It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, August 30, 2021
P.E.I. farmers test out ways to reduce greenhouse gases and store carbon
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'I felt like, here we are with 500 acres. Why wouldn't we do everything we could?'
Mark and Sally Bernard of Barnyard Organics in Freetown, P.E.I., are part of the new P.E.I. Agriculture Climate Solutions Program, funded by the provincial and federal governments. (Alex MacIsaac/CBC)
Mark and Sally Bernard of Barnyard Organics in Freetown, P.E.I., are tackling climate change one cow patty at a time.
The farmers are part of the new P.E.I. Agriculture Climate Solutions program, funded by the provincial and federal governments.
The Bernards are using a small herd of borrowed beef cattle to improve the health of their soil and store carbon.
The Bernards have had the cattle on their farm since June, and have set up strips of field for them to graze, slowly spreading their manure through the entire field. (Alex MacIsaac/CBC)
"When Mark and I were looking at how we could turn this farm into sort of a climate fighting machine, cattle came up right away," said Sally.
"We need fertility as an organic farm, we need manure. But they also trample a lot of the forage that goes back into the soil. There's all sorts of ways that they feed the soil, and that is how we sequester the carbon."
The Bernards have had the cattle on their farm since June, and with funding from the program, have set up strips of field for them to graze, slowly spreading their manure through the entire field.
"The idea is that they're in this field for this year, year one of an eight year rotation," Sally said.
"Over the eight years, they will hit eight different fields, then in in year nine, they'll be back here again. That's the hope. And we'll see how it goes."
The Bernards are also using a new piece of machinery called a no till drill, to help them reduce how much they till, and to plant more crops per season, some of which are put back into the soil to improve organic health. (Alex MacIsaac/CBC)
The Bernards are also using a new piece of machinery called a no till drill, to help them reduce how much they till, and to plant more crops per season, some of which are put back into the soil to make it healthier.
The program did not pay for the drill, but Mark said the incentives being offered through the climate solutions program made it possible for them to finally make the investment.
"This no till drill actually was in the original business plan, and it just happened that we expanded in other places, and spent money in other places, and it just never worked," Mark said."
"It was always the dream."
Adam MacLean checks out the soil in one of the Bernard's fields where the cattle have been grazing. (Alex MacIsaac/CBC)
Reducing methane
Adam MacLean is three weeks into his new job as the agriculture climate action specialist for the province.
"The idea of this program is to provide incentives, support, technical expertise, to support farmers in adopting change practices, new procedures, operations that have a positive impact on our climate," MacLean said.
"We've had a lot of uptake on extending rotations with more perennial forages and cover crops, we've had potato producers opt for a longer rotation to increase the soil building."
Adam MacLean is three weeks into his new job as the agriculture climate action specialist with the P.E.I. Department of Agriculture. (Alex MacIsaac/CBC)
MacLean said there are also farmers who are changing the way they manage livestock, to decrease the amount of methane produced.
He said there are currently 31 projects underway across P.E.I. as part of the pilot program.
"The reality is it's new processes, it's new strategies. And programming like this can just take the edge off, reduce the risk a bit, and provide financial incentives and technical expertise to help make sure that the changes are successful," MacLean said.
MacLean said there are also farmers who are changing the way they manage livestock, to decrease the amount of methane produced. (Alex MacIsaac/CBC)
Sally said the family also has a very personal reason for being part of the program.
"Firstly, it benefits us as humans, as human farmers that are living on this rapidly heating planet, who have kids who maybe someday will take over the farm," Sally said.
"I felt like, here we are with 500 acres. Why wouldn't we do everything we could?"
Sally Bernard said it is important for her family's future to do what they can on the farm to tackle climate change. (Alex MacIsaac/CBC)
The budget for the one year Agriculture Climate Solutions pilot program is $214,100, cost shared between the provincial and federal governments.
Rio Tinto to cut rates on loans to Mongolia for Oyu Tolgoi expansion
Cecilia Jamasmie | August 30, 2021 | The underground expansion of Oyu Tolgoi is Rio’s most important growth project (Image courtesy of Turner & Townsend.)
Rio Tinto (ASX, LON, NYSE: RIO) is said to be ready to cut interest rates on loans to the Mongolian government, given to fund its share of the construction costs of an underground expansion at the vast Oyu Tolgoi copper-gold mine in the Gobi Desert.
In return, the company wants several regulatory and budgetary issues resolved and a long-term power agreement for Oyu Tolgoi, Financial Times reported on Monday, citing a letter from Rio Tinto and its majority-owned Turquoise Hill (TSX, NYSE: TRQ) to Mongolia’s prime minister.
