Wednesday, September 02, 2020

South Africa: Streets of Standerton strewn with rubbish as municipal workers strike for PPE

SOUTH AFRICA / STRIKES - 09/01/2020

Residents of the South African town of Standerton saw waste piling up on their streets as municipal utility workers went on strike over inadequate pay and a lack of personal protective equipment. Photos and videos posted online show the shocking scene of a main street in Standerton covered in hundreds of bags of uncollected rubbish. Videos went viral on social networks showing residents dumping their rubbish in front of a local municipal building on August 23 as they protested the ongoing strike.

Standerton is the seat of the Lekwa Local Municipality, a district in eastern South Africa. The office of the municipality in Standerton is the site of intermittent unrest as well as a dumpsite for residents angry at the lapse in public services.

Because the local @MYANC municipality is in shambles, trash has not been collected for four months in addition to lack of power, water and other basic services, people decided to dump in town! A letter was sent to @CyrilRamaphosa on this but we know nothing is gonna happen! pic.twitter.com/OrslhhYg7m
Mthandeni (@Mtimande_N) August 23, 2020

Local residents are seen dumping rubbish bags into the street in a video posted to Twitter on August 23.

Standerton...my hometown. Words fail me 💔💔💔😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/Y9MhQp3zmp
Sakina Kamwendo (@SakinaKamwendo) August 25, 2020

A video posted on Twitter on August 25 shows the extent of the rubbish in front of the Lekwa Local Municipality building.

‘It was shocking’

South African broadcaster Newzroom Afrika reporter Mweli Masilela saw the streets filled with trash when he visited Standerton:

It was shocking. All the people that I’ve spoken to said that this was the first time ever they’ve seen that area in that state. And even myself, I’ve never seen that area in that position.

Standerton public utility workers from the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) went on strike on August 4. Their complaints included a lack of personal protective equipment (PPE), inadequate pay and dangerous working conditions. After a month of striking, SAMWU Workers apologised to the public for the lack of services but said they will not return to work until their demands, including a pay raise of 6.25 percent, are met.

Standerton Chronicle

about a week ago

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN... EMPLOYEES WANT TO WORK

Municipal workers reckon they are not on strike, they are ready to work, according to them they just need the correct PPE, tools, and spares.

It was added that the Lekwa management is rather the ones that are on strike by not doing their jobs.

In photos posted on Facebook August 25, signs describe municipal workers complaints and demands.

Standerton Advertiser

on Tuesday

Small group of protesters burn tyres

The newspaper was greeted with 'Ons gaan nie opgee nie'.

The main municipal building is once again the target.

Photos posted on Facebook on September 1 show municipal workers burning tyres in protest outside the Lekwa municipal building.

Masilela explained:

The municipal workers asked the manager at the Lekwa municipality to step down because of allegations of corruption [Editor’s note: the Lekwa municipality has been accused of spending money on cars and private bodyguards while public infrastructure deteriorates]. They believe that the people at the municipality are compromising their safety because they end up not being able to do the right thing in terms of providing personal protective equipment.

Amid South Africa’s battle with Covid-19, local residents also fear the health risks of waste piling up. As municipal workers continue to strike, the rubbish has been cleaned up sporadically by a local group funded by private citizens, known as the Lekwa Clean Up Crew.

Masilela said that when he visited Standerton last week, the streets were mostly cleared.

During this time you expect that we must try by all means to be clean. So if there’s trash all over, it worsens the situation. I think that is why community members decided that they should do something themselves.

LCUC STILL FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF STANDERTON

On 31 August, the Lekwa Clean Up Crew (LCUC) is still hard at work despite the turbulent times in Standerton.

They do refuse removal, repair potholes and replant stop signs.

Photos posted on Facebook on August 31 show the Lekwa Clean Up Crew.

Public service failures

In addition to a growing waste problem, Standerton residents have been dealing with intermittent power shutoffs and poor water quality. Locals say that public services have been intermittent since South Africa began its Covid-19 lockdown on March 26, which came with an increase in electricity consumption in homes.

Electric utilities are paid to the municipality by residents. The municipality then pays Eskom, the South African public electricity provider. The Lekwa Local Municipality owes over 1 billion rands (€50 million) to Eskom, and the company charges upwards of 5 percent interest. Intermittent power outages are used to avoid a total blackout while the municipality remains in debt, the mayor said. However, these outages affect other utility services including water pumps and treatment plants.

