Rapid study of Kakhovka Dam breach impacts will support biodiversity’s recovery

UK scientists use cutting-edge technologies for unprecedented assessment

UK CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY

 

IMAGE: 

FLOODING IN KHERSON FOLLOWING THE DAM BREACH.

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CREDIT: ДМИТРО ЗАВТОНОВ / АРМІЯINFORM, CC BY 4.0

UK scientists’ unprecedented rapid assessment of the environmental impacts of the Kakhovka Dam’s breach will support international action to restore a biodiversity hotspot.

With the area in southern Ukraine in a warzone, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and HR Wallingford used cutting-edge technologies to carry out the first independent assessment of the impacts within weeks of the dam being breached in June.

It estimated that half a million hectares of protected freshwater and terrestrial habitats have been exposed to a range of hazards, including nutrients, pollutants from 1,000 sites and the erosion of sediment. This follows widespread flooding downstream and the near-emptying of the upstream Kakhovka Reservoir.

Environmental assessments have previously taken place only after a war, when it is safe for scientists to carry out in-depth field studies, but this has limited the scope of targeted biodiversity restoration within post-conflict recovery planning.

The Kakhovka study, commissioned by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), combined hydrological and digital modelling with satellite imagery and a study of data on the region’s ecology. This enabled the identification of protected habitats and species likely to be impacted by the breach, setting a precedent for early action in future conflicts.

The report’s key findings were:

• Around 83,000 hectares of land, an area the size of Kyiv, was flooded downstream of the dam. The discharge of water was 30,000 m3 per second immediately after the breach, compared to a daily average of 2,600 m3/sec
• The Kakhovka Reservoir was almost completely emptied, leaving thousands of fish washed out or stranded. This included an estimated 28,000 crucian carp, totalling 95,000 tonnes with an estimated commercial value of US $108 million
• There were more than 1,000 potential sources of pollution from flooded sites, including wastewater treatment works, petrol stations, landfills and industrial sites
• The erosion of sediment following the flood might also have released historic pollutants, such as metals, stored in sediments
• The breach affected over half a million hectares of habitats of national or international importance, upstream and downstream of the dam, including the Black Sea Biosphere Reserve
• Some 28 of the 567 species affected by a range of hazards are globally threatened or worse, including the Great Bustard, Pontic Shad, Harbour porpoise, Donets ruffe, the Steppe Polecat, the European mink and the slender-billed curlew, the latter being on the verge of extinction.

Professor Bryan Spears of UKCEH says: “We hope that our assessment provides a baseline against which to assess biodiversity and habitat impacts and recovery related to the Kakhovka Dam breach. It is now important that the results of this and other assessments are scrutinised fully by the wider scientific community, allowing biodiversity restoration to be incorporated within post-conflict recovery planning at an early stage.”

Emma Brown, technical director at HR Wallingford, adds: “I am very proud of the work we’ve done with UKCEH to assess the environmental impacts of the Kakhovka Dam breach. Combining our expertise in dam breach modelling, hydrology and earth observation with UKCEH’s expert biodiversity knowledge enabled the team to produce a detailed report in just 16 days, which I hope will be instrumental in helping with recovery efforts in the region.”

The report, which informed a wider report by the UN Environment Programme, also identified potential long-term effects on the environment, human health and economies. It said the flooding would have worsened water infrastructure and quality, affecting drinking water supply and irrigation for agriculture. The authors made several recommendations for future action (see Notes).

Professor Harry Dixon, Associate Director of International Research and Development, UKCEH, comments: “This significant work undertaken in a timely way using cutting-edge technologies highlights the importance of using science from organisations to inform humanitarian and environmental response to disasters and emergencies across the globe.”

The report is available on the Zenodo website and a commentary by Professor Spears has been published in the journal Nature, Ecology & Evolution (DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02373-0).

- Ends -

 

Media enquiries

For interviews and further information, please contact Simon Williams, Media Relations Officer at UKCEH, via simwil@ceh.ac.uk or +44 (0)7920 295384.

 

Notes to editors

Report authors’ recommendations

The report by UKCEH and HR Wallingford recommends an assessment of the sources of radioactive and munitions waste, and their movement down the Dnipro River to the Black Sea. This would support clean-up efforts, reduce the risks to human health associated with eating contaminated fish, shellfish and crops and safeguard a key global grain shipping route if there are unexploded arms in the area.

The scientists at UKCEH and HR Wallingford are now encouraging the international scientific community to work together to build on their initial assessment, to quantify the ecological impacts, provide monitoring programmes, and ensure open access of relevant data.

They call for the rapid development of habitat recovery plans to support species of high conservation, cultural and commercial interest, saying an international scientific response will be required.

 

About the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)

The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is a world-leading centre for excellence in environmental sciences across water, land and air. Our 500-plus scientists work to understand the environment, how it sustains life and the human impact on it – so that together, people and nature can prosper.

We identify key drivers of biodiversity change, develop tools and technologies for monitoring biodiversity, and provide robust socio-economic and environmental solutions for restoring biodiversity. We investigate the dispersal, fate and behaviour of chemicals and polluting substances in terrestrial and freshwater environments.

The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is a strategic delivery partner for the Natural Environment Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation.

www.ceh.ac.uk / X: @UK_CEH / LinkedIn: UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

 

About HR Wallingford

We design smart, resilient solutions across the natural and built environments to help everyone live and work more sustainably with water.

By harnessing research, data insights and the power of our collective expertise, we help the world to better understand the changing influence and impact of water.

Drawing on our unique capabilities in science, technology and engineering, we invest in knowledge and innovate to address future challenges and opportunities.