Turquoise Hill, in which Rio has a 50.8% stake, owns 66% of Oyu Tolgoi. The rest is held by the Mongolian government. THE MOVE FOLLOWS AN INDEPENDENT REPORT THAT REJECTED RIO’S EXPLANATION FOR THE PROJECT’S DELAYS AND COST OVERRUNS
The move comes after relations between the companies and the government hit a fresh impasse earlier this month, following an independent report that rejected Rio’s explanation for the project’s delays and cost overruns.
First production, initially expected in late 2020, was rescheduled for October 2022, and Rio blamed unfavorable geological conditions as the main cause for the cost and timeline review, but the independent report published earlier this month suggested it was rather caused by the miner’s mismanagement.
Financial regulators in the UK and US are also examining Rio’s disclosures about the delays.
Oyu Tolgoi is Rio Tinto’s main copper growth project. Once completed, the mine’s underground section will lift production from 125,000–150,000 tonnes in 2019 to 560,000 tonnes at peak output, which is now expected by 2025 at the earliest. This would make it the biggest new copper mine to come on stream in several years.
Unveiling vehicles and technologies for future space transportation
ESA safeguards Europe’s guaranteed access to space through its Future Launchers Preparatory Programme, FLPP. Credit: European Space Agency
ESA safeguards Europe's guaranteed access to space through its Future Launchers Preparatory Programme, FLPP.
FLPP oversees system studies and research activities to foster new and disruptive technologies which have the potential to reduce cost, improve performance, improve reliability, or on their ability to fulfill the specific needs of an identified service, system, demonstrator or mission.
Within FLPP, demonstrators and studies hone emerging technologies to give Europe's space transportation a valuable head-start as they begin the demanding work of turning the chosen design into reality.
Integrated demonstrators are built by combining multiple technologies into one system or subsystem so that industry can use the technology with confidence.
FLPP carries out projects in propulsion, materials and processes, reusability, structures and mechanisms, avionics and Guidance Navigation Control (GNC), and future end-to-end systems and missions.
From lab to launch
A standardized scale of "Technology Readiness Levels" or TRL describes the level of maturity of a technology. Levels 1–2 denote basic research.
Technologies that have been demonstrated in a laboratory environment at Level 3, are further developed within FLPP and tested on the ground, in flight or in space via integrated demonstrators to raise them to TRL 6.
Once a technology has reached level 6, much of the risk linked to using a new technology in a space environment has been mitigated. It can be quickly incorporated in an operational system (TRL 9) with optimized cost and schedule.
This approach has three key benefits. It offers within a contained budget a pool of options and upgrades for quick spinoffs applicable to existing launch vehicles; it carries out high added-value research and development and it safeguards system integration and technology competencies in Europe.
Future space transportation services and systems are assessed on their competitiveness and economic viability.
ESA's objective is to develop a robust and flexible Space Transportation ecosystem which serves European needs. To achieve this, ESA brings together its various programs and business units, Europe's launch service provider, and industry such as spacecraft manufacturers and innovative start-up companies.
Propulsion
Prometheus, developed by ESA and ArianeGroup, is an ultra-low cost reusable rocket engine demonstrator which uses liquid oxygen–methane propellants and has a thrust of 1000 kN. Credit: ArianeGroup Holding
Prometheus is Europe's first ultra-low-cost reusable rocket engine demonstrator fuelled by liquid methane. It will benefit Europe's new Ariane 6 launcher in the near-term and prepare for a new generation of European launch vehicles in the next decade.
This is a 1000 kN class engine; further development will soon bring this up to 1200 kN. It is highly versatile and reignitable, making it suitable for use on core, booster and upper stages, reusable or not. It aims to slash costs through an extreme design-to-cost approach, new propellant and innovative manufacturing technologies.
Additive layer-by-layer manufacturing of Prometheus enables faster production, with fewer parts. Liquid oxygen–methane propellants are highly efficient and widely available and therefore a good candidate for a reusable engine.
A full-scale demonstrator will be fired in France at the end of 2021 to de-risk the Prometheus first test campaign at the DLR German Aerospace Center in Lampoldshausen, Germany, expected in 2022. Prometheus will be used on Themis (a reusable first stage demonstrator developed within FLPP) as part of an incremental inflight demonstration of reusability first in Kiruna, Sweden in 2023, and then in Kourou, French Giuana in 2025.
A Prometheus concept based on liquid hydrogen fuel is also in development to provide an alternative to methane and could be available for use on Ariane 6 as early as 2025.
ETID, an Expander-cycle Technology Integrated Demonstrator, paves the way for the next generation of cryogenic upper stage engines in Europe in the 10-ton class.