‘There’s no meat in stock anymore because it ends up rotting in the fridge’

Masilela explained the effect on local residents and businesses:

They'll go for about eight hours without electricity, which is very problematic because there are some old-age homes, so those people end up not being able to prepare food during the pandemic. Many businesses had to close because of this electricity situation. Some have actually resorted to alternative sources of power, like solar and generators, which is very costly. Without electricity, it's difficult to run a business. For butchers, there’s no meat in stock anymore because it ends up rotting in the fridge.

This isn’t the first time that Lekwa’s debt to Eskom has caused harmful outages. Last year, Eskom penalties against the municipality resulted in raw sewage being polluted into the Vaal River, an important local water source

On August 31, a judge ordered Eskom to restore essential electricity service to Lekwa residents. Meanwhile, Lekwa Municipal Manager Gugulethu Mhlongo-Ntshangase has been charged with failing to provide adequate services to the public.

This article was written by Pariesa Young.

Khmer Rouge prison commander 'Comrade Duch' dies at 77 in Cambodia

Issued on: 02/09/2020

Former Khmer Rouge S-21 prison chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, stands in a courtroom during a pre-trial in Phnom Penh, Dec. 5, 2008. © REUTERS/Tang Chhinsothy/Pool (CAMBODIA)/File Photo

Text by:NEWS WIRES|

Video by:Andrew HILLIAR

The Khmer Rouge commander known as 'Comrade Duch', Pol Pot's premier executioner and security chief who oversaw the mass murder of at least 14,000 Cambodians at the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, died on Wednesday. He was 77.

Kaing Guek Eav or 'Comrade Duch' was the first member of the Khmer Rouge leadership to face trial for his role within a regime blamed for at least 1.7 million deaths in the "killing fields" of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.

Duch died at 00:52 a.m. (1752 GMT on Tuesday) at the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital in Phnom Penh, Khmer Rouge tribunal spokesman Neth Pheaktra said. He gave no details of the cause, but Duch had been ill in recent years.

In 2010, a U.N. tribunal found him guilty of mass murder, torture and crimes against humanity at Tuol Sleng prison, the former Phnom Penh high school which still stands as a memorial to the atrocities committed inside.

He was given a life sentence two years later after his appeal that he was just a junior official following orders was rejected. Duch - by the time of his trial a born-again Christian - expressed regret for his crimes.

Under Duch's leadership, detainees at Tuol Sleng prison, codenamed "S-21", were ordered to suppress cries of agony as Khmer Rouge guards, many of whom were teenagers, sought to extract confessions for non-existent crimes through torture.

The guards were instructed to "smash to bits" traitors and counter-revolutionaries. For the Khmer Rouge, that could mean anyone from school teachers to children, to pregnant women and "intellectuals" identified as such for wearing glasses.

Beneath Tuol Sleng's chaotic facade, Duch - himself a former maths teacher - had an obsessive eye for detail and kept his school-turned-jail meticulously organised.

"Nothing in the former schoolhouse took place without Duch's approval. His control was total," wrote photographer and author Nic Dunlop, who found Duch in 1999 hiding near the Thai border, two decades after the Khmer Rouge fell.

"Not until you walk through the empty corridors of Tuol Sleng does Stalin's idiom that one death is a tragedy - a million a statistic, take on a terrifying potency," Dunlop wrote in his account of Duch and his atrocities, "The Lost Executioner".

At S-21, new prisoners had their mugshots taken. Hundreds are now on display within its crumbling walls.

Norng Chan Phal, one of the few people to have survived S-21, was a boy when he and his parents were sent to Duch's prison and interrogated on suspicion of having links to the Khmer Rouge's mortal enemy, Vietnam.

His parents were tortured and killed but Chan Phal survived to give testimony at Duch's trial in 2010.

"He was cooperative, he spoke to the court frankly. He apologised to all S-21 victims and asked them to open their hearts. He apologised to me too," Chan Phal told Reuters.

"He apologised. But justice is not complete".

(REUTERS)

Who were the Khmer Rouge?

Issued on: 02/09/2020

Khmer Rouge torturer Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch during his trial in Phnom Penh in 2008 Mak Remissa POOL/AFP/File

Phnom Penh (AFP)

The Khmer Rouge's interrogator-in-chief Kaing Guek Eav, better known by his alias Duch, died Wednesday in Cambodia's capital at the age of 77.

