Tuesday, August 10, 2021

American Indigenous schools leave legacy of generational scars

By CLAIRE CLEVELAND
August 8, 2021


DENVER (AP) — When Dzabahe was 11 years old, she went to her first government-run boarding school in rural Arizona around 1953. She left everything she knew on the Navajo reservation where she grew up..

“You became an orphan on that day,” she said. “My life was a shamble because everything that I was, everything that I believed in, my language, everything, I learned I was doing it all wrong.”

At the school, she was told not to speak her Navajo language. Her Navajo clothing and moccasins were sent back home with her parents. Her hair was cut, something that is taboo in Navajo culture. And even though she didn’t speak English or understand American customs, she was punished for not doing things the way the school wanted her to.

“I stood in a corner a million times until I was ready to faint,” she recalled. “And then the spanking and the harshness, and if you’re being punished you couldn’t eat dinner or breakfast or any meal. And then there’s a lot of shame that came with it.”

Dzabahe was also given a new name: Bessie Smith, which she still uses today.

Smith’s parents sent her to the school after state officials came to the reservation and told families with children who were not in the school that they had to send them. Her father also realized that she would need an education even if that went against what was traditionally done in the Navajo culture.

In May, 215 children’s bodies were discovered in a mass grave at an Indigenous Boarding school in Canada, prompting U.S. officials to look at the legacy of such schools in the U.S.

“We just want to make sure that families today get the information that they’ve wanted for decades and decades,” said Deb Haaland, secretary of the interior.

“And so we’re gonna work to identify every single boarding school in the country and absolutely find a way to make sure that we are assisting local communities that will involve a lot of tribal consultation,” she said.

Haaland, the first Native American cabinet secretary in U.S. history, visited Colorado in July and announced the new federal program but did not yet have a timeline. In Colorado, there are at least three Indian boarding schools, the Teller Indian School in Grand Junction, the Southern Ute Boarding School in Ignacio and a school that is now Fort Lewis College in Durango.

The Teller Indian School, later known as the Teller Institute, opened in 1886. At the turn of the century, there were a couple hundred students enrolled in the school. It was one of more than 350 federally run schools in the nation to assimilate Native American children, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

The schools were created out of the 1869 Indian Peace Policy, which was introduced by President Ulysses S. Grant to create “permanent peace,” through what he believed were non-violent alternatives. The boarding schools were intentionally created to assimilate children and eliminate Native cultures.

The first was the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, which opened in 1879, and was a model for subsequent schools. While some Native families chose to send their children to boarding schools, many more were forcibly removed from their homes.

By 1900, there were 20,000 Native children in boarding schools and by 1925, that number was more than 60,000.

In 1926, nearly 83 percent of all Native children of schooling age were in boarding schools, according to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

“When children returned to their communities, they were unable to communicate with their loved ones and were sometimes ostracized by their own communities,” said Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council Chairman Melvin J. Baker in a statement. “This traumatic experience produced intergenerational trauma that continues to manifest itself in numerous ways throughout Indian country, such as abuse, such as substance abuse, as well as psychological and emotional disorders, which result in lower graduation rates, poverty and lower life expectancy.”

The Teller Institute closed in 1911 and was transferred to the state of Colorado, which turned the facility into a home for people with intellectual disabilities in the 1920s. Over time, the original school buildings were remodeled or torn down. A cemetery, if there was a marked one, was also lost to time.

Archaeologist John Seebach, who works at Colorado Mesa University, has studied the Teller Institute and discovered death notices in archival newspaper clippings of 21 children who died while attending the school.

“We can’t be sure that every single person who died and was buried was mentioned by the newspaper,” he said. “So there could be many more out there than we know of and in fact that’s probably the case.”

The federal government kept records on students who attended the schools, but after the school closed the records were sent to Leavenworth, Kansas, where they were destroyed in a fire. Seebach plans to search for more information in federal records kept in Washington, D.C., but it’s not clear how many children might be buried on the grounds.

In 2019, Seebach and a team of cadaver dogs explored part of the grounds of what is now the Grand Junction Regional Complex, still home to people with physical and intellectual disabilities. Seebach picked part of the grounds based on aerial photographs and his research into where the cemetery for children might be. He said the dogs picked up a scent but more research is needed.

Earlier this year, the state started a Teller Institute Task Force.

Seebach is on the task force with 8 other people, including tribal representatives and state officials.