Testing of a full-scale ETID demonstrator proved the latest propulsion technologies. The test results were fully analyzed including cross-checks to improve numerical models as well as the full inspection of the tested hardware.
Synergy between the Prometheus and ETID projects has yielded game-changing additive manufacturing techniques for combustion chambers that reduce cost and lead time.
Berta, a 5kN-thrust class, 3D-printed full-scale engine demonstrator for upper stages has performed tests at DLR Lampholdshausen. It uses 'storable propellants," called such because they can be stored as liquids at room temperature. Rocket engines that are powered this way are easy to ignite reliably and repeatedly on missions lasting many months.
Continuing on from this project and considering the environmental impact of the currently used storable propellants, investigations are ongoing to prepare tests with identified new environmentally friendly propellant combinations that remain storable but are much less toxic.
Further hybrid propulsion demonstrations are on-going following the launch of the Nucleus sounding rocket in Norway, which successfully reached space by attaining a final altitude of over 100km. Watch the full videos here.
Materials and processes
MT Aerospace and ArianeGroup signed contracts with ESA on 14 May 2019 to develop Phoebus, a prototype of a highly-optimised black upper stage. Rocket upper stages are commonly made of aluminium but switching to carbon composites lowers cost and could yield two tonnes spare payload capacity. Credit: ArianeGroup
FLPP has been validating alternative materials to make rockets lighter. New Composite materials are being used to replace aluminum for lighter upper stage structures and fuel tanks, as well as for rocket fairings that protect the payloads on their way to space.
New insulation materials and jettison systems for rocket fairings will also offer a smoother quieter ride to space.
Closed-cell polyurethane foam material is being sprayed on as external tank insulation for cryogenic upper stages and a new solution for tank bulkheads is currently being developed.
Secondary rocket structures could benefit from improved manufacturing processes such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, or advanced additive layer manufacturing for fracture critical structural parts built in titanium, high strength aluminum alloy and polymer.
Reusability
FLPP is also working on launch vehicle reusability with the first steps towards the in-flight demonstration of a prototype reusable rocket first stage called Themis from 2023. The Themis project will provide valuable information on the economic value of reusability for Europe and prove a selection of the technologies matured within FLPP for potential use on future European launch vehicles.
A successful drop test proved some of the technologies for a reusable first stage of a microlauncher.
Wind tunnel testing and computational fluid dynamics are providing insights into European capabilities to control the descent of a rocket's first stage, back to the ground.
In addition, an ongoing project featuring a 'flying testbed platform' capable of carrying payloads has performed short take-off and landing test flights.
Structures and mechanisms
Various new production methods are improving manufacturing efficiency, for instance, a "Flow forming' technique shapes a metal element in a single step. This has been demonstrated in manufacturing trials co-funded between ESA and NASA Langley.
ESA is taking the first steps towards the in-flight demonstration of a prototype reusable rocket first stage called Themis from 2023 onwards. The Themis programme will provide valuable information on the economic value of reusability for Europe and prove technologies for potential use on future European launch vehicles. Credit: CNES-REAL DREAM
This technique reduces weld seams making rocket structures stronger and lighter while speeding up production. It is also better for the environment because it saves energy and there is no waste material. A 3 m-diameter aluminum demonstration cylinder that would be used as an interstage was successfully manufactured and tested.
FLPP is investigating electro-mechanical actuators for smoother separation and jettisoning of launcher payloads that would also slash costs for future evolutions of European launch vehicles, as well as advanced low-cost actuation systems for launchers control.
Health Monitoring systems embed sensors in the structural parts in order to monitor the launcher environment for further optimisation.
Avionics and GNC
Technologies in this domain evolve rapidly. Focus is given on increasing automation to reduce the level of Guidance Navigation Control (GNC) effort required during a mission and to provide responsive launch capability. FLPP is currently investigating On-Board Real-Time Trajectory Guidance Optimisation technology for future reusable launchers.
A new low-cost avionic system heavily benefiting from COTS components and rapid and effective GNC design, verification and validation will be demonstrated with a sounding rocket launch later this year. This will also serve as a useful testing platform to address new technologies in the launcher domain.
Future wireless communication will reduce the need for wiring on launch vehicle structures and increase flexibility.
Future systems and missions
Future systems and missions are intrinsically complex, with some needing long development cycles of up to a decade. ESA therefore seeks early insights into long-term trends and potential evolutions through its New European Space Transportation Solutions (NESTS) initiative. In this context a number of space transportation service and vehicle studies are contracted in open competition with industry, to prepare solutions for the next decade.
Shifting to space logistics, space transportation beyond Low Earth orbit towards higher energy orbits, to the Moon and Mars will require extended capabilities from Ariane 6 and future rockets to deliver end-to-end transportation service. Space Logistics approach of transportation service includes for example extended kick stage concepts to deliver end-to end service beyond access to space alone. Interface with ESA's Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration for exploration missions will identify future space transportation needs for a post International Space Station vision.