The former teacher ran a notorious prison for the regime, overseeing the deaths of some 15,000 people -- a fraction of the estimated two million who died.

Here's what we know about the Khmer Rouge.

- Who were they? -

The ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 under the leadership of "Brother Number One" Pol Pot -- a charismatic intellectual who studied in France.

Today Pol Pot's name is synonymous with terror and genocide, and his bid to create an agrarian utopia is blamed for the deaths of some two million Cambodians.

The movement started in the northeastern jungles of the kingdom, where Pol Pot recruited supporters and waged guerilla warfare against the repressive governments of Cambodia of the time.

CAMBODIA WAS RULED BY PRINCE SIHANOUK SUPPORTED BY CHINA

On April 17, 1975, Khmer Rouge troops marched into Phnom Penh, toppling the dictatorship of General Lon Nol -- who had staged a coup against then-Prince Norodom Sihanouk.

Millions of Phnom Penh residents were evacuated to the countryside, separating families into communes across the country.

- What did they do? -

The Khmer Rouge demanded unquestioning loyalty to "Angkar" -- which translates to "the organisation" in Khmer, and any ties to family or friends deemed "impure" was dangerous.

Even Cambodians' deep religious devotion to Buddhism was regarded with suspicion by cadres, who defrocked monks and defaced temples across the kingdom.

In the name of Angkar, Cambodians were forced to toil in rice fields under extreme conditions, work in factories and oversee the mass executions of those considered "impure".

Intellectuals, former civil servants and members of the police and armed forces often fell into this category, while ethnic minorities -- including Vietnamese and Cham Muslims -- were also systematically targeted.

Towards the end of the regime, the Khmer Rouge devoured its own with repeated purges -- driven by paranoia from the leadership that the revolution's enemies were hidden within.

- Who supported them? -

The regime's biggest backer was China, who pledged a billion dollars in aid to Pol Pot, according to Sebastian Strangio, author of "In the Dragon's Shadow" and "Hun Sen's Cambodia".

The US also indirectly helped to bolster the ranks of the Khmer Rouge, as carpet-bombings in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos bred resentment among locals against the Western superpower.

After the Khmer Rouge was ousted by Vietnamese-backed troops in 1979 it received some backing from the US, which saw them as a check on communist Hanoi.

- What was the role of now-premier Hun Sen? -

Asia's longest-serving leader Hun Sen rose through the ranks of the Khmer Rouge to become battalion commander before fleeing the country for Vietnam in 1977 to escape one of the many internal purges.

Local history books play down the role he played during the Khmer Rouge's rule, but credit him with leading Vietnamese troops into the country to oust Pol Pot from power in January 1979.

Attempts to investigate the role of other individuals has been restricted by the current government, which contains several former Khmer Rouge members.

Hun Sen has said he wanted a UN-backed tribunal to only investigate the regime's top echelon.

- What justice has there been -

Launched in 2006, the tribunal -- which costs hundreds of millions of dollars -- has so far convicted just three people.

Duch was the first member of the Khmer Rouge to face judgement and his testimony revealed aspects of the secretive regime that was never known to the public.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2012.

The other two convicted were Nuon Chea, "Brother Number Two" and chief ideologue of the regime -- who died last year -- and Khieu Samphan, the former head of state who served as the Khmer Rouge's public face to the world.

Critics have castigated interference by the government and the pace of proceedings.

Judicial processes are "complex, politicised, and in many ways doomed to fail", said Robert Carmichael, author of "When The Clouds Fell From the Sky", which chronicles Duch's trial.

But his trial and conviction "were viewed as beneficial" because of the details revealed about regime, he told AFP.

© 2020 AFP

Protests after LA police fatally shoot Black man stopped for riding bicycle
Issued on: 02/09/2020

Sheila Jackson (2nd L), aunt of Dijon Kizzee, speaks against the shooting of Dijon Kizzee by Los Angeles sheriff's deputies, in Los Angeles, California, U.S., September 1, 2020. © REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon

Text by: NEWS WIRES

Protesters demanded answers on Tuesday as they gathered in a south Los Angeles neighbourhood where sheriff's deputies shot and killed a black man during a violent confrontation the previous day.