We are the global leaders and independent experts in how to live and work sustainably with water.

www.hrwallingford.com / X: @hrwallingford / LinkedIn: HR Wallingford

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

ARTICLE TITLE

A rapid assessment of the immediate environmental impacts of the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka Dam, Ukraine’

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Mar-2024

‘Privatising profits but socialising losses’. Three tales of Nordic ecological negligence

We look at three cases of environmental irresponsibility in Scandinavia: the Nordic Waste scandal and lack of preparedness for catastrophic oil spills in Denmark, and Norway’s potentially ecocidal decision to greenlight deep-sea mining. Our press review in collaboration with Display Europe.

Published on 14 February 2024 
Ciarán Lawless
 

Alex Falcó Chang | Cartoon Movement

Miranda Bryant in The Guardian calls it “one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history”: a landslide consisting of two million tonnes of contaminated soil is slowly advancing on the village of Ølst in Denmark’s Jutland region, threatening to devastate the local ecosystem, including the Alling Å river. Local residents fear that their village, as Rasmus Karkov puts it in Danish daily Berlingske, “risks being buried in sludge, slag, contaminated soil and sand, permeated with the rot of dead mink”. The landslide originated from a plant run by Nordic Waste, which, as The Local explains, processes waste coming “mainly from Denmark's mink farms, which were ordered to shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as some imported waste from Norway.”

So far, so scandalous, but what comes next is perhaps the real reason this affair has come to be known as “The Nordic Waste Scandal”. Following injunctions from the Ministry of the Environment in January, Nordic Waste promptly declared bankruptcy, leaving Danish taxpayers with an initial bill of around 27 million euro. The Danish consultancy firm COWI estimates that cleanup could in fact end up costing over two billion kroner (over 268 million euro). This has led British earth scientist Dave Petley to describe the affair as “a classic case of privatising profits but socialising losses”. It’s an even more bitter pill to swallow when we learn from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) that the landslide actually began back in 2021, but only started accelerating in recent months.
More : Lucas Chancel: ‘Those who are most affected are those who pollute the least’

The largest shareholder in Nordic Waste, Torben Ostergaard-Nielsen, is Denmark’s sixth richest man, with a net worth estimated at over 5.5 billion euro. As Lone Andersen and Jesper Høberg write In Finans, another Danish billionaire, Bent Jensen, is less than impressed with Ostergaard-Nielsen: "If you own so many billions, does it matter if you spend 2 billion kroner to clean up after yourself?” The sentiment is echoed by Denmark’s social-democrat Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. Asked about Nordic Waste’s bankruptcy while visiting the site of what she called an “ongoing disaster”, Frederiksen said to The Local Denmark that “I can't think of anything good to say about it. The bill could easily have been paid if [Nordic Waste] wanted to”.

Andersen and Høberg also reached out to the other nine richest people in Denmark (including the Lego family), and asked if they would see it as their “moral and social responsibility to contribute to cleanup and prevention”. Several of these billionaires responded that they didn’t want to answer the journalists’ questions, while the rest didn’t even bother to respond.
More : As poverty spreads in Europe, wealth is (still) tax-free

One final irony in all this is that Nordic Waste’s founder, David Peter York, was boasting on Amtsavisen of making the region affected by the landslide “Denmark's leader in sustainable environmental and waste businesses that focus on recyclability”, right when reports were already suggesting the imminent threat that his facility posed to the local environment. As Rasmus Karkov explains on Berlingske, York is fluent in all the “buzzwords” of ecological responsibility, and collaborated with several green companies in the area. In the end, a slick, greenwashed facade finally gave way to a torrent of filth.

The Nordic Waste scandal is not the only impending ecological disaster that Denmark has to worry about. Mads Lorenzen and Kresten Andersen in Finans discuss the “ticking environmental bomb that sails Danish waters every day”: namely, the so-called “shadow fleet” of Russian and Greek ships transporting sanctioned oil through the Danish straits. While many are concerned, Newsweek reports, with the fact that Russia is using a variety of tricks involving shell companies and tax havens to obfuscate the oil’s connection to Moscow (thereby circumventing sanctions), for others the primary concern is ecological.

Besides the murkiness of their origin and ownership, the tankers in question are often old and not fully insured, and they often contain crews who have little experience with Denmark’s busy and turbulent waters. This has led Denmark’s National Audit Office to publish a report exposing the Ministry of Defence’s lack of preparedness in the event of an oil or chemical spill. With a darkly amusing example, Lorenzen and Andersen explain just how slow a cleanup operation can be: “three years ago it took 27 hours for a response vessel to reach the scene of an accident. Luckily, it was just a drunken captain on a relatively intact ship filled with fertiliser.” Less amusingly, the Ministry of Defence’s fleet of response vessels was already obsolete in 1996 (the National Audit Office had already issued such warnings back in 2016). Michelle Bockmann of Lloyd’s List Intelligence calls the situation “a disaster waiting to happen”.

The shadowy provenance and shaky insurance status of these ships is also a financial liability. In the case of catastrophe, Danes could very well end up (once again) footing the bill. Among other short and long term solutions, Danish author and centre-left politician Christian Friis Bach wants Denmark to abolish its opt-out so that European Union law can be used to fight environmental crime with stronger penalties, and help the country to pursue criminals across national borders, The Local Denmark reports. “It doesn't help much against Russians who are not in the EU, but it's a good start," Bach told Finans.

Further north, Norway is at risk of committing what environmentalists (and an increasing number of national and international institutions) call ecocide. Members of Seas at Risk and Ecocide Alliance, among others, warn in EUObserver that the Scandinavian country’s decision to allow deep-sea mining in the Arctic will cause “long-lasting disruption to climate stability and marine health.” For the authors, Norway’s decision meets the legal definition of ecocide: “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.” On this basis, the authors argue that the European Union and the international community should demand that Norway reverse its decision.