California builds a 'Noah's Ark' to protect wildlife from extinction by fire and heat
by Louis Sahagún
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public DomainLONG READ
It was just before sunrise in July when the botanists Naomi Fraga and Maria Jesus threw on backpacks and crunched their way across a brittle alkaline flat in the hottest corner of the Mojave Desert. Their mission: to rescue a tiny plant teetering on the brink of extinction.
A decade ago, the Amargosa River Basin east of Death Valley National Park was a vast muddy wetlands studded with millions of Amargosa niterwort, a fleshy herb that grows only here and that scientists call Nitrophila mohavensis.
Today, the species has dwindled to fewer than 150,000, and most of the plants that still sprout from this salt-white playa have stopped producing viable seeds—stressed victims of decreasing rainfall, rising temperatures and the loss of groundwater due to pumping.
The botanists aimed to collect seeds until the temperature hit triple digits. Later, their bounty would be sealed inside aluminum foil packets for storage in California Seed Bank freezers at the nonprofit California Botanic Garden in Claremont.
"Oh, man, I've never seen it so dry here before," said Fraga, 42, director of conservation programs at the botanic garden. "Not all that long ago we would have been slipping and sliding around in mud," she said.
Surrounding Fraga were shallow holes that had been dug by wildlife clawing desperately for food and water. "We'll be lucky to find a single seed this morning," she said.
The conditions under which Fraga and Jesus, 37, a conservationist at the botanic garden, were working said a lot about their spirit and commitment to salvaging even the most obscure flora whose natural cycles have fallen out of sync due to climate change.
In four previous expeditions here, Fraga had collected a total 133 niterwort seeds. "Eventually, we'd like to have 3,000 of their seeds in the bank," she said. "That would ensure enough on hand for restoration efforts if the plant has gone extinct in the wild."
The recent survey left her doubtful however.
"The speed at which this desert is drying up makes me want to cry," she said.
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Globally, more than a million plants and animals face extinction due to habitat loss, climate change and other factors related to human activity, and this alarming loss of biodiversity is only accelerating. In California, conservationists and biologists have identified scores of species in potential peril, including many icons of the state's beloved wildlands—chinook salmon, giant sequoias, Joshua trees, desert tortoises, California red-legged frogs, gray whales.
Now, a hellish summer of extreme fire activity, drought and heat are again pushing some species to the brink of oblivion. Seized by a newfound urgency, state and federal biologists, research institutions, conservation organizations and zoos have been racing to save the most threatened species with a bold campaign of emergency translocations, captive breeding programs and seed banks. Some have likened the effort to a modern-day Noah's Ark.
"I can't think of a single terrestrial ecosystem that's not being stressed to the limits of its physiological tolerance right now," said Dan Cooper, a consulting biologist and expert on the plants and animals of Los Angeles County.
Several all-out rescue efforts are taking place across the Amargosa River area, a region of eerily flat arid vistas, isolated oases, streams and rugged mountain ranges between Death Valley National Park and Mojave National Preserve. It is home to 61 endemic species, including four species of cave-dwelling insects that feed on crickets and scorpions that tumble down into their dark lairs from above.
At the Ash Meadows Fish Conservation Facility in Amargosa Valley, Nev., about 20 miles northeast of the Amargosa niterwort's stronghold, scientists have established a captive colony of Devil's Hole pupfish—the rarest fish on Earth—in a $4.5-million, 100,000-gallon tank built as a fiberglass replica of a nearby natural rock tub in Death Valley National Park, where the species has existed since the Ice Age.
The geothermally heated water at Devil's Hole has been a constant 93 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the upper physiological limit for the inch-long fish, which is regarded as a symbol of the desert conservation movement. But average ambient temperatures in the region have risen by about three degrees and a study by Mark Hausner, a research biologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, warns that another degree or two higher could destroy the Devil's Hole pupfish's reproduction and egg development.
Meanwhile, a captive breeding program at the University of California, Davis for the federally endangered Amargosa vole has improved the recovery outlook for that small mammal, only a few hundred of which cling to existence in their shrinking native wetlands east of Death Valley National Park.
Hoping to increase the vole's odds of survival, several were captured and released into newly restored spring-fed marshes in nearby Shoshone Village, population 17, just south of the park. The wetlands also support Shoshone pupfish, a species that was considered extinct in the 1960s, but was rediscovered in the springs' outflow in 1986.