The man, identified as 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee, was riding his bicycle when deputies tried to stop him for a code violation, according to the sheriff's department.

Kizzee ran away and when deputies caught up to him, he punched one of them in the face while dropping a bundle of clothing he was carrying, authorities said.

"The deputies noticed that inside the clothing items that he dropped was a black semiautomatic handgun, at which time a deputy-involved shooting occurred," Lieutenant Brandon Dean, of the LA County Sheriff's Department, told reporters.

Dean said it was unclear which vehicle code Kizzee allegedly violated.

Soon after the deadly confrontation, more than 100 people gathered at the scene demanding answers.

A small crowd gathered again Tuesday evening at the site of the shooting and peacefully marched, along with a caravan of cars, to the sheriff's station nearby as a police helicopter hovered overhead.

Some of the protesters carried a banner that read "Stop Killer Cops."

The shooting came as protests against police violence and racism have roiled the country in recent months following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

Civil right attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Kizzee's family, said he was shot more than 20 times and urged witnesses on Twitter to contact him with any information.

"They say he ran, dropped clothes and handgun," Crump, who is also representing Floyd's family, said in a tweet. "He didn't pick it up, but cops shot him in the back 20+ times then left him for hours."

Deja, a woman who witnessed the shooting told AFP that she yelled "don't shoot him, don't shoot him" as the deputies tried to stop Kizzee.

'We are tired'

"They were trying to grab and take his stuff away from him and then finally when it failed, he turned around to run and they tased him in the back of his leg," said Deja, who would only give her first name. "He turned around and then they shot him."

Deja said she didn't see Kizzee holding a gun and added that deputies handcuffed him after the shooting. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Kizzee's aunt Fletcher Fair told reporters she believes her nephew's race was a factor in the shooting.

"They (police) don't kill any other race but us and this don't make any sense," she told a press conference.

"Why us? You have Asians ... Hispanics even don't get killed as much as we do. It's just us and we're tired," she said.

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Sheriff Alex Villanueva offered his sympathy to the family, saying a member of his own department is one of Kizzee's cousins.

Last week, police in Kenosha, Wisconsin also shot a black man -- Jacob Blake -- in front of his three young sons and left him paralysed following an altercation.

The shooting prompted demonstrations in several cities and led to violent clashes in Kenosha that left two people dead.

President Donald Trump visited the city on Tuesday despite pleas to stay away and claims he is dangerously fanning tensions as a re-election ploy.

(AFP)

Trump visits Kenosha, calls protests for racial justice 'domestic terror'

Issued on: 02/09/2020 -

Text by:NEWS WIRES

President Donald Trump Tuesday took his tough law and order message to Kenosha, the latest US city roiled by the police shooting of a black man, as he branded recent anti-racism protests there as "domestic terror" by violent mobs.

Trump has been hoping for months to shift the election battle against Democrat Joe Biden from a verdict on his widely panned handling of the coronavirus pandemic to what he sees as far more comfortable territory of law and order.

And in the Wisconsin city of Kenosha, in upheaval since a white police officer shot 29-year-old African American Jacob Blake in front of his three young sons, the Republican found his mark.

EN NW GRAB DAVID SMITH FROM 6H Q2
87000

"These are not acts of peaceful protest but really domestic terror," Trump said after touring damage in the city, describing multiple nights of angry demonstrations last week that left two people dead.

Crowds lined the barricaded streets where the president's motorcade passed, with Trump supporters on one side and Black Lives Matter protesters on the other, yelling at one another from a distance and in sometimes tense face-to-face encounters.

"Thank you for saving our town," read the sign of one supporter along the road. "Not my president," read another.

Under heavy security that blocked off the road, Trump visited a burned out store where he told the owners "we'll help you rebuild."

"These gentlemen did a fantastic job," he said, in reference to law enforcement units that quelled the violent protests.

"This is a great area, a great state," Trump said, adding later that his administration was committing at least $47 million to Wisconsin law enforcement, small businesses and public safety programs.

"We'll get Kenosha back in shape," he said.

Trump suggested in Washington that a meeting with the Blake family was possible during his high-profile trip but it did not materialize.

'They choke'

A microcosm of the racial and ideological tensions of the Trump era, Kenosha has seen Black Lives Matter protests, riots, and the arrival of armed, white vigilantes, culminating in an incident in which a 17-year-old militia enthusiast, Kyle Rittenhouse, allegedly shot dead two people and badly injured another.