“It’s not an archeological site in a lot of ways, really what we’re doing is more akin to like crime scene investigation,” said Holly Norton, the state archaeologist. “And using my archeological training, not for science, but for helping to find these children and help return them in some fashion to their communities, and to their, to their tribes, I think is a really important part of what I’m doing here.”

Once the task force has determined next steps, Norton said it’s likely they will conduct searches on the grounds of the complex to locate a cemetery and remains.

Eleven people with disabilities still live at the Grand Junction Regional Complex. In 2016, state lawmakers decided it was too expensive to maintain, and passed two bills requiring the sale or transfer of the complex.

“We’re approaching this in a very sensitive manner for everyone that is involved. Our goal here is to get our individuals that have intellectual and developmental disabilities relocated into a community and integrated into community because that’s our first priority,” said Yolanda Webb with the Colorado Department of Human Services who oversees the complex. “And to work with our Native American partners that are part of this task force in really getting to some closure on that very painful history.”

Seebach argues that the sale or transfer of the land is in violation of the original agreement between Colorado and the federal government when the land was transferred to the state.

“The main stipulation was that the campuses would be maintained in perpetuity,” Seebach said. “I don’t think they’re valid law because of a prior agreement at the federal level.”

Fort Lewis College in Durango was also the site of a federal boarding school, originally in Hesperus. When the state took over the land it had to meet two conditions: that the land would be used for an educational institution, and was “to be maintained as an institution of learning to which Indian students will be admitted free of tuition and on an equality with white students” in perpetuity, according to Fort Lewis College. Seebach said the same conditions would have applied to the Teller Institute.

There was another boarding school in Ignacio on the Southern Ute reservation. The tribe is considering its options for preserving what remains of the school and memorializing the history of boarding schools.

It’s not yet clear what will happen to the land that was formerly the Teller Institute. In a statement, Chairman Baker said the land’s future is best guided by the communities who were and continue to be affected by the U.S. government’s ethnocide initiated during the Indian Boarding School era.

“In order to heal from the generational trauma, we must confront the past and shed light on the hidden cruelty,” Baker said.

Smith, now 79, said she learned over time how to talk about what she experienced at the federal boarding schools and how those experiences impacted the way she felt about herself and the world around her. She said she struggled while working, for example, to not question herself constantly.

“There is more emotional and psychological damage that we have been dealing with,” she said. “It is so strong that nobody can see it. It is so strong that many people don’t even want to talk about it.”

But her struggle and pain isn’t her whole story.

After going through multiple schools in her teens, she left Arizona to attend Fort Lewis College. There she met her now husband and had children. She’s lived in Denver ever since where she worked as the director of patient admissions at the University of Colorado health science center. After retiring in 1994, she worked as a Navajo translator for the state, which she still does alongside making jewelry with her daughter.

“We want to focus on how we can wake up and get back on our feet,” Smith said.
Devery Jacobs: 'Reservation Dogs' captures spirit of Native communities

By Karen Butler

Devery Jacobs (L) and Lane Factor star in "Reservation Dogs."
 Photo courtesy of FX

NEW YORK, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- Recreating the experiences of all contemporary Indigenous people for a TV show may be impossible, but Devery Jacobs said her new FX comedy, Reservation Dogs, authentically captures the spirit of life in Native communities, while focusing on characters and stories to which audiences of any background can relate.

"There are 500 different nations, tribes, cultures and languages across Turtle Island [North America], let alone Indigenous people across the globe, and, through its specificity, it ends up becoming universal," the 27-year-old Mohawk actress from Canada told UPI in a recent phone interview.

Set in contemporary Oklahoma, the half-hour series follows four young adults -- led by Jacobs' smart, resourceful Elora Danan -- as they commit petty crimes to finance their planned move to California.

The eight-episode show, which premieres Monday, was created by Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) and Sterlin Harjo (Four Sheets to the Wind), and stars D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Paulina Alexis, Lane Factor and Zahn McClarnon.

"We all have these different experiences and backgrounds and cultures, and we're coming together to help Sterlin tell his story. This entire series is based on his childhood, his life, his upbringing in rural Oklahoma," Jacobs said, adding she and her co-stars studied the history of the region to help them better understand their characters

"It feels familiar. There is such a connective tissue between Indigenous folks," Jacobs said.

As a massive fan of Waititi and Harjo's oeuvres, Jacobs -- known for her performances in American Gods and The Order -- campaigned aggressively for the role of Elora Danan.

"The Native film community is so tiny, and I've known of Sterlin's work forever, and I've always wanted the chance to work with him," she said.

"Taika's 2010 film, Boy, is my favorite movie of all time, and when I read the breakdown for Reservation Dogs, it was essentially the Native American version of Boy," which takes place in New Zealand.