Looking ahead, Susan Sorrels, who was born and raised in Shoshone, is among a group of conservationists campaigning to have the entire Amargosa Basin designated a national monument. "We envision stewarding an ecosystem," she said, "where visitors to the region will be able to enjoy the stark and unspoiled beauty of this desert for generations to come."
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Time may have already run out for California's most infamous fish, the 3-inch delta smelt. Experts say the fish may have disappeared from its only natural home, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Despite a decadeslong rescue effort, the delta smelt was a victim of unusually warm water temperatures combined with regulations that vexed agricultural interests and water districts and placed it squarely in the center of California's worsening water wars.
Now, scientists say, the only places the once-abundant species still thrives is in the confines of artificial tanks at the captive breeding program at UC Davis' Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory, and in an exhibit at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.
UC Davis is currently preparing to take a diminutive cousin of the delta smelt into captivity, the state threatened longfin smelt. The longfin smelt, too, has seen its population plummet over the past two decades due to a rapid decline in the environmental health of the state's biggest estuary.
In Southern California, the largest known populations of the Pacific pocket mouse—the smallest mouse in North America—inhabit a captive breeding effort at the San Diego Zoo and a portion of the Crucible training grounds adjacent to a Marine firing range and bivouacking area at Camp Pendleton near San Diego.
Elsewhere, the Los Angeles Zoo is performing what some call miracle work by keeping alive populations of federally endangered southern mountain yellow-legged frogs, one of the rarest amphibians on Earth. Nonnative trout, fungal disease, wildfires, extreme weather and hotter stream temperatures linked to climate change have decimated the species that once thrived in the high mountains that surround Los Angeles.
About 10 miles to the south, a weedy field overlooking an industrialized stretch of the Los Angeles River in South Gate is currently being transformed into a shady 300-foot recirculating stream for rearing rare native rainbow trout and arroyo chubs—a California species that adapted easily to most conditions, except for extreme drought, mudslides and urban development.
Watching western monarch butterflies flutter into extinction remains a disturbing possibility. Only an estimated 1,914 monarch butterflies wintered on the California coast over the past year—the lowest number ever recorded and an indication that climate change and pesticide use are disrupting flowering seasons in stands of milkweed and wildflowers needed to complete their migration to central Mexico.
Now, the Center for Biological Diversity is calling on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to immediately use her emergency authority under the Endangered Species Act to designate all or portions of the 36 national wildlife refuges in California as pesticide-free monarch safety zones and provide funding for massive plantings of milkweed and nectar plants.
Separately, a coalition of environmental groups led by the nonprofit River Partners and the state Wildlife Conservation Board is restoring over 30,000 milkweed plants at eight sites from Oroville Dam in the Sierra Nevada foothills east of Sacramento south to the Hollenbeck Canyon Wildlife Area just east of San Diego.
"Monarchs are wedded to waterways," said Julie Rentner, president of River Partners, "so, when California and the West get hit with tough droughts and prolonged, record-breaking heat waves, monarch populations suffer big time. We are pulling all the actionable levers we can to save this iconic species from an avoidable demise."
Then there is the California Botanic Garden, which is trying to build seed banks of the rarest plants in the state. As part of that initiative, it has installed additional seed bank freezers equipped with emergency backup generators and has seismically upgraded the building that houses them.
"So far, we've gathered seeds from about 20% of the state's rarest plants," Fraga said. "But the heartbreaking reality is that some plants won't be able to survive another year as dry as this one. We went out this spring and couldn't find a single flower with viable seeds anywhere in the Mojave Desert."
Nick Jensen, Southern California conservation analyst with the California Native Plant Society, was not surprised. "For many plant species in the desert, it's boom or bust," he said. "They germinate while it's moist, grow in the spring and, if conditions are right, they flower and generate seeds.
"But they just won't open their doors for business in a real dry year like this one."
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In an unprecedented salmon salvage operation in April, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife trucked about 16 million juvenile fall-run chinook salmon from four Central Valley hatcheries to the Bay Area and offshore net pens, bypassing more than 100 miles of historically low and warm river conditions.
The massive trucking operation was "designed to ensure the highest level of survival for the young salmon on their hazardous journey to the Pacific Ocean," said Jordan Traverso, a spokeswoman for the department. "It's an extreme set of cascading climate events pushing us into this crisis situation."
It took 146 individual trips traveling more than 30,000 miles between April and June to relocate the fish as part of an effort to support California's $900-million commercial and recreational salmon fishing industry, officials said.
But critics warn that captive breeding is a Faustian bargain. In stark terms, they can result in new generations of species that lack the genetic diversity and strength to survive in the unpredictable conditions of the wild.
In Northern California, for example, during some releases, hatchery-bred salmon have thrived. But modest changes in food supply and water temperature can wipe out hatchery stock.