Democrats and police reform advocates view Kenosha as a symbol of institutional racism.

They see Rittenhouse, a Trump supporter, as emblematic of right-wing militias that are increasingly brazen about brandishing weaponry in political settings.

Trump, however, came with a different priority: countering what he has repeatedly described as the "anarchy" in Democratic-led cities.

Trump has refused to condemn the growing presence of armed vigilantes on the streets, calling the alleged killings by Rittenhouse "an interesting situation."

"We have to condemn the dangerous anti-police rhetoric," he said at a command center set up in a Kenosha high school.

In an interview Monday Trump likened police officers who err when making split decisions to golfers who "choke" under pressure.

"Shooting the guy in the back many times. I mean, couldn't you have done something different?" he said. "But they choke. Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot putt."

Fanning 'flames'

Wisconsin's governor and Kenosha's mayor, both Democrats, had urged Trump not to visit but he ignored their pleas -- and Biden has accused him of deliberately fomenting violence for political gain.

"We need a president who will lower the temperature and bring the country together -- not one who raises it and tears us further apart," Biden tweeted as the president flew into Kenosha.

Trump for his part accuses Biden of weakness in addressing violent protests in cities like Kenosha and Portland, seeking to paint the Democrat as incapable of controlling the party's left wing

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Trump's visit came as new protests were planned in Los Angeles following the fatal shooting by sheriff's deputies of a black man, identified as 29-year-old Dijon Kizzee, after a violent altercation.

Last week's unrest in Kenosha rekindled a months-long surge of protest against police violence and racism, unleashed by the death of an unarmed African American, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis.

But watching from her front porch as police closed nearby streets in Kenosha, resident Nicole Populorum took issue with Trump's statement that he saved her city from burning down by deploying the National Guard.

"The community came together, so for him to say if it wasn't for him there would be no Kenosha is ignorant and insulting," Populorum said.

(AFP)

A bit rich: Business groups want urgent climate action after resisting it for 30 years

by Marc Hudson, The Conversation

Australia has seen the latest extraordinary twist in its climate soap opera. An alliance of business and environment groups declared the nation is "woefully unprepared" for climate change and urgent action is needed.

And yesterday, Australian Industry Group—one of the alliance members – called on the federal government to spend at least A$3.3 billion on renewable energy over the next decade.

The alliance, known as the Australian Climate Roundtable, formed in 2015. It comprises ten business and environmental bodies, including the Business Council of Australia, National Farmers Federation and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).

Last week, the group stated: "There is no systemic government response (federal, state and local) to build resilience to climate risks. Action is piecemeal; uncoordinated; does not engage business, private sector investment, unions, workers in affected industries, community sector and communities; and does not match the scale of the threat climate change represents to the Australian economy, environment and society."

This is ironic, since many of the statement's signatories spent decades fiercely resisting moves towards sane climate policy. Let's look back at a few pivotal moments.

Preventing an early carbon tax

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) was a leading player against the Hawke Government's Ecologically Sustainable Development process, which was initiated to get green groups "in the tent" on environmental policy. The BCA also fought to prevent then environment minister Ros Kelly bring in a carbon tax—one of the ways Australia could have moved to its goal of 20% carbon dioxide reduction by 2005.

And the BCA, alongside the Australian Mining Industry Council (now known as the Minerals Council of Australia), was a main driver in setting up the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network (AIGN).

Don't let the name fool you—the network co-ordinated the fossil fuel extraction sector and other groups determined to scupper strong climate and energy policy. It made sure Australia made neither strong international commitments to emissions reductions nor passed domestic legislation which would affect the profitable status quo.

Its first major victory was to destroy and prevent a modest carbon tax in 1994-95, proposed by Keating Government environment minister John Faulkner. Profits from the tax would have funded research and development of renewable energy.

Questionable funding and support

The Australian Aluminum Council is also in the roundtable. This organization used to be the most militant of the "greenhouse mafia"organizations—as dubbed in a 2006 ABC Four Corners investigation.

The council funded and promoted the work of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), whose "MEGABARE" economic model was, at the time, used to generate reports which were a go-to for Liberal and National Party politicians wanting to argue climate action would spell economic catastrophe.