In fact, as Reporterre reports, on 7 February the European Parliament adopted a resolution demanding that Norway protect the Arctic ecosystems and call a moratorium on deep-sea mining. Greenpeace France have called the resolution a victory. It remains to be seen whether Norway cedes to international pressure. After all, they have already ignored the concerns of scientists, civil society, the Norwegian Environmental Agency, and a petition signed by over 500,000 people.


In partnership with Display Europe, cofunded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

H5N1 THAT OTHER PANDEMIC
Bird flu pushes ‘globally important’ Scottish seabirds into decline

Jamie Mann
February 13, 2024

The recent bird flu outbreaks have pushed iconic Scottish seabird species into decline for the first time, according to a new study into the “catastrophic” impacts of the disease.

The RSPB-led report, released today, has for the first time quantified the severe impact of avian influenza that has hit Scotland’s seabirds in recent years.

Gannet, great skua and sandwich tern are now considered declining species following deaths during the outbreak.


The bird protection charity is calling for immediate action from the Scottish Government to stem further declines

.

The report comes just days after The Ferret outlined the state of Scotland’s seabird populations as part of our Scotland’s Seas in Danger series.

We analysed the most recent data and information from Scottish Government agencies, conservation bodies and others, which revealed that dozens of sea and coastal bird species are in decline, or threatened, due to issues like falling fish populations, climate change, and other pressures.

But these studies predate the new RSPB report, which shows that, due to the impact of bird flu, gannet, great skua and sandwich tern are now declining species. These birds were among the few species to have stable or increasing numbers prior to the outbreaks, which spanned from summer 2021 to the winter of 2022/23.

Since then, the number of great skuas has dropped by 76 per cent while gannets and sandwich terns have each declined by 22 per cent. Scotland is home to 60 per cent of the global great skua population, and 46 per cent of the gannet population. RSPB says the shrinking numbers will have “international implications”.Northern Gannet and its chick. Image credit: Becky Matsubara. Licence: CC BY 2.0 DEED Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Sandwich terns in flight. Image credit: Charles J. Sharp . Licence: CC BY 2.0 DEED Attribution 2.0 Generic

Arctic Skua. Image credit: Donald Macauley. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic

Kittiwakes, guillemots and black-headed gulls were also struck by bird flu. Arctic skua, lesser black-backed gull, herring gull, common tern and arctic tern were already in decline, but are expected to have been impacted further by the disease.
Seabird declines ‘catastrophic’

The Scottish Government is due to consult on a new Scottish Seabird Conservation Strategy this year, and publish it in 2025.

But RSPB says the new plan cannot wait. It is urging action to tackle threats facing seabirds, including the unintended capture of birds in fishing gear, and invasive, non-native species, which, it said, must be removed from island bird colonies.

Invasive species include the American mink, which preys on young seabirds at colonies on the west coast and the Western Isles.

The charity also wants measures to protect habitats and the species seabirds rely on as a food source, and for offshore wind farms to be greenlit only in the “least damaging” places for seabirds and other marine wildlife.

RSPB Scotland’s head of habitats and species, Paul Walton, said that while declines in Scotland’s seabirds pre-bird flu were “nothing short of catastrophic”, the picture following the outbreak is “even bleaker”.

“The sight of so many dead seabirds on our cliffs and beaches over the last few years has been heartbreaking and left many fearful for their future,” he said. “Those fears are well-founded.


“This is the latest in a long list of human-caused threats that are harming our seabirds. We have failed to adequately protect our marine environment and wildlife for decades. But we know and understand actions that would begin to turn things around, helping to recover and build resilience in our seabirds.”

Walton added: “We need the Scottish Government to implement these actions and policies now, so we have a future where our seabirds are part of a thriving marine environment, our national culture and wellbeing.”

The Scottish Government said it was “committed to taking action to improve the conservation prospects of seabirds and build resilience in our populations.”

It last year launched the Scottish Avian Influenza in Wild Bird Response Plan, which sets out how it will respond to future outbreaks.

Scotland’s new biodiversity strategy “includes a wide range of actions in relation to our nationally and internationally important seabird population, including delivery of a Scottish Seabird Conservation Strategy,” said a spokesperson.

“We have also taken forward the proposed ban on fishing for sandeel in all Scottish waters, which has the potential to improve the resilience of seabirds to changes in the marine environment as well as delivering wider ecosystem benefits.”

Scotland’s Seas in Danger is a year-long investigative series by The Ferret that delves into Scotland’s marine environment. Our investigations were carried out with the support of Journalismfund Europe.

This project is was conducted in partnership with the Investigative Reporting Project Italy (IRPI), which will publish its work later this year.
If you like what we do and want to help us do more independent journalism, you can support us by becoming a member. You can also donate or subscribe to our free newsletter.

Header image thanks to Odd Wellies. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Avian flu devastating Wales' seabirds, says RSPB

Brendon Williams

BBC News

RSPB: The number of Sandwich terns on Anglesey roughly halved in a year

Bird flu is having a devastating impact on the seabird population around Wales, the RSPB has warned.

In some species the charity said bird flu had "completely reversed" previously positive trends.

The number of gannet nests at Grasshom in Pembrokeshire - the main colony in Wales and once the fourth largest in the world - dropped from 34,491 in 2022, to 16,482 last year.

The Welsh government said it was committed to delivering a seabird conservation strategy this year, aiming to protect species from avian flu and other emergencies.

For the first time, a new report tries to quantify the impact of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) on UK seabirds.

The report said gannets, common terns and Sandwich terns were among 11 species that were increasing in numbers in Wales before the first major outbreak of HPAI in 2021.

Julian Hughes, head of species for RSPB Cymru, said: "The latest figures say Grassholm is now back to where it was in 1969.

"In one year, HPAI has undone what took more than 50 years of growth."

Nearly all of the Sandwich terns in Wales nest at Cemlyn on Anglesey and figures from North Wales Wildlife Trust showed there were between 2,200 and 2,400 nests there in 2022.

