach.

It doesn’t always work, however.

In 2016, the Felix Neck Wildlife Refuge in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on Martha’s Vineyard installed it at the Sengekontacket Pond, where a salt marsh had eroded by several feet in previous years. While it did help reduce erosion for a while, the husks did not last long due to strong wave action.

“It got blown out multiple times,” said Suzan Bellincampi, the sanctuary’s director. “We had it in place for a few years and we decided not to reinstall it.

“The project was really interesting in terms of what we wanted to do and how we adapted it,” she said. “It’s not for every site; it has to be site-specific. It works in some places; it doesn’t work in all places.”

Similarly, coconut fiber mats and logs were used recently on Chapel Island in Nova Scotia, Canada, but they were damaged by bad weather.

Another Canadian site, Lac des Battures, a lake on Montreal’s Nuns’ Island, uses coconut mats to control the growth of invasive reeds along the shoreline.

At the New Jersey site, a few miles south of the musical hotbed of Asbury Park, trucked-in sand has joined with sediment accruing from the tides to create a beach that is noticeably wider than what used to be there.

“Underneath your feet right now are hibernating fiddler crabs,” said Capt. Al Modjeski, a restoration specialist with the Littoral Society. “They’ll be excited about this new habitat.”

___

Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at https://twitter.com/WayneParryAC.

Scientists: Largest US reservoirs moving in right direction

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

today

In this aerial photo, a bathtub ring of light minerals show the high water mark on the shore of Lake Mead along the border of Nevada and Arizona, Monday, March 6, 2023, near Boulder City, Nev. Climate experts say all the snow and rain over the winter months helped alleviate dry conditions in many parts of the western U.S., but the precipitation is nowhere near enough to unravel the long-term effects of a stubborn drought afflicting Lake Powell and Lake Mead. (AP Photo/John Locher)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Parts of California are under water, the Rocky Mountains are bracing for more snow, flood warnings are in place in Nevada, and water is being released from some Arizona reservoirs to make room for an expected bountiful spring runoff.

All the moisture has helped alleviate dry conditions in many parts of the western U.S. Even major reservoirs on the Colorado River are trending in the right direction.

But climate experts caution that the favorable drought maps represent only a blip on the radar as the long-term effects of a stubborn drought persist.

Groundwater and reservoir storage levels — which take much longer to bounce back — remain at historic lows. It could be more than a year before the extra moisture has an effect on the shoreline at Lake Mead that straddles Arizona and Nevada. And it’s unlikely that water managers will have enough wiggle room to wind back the clock on proposals for limiting water use.

That’s because water release and retention operations for the massive reservoir and its upstream sibling — Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border — already are set for the year. The reservoirs are used to manage Colorado River water deliveries to 40 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico.

Still, Lake Powell could gain 45 feet (14 meters) as snow melts and makes its way into tributaries and rivers over the next three months. How much it rises will depend on soil moisture levels, future precipitation, temperatures and evaporation losses.

“We’re definitely going in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go,” said Paul Miller, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service’s Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

Federal forecasters are scheduled Thursday to roll out predictions for temperature, precipitation and drought over the next three months, as well as the risk for springtime flooding.

California already has been drenched by a fire hose of moisture from the Pacific Ocean that has led to flooding, landslides and toppled trees.

Ski resorts on the California-Nevada border are marking their snowiest winter stretch since 1971, when record-keeping began. In fact, the Sierra Nevada is on the verge of surpassing the second-highest snow total for an entire winter season, with at least two months still to go.

In Arizona, forecasters warned that heavy rain was expected to fall on primed snowpack in the mountains above the desert enclave of Sedona. One of the main creeks running through the tourist town was expected to reach the flood stage and evacuations were ordered for some neighborhoods late Wednesday.

“We’ve pretty much blown past all kinds of averages and normals in the Lower Colorado Basin,” Miller said, not unlike other western basins.

Forecasters say the real standout has been the Great Basin, which stretches from the Sierra Nevada to the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. It has recorded more snow this season than the last two seasons combined. Joel Lisonbee, with the National Integrated Drought Information System, said that’s notable given that over the last decade, only two years — 2017 and 2019 — had snowpack above the median.

Overall, the West has been more dry than wet for more than 20 years, and many areas will still feel the consequences.

Storm clouds and snow are seen over the San Gabriel mountain range behind Griffith Observatory in the Hollywood Hills part of Los Angeles on Feb. 26, 2023. Parts of California are under water, emergency flood declarations are in place in Nevada, and water is being released from some Arizona reservoirs to prepare for a bountiful spring runoff. Climate experts say all the snow and rain over the winter months helped alleviate dry conditions in many parts of the western U.S. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

An emergency declaration in Oregon warns of higher risks for water shortages and wildfires in the central part of the state. Pockets of central Utah, southeastern Colorado and eastern New Mexico are still dealing with extreme drought, while parts of Texas and the Midwest have become drier.

Forecasters are expecting warm, dry weather to kick in over the coming weeks, meaning drought will keep its foothold in some areas and tighten its grip elsewhere.

Tony Caligiuri, president of the preservation group Colorado Open Lands, said all the recent precipitation shouldn’t derail work to recharge groundwater supplies.