Jacobs said she grew up watching their films, thinking they could be about her community and family, just with different accents.

"I knew that I needed to gun for it," Jacobs said of learning that Reservation Dogs was in development.

"It was the perfect project and one that I had been hoping and dreaming for," she added. "I had been fortunate enough to squeeze my way in there and make my way through the process. I knew that I could really bring a lot to the character of Elora Danan, and I'm so happy that I am able to be a part of this."

Jacobs is surprised when people describe Elora as the moral center of the group of thieves.

"Take that how you will," she laughed. "She's kind of like a big sister to everybody."

Jacobs, who acknowledges Elora Danan can be "moody" with a "chip on her shoulder," also is engaged in a power struggle with her friend and accomplice, Bear, after the death of their friend Daniel a year earlier.

"He was the one who kept the peace between everybody," Jacobs said of Daniel. "The group is still trying to find their footing."

The actress said she is proud to play the multidimensional role, which is a young woman who does what she thinks she must to survive, but sometimes feels guilty about it.

"In her mind, she would never cross a line. Bear is the one who is more sensitive to their surroundings and considerate of their community, whereas Elora's main focus is just getting out of this place," Jacobs said.

Several jokes are made in the first three episodes about Elora Danan being named after the baby in the 1988 fantasy movie Willow.

Jacobs thinks Elora Danan's whimsical moniker follows a tradition Waititi started with Boy, which featured characters called Dynasty and Falcon Crest.

"It stems from a love for 1980s pop culture and geeking out, and I think Elora Danan's name is no exception," Jacobs said.

Kirk Fox, who plays the guy at a scrap metal shop who pays the kids for a stolen food truck in Episode 1, is the first to casually mention Elora Danan's connection to the movie, and then regale the bored kids with Willow trivia.

"Kirk Fox had improvised all of the facts in his audition, and they decided to cast him and keep" his speech, Jacobs said.

When the first trailer dropped, she recalled, social media posters seemed obsessed with the repurposing of the iconic name.

"There were tons of comments of people being like: 'Are they not going to address that she has the same name as the baby in Willow?' 'Do they really think they can get away with that?'" Jacobs said. "They're just going to have to wait and see the show."
Businesses really don't want to fire anyone right now - but workers are quitting more than ever
WORKERS MAY NOT HAVE UNIONS BUT THEY GOT FEET

insider@insider.com (Juliana Kaplan,Andy Kiersz)
© Provided by Business Insider richiesd/Getty Images

In June, quits were near record highs for the third straight month, while firings and layoffs reached record lows.

It shows employers' great reluctance to let their workers go - and workers' willingness to leave.

DataTrek's "take this job and shove it indicator" also hit a record, with 69.3% of separations being quits.

Quitting is so hot right now.


Monday's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) data marked the third straight month with over 3.6 million workers quitting, with a whopping 3.9 million leaving their jobs and a record 10.1 million positions open. There were also more open roles than job seekers, Insider's Ben Winck and Madison Hoff report.

But that's not all. June marked another record low, with just 1.3 million workers being laid off or fired. In March 2020, that number was around 13 million, while from 2019 to 2020, it hovered between 1.7 million to 1.9 million a month.

DataTrek Research, an economic research group, tracks quits by something it calls the "take this job and shove it" indicator, which looks at quits as a percentage of job separations. That was a record 69.3% in June, meaning employers were more reluctant than ever to let workers go, and workers were more willing than ever to quit.

Jessica Rabe, DataTrek's cofounder, told Insider by email that a high quits rate "typically reflects elevated worker confidence, which makes sense in the current environment given outsized labor shortages. People tend to leave their jobs when they find a better opportunity, and we think part of the high quits rate reflects the trend of many Americans relocating to the suburbs and out of urban areas throughout the pandemic."

Rabe also said that Americans over the age of 55 are increasingly choosing to retire, which has been a primary driver of the so-called Great Resignation.

Another factor, per Rabe: Continued fears over the coronavirus and the possibility of new infections. While the Delta variant wasn't quite raging at the time the June numbers were recorded, an analysis from payroll platform Gusto found that, in states opting out of unemployment benefits early, workers were more likely to come back in places with higher rates of vaccination.

Meanwhile, wages are going up across sectors as employers try to lure in new workers. That trend - alongside reports of businesses struggling to hire - have prompted some to say the country is in the midst of a labor shortage.

Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, previously told Insider that this isn't a "damaging" labor shortage - hiring was still up in industries like leisure and hospitality as pay went up, showing that growing wages might be the key to getting workers back.

And if employers don't pay up, they might just get told to take that job and "shove it."
Read the original article on Business Insider
ROFLMAO
Ottawa says it needs revenue generated by the Trans Mountain pipeline to fight climate change

Nick Boisvert 6 hrs ago

© Jason Franson//The Canadian Press The minister responsible for climate change and the environment said revenue generated by pipelines will help Canada transition to a low-emission future.

The minister responsible for Canada's role in fighting climate change is defending his government's purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline after a landmark UN report said the continued use of fossil fuels is pushing the climate toward catastrophe.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Jonathan Wilkinson said today that revenue generated by the project will help Canada achieve its long-term climate objectives.

Wilkinson reaffirmed Canada's commitment to phasing out fossil fuels and achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but said achieving that target will require money generated by fossil fuels.

"Canada needs to ensure that in the context of that transition, it's extracting full value for its resources and using that money to push forward in terms of reducing emissions," Wilkinson said on CBC's Power & Politics.

"What we're doing is saying it's got to be part of the transition, but part of the transition is being able to raise the revenues that enable you to actually make the investments that are required to go there."




Wilkinson's comments came on the same day that the UN climate panel published a report that forecasts catastrophic environmental consequences if humans continue burning coal and other fossil fuels.

The Canadian government purchased the embattled Trans Mountain pipeline from energy giant Kinder Morgan in 2018 for $4.5 billion.

A planned expansion of the pipeline will increase the amount of crude it carries from Alberta to British Columbia's coast from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day.

The project, and Ottawa's decision to purchase the pipeline, have been dogged by environmental concerns, objections from First Nations and economic forecasts that predict weak long-term demand for oil.

The NDP and Greens have repeatedly criticized the government for its decision to buy the pipeline. They repeated those criticisms today in statements responding to the UN report.

"While they talk a lot about climate leadership, these are not the actions of a government who is interested in fighting the climate crisis like they actually want to win," said Laurel Collins, the NDP's critic for climate change and the environment.

"The federal government is falling further and further behind our international partners in its climate action ambition and in doing its fair share," said Green Party Leader Annamie Paul.
IMPERIALISM BY ANY OTHER NAME
Cambodia dam destroyed livelihoods of tens of thousands: HRW


A massive Chinese-financed dam in Cambodia has "washed away the livelihoods" of tens of thousands of villagers while falling short of promised energy production, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
 Ly LAY The Lower Sesan 2 dam has sparked controversy since long before its December 2018 launch

The 400-megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in the kingdom's northeast has sparked controversy since long before its December 2018 launch.

Fisheries experts had warned that damming the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok rivers -- two major tributaries of the resource-rich Mekong river -- would threaten fish stocks crucial to millions living along the Mekong's flood plains.

Tens of thousands of villagers living upstream and downstream have suffered steep losses to their incomes, HRW said in Tuesday's report, citing interviews conducted over two years with some 60 people from various communities.

"The Lower Sesan 2 dam washed away the livelihoods of Indigenous and ethnic minority communities who previously lived communally and mostly self-sufficiently from fishing, forest-gathering, and agriculture," John Sifton, Human Rights Watch's Asia advocacy director and the report's author, said Tuesday.

"Cambodian authorities need to urgently revisit this project's compensation, resettlement, and livelihood-restoration methods."

"There's no doubt at all that (the dam) contributed significantly to the larger problems the Mekong is facing right now," said Mekong energy and water expert Brian Eyler, while adding that more research was needed on the exact losses.

The government had pushed ahead with the project -- which involved resettling about 5,000 people -- in hopes of producing about one-sixth of Cambodia's annual electricity needs as promised by China Huaneng Group, the builder.

But production levels are "likely far lower, amounting to only a third of those levels", the report said.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan defended the dam, saying it provided "the most positive impacts" and that the resettled villagers have new homes, farmland and electric power.

"The allegations are not reasonable, they don't look at Cambodian experiences... and the new location is better than the old place," Phay Siphan said, adding that the government would continue to monitor the impacts on surrounding villages.

The dam, which cost a reported $780 million to build, is part of China's Belt and Road initiative, a mammoth $1 trillion-dollar infrastructure vision for maritime, rail and road projects across Asia, Africa and Europe.