In 1997, the Australian Conservation Foundation (another member of the climate roundtable) complained to the federal parliamentary Ombudsman about fossil fuel groups funding ABARE, saying this gave organizations such as Shell Australia a seat on its board. The ensuing Ombudsman's report in 1998 largely backed these complaints. ABARE agreed with or considered many of the Ombudsman's recommendations.

Meanwhile, Australian Industry Group was part of the concerted opposition to the Rudd government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. In response to the July 2008 Green Paper on emissions trading, it complained: "businesses accounting for well over 10% of national production and around 1 million jobs will be affected by significant cost increases."

Australian economist Ross Garnaut was among many at the time to lambast this complaint, calling it "pervasive vested-interest pressure on the policy process."

Back in July 2014, the Business Council of Australia and Innes Willox (head of the Australian Industry Group) both welcomed the outcome of then prime minister Tony Abbott's policy vandalism: the repeal of the Gillard government's carbon price. The policy wasn't perfect, but it was an important step in the right direction.

In doing so, Australia squandered the opportunity to become a renewable energy superpower. With its solar, wind and geothermal resources, its scientists and technology base, Australia could have been world-beaters and world-savers. Now, it's just a quarry with a palpable end of its customer base for thermal coal.

What is to be done?

Given the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the global pandemic and the devastating fires of Black Summer, it would be forgivable to despair.

It shouldn't have been the case that business groups only acted when the problem became undeniable and started to affect profits.

Somehow we must recapture the energy, determination and even the optimism of the period from 2006 to 2008 when it seemed Australia "got" climate change and the need to take rapid and radical action.

This time, we must do it better. Decision-makers should not look solely to the business sector for guidance on climate policy—the community, and the broader public good, should be at the center.

Australia's farmers want more climate action, and they're starting in their own (huge) backyards

Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Rubber debris litters miles of Puyallup River after artificial turf was used in dam project without permit

by Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times

In black waves, drifts and bands, crumbs of rubber are polluting miles of the Puyallup River after a spill at a dam project last month.

Rubber debris already is likely more than 40 miles downriver in Puget Sound. The pollution is the result of unpermitted use of thousands of yards of artificial turf by the dam's owners while reconstructing parts of the dam.

The Puyallup Tribe was first alerted to the spill by a social media post put up July 31 by Derek Van Giesen, a former employee of Electron Hydro, an owner of the Electron Hydropower Project. He walked off the job over the installation of the turf liner and a large fish kill at the dam that took place the same day of the spill, which occurred overnight on July 29.

Van Giesen said the turf came from a pile stored on the property of a neighboring rock quarry. The pile is at least one story high and as long as a football field.

The company did not inform regulators of the pollution discharge until Aug. 4, according to a consultant's report on the spill prepared for Electron Hydro. A stop-work order was imposed on the company's construction project Aug. 7 by Pierce County and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

From the stop order: "The use of astro-turf in a river system where it can break down and discharge potential toxins into the water is not considered a suitable material."

The question now is how to clean up the mess, just weeks before adult chinook salmon listed for protection under the federal Endangered Species Act are expected to arrive on their homeward journey.

According to the consultant's report, the company, as part of its work on a bypass channel at the dam, placed 2,409 square yards of FieldTurf on the channel between July 20 and 27. The turf was intended to function as an underlayment for a plastic liner put on top of it. The company then diverted the river into the bypass channel to create a dry area to continue ongoing work at its dam.

The night of July 29, the diverted river—well known for its rock-chucking high flows—ripped pieces of the liner and turf loose, sending hunks of artificial turf and a torrent of loose black crumb rubber downriver.

The consultant, Shane Cherry of Shane Cherry Consulting of Fort Myers, Florida, estimated that at least 617 square yards of the artificial turf was ruptured by the river; about 1,792 square yards remain in place under the liner.

At least 4 to 6 cubic yards of crumb rubber—each piece about the size of a fat coffee ground—was released to the river, in the pristine upper reaches of the Puyallup, about 6 miles from the boundary with Mount Rainier National Park.

The consultant estimated the rate of travel in the water at 2 mph. The rubber probably reached Orting within nine hours, and Tacoma and Commencement Bay within 20 hours. The river would have deposited crumb rubber all along the way, a distance of some 40 miles, in channel margins, in deep pools, in coves and river bends, and continued redistributing it ever since.