Last year, there were 1,100.

Overall, the number of common terns and Sandwich terns in Wales has dropped by more than 40%, according to the RSPB.

Black-headed gulls, - which were red-listed before bird flu - have seen a decrease in population in Wales of 77% since the last detailed census in 2015-21.

Other species, including kittiwakes and herring gulls, were already declining because of other threats faced by sea birds, such as climate change, and continue to do so, the charity said.

Mr Hughes said: "In 2022-23 some of our biggest colonies were devastated by avian flu and we saw many dead adults and chicks.

"Sea birds live for a long time but produce only one or two chicks per year, so bird flu will have an impact on their population for several, or many, years to come."

There are currently no reported cases of HPAI in wild birds in Wales, but migrating sea birds are due to return later this year.

The Welsh government said its sea bird conservation strategy, being done in conjunction with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Natural Resources Wales, British Trust for Ornithology and RSPB was "making good progress".

It added: "It will identify opportunities to enhance our seabird populations’ resilience to pressures such as avian flu, as well as the climate and nature emergencies."

Contaminated soil landslide threatens Danish village

Agence France-Presse
February 7, 2024 

'It's three to six million cubic meters of soil, clay, and polluted dirt,' Olst resident Jan Kristian Jensen said (James Brooks/AFP)

A small hamlet in the west of Denmark is facing an unusual existential threat: a landslide of contaminated waste that is bearing down on the community and a nearby river.

"It's three to six million cubic metres of soil, clay, and polluted dirt coming down from that hill, and it's all placed there by the company that was there," fumes Jan Kristian Jensen, a 47-year-old resident of Olst.

The woes began on December 11 for the village, a close-knit community of 45 tidy brick homes.

That's when Nordic Waste, which specializes in cleaning up contaminated soil, said the land was sliding at its hillside facility near the Alling river.

The company blamed heavy rainfall after the wettest year on record in Denmark.

The site's waste comes mainly from Denmark's mink farms, which were ordered to shut down during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as some imported waste from Norway.

The problems rapidly escalated.

With the soil initially advancing by nine to 10 meters (30 to 33 feet) a day, pressure from the moving ground caused a secondary road to give way.

All of Nordic Waste's buildings but one then collapsed, as the mud flowed freely.


A square-kilometer perimeter was erected around the site and the road was closed to traffic.

Eight days after its announcement, Nordic Waste abandoned its efforts to contain the mess.

The nearby municipality of Randers swiftly jumped in to take over.


"We had to tell contractors to keep working with their big machines at the site to avoid everything being contaminated," the mayor of Randers, Torben Hansen, told AFP.

His top priorities were to protect the local river from being polluted and prevent Olst from being wiped off the map.

So far he seems to have succeeded, with daily soil and water samples showing no signs of pollution.


- Who will pay? -

But the area now resembles an enormous construction site, and several large basins have been created to collect rainwater.

The mayor is furious with Nordic Waste, and the Randers municipality does not want to finance the cleanup.

"In the first weeks, the municipality spent 100 million kroner ($14.4 million) and now we want the company to pay," Hansen said.

The company, which was declared bankrupt on January 22, is a subsidiary of the USTC holding company owned by billionaire Torben Ostergaard-Nielsen, one of Denmark's richest men.

"Everything was carefully controlled, and we never operated without the required authorisations," said Nina Ostergaard Borris, the head of USTC.


An engineering service consultancy, Cowi, has estimated the cleanup cost at 2.2 billion kroner, insisting on the importance of ongoing work to build dykes to protect the village from an "avalanche of mud".

The Danish parliament has already allocated 205 million kroner.

"If nothing was done, within one to two years our whole city ... would be covered by five to 10 meters of dirt," said Jensen, citing a Cowi report. "It took us a few days to digest that."


Neither Jensen nor his neighbours imagined they would ever be affected by such a catastrophe.

- 'Could have been prevented' -

According to geologist Kristian Svennevig of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), "this type of landslide is completely unique in Denmark" -- and totally the result of human activities.

"In the public discourse the landslide was caused by this very wet 2023. But we can see that it started way back in 2021," a "relatively dry" period, he said.

"It's not caused by climatic factors. It is in fact caused by the landfill itself, that the soil is being put in this old clay pit," he said.

At the onset, the land movements were small and went unreported.

"Had the decision-makers working with it had the level of knowledge that we have now, we could have prevented it by not putting the landfill there," Svennevig said.

"As the landslide was progressing, mitigation could have been initiated to stop it."

At the end of January, Jensen and his neighbors were allowed to visit the site.

"Our understanding is... that we will not be covered" in waste, he said, relieved.

But questions remain.

"Is it safe to stay here? What is in the dirt?" Jensen asked.

The government has opened an inquiry to determine responsibility.

False Witnesses and No Evidence

The Tangled Truth of a Death Row Inmate

by Nancy Lockhart, M.J. / January 27th, 2024

In a case that has captured the attention of both legal experts and the public, Willie Jerome Manning stands convicted of a crime that he did not commit. The conviction of Mr. Manning who was sentenced to death for the murders of two Mississippi State students, now faces scrutiny due to newly discovered evidence pointing toward his wrongful conviction. This isn’t the first time evidence has been presented to the court based on untruthful testimonies about Willie Manning by witnesses eager to cut deals with the state by providing false testimonies.

Exonerated for the Elderly Mother and Daughter Murders

Mr. Manning was unjustly condemned to death for two separate double murders and has been exonerated of the 1993, case of murdering an elderly mother and daughter in Starkville, Mississippi. The Mississippi Supreme Court recognized vital evidence was hidden, showing that the state’s main witness lied for self-benefit.