The scheme, a symbol of Beijing's efforts to extend economic influence around the world, has been widely criticised for saddling small countries with unmanageable debt.

suy-dhc/leg/jah

AFP 
PENNSYLVANIA
Professor, team probe flooding risks in Conemaugh watershed

By JOSHUA BYERS, 
The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat

August 7, 2021

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) —

Scientific measuring devices have hung suspended in the Little Conemaugh River at the base of the former South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club dam, tracking the rise and fall of water levels for four years, and Christopher Coughenour has diligently recorded the readings.

The earthen dam has sat in ruins since the breach in May of 1889 let loose 20 million tons of water into the valley, destroying much of Johnstown. It’s now part of a historic landmark.

Not much has been done to study the local watershed and flooding that occurs within it since that disaster.

That’s where work begins by Coughenour, a University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown natural sciences assistant professor, and some of his colleagues and students.


“No modern hydrological study has been done,” he said, “at least not in the public domain.”


There are about 200 square miles of drainage that eventually flows into the Conemaugh River, which runs west toward Pittsburgh from the point where the Stonycreek and Little Conemaugh rivers meet in downtown Johnstown. Coughenour said his interest concerns direct runoff into the Little Conemaugh River sub-basin, which covers roughly 55 square miles of drainage.

Coughenour and his team are trying to figure out how much water can enter that watershed before the rivers rise and flood. They’ve also studied the recurrence intervals, which are the average expected times of discharge of high volumes of water.

By doing that, he said the research will provide insight into what happened in 1889, as well as the level of risk for a major weather-related event Johnstown faces today. Coughenour said that’s beneficial because often the Federal Emergency Management Agency and insurance companies use that sort of information to gauge vulnerability.

The point of the study is to determine the actual return period for an event such as the 1936 Johnstown flood, which was the largest discharge on record at the time, with 28,000 cubic feet of water per second passing through the valley. The Johnstown flood of 1977 beat that record by nearly double, with 40,000 cubic feet per second.



Tracking water data


The professor and team have monitored the river to record a variety of empirical data since 2017.

The group used a staff plate with inches and feet measurements for sight readings and a water logger for temperature and pressure analysis. The pressure reading is converted to height and measured as the hydrostatic pressure, which provides the stream’s “stage.”

Ideally, Coughenour’s team collected data four to five times per year.

That information was then used to create a stream rating curve, which is combined with NEXRAD – a special Doppler radar – to produce the watershed response data.

“What we’re trying to figure out is, ‘How much input does the watershed take before the stream rises?’ ” Coughenour said.

The team used what he called the unit hydrograph approach. That shows how the watershed responds to one unit of excess precipitation.



‘A lot of knowledge’


Surprisingly, Coughenour said, the best data during the study came from 2020, although the discharge measurements, calculated by gathering velocity readings against the width and depth of the stream, couldn’t be done because of COVID-19 restrictions.

Despite the setback, the pandemic didn’t really affect the project otherwise. Utilizing discharge data from previous years, the study’s integrity remained intact.

“I thought it was an amazing experience and opportunity,” UPJ alumnus Anthony Taylor said. “I gained a lot of knowledge.”

Taylor was one of the students who helped Coughenour with the research. He was tapped as a freshman by the professor to lend a hand because of his interest in hydrology, and helped until he graduated in 2019.

“It was an unforgettable experience,” Taylor said.

One aspect of the work that stood out to him was having to invent a cable-way system in order to collect velocity data on the river with a weighted device.

Because the study was conducted in a national historic site operated by the U.S. National Park Service, the group couldn’t permanently alter the area. That meant no digging for poles to set up a pulley system. So the team had to get creative.



Sharing the findings


Coughenour said they fabricated a system and temporarily mounted it to a tree.

Collecting this data allowed the team to determine the discharge of the river.

However, all of this is complicated by the hilly topography of the region and shifting weather patterns. There’s also the issue with calculating snowfall and a rapid melt, which Coughenour said his team didn’t do because that’s another factor entirely.

Taylor said he learned a lot by contributing to the project, and one aspect that stood out was how quickly the river changed based on precipitation. He added that he’d like to see the research expanded on.

The study was submitted for publication in June and he should find out in August or September if it was picked up.

Coughenour said, ultimately, all the data he and his team collect will be given to the National Park Service and will also be publicly available.

___

Online:

https://bit.ly/3A460xa
Even Minor Volcanic Eruptions Could Trigger Global Catastrophe, Scientists Warn


The specter of terrifying volcanic eruptions is emblazoned in our imaginations from childhood: an earth-shattering explosion, followed by gushing bursts of lava and billowing smoke.
© Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images Fuego volcano erupting in Guatemala, 19 Nov 2018.