On a visit to the river Thursday with The Seattle Times, Sylvia Miller, vice chairwoman of the Puyallup Tribal council, said she was sick at heart because of the spill.

"I feel anger, so much anger," Miller said. "It hurts to see how much damage they are doing to our lands and waters, everyone's lands and waters."

Everywhere he looked for it along the river, Russ Ladley, resource protection manager for the Puyallup Tribe, saw crumbs of black rubber. Immediately downstream of the dam, it lay in streaks of black on the beach. Fourteen miles down river, there it was again, in black nubby necklaces around rocks, in bands along the shore, in heaps on the river's sandy bank.

Lisa Anderson, tribal attorney, shook her head and grimaced at the mess. The company should not be permitted to resume its work on its project and must instead clean up the river, Anderson said.

Chris Spens, director of regulatory and environmental affairs for Tollhouse Energy Company in Bellingham, which owns the dam with Electron Hydro LLC, said in an email to The Seattle Times that the company is cooperating with the Corps, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), Pierce County and the state Department of Ecology to clean up the spill and do restoration and mitigation work.

The dam, formerly owned by Puget Sound Energy, is 116 years old and produces electricity for about 20,000 homes. Reconstruction at the dam is intended, along with screens and other equipment, to prevent fish and sediment from entering the flume, used to deliver water for the project.

"Electron is committed to providing clean energy and restoring Puyallup River fisheries," Spens wrote, and the company will deal with the spill before continuing work on the dam, he added.

Van Giesen in his social media post showed the placement of the artificial turf in a video in which he kicked drifts of black crumb rubber with his shoe to show the volume of rubber debris. "This is not sand," he said as he took video.

"Millions of tiny rubber beads ... all washed down the river and are polluting my lifelong fishing holes. What is on video here is just a small portion of the spill ...

"All the rubber is actually inside the astro turf ... and spills out when moved."

Van Giesen said in an interview he put up the post because as a lifelong fisherman who grew up along the Puyallup, he was disgusted by what he saw. "I just quit. I knew it was not the right place for me. I don't know how you clean it up, the damage is done and will probably continue past when I am on my deathbed," he said.

He said he knew the spill would happen. "Even I know the water table is right underneath the liner, and I'm just an average Joe," he said.

Before the river tore hunks of the turf away, walking on the liner "was like walking on a waterbed," VanGiesen said.

This was not the first trouble at Electron Dam.

Fish and Wildlife reported a fish kill on the river the same day, as Electron Hydro dewatered a stretch of the river during routine maintenance at its dam, causing what the department described as "a large fish kill, resulting in the loss of ESA-listed species, including Chinook, and bull trout, along with coho, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, and sculpin."

Electron Hydro crews had neither the proper equipment nor used proper techniques during the dewatering procedure, resulting in fish being killed by high temperatures and lack of oxygen, according to the on-scene report written by Tara Livingood-Schott, a WDFW biologist. She was on hand to assist with fish sampling and counting.

The work became dangerous for the crew, too, as two of them sank in mud up to their waists, she reported.

Canada geese and eagles feasted on stranded fish as all attention was shifted from rescuing the fish in the dewatering channel to rescuing the workers. "The situation was becoming increasingly urgent to free the two, as they were sinking slowly by the minute," she wrote.

"It took around 45 minutes to free the individuals from the mud and during this time no fish recoveries took place as flows continued to drop, stranding more and more fish."

The total number of fish lost was unknown, she reported, "but my best educated guess would be in the thousands," including unauthorized lethal take of ESA-listed fall chinook, winter steelhead and bull trout in all life stages.

For Bill Sterud, chairman of the Puyallup Tribe, the rubber spill is personally painful.

"To me, my church is the river. It is the sound. It is the mountain. It is the forest. And when I see this degrading take place it affects me internally. It hurts."

To him this latest event is nothing new in the history of a dam the tribe never wanted.

"It will always be a fish killer. It should ultimately be taken down. We are going to do our best at the tribe to make that happen. That is my goal and my hope of what we should strive for. It's a new era," he said. "Fish are important. Clean water is important ... we have one mother Earth and it is being degraded as we speak."

The Puyallup originates in glaciers along the slopes of Mount Rainier in the Cascades. It flows about 65 miles to Commencement Bay and forms the third largest tributary to Puget Sound.