The State’s Case against Willie Manning

Two college students, Tiffany Miller and Jon Steckler were found murdered on December 11, 1992. Four months later, in April of 1993, Manning became a primary suspect. The Oktibbeha County Mississippi Circuit Court appointed post-conviction lawyers twice. Both times the attorneys withdrew because they were not familiar with state post-conviction and federal habeas corpus practices. Meanwhile, an exceptionally experienced attorney in post-conviction and federal habeas corpus practice had the desire to represent Mr. Manning, and the circuit court of Oktibbeha County Mississippi ignored the attorney’s motion.

In the parking lot of an apartment building, Tiffany Miller’s vehicle was discovered double-parked. The car was a two-seater and evidence that Jon Steckler had been run over was clear from his blood found underneath the vehicle.  Sheriff Dolph Bryan assumed a connection between the murders and a previous car break-in. Bryan’s theory lacked concrete evidence as he believed the murder victims interrupted a theft in progress from John Wise’s car burglary. The break-in occurred at a fraternity house parking lot on the campus of Mississippi State University. The burglarized car belonged to Wise, who reported missing items which included a leather jacket, a portable CD player, and a brass restroom token. Some of the local businesses used brass tokens for entering their restrooms, and one was found near the murder victims, about five miles from the house Willie lived in with his mother. John Wise declared that the discovered coin exhibited a shiny appearance, contrasting with his own, which did not.

The sheriff created a scenario of the perpetrator forcing Miller and Steckler into Miller’s car, with Tiffany Miller sitting on Willie Manning’s lap and Jon Steckler driving. After reaching the destination, the sheriff surmised that the victims were forced out of Miller’s car and shot, after which the murderer drove the car to an apartment complex and abandoned it. Sheriff Dolph Bryan orchestrated this entire crime scene without physical evidence or witnesses.

This investigation resulted in Manning’s conviction, which was partially based on the discovery of a hair fragment belonging to a Black individual in Miller’s car. The hair fragment was admitted as evidence, and as a result, the sheriff and prosecutor implied Mr. Manning’s presence in the vehicle. The Department of Justice has acknowledged that the FBI’s hair analysis testimony at Manning’s trial was unreliable and false.  Mr. Manning is actively contesting his conviction of the double homicide.

Fabricated Testimonies and Sheriff Dolph Bryan

The case against Willie Manning is fundamentally weak, as it’s characterized by speculative assumptions from Sheriff Bryan, fabricated testimonies, and questionable forensic analysis, including the use of discredited hair follicle science. Willie Manning was convicted on jailhouse informant testimony made by Earl Jordan, Frank Parker, and Renee Hathorn. Each of the sheriff’s informants was facing prison time for criminal charges. Every jailhouse informant gave fabricated testimonies in return for reduced sentences or total exoneration, with two of them receiving financial rewards.

According to Earl Jordan’s affidavit, the sheriff indirectly made it clear that he would assist Jordan with his habitual offender charges in exchange for helping him with Manning. The sheriff and Jordan met four or five times and Jordan’s testimony was fabricated under the sheriff’s influence. In exchange, Jordan received some reward money and a 3-year sentence reduced to time served. Jordan submitted an affidavit because Dolph Bryan was no longer the sheriff. Bryan served as sheriff of Oktibbeha County from 1976-2012.

Similarly, Frank Parker’s testimony included claims of overhearing Manning confess to a cellmate about disposing of a gun and admitting to the murders. An affidavit from Willie’s cellmate challenges the credibility of this statement. Parker also stated he was fleeing charges in Texas and turned himself in at the jail in Mississippi.

Parker’s uncle, who housed Frank for over a decade, informed law enforcement about his nephew’s longstanding dishonesty. He recounted an incident where, during their absence, Frank cleared out their house and pawned their valuables. Frank’s uncle filed charges against him and subsequently informed law enforcement in Oktibbeha County that he would not consider Frank as a witness in any case, due to his lack of trustworthiness.

Renee Hathorn was Willie’s girlfriend at the time and her role was particularly pivotal. Hathorn testified against Manning for the defense. In an affidavit, she states that Sheriff Dolph Bryan pressured her into getting Willie to confess to the murders of Steckler and Miller. He never did, he consistently maintained his innocence. She also visited with Willie in his jail cell at night from time to time, while wearing a wire. Sheriff Dolph Bryan also met with her to discuss and rehearse her trial testimony. Before testifying during the trial, the sheriff gave her money, paid her bills sometimes, and also paid for some furniture. He additionally picked her up and purchased food from a fast food restaurant. Hathorn was facing from 8-10 years in prison and additional years on parole for a total of 33 bad checks in Oktibbeha and Lowndes Counties. She additionally states that she accrued bad check charges in Macon, Clay, and Jackson counties. She owed more than $10,000 in fraudulent checks and court fees. All of this was erased in exchange for her fabricated testimony. Additionally, she received $17,500 in reward money.

No Witnesses, Physical Evidence, DNA, Fingerprints or Fibers

The forensic analysis of hair by the FBI failed to conclusively establish a match between the hair discovered in the vehicle, where two students from Mississippi State were allegedly apprehended, and Willie Jerome Manning. The initial classification of the hair as originating from a Black individual was a critical factor in implicating Mr. Manning in the murder. There is an absence of definitive physical evidence connecting Manning to the crime. There are no witnesses, fingerprints, DNA, or blood, and there are not any fibers. The prosecution’s argument hinged primarily on the testimony of prison informants and a hair that the FBI initially claimed was consistent with a Black person. However, the FBI later withdrew this claim, admitting that such a conclusion surpasses the scientific validity of hair analysis, thereby rendering it unreliable and scientifically unsound.  Mr. Manning underwent trial, was found guilty, and subsequently sentenced to death row, based on contrived testimonies from jailhouse informants, prepared and orchestrated by Sheriff Dolph Bryan.