“The problem or the danger in these episodic wet year events is that it can reduce the feeling of urgency to address the longer-term issues of water usage and water conservation,” he said.

The group is experimenting in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, the headwaters of the Rio Grande. One of North America’s longest rivers, the Rio Grande and its reservoirs have been struggling due to meager snowpack, long-term drought and constant demands. It went dry over the summer in Albuquerque, and managers had no extra water to supplement flows.

Colorado Open Lands reached an agreement with a farmer to retire his land and stop irrigating the about 1,000 acres. Caligiuri said the idea is to take a major straw out of the aquifer, which will enable the savings to sustain other farms in the district so they no longer face the threat of having to turn off their wells.

“We’ve seen where we can have multiple good years in place like the San Luis Valley when it comes to rainfall or snowpack and then one drought year can erase a decade of progress,” he said. “So you just can’t stick your head in the sand just because you’re having one good wet year.”

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Associated Press writer Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed to this report.

EXPLAINER: Next steps for Black reparations in San Francisco

By JANIE HAR

yesterday

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A crowd listens to speakers at a reparations rally outside of City Hall in San Francisco, Tuesday, March 14, 2023. Supervisors in San Francisco are taking up a draft reparations proposal that includes a $5 million lump-sum payment for every eligible Black person. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco supervisors have backed the idea of paying reparations to Black people, but whether members will agree to lump-sum payments of $5 million to every eligible person or to any of the more than 100 other recommendations made by an advisory committee won’t be known until later this year.

The idea of Black reparations is not new, but the federal government’s promise of granting 40 acres and a mule to newly freed slaves was never realized. It wasn’t until George Floyd, a Black man, was killed in police custody in 2020 that reparations movements began spreading in earnest across the country.

The state of California and the cities of Boston and San Francisco are among jurisdictions trying to atone not just for chattel slavery, but for decades of racist policies and laws that systemically denied Black Americans access to property, education and the ability to build generational wealth.

WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT FOR REPARATIONS IN SAN FRANCISCO?

Black migration to San Francisco soared in the 1940s because of shipyard work, but racially restrictive covenants and redlining limited where people could live. When Black residents were able to build a thriving neighborhood in the Fillmore, government redevelopment plans in the 1960s forced out residents, stripped them of their property and decimated Black-owned businesses, advocates say

Today, less than 6% of Black residents in San Francisco are Black yet they make up nearly 40% of the city’s homeless population.

Supporters include the San Francisco NAACP, although it said the board should reject the $5 million payments and focus instead on reparations through education, jobs, housing, health care and a cultural center for Black people in San Francisco. The president of the San Francisco branch is the Rev. Amos C. Brown, who sits on both the statewide and San Francisco reparations panels.

WHAT IS THE ARGUMENT AGAINST REPARATIONS?

Critics say California and San Francisco never endorsed chattel slavery, and there is no one alive today who owned slaves or was enslaved. It is not fair for municipal taxpayers, some of whom are immigrants, to shoulder the cost of structural racism and discriminatory government policies, critics say.

An estimate from Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, which leans conservative, has said it would cost each non-Black family in San Francisco at least $600,000 in taxes to pay for the costliest of the recommendations: The $5 million per-person payout, guaranteed income of at least $97,000 a year for 250 years, personal debt elimination and converting public housing into condos to sell for $1.

A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found 68% of U.S. respondents opposed reparations compared with 30% in favor. Nearly 80% of Black people surveyed supported reparations. More than 90% of Republicans or those leaning Republican opposed reparations while Democrats and those leaning Democratic were divided.

HOW WILL SAN FRANCISCO PAY FOR THIS?

It’s not clear. The advisory committee that made the recommendations says it is not its job to figure out how to finance San Francisco’s atonement and repair.

That would be up to local politicians, two of whom expressed interest Tuesday in taking the issue to voters. San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey said he would back a ballot measure to enshrine reparations in the San Francisco charter as part of the budget. Shamann Walton, the supervisor leading the charge on reparations, supports that idea.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE OTHER REPARATIONS RECOMMENDATIONS?

Recommendations in education include establishing an Afrocentric K-12 school in San Francisco; hiring and retaining Black teachers; mandating a core Black history and culture curriculum; and offering cash to at-risk students for hitting educational benchmarks.

Recommendations in health include free mental health, prenatal care and rehab treatment for impoverished Black San Franciscans, victims of violent crimes and formerly incarcerated people.

The advisory committee also recommends prioritizing Black San Franciscans for job opportunities and training, as well as finding ways to incubate Black businesses.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

There is no deadline for supervisors to agree on a path forward. The board next plans to discuss reparations proposals in September, after the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee issues a final report in June.

WHAT ABOUT REPARATIONS FROM THE STATE?

In 2020, California became the first state to form a reparations task force. But nearly two years into its work, it still has yet to make key decisions on who would be eligible for payment and how much. The task force has a July 1 deadline to submit a final report of its reparations recommendations, which would then be drafted into legislation for lawmakers to consider.

The task force has spent multiple meetings discussing time frames and payment calculations for five harms experienced by Black people, including government taking of property, housing discrimination and homelessness and mass incarceration. The task force is also debating state residency requirements.

Previously, the state committee voted to limit financial reparations to people descended from enslaved or freed Black people in the U.S. as of the 19th century.