But never has the need to save salmon, the red-fleshed symbol of abundance and vitality in the rivers along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington, been so urgent.
Today, these fish are extinct in Southern California, and most of those that remain in the region are supplemented by hatcheries because of the deteriorating conditions of their freshwater migratory routes to the ocean and spawning grounds—in some cases hundreds of miles from the sea.
The frantic rescue efforts now underway to save the cold-water fish steeped in mystery and heavenly when grilled over alder illustrate how tenuously it is clinging to life as climate change takes a toll on ancient watersheds and hatcheries alike.
"My weekly grind these days is moving salmon from one hatchery to another—a situation that never happened before," lamented Ben Harris, executive director of the Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project. "Almost every hatchery in the state is facing deteriorating conditions right now."
A year ago, Harris helped evacuate about 30,000 federally endangered coho salmon fry and a few hundred prize brood stock fish after the CZU Lightning Complex fire ripped through the century-old Kingfisher Flat Hatchery in Sonoma County.
The survivors were transported by tanker trucks to the Warm Springs Hatchery in Geyserville, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers facility at the base of the dam at Lake Sonoma. It has a reputation as an emergency shelter for displaced hatchery fish.
This year, however, the water level in Lake Sonoma has dipped so low that biologists are worried that the unusually hot summer will raise the temperature of its flows into the hatchery's 20-foot diameter fiberglass tanks—making the water too warm for the salmon to live.
Now, hatchery officials are preparing to move about 20,000 coho salmon, including many of those rescued at Kingfisher Flat, by tanker truck to the only facility within a hundred miles likely to keep the sensitive fish healthy: the small Casa Grande High School fish hatchery in Petaluma, about 40 miles to the south. That hatchery relies on cold water pumped up from an underground aquifer.
On a recent weekday, Ben White, manager of the coho salmon recovery program at Warm Springs, gazed into a tank boiling with frisky, 2-pound brooders used for spawning and sighed.
"It's ironic, isn't it?" he said. "We're considered a backup facility for troubled hatcheries. Now, we're in a serious predicament, but we have no backup—and there aren't a lot of options."
A proposal to spend millions of dollars on a massive water-chilling system was jettisoned, in part because, as one federal biologist put it, "chillers guzzle diesel fuel and aren't exactly a 'green' technology."
Releasing hatchery salmon directly into the wilds is out of the question. "Rivers and tributaries throughout the region are dry, or on the verge of going dry," White said, "and infested with toxic algae blooms and deadly parasites."
Earlier this month, in the western Sierra Nevada range's Butte Creek, about 100 miles to the north, over 12,000 adult Central California spring run chinook salmon died prematurely before spawning due to heat-related oxygen deficiency and the outbreak of fish diseases.
"Our plan is simply this: move as many coho salmon as possible to the high school hatchery and leave the rest here in our tanks," he said. "We might lose some fish as a result, but we can't just sit on our hands and do nothing."
The action has inadvertently placed Casa Grande High staffers and students on the front lines of the battle to save an endangered species that once nourished the good life of the Northwest.
"A federal emergency has fallen on our doorstep, which is incredibly exciting," said Dan Hubacker, a science teacher at the school and director of the nonprofit United Anglers of Casa Grande. "Our students can help fix it."
In a separate operation, state wildlife authorities in April relocated 1.1 million juvenile, fall-run chinook salmon by truck from the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County to the Trinity River Hatchery about 122 miles away, where the fish will remain until conditions in the Klamath River improve.
The salmon, about 7 months old and 3 inches long, are normally released into the Klamath River in May and June. The move to the Trinity River Hatchery was prompted by warm water temperatures, low water flow and an exceedingly high probability of salmon succumbing to disease in the Klamath River. It marks the first time Iron Gate has not released salmon into the Klamath since it was built in 1962.
"It's extremely challenging to raise cold-water fish species in a drought," said Mark Clifford, a hatchery environmental scientist for the agency's Northern California region. "The reality is most of these fish would have died if we released them into the river. We need to maintain the integrity of the fall run on the Klamath River and we especially can't afford to lose this generation of fish."
All the relocated salmon have been outfitted with unique coded wire tags to allow state biologists and other agencies to determine their origin and destination. In addition, their adipose fins have been removed to visibly identify them as hatchery-reared fish.
Four Klamath River dams are slated for removal by 2024, the largest dam removal undertaken in U.S. history. The removal is expected to rejuvenate the river and help contribute to future generations of wild salmon prosper.
In the meantime, the Northwest has found itself on the brink of panic over the outcome of ongoing rescue efforts that could decide the fate of salmon, an important economic resource to the region with a powerful constituency of commercial fishermen, naturalists and Native American tribes: the Yurok, Hoopa, and Karuk.