The prosecution in Willie Manning’s case relied on several key pieces of fabricated evidence. Testimonies from informants such as Earl Jordan and Frank Parker, who later admitted their statements were false and put them under pressure in exchange for wiping their criminal slates clean.

The role of the prosecutor was crucial in assembling and presenting these elements as part of the case against Manning. The prosecution’s case against Mr. Manning included forensic evidence, deemed unreliable. An expert asserted that bullets recovered from a tree in Manning’s yard were discharged from the same firearm used in the students’ murder, claiming this to the exclusion of all other firearms globally. However, current forensic science discredits such bullet comparisons as invalid. Mr. Manning has submitted a new petition to the Mississippi Supreme Court to contest his convictions in this case. Should this petition be rejected, it could lead to the court setting an execution date for him.

This article was composed using information sourced from the following petition:

Willie Jerome Manning, Petitioner, v. State of Mississippi, Respondent. In The Supreme Court of Mississippi, No. 2023-DR-01076. Motion for Leave to File Successive Petition for Post-Conviction Relief. Attorneys: Krissy C. Nobile, Robert S. Mink, Sr., David P. Voisin,  Clocked: September 29, 2023, 19:24:16.

Nancy Lockhart is an analyst and strategist specializing in cases of grave injustices. E-mail: TheWrongfulConviction@gmail.com. Voicemail: (914) 984-7990. Visit https://nancylockhart.net for the latest updates and discover methods of advocating to assist Willie Mannings campaign. Read other articles by Nancy.

Oil, Chemical Firms Pay Millions to Fix Portland Harbor

December 31, 2023on Oil, Chemical Firms Pay Millions to Fix Portland Harbor

PORTLAND, Oregon, December 31, 2023 (ENS) – People who eat fish that live year-round in Oregon’s Lower Willamette River are taking a big risk, as these fish contain levels of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls high enough to harm health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been warning for decades.

In November, the Justice Department added two settlements in federal court reflecting agreements among Tribal, state and federal natural resource trustees and over 20 potentially responsible parties, PRPs, to clean up what is now the Portland Harbor Superfund Site, designated in the year 2000. Past settlement agreements are online here.

The Portland Harbor Superfund site reached a key milestone on January 6, 2017 when the Environmental Protection Agency released its Record of Decision, the final plan for cleanup.

The Portland Harbor Superfund site is a 10-mile stretch of the lower Willamette River between the Broadway Bridge and the southern tip of Sauvie Island.

Approximately 150 parties are considered potentially responsible for the contamination, including some of the largest corporations in the United States, even one – Schnitzer Steel Industries, Inc. now doing business as Radius Recycling – that has been recognized for its environmental and climate action work.

One of the 150 potentially responsible parties is Schnitzer Steel Industries, which this year rebranded as Radius Recycling, in the business of buying and selling recycled metals around the world. In November, TIME magazine named the company to the inaugural TIME100 Climate List, which aims to recognize 100 innovative leaders working to expedite climate action. Earlier this year, Radius was named the Most Sustainable Company in the World by Corporate Knights and included on TIME’s List of the 100 Most Influential Companies of 2023.

Other polluters named in the Portland Harbor Superfund site cleanup agreements already filed in court are:

• – Daimler Trucks North America;
• – Vigor Industrial, the largest ship repair and modernization operation in the region;
• – Cascade General, which owns and operates Portland Shipyard;
• – NW Natural, a natural gas distributor;
• – Arkema Inc., a chemical manufacturer based near Paris, France;
• – Bayer Crop Science Inc., a German multinational corporation which produces herbicides, and insecticides that the 2020 EPA Administrative Settlement court documents linked to “cancer risks and noncancer health hazards from exposures to a set of chemicals in sediments, surface water, groundwater seeps, and fish tissue from samples collected at the Site.”
• – General Electric Company, a New York company that has polluted surface water, groundwater, sediment, and fish tissue with 64 contaminants of concern, including PCBs, PAHs, dioxins and furans, as well as DDT and its metabolites DDD and DDE (collectively, DDX);
• – oil companies Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Kinder Morgan Liquids Terminals LLC, McCall Oil and Chemical Corporation, Phillips 66 Company, and Shell Oil Company, Company, BP Products North America Inc., and ExxonMobil Corporation;
• – towboating and barging company Brix Maritime
• – Union Pacific Railroad Company
• – FMC Corporation, an American herbicide and fungicide manufacturer based in Pennsylvania

The settlement agreements, with an estimated restoration value of $33.2 million, require the potentially responsible parties to pay cash damages or purchase credits in projects to restore salmon and other natural resources that were lost due to contamination released from their facilities into the Willamette River.

This settlement includes more than $600,000 in damages for the public’s lost recreational use of the river, and restoration and monitoring of culturally significant plants and animals.

Portland Harbor Superfund Site, River Mile 11 East (Photo courtesy EPA Region 10)

The settlement includes additional funds to cover costs paid by the Portland Harbor Natural Resource Trustee Council for assessing the harm to the injured natural resources.

The Trustee Council is made up of representatives from the Five Tribes: the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and the Nez Perce Tribe, along with representatives of the U.S. Department of the Interior, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the State of Oregon.

“This settlement represents years of hard work by the Portland Harbor natural resource trustees and responsible parties who cooperated to restore the harm caused by those parties’ contamination. The resulting restoration projects funded by these agreements will provide permanent ecological benefits to help restore the biodiversity of the Willamette River system,” said Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

The Five Tribes “wholly support this settlement” the Tribes said in a statement. “Contamination has uniquely affected tribal members because of their cultural use of and relationship with affected natural resources in and around the Portland Harbor Superfund Site. The Five Tribes believe the collaborative process of this settlement represents the best path forward for restoring Portland Harbor natural resources for the benefit of both current and future generations.”