The dangers of large-scale volcanic eruptions are very real: In the worst-case scenario, an extremely rare and powerful supervolcanic eruption might even devastate the planet. But scientists now warn it wouldn't even take such an extreme outburst to trigger a global catastrophe.

According to new research, much smaller-scale volcanic events can still unleash sufficient chaos to imperil the modern world.

"Even a minor eruption in one of the areas we identify could erupt enough ash or generate large enough tremors to disrupt networks that are central to global supply chains and financial systems," says global risk researcher Lara Mani from the University of Cambridge.

"At the moment, calculations are too skewed towards giant explosions or nightmare scenarios, when the more likely risks come from moderate events that disable major international communications, trade networks, or transport hubs."

Moderate eruptions might not seize our attention quite as much as their more thunderous counterparts, but they can wreak more havoc.

Case in point: the magnitude 6 eruption Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 was approximately 100 times more powerful than the magnitude 4 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull in 2010.

But Eyjafjallajökull turned out to be most costly volcanic eruption in history, with a damage bill of US$5 billion to the global economy – whereas the losses from Mount Pinatubo's far greater eruption were only a fraction of that (US$740 million in 2021, adjusted for inflation).

How is this imbalance possible? Mani and her team call it the 'VEI-GCR asymmetry': a new kind of paradigm where the danger of volcanoes (global catastrophic risk, GCR) doesn't rise in line with the power of volcanoes (volcanic explosivity index, VEI).

Historically, assessments of volcanic risk have suggested that the more powerful a volcano's eruptions, the greater a danger it presents in terms of global catastrophic risk: a relationship that can be called 'VEI-GCR symmetry'.

But this might not be the case any more, as much of the world's critical infrastructure today – including international shipping passages, submarine telecommunications cables, and aerial transportation routes – is not especially close to the volcanic regions that produce the most powerful eruptions (with a VEI of 7 or 8).

"We observe that many of these critical infrastructures and networks converge in regions where they could be exposed to moderate-scale volcanic eruptions (VEI 3-6)," the researchers write in their study.

"These regions of intersection, or pinch points, present localities where we have prioritized efficiency over resilience, and manufactured a new global catastrophic risk landscape."

According to the team's analysis, there are seven of these 'pinch points' around the globe, where critical infrastructure elements now lie dangerously close to VEI 3 to 6 magnitude eruptions.

These include Taiwan, which produces a huge amount of the world's microchips, the global supply of which is jeopardized by proximity to the Tatun Volcanic Group (TVG).

In the US, moderate eruptions in the Pacific Northwest have the potential to disrupt trade and travel in both the US and Canada, causing massive economic harm.

Meanwhile, volcanoes in Iceland have the potential to create a pinch point in the North Atlantic, disrupting aerial traffic between London and New York, and causing serious delays for trade and transportation networks.

Other international pinch points, located in the Mediterranean and around Malaysia, threaten some of the world's busiest shipping routes.

Another, located in the Luzon Strait, is a key route for underwater telecommunications cables connecting China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea – all of which could be damaged by eruptions causing submarine landslides and tsunamis, causing severe disruptions to communications abilities and global financial markets.

These sorts of downstream consequences aren't the first things that spring to mind when we think of the destructive power of volcanoes, but maybe they should be, the researchers suggest.

"It's time to change how we view extreme volcanic risk," Mani says.

"We need to move away from thinking in terms of colossal eruptions destroying the world, as portrayed in Hollywood films. The more probable scenarios involve lower-magnitude eruptions interacting with our societal vulnerabilities and cascading us towards catastrophe."


The findings are reported in Nature Communications.


Indonesia’s Mount Merapi erupts with bursts of lava, ash

By SLAMET RIYAD
August 7, 2021

YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesia’s most volatile volcano erupted Sunday on the densely populated island of Java, spewing smoke and ash high into the air and sending streams of lava and gasses down its slopes. No casualties were reported.

Mount Merapi unleashed clouds of hot ash at least seven times since Sunday morning, as well as a series of fast-moving pyroclastic flows, a mixture of rock, debris, lava and gasses, said Hanik Humaida, who heads the city of Yogyakarta’s Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center. The rumbling sound could be heard several kilometers (miles) away.

The mountain has seen increased volcanic activity in recent weeks, with its lava dome growing rapidly before partially collapsing Sunday, sending rocks and ash flowing down the volcano’s southwest flank, Humaida said.

Ash from the eruption blanketed several villages and nearby towns, she said.