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Late summer used to be a season of wonder at the confluence of the Klamath and Salmon rivers in far Northern California, about 60 miles upstream from the Pacific Ocean. As they have throughout their history, Karuk Indians gather there each summer to give thanks for the bounty of the Earth, and to catch wild salmon.
Like buffalo for the Native Americans of the Great Plains, salmon have been crucial to the survival and social structure of the Karuk. Their most important social gatherings are ceremonies to pray for balance in nature and to honor one of nature's most dramatic migratory journeys: mature salmon fighting their way upriver to where they hatched, so they could spawn and then die.
Sitting on a log on a ridgeline a few weeks before this year's gathering, tribal member Troy Hockaday gazed out over the drought-stricken flows edged with lichen-clad boulders, maple trees and oaks, and shared memories of the old days, and better times.
"For the Karuk, this place is literally the center of the universe," he said. "Our people have been catching salmon here for thousands of years."
"More recently, as a boy," he added with a laugh, "I caught salmon up to 4 feet long with my bare hands. We called them 'June hogs.' And man, they were fat, juicy and delicious."
At 55, Hockaday is a charismatic Karuk Tribal Council member. But more important, at least when the salmon migrate, he is one of a shrinking group known as traditional dip net fishermen.
He and the others shoulder the responsibility of providing traditional food and keeping alive the ancient rite of Karuk culture: the catching of the salmon with fishing nets attached to hand-held poles.
But what about now?
The two-year dry spell and record-breaking heat waves have made Northern California rivers too low and too warm to sustain migrating salmon. A pall of wildfire smoke hangs over the vast Klamath watershed as its forests turn brittle, rivers shrink and rates of parasitic infection in wild and hatchery-raised fish soar.
A recent fish survey on 60 miles of the Salmon River had a heartbreaking outcome: Only 95 spring-run chinook salmon were counted—the second-lowest census since 1990, according to the nonprofit Salmon River Restoration Council.
"Here's the deal," said Craig Tucker, natural resources policy advocate for the Karuk. "Some of our once-mighty rivers resemble dirt roads with puddles on them. And each one of those puddles is full of stranded endangered salmon."
"Like Orange County's vanishing oranges," he mused, "there's only a few dozen salmon left in the totemic Salmon River."
Hockaday wouldn't argue with any of that. Surveying the confluence that remains the single most sacred site of Karuk culture, Hockaday looked like a person watching his neighborhood deteriorate into a blighted landscape.
"All I want," he said, "is to be 80 years old and watching my grandkids scooping up wild salmon with dip nets for the tribe."
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Out in the Mojave Desert, it was 8 a.m. and already as hot as a blast furnace when Fraga came to an abrupt stop and nodded appreciatively toward colonies of 3-inch-tall green plants surrounded by pebbles, sand and clumps of salt grass.
"There's some of our guys," said Fraga with a smile.
Dropping to her knees, she plucked a pink fruit slightly smaller than a green pea, cracked it open and then frowned.
"Each fruit can produce one seed," she said. "But in this case, there's nothing inside. Nothing at all."
A few yards away, Jesus used a magnifying glass to assess the health of two seeds she had extracted from the fruit of a nearby plant. Her glum prognosis: "These seeds are not viable."
"Amargosa niterworts may seem inconsequential to some people," Fraga said, prying open yet another fruit. "But they're resilient, tough little guys clinging to existence in one of the harshest environments on Earth."
Suddenly, beaming like a kid with a new bike, she announced, "I've got a good seed! It is firm to the touch. Not dry."
She tucked the seed into a small envelope as carefully as if it were a raw diamond.
Fraga pivoted on her boot heels and sighed with sadness over the seemingly endless drought and the possible salvation of the lowly species whose lone seed she and Jesus would carry home.
Extending her arms as if to embrace the tiny patches of green clinging to existence on the parched white flats, she announced a change of plans.
"The good guys in this battle need every seed they can muster to survive another generation in the wild," she said. "Let's call it a day."
Endangered butterflies get aid in House proposal and drillers pay tab
by Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Billy House and Ari Natter
Credit: CC0 Public Domain
Endangered butterflies and desert fish would get millions of dollars in federal funding while oil companies would face new fees and a ban on most offshore drilling under a House committee proposal to fulfill key parts of President Joe Biden's economic agenda.
The details were summarized in a document seen by Bloomberg News prepared by the Natural Resources Committee, one of a dozen House panels now writing pieces of a $3.5 trillion budget bill that represents the largest chunk of Biden's economic plan. The document was circulated to lawmakers before a planned Sept. 2 meeting to vote on the panel's portion of the measure.