Curt Melcher heads the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. 2016 (Photo courtesy OregonLive)

“The trustees are very pleased that the responsible parties in this settlement have advanced restoration over litigation. The large-scale restoration projects facilitated by this settlement will help address the most important habitat needs of fish and wildlife injured by contamination in Portland Harbor,” said Director Curt Melcher of Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We will continue our settlement discussions with the remaining responsible parties who are participating in the early settlement initiative so we can achieve additional permanent restoration of natural resources,” Melcher said. “Partnering with restoration project developers has already produced on-the-ground restoration even prior to today’s settlement.”

Restoration Credits, a Novelty With Benefits

The use of restoration credits in four natural resource projects created in partnership with private developers is a novel and critical feature of the settlement, the Justice Department said.

Restoration credits are like ecological “shares” in a restoration project, and the natural resource trustees decide how many “shares” each project is worth. Defendants in the settlement can purchase restoration credits from the restoration project developers instead of paying cash to resolve the ecological injury portion of their liability.

Using this approach at Portland Harbor has produced on-the-ground restoration sooner and at less cost than traditional cash-only settlements.

The four restoration projects selling restoration credits – Alder Creek, Harborton, Linnton Mill and Rinearson Natural Area – provide habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act, and they are of cultural significance to the Five Tribes.

The projects will restore habitat for other fish and wildlife injured by contamination in Portland Harbor, species such as bald eagles, mink and lamprey, as well as tribally significant native plants like camas, wapato and sweetgrass.

“Cleaning up and restoring the Portland Harbor is important for all Oregonians, but it will also be one small step towards righting the many injustices done to the Nez Perce Tribe,” said Courtney Johnson, executive director and staff attorney with the Portland-based Crag Law Center.

Bald eagle prepares for landing in Portland, Oregon, August 14, 2020 (Photo by Mick Thompson / Portland Audobon)

Construction is complete and habitat development is underway at all four projects, which are expected to provide ecological benefits in perpetuity, will be permanently protected from development and will receive long-term stewardship.

Collectively, the restoration value in these projects is the largest natural resource credit bank at any Superfund Site in the country, the EPA explains.

The agreements result from an early settlement collaboration between the natural resource trustees at the Portland Harbor Superfund Site and a group of PRPs who participated in that effort.

Negotiations are continuing with other PRPs that also are participating in the trustees’ early settlement initiative. If the trustees reach agreements in those ongoing negotiations, they could include additional cash settlements or restoration credit purchases in the four restoration projects.

On behalf of the trustees on the Trustee Council, the U.S. Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Environmental Enforcement Section filed the complaint and lodged the proposed consent decrees in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

The proposed decrees resolve the natural resource damages allegations of the United States, Oregon and the Five Tribes for releases of contamination from the PRPs’ identified facilities. Alleged violations are of Section 107 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; the Oil Pollution Act and the Clean Water Act.

The Superfund site is located along the lower reach of the Willamette River in Portland, and extends from river mile 1.9 to 11.8. While the site is industrialized, it is within a region where commercial, residential, recreational, and agricultural uses exist. The site includes marine terminals, manufacturing, other commercial operations, public facilities, parks, and open spaces.

This lower reach was once a shallow, meandering portion of the Willamette River but has been redirected and channelized with filling and dredging. A federally maintained navigation channel, extending nearly bank-to-bank in some areas, doubles the natural depth of the river and allows transit of large ships into the harbor. Along the river bank are overwater piers and berths, port terminals and slips, and other engineered features.

Invertebrates, fishes, birds, amphibians, and mammals, including some protected by the Endangered Species Act, use habitats within and along the river. The river is also an important rearing site and pathway for migration of salmon and lamprey. Recreational fisheries for salmon, bass, sturgeon, crayfish, among others, are still active within the lower Willamette River.

The greatest risk to humans is connected to eating the fish that live there year-round, like bass and carp. Salmon and fish that pass through the river to the ocean are safe to eat, the EPA advises

Seawalls are used to control periodic flooding as most of the original wetlands bordering the Willamette in the Portland Harbor area have been filled. Some river bank areas and adjacent parcels have been abandoned and allowed to revegetate, and beaches have formed along some modified shorelines due to natural processes.

The settlement is subject to a 45-day public comment period and final court approval. It is available for viewing here. Please refer to the upcoming Federal Register notice for instructions on submitting any public comments on the settlement. More information is available on the Portland Harbor Natural Resource Trustee Council website.

Featured image: A view of the Portland Harbor Superfund site with Mount Hood, Oregon’s tallest mountain at 11,249 feet, in the background. (Photo courtesy U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

© Environment News Service, 2023. All rights reserved.

H5N1
How a 21-year-old Cambodian became the world’s latest bird flu victim


Sarah Newey
Thu, 21 December 2023 

Outbreak response teams burn the carcasses of infected chickens in Dang Tong province, Cambodia - Mech Dara

Chem Seavmey’s family are still in shock. One Sunday morning, the 21-year-old woke up slightly breathless, struggling with a fever and cough. A week later, she was dead.

“I did not expect this, it was so quick,” Chem’s brother-in-law, Sok Reth, told the Telegraph. “She just got worse and worse … Although the doctors tried to help, she still passed away. I am very, very regretful and sad … it was too quick for us.”

On November 26, at a hospital in the capital city three hours from home, Chem became the third person to die from bird flu in Cambodia this year. The country has seen a spike of infections after an eight year hiatus, with six of the 12 human H5N1 cases detected in 2023 reported here, according to the World Health Organization.


“Southeast Asia has always been a bit of a hotspot… but it’s hard to say why Cambodia has seen cases this year,” said Dr Bolortuya Purevsuren, an avian influenza expert at the World Organisation for Animal Health in Bangkok. “Any new human case is always a concern, wherever it unfolds.”