Villagers living on Merapi’s fertile slopes were advised to stay 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) away from the crater’s mouth and should be aware of the danger posed by lava, Indonesia’s Geology and Volcanology Research Agency said.

Merapi’s last major eruption in 2010 killed 347 people.

The 2,968-meter (9,737-foot) peak is near Yogyakarta, an ancient city of several hundred thousand people embedded in a large metro area. The city is also a center of Javanese culture and a seat of royal dynasties going back centuries.

This latest eruption sent hot ash 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) into the sky, and the searing clouds of gas traveled up to 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) down its slopes several times, the country’s geology agency said on its website.

Mount Merapi is the most active of more than 120 active volcanoes in Indonesia and has repeatedly erupted with lava and gas clouds recently.

The Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation Center did not raise Merapi’s alert status, which already was at the second-highest of four levels since it began erupting last November.

Indonesia, an archipelago of 270 million people, is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a horseshoe-shaped series of seismic fault lines around the ocean.



Whale dies 3 months after move from Canada to Connecticut

August 6, 2021

FILE - In this Friday, May 14, 2021 file photo, Mystic Aquarium trainers play with a Beluga whale in Mystic, Conn. One of five beluga whales acquired from an aquarium in Canada after a legal fight with animal rights activists has died at its new home in Connecticut. (
AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

MYSTIC, Conn. (AP) — One of five beluga whales acquired from an aquarium in Canada after a legal fight with animal rights activists has died at its new home in Connecticut.

Officials at Mystic Aquarium, which specializes in beluga research, said in a Facebook post that the male whale had arrived in May with a preexisting medical condition. It died Friday, despite “round-the-clock medical treatment, testing, and 24-hour monitoring,” the aquarium said in a statement.

“While he had shown signs of improvement from a gastrointestinal condition, we are deeply saddened to share that he passed away (Friday) morning,” the aquarium said. “This is a devastating loss for our staff and for the community, especially the animal care team who works closely with the belugas.”

The whale arrived in May with four others from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, after a lengthy battle to obtain permits from both the United States and Canada.

Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and other activists had sought to block the transport in a lawsuit last fall against the U.S. Commerce secretary and National Marine Fisheries Service, which had approved the research permit.

The group claimed the U.S. permit violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the National Environmental Policy Act because government officials did not adequately address the potential harm to the belugas from being moved to Mystic.

A federal judge in March declined to issue an injunction.

The whales, which range in age from 7 to 12, were born in captivity and left an overcrowded habitat with about 50 other whales to be at the center of important research designed to benefit belugas in the wild, aquarium officials said.

Belugas finally arrive at Mystic Aquarium after legal battle

By JESSICA HILL and PAT EATON-ROBB
May 14, 2021

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A Beluga whale is transported at Mystic Aquarium after arriving from Canada, Friday, May 14, 2021 in Mystic, Conn. A total of five Beluga whales from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada will be moved to the aquarium. The whales will be leaving an overcrowded habitat with about 50 other whales and will be at the center of important research designed to benefit Belugas in the wild. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill)

MYSTIC, Conn. (AP) — Three Beluga whales arrived Friday night at their new home in a Connecticut aquarium after a legal battle to import them and two others from Canada.

The whales were flown from Ontario to Connecticut on Friday, secured in special stretchers inside individual tanks and accompanied by a veterinarian and other marine-life experts.

Accompanied by a police escort, they arrived in Mystic on three tractor-trailers at about 7:40 p.m., where they were lifted on their stretchers by cranes into their new habitat. The transfer from truck to habitat took about a half hour to complete.

The remaining two Belugas are set to arrive at Mystic Aquarium early Saturday from Marineland in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Government officials from Fisheries and Oceans Canada last month approved the export of the whales, seven months after U.S. officials approved the move.

Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and other activists sought to block the transport in a lawsuit last fall against the U.S. Commerce secretary and National Marine Fisheries Service, which had approved the research permit. A federal judge in March declined to issue an injunction.

The whales, which range in age from 7 to 12, were born in captivity and officials said they cannot safely be released into the ocean.

Mystic officials said the five whales left an overcrowded habitat with about 50 other Belugas in Canada to join three other Belugas at the center of important research designed to benefit the species in the wild.

The animals will be trained to voluntarily give blood, saliva, blowhole air and other samples in exchange for rewards.

“Having eight animals certainly helps when trying to draw conclusions with the research,” said Tracy Romano, Mystic’s vice president of research and chief scientist. “It’s priceless to be able to work with trained animals and be able to get biological samples on a regular basis and all of this will help us interpret what we’re seeing in the wild and help with the management and conservation of the species.”