It sketches out Natural Resources Committee Democrats' ambitions for spending roughly $31.5 billion on conservation programs, environmental analysis and cleanup of abandoned mines, among other priorities. The proposal, which could be revised before the committee takes up the measure next week, calls for devoting some $550 million to wildlife recovery efforts, including $25 million each to endangered butterflies, freshwater mussels and desert fish.
"This is the largest investment in the recovery of endangered species in a generation, and I couldn't be more thrilled," said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. "If we're going to tackle the extinction crisis and save these incredible species from the brink, this is exactly the type of bold action that's needed."
The oil and gas industry would shoulder the burden of paying for much of the proposed spending. The proposals include new fees for idled oil wells, pipeline owners and the inspection of oil and gas facilities. Royalties also would be increased for some minerals, oil and gas extracted from public land.
Spokespeople for the committee and several members, reached by telephone and email after hours, declined to comment on the document. A Democratic member of the committee, who asked not to be identified, confirmed the document's authenticity. Republican staff members said they have heard such a document exists, but it had not been shared with them.
Committee Democrats also will seek to spend some $3 billion on a new Civilian Climate Corps, according to the document. The program, which would be modeled after the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps, would put Americans to work building clean energy infrastructure, capping inactive wells and conserving land.
Under the plan, committee Democrats would impose or increase more than a dozen fees, penalties and royalty charges on oil, gas and pipeline companies—ultimately raising as much as $5.6 billion with the changes.
Republicans blasted the plan as an "attack on American energy."
"This is another irresponsible step toward making our country increasingly reliant on foreign adversaries for our energy needs," said Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington. "They are proposing to spend $50 million to eliminate an important revenue stream and kill thousands of American jobs—all the while relying on royalties to fund their priorities."
Democrats also intend to get rid of a congressional mandate for the government to hold two auctions of oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain by Dec. 22, 2024. The requirement was originally adopted by lawmakers a way to pay for the 2017 tax cuts, based on expectations that the lease sales and oil development would yield more than $2 billion in revenues over a decade.
However, when the first auction was held by the Trump administration in January of this year, the government collected less than $20 million in high bids. The Biden administration has suspended work on leases sold in that auction, while it conducts fresh environmental analysis of the leasing program.
Committee Democrats now estimate that doing away with the Arctic refuge leasing requirement would cost just $40 million, according to the document.
A similar proposal to ban offshore drilling in most U.S. waters, including the eastern Gulf of Mexico, is estimated to cost $50 million. Pacific and Atlantic waters also would be off limits, though the central and western Gulf of Mexico—which now provides about 17% of U.S. crude production—would be unaffected.
The proposal is likely to meet stiff opposition in Congress, where Republicans cast such drilling bans as shortsighted bids to abandon U.S. production of fossil fuels that will only escalate energy costs for Americans, weeks after the Biden administration asked foreign crude producers to bolster output.
The Democrats' document mentions only a ban on offshore drilling without further detail—a reference that could be shorthand for ceasing the sale of new oil and gas leases offshore. It is unclear how the ban would treat ongoing oil and gas production or new drilling at existing offshore leases but it could be modeled after legislation the panel advanced earlier this year.
The approach dovetails with Biden's efforts to discourage fossil fuel development and shift the nation toward renewable and emission-free power sources. And it aligns with a plan advanced by Sheldon Whitehouse, Cory Booker and Brian Schatz, all Senate Democrats, to put a fee on emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
Yet the proposals could present political risk for moderate Democrats in the House, particularly those with significant oil, gas and coal production in their districts. In the Senate, Joe Manchin of coal-rich West Virginia also has signaled his concern about moving too sharply against fossil fuels.
Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the top Republican on the natural resources panel, called the reported effort a "ridiculous government overreach and unabashed environmental extremism." Westerman questioned the proposal to establish a Civilian Climate Corps while discouraging investment in domestic energy development.
"At a time when U.S. businesses can't find labor, it's especially atrocious to resurrect a government jobs program for unskilled labor while killing private sector, high-paying careers in energy and minerals," Westerman said in an emailed statement. That will only "send U.S. jobs and wealth to foreign countries and wreak havoc on rural economies."
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday during a news conference that work was already underway by committee chairmen in presenting proposals to their panels of what to include in the the budget reconciliation bill.
The reconciliation process being used by Democrats gives them the opportunity to pass the tax and spending plan without Republican support or the threat of a filibuster. However some moderates have balked at the cost, and Pelosi said the goal was to have new spending offset by raising revenue through taxes and fees.
"I would prefer to have it fully paid," said Pelosi, pointing out that the House Ways and Means Committee is exploring other possible sources of funding. Other members are making their views known on that, as well, she said.