These cases hold crucial clues for scientists and health officials analysing pandemic threats. Tracing how Chem caught H5N1 can help sculpt strategies to reduce the likelihood of future spillovers, while scrutinising samples of the virus that killed her allows virologists to track how the pathogen is changing – and whether the threat to humans has risen.

“Will bird flu cause the next pandemic? Who knows,” said Dr Purevsuren. “But it’s critical to have strong surveillance to monitor trends in wild birds and poultry, quickly identify signals of cases in humans, and then investigate every one that is detected.”

Awareness campaigns have been limited in rural Cambodia, where poultry is critical for both income and sustenance - Mech Dara

It was infected poultry that passed H5N1 to Chem – a “gentle, quiet” person who loved reading and playing with her nieces and nephews – according to interviews with her family, local officials and epidemiologists.

The 21-year-old, who was also a keen cook, lived with her sister’s family in Dang Tong district in southern Cambodia, some 80 miles south of the capital Phnom Penh and close to the border with Vietnam.

In early November, ducks and chickens in Chem’s village suddenly started to drop dead. Unaware it was bird flu which killed them, eight of the families which lost poultry shared the carcuses with their neighbours to eat.

“They did not inform us about the deaths because it seemed normal to them,” said Ney Norn, a village leader. “They have not heard about [bird flu] for so long and do not pay attention to this disease, so they eat them.”
‘Heavily exposed to the virus’

Among those affected were Chem’s neighbours. While they buried the smaller birds, they kept and shared the larger chickens for food because they “did not want to waste them”, according to Chem’s brother-in-law, Mr Reth.

He’s not exactly sure when – Mr Reth and his wife often work in the capital Phnom Penh – but Chem was given, cooked and ate one of these chickens. Soon, she fell sick.

Initially, Mr Reth didn’t think much of it; Chem had a history of underlying respiratory issues. Usually “she got medicines and recovered quickly… but this time it was different”.

According to a WHO situation report, the 21-year-old developed symptoms including a cough, fever and shortness of breath on November 19. She was sent to hospital in the capital four days later as her condition deteriorated. There, she tested positive for H5N1.

“It is likely that she was heavily, heavily exposed to the virus,” said Professor Munir Iqbal, head of the Avian Influenza Virus group at the Pirbright Institute in the UK, who’s team sequence human samples from across the globe. “People are regularly exposed to H5N1, but cases where people become sick are still rare. Viral load is a significant factor.”

A public health awareness poster offers advice on hygiene - Mech Dara

Across the globe, 882 people have contracted H5N1 avian influenza since 2003, including 461 who died. For the last few years, human infections have actually been relatively limited – 2023 has seen the highest toll since 2016, though the total remains far lower than the 145 cases detected in 2015, a record high.

But for Chem’s family, the diagnosis was a shock.

“We had very difficult feeling and did not expect this disease because it has never happen in this area,” said Mr Reth.

“[Chem had] hesitated to go to hospital [because] she was afraid of needles… but then [when she arrived] the doctor told us that it is a very helpless situation, because the virus has eaten a large part of [the] anatomy of lungs. He [said he] would try his best to treat her [and] we spend everything to treat her.

“But since we arrive at the hospital, doctors could not help her. She died like we all fall asleep,” Mr Reth added. “We miss her … I am full of regret about losing [my sister-in-law].”

Chem was not the only person to catch the pathogen in the village; surveillance teams deployed after her positive test result found a four-year-old also infected. On November 25 the toddler – who had a fever, cough and rash – was sent to an isolated hospital ward for treatment.

Sim Han, the village chief, said the child’s family – who lived close to Chem – had been nervous about eating the sick poultry.

“But the kid was infected because after the mother had buried the chicken, the kid went to dig it up and played with it,” Mr Han said. “When the team asked the family, firstly they tried to hide it. But since the kid was also [in a] serious condition, they confessed it.”

The toddler is recovering, but the village is scarred.

“Now no one dares to eat [sick poultry], and they only bury or burn them,” said Mr Han.

So far in Cambodia this year, despite a major scare in February, there have been no signs of human to human transmission. Instead, experts say these cases and deaths reiterate the need to focus on public education – especially in rural regions and backyard farms.

“The cases all had contact with infected birds,” said Dr Purevsuren. “It shows the importance of biosecurity on commercial farms but also in backyard chickens.”

In Chem’s village, leaders said public awareness campaigns had taken place. But they have limits in rural Cambodia, where poultry is critical for both income and sustenance – culling initiatives can hit households hard.

“Often in our country when chickens get sick, [people] cook and eat them and it is fine,” said Toek Chat, a local police chief. “So some of our people are not worried about this… they [are] hesitant to cooperate with us to eliminate their chicken. It is very difficult for our people, because they do not want to kill their chickens.”

Since the village confirmed cases, though, there has been little opposition. Local health officials have sprayed disinfectant across the area, burned and buried hundreds of birds, and launched a renewed public health education campaign.

Others said the rapid detection and response also shows the surveillance system is working.

“We do not know why there is an increase in cases,” said Dr Filip Claes, a member of the Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases at the Food and Agriculture Organization, based in Bangkok.

“But it still happens around the major festivals in Cambodia, a time where we know the exposure to poultry increases,” he told the Telegraph. “Detection [and] surveillance systems [may] now be better at picking up cases.”

Across the globe, there have been concerns this year that the enormous recent outbreak in wild birds and poultry could provide new opportunities for the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain to mutate to better infect humans - especially because mammals from elephant seals in the Antarctic to mink in Spain have died.

But in Cambodia, it is a slightly older strain of H5N1 that has been circulating, said Prof Iqbal. And so far, analysis has picked up no signs that the virus has shifted to become more transmissible in humans.

“Current evidence does not show that the virus can infect humans, in Cambodia or elsewhere,” he said.

“But tomorrow? You never know, the virus may change. Which is why we have to report these cases and analyse these cases closely.”