POLLUTER PAYES

Colorado mine owner seeks US compensation over 2015 spill

August 6, 2021

FILE - In this Aug. 14, 2015, file photo, water flows through a series of sediment retention ponds built to reduce heavy metal and chemical contaminants from the Gold King Mine wastewater accident, in the spillway downstream from the mine, outside Silverton, Colo. The owner of an inactive southwestern Colorado mine that was the source of a disastrous 2015 spill that fouled rivers in three Western states has filed a lawsuit seeking nearly $3.8 million in compensation for the federal government's use of his land in its ongoing cleanup response. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)



DURANGO, Colo. (AP) — The owner of an inactive southwestern Colorado mine that was the source of a disastrous 2015 spill that fouled rivers in three Western states has sued the U.S. government, seeking nearly $3.8 million in compensation for using his land in its cleanup.

Todd Hennis claims the Environmental Protection Agency has occupied part of his property near the Gold King Mine but hasn’t compensated him for doing so since the August 2015 spill, The Durango Herald reported. He also contends that the EPA contaminated his land by causing the spill, which sent a bright-yellow plume of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals into rivers in Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Hennis argued that the EPA’s actions have violated his Fifth Amendment rights to just compensation for public use of private property.

The EPA didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday.

An EPA-led contractor crew was doing excavation work at the entrance to the mine when it inadvertently breached a debris pile that was holding back wastewater inside the mine.

The spill released 3 million gallons (11 million liters) of wastewater that made its way into the Animas River and eventually down to the San Juan River. Water utilities were forced to shut down intake valves, and farmers stopped drawing from the rivers as the plume moved downstream.

After the spill, the EPA designated the Gold King Mine and 47 other mining sites in the area a Superfund cleanup district. The agency is still reviewing options for a broader cleanup.

The lawsuit says Hennis verbally authorized the government to use part of a 33-acre (13-hectare) piece of land as an emergency staging area right after the blowout. He thought it would be temporary and that he would be compensated, according to the lawsuit.

Hennis claims that months later and without his permission, the EPA built a $2.3 million water treatment facility on the property. The agency continues treating water and storing waste there, the lawsuit says.


He’s asking for at least $3 million in compensation for damage to and occupation of the property, which he says is worth at least $3 million according to a private appraisal this year. The lawsuit also seeks interest.

In January, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation announced settlements in litigation over the spill with companies that had operated mines near Gold King. Last year, the U.S. government settled a lawsuit brought by Utah for a fraction of what it was initially seeking in damages.
Gulf of Mexico’s ‘dead zone’ larger than average this year
By The Associated Press

This year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” — an area where there’s too little oxygen to support marine life — is larger than average, according to researchers.

Scientists supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration determined that the area off Louisiana and Texas’ coasts covers about 6,334 square miles (16,405 square kilometers), the agency said in a news release Tuesday.

Over the past five years, the average size of the low-oxygen, or hypoxic, zone has been 5,380 square miles (13,934 square kilometers). That’s 2.8 times larger than the goal set by a federal task force to reduce the five-year average to 1,900 square miles (4,921 square kilometers) or smaller by 2035.

Because year-to-year measurements can vary widely — this year’s zone is about three times the size of 2020’s — NOAA says a multiyear average “captures the true dynamic nature of the zone.”






 

This summer’s measurement was larger than the average-sized area that the agency predicted in June based on Mississippi River nitrogen and phosphorous runoff data.

River discharge that drained into the Gulf of Mexico was above normal for the three weeks before the weeklong survey started on July 25. It was conducted by scientists from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

“The distribution of the low dissolved oxygen was unusual this summer,” Nancy Rabalais, the lead investigator, said. “The low oxygen conditions were very close to shore with many observations showing an almost complete lack of oxygen.”

Human activities in urban and agricultural areas throughout the Mississippi River watershed primarily cause the annual “dead zone.” Excess nutrients flow into the Gulf of Mexico and stimulate an overgrowth of algae, which die and decompose. The algae deplete oxygen as they sink to the bottom.

NOAA highlighted efforts to reduce fertilizer runoff and other pollution from contributing to the hypoxic area. Radhika Fox, the Environmental Protection Agency’s assistant administrator for water, said climate change also needs to be considered to make progress.

“This year, we have seen again and again the profound effect that climate change has on our communities — from historic drought in the west to flooding events,” Fox said. “Climate is directly linked to water, including the flow of nutrient pollution into the Gulf of Mexico.”