The river flows through the reservation of the Puyallup Tribe, which has fished and lived along its waters since time immemorial. The river is home to eight ocean-migrating fish populations, including chinook, coho, chum, pink and sockeye salmon, steelhead trout, bull trout and sea-run cutthroat trout.

Historically the river supported as many as 42,000 chinook. The run is greatly diminished today to a little more than 1,000 fish and was listed for protection in 1999 under the ESA.

Chinook from the river are critical to endangered southern resident killer whales, which primarily feed on chinook.

The Electron dam, about 42 miles southeast of Seattle in Pierce County, is a 10-foot-high wooden dam, about 200 feet long, that diverts water into a 10-mile-long wooden flume conveying water to the dam's powerhouse.

Fish regularly are entrapped and killed at the dam, long a problem known to regulators.

Replacement of the old dam with new equipment is intended to address the problems with a dam, identified in a 2005 watershed analysis as "the most serious single threat to Chinook salmon in the watershed area," according a letter written by federal regulators back when the dam was owned by Puget Sound Energy.

PSE sold the dam to Electron in 2014, but still sells electricity from the project.

Washington dam removal means 37 more miles of salmon habitat restored

U.S. will agree to remove plutonium waste from South Carolina

by Jennifer A. Dlouhy and Ari Natter, Bloomberg News

The Trump administration is settling a long-running dispute with South Carolina over cleaning up weapons-grade plutonium stashed in the state.

The agreement is set to be announced Monday by Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, said two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the deal hasn't been formally unveiled.

Under the terms of the deal, the government will make an up-front payment to the state. In return, South Carolina will agree for several years not to pursue additional litigation on the matter. It wasn't immediately clear how much the U.S. will be paying South Carolina under the deal, but it was described by the people as significant and the largest single settlement in the state's history.

The development comes 17 years after the federal government first committed to clean up more than 11 million tons of radioactive material by 2016, or pay the state $100 million in penalties.

At issue is waste plutonium at a Cold War-era nuclear weapons manufacturing site near the Savannah River. The federal government initially planned to build a reprocessing facility and convert 34 metric tons of the material for re-use as fuel in nuclear power plants.

But in 2018, after the government spent years and some $8 billion of taxpayer money constructing the so-called Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, the Trump administration said it was canceling the project because it would be more cost effective to dilute and dispose of the plutonium than to reprocess it.

The settlement comes after a series of lawsuits by South Carolina over the stalled nuclear cleanup. In one suit filed three years ago, Wilson accused the federal government of trying to make South Carolina a "dumping ground" for plutonium.

The U.S. and South Carolina last month asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to stay proceedings until Aug. 31, because they had entered into settlement negotiations.

Under the administration's dilute-and-dispose plan for dealing with the plutonium waste, the radioactive material could ultimately be stored in other states. But it's unclear how many other states would go along with that.

Already, the Energy Department has been forced to backtrack on a plan to put at least 1 metric ton of plutonium in Nevada, after a quiet shipment of some of the material from South Carolina sparked outrage there.

In a legal filing last year, Nevada's attorney general accused the Energy Department of conducting a "secret plutonium smuggling operation" to send the state highly radioactive waste it didn't want. Under a settlement agreement reached between Nevada and the Energy Department in June, the U.S. government committed to remove the 0.5 metric ton of plutonium it put in the state by the end of 2026, and won't ship another batch it had planned to stash there.

Energy Department says it will remove plutonium from Nevada

Can sunlight convert emissions into useful materials?

by Greta Harrison, University of Southern California

Shaama Sharada calls carbon dioxide—the worst offender of global warming—a very stable, "very happy molecule."

She aims to change that.

Recently published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Sharada and a team of researchers at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering seek to break CO2 apart and convert the greenhouse gas into useful materials like fuels or consumer products ranging from pharmaceuticals to polymers.

Typically, this process requires a tremendous amount of energy. However, in the first computational study of its kind, Sharada and her team enlisted a more sustainable ally: the sun.

Specifically, they demonstrated that ultraviolet (UV) light could be very effective in exciting an organic molecule, oligophenylene. Upon exposure to UV, oligophenylene becomes a negatively charged "anion," readily transferring electrons to the nearest molecule, such as CO2—thereby making the CO2 reactive and able to be reduced and converted into things like plastics, drugs or even furniture.

"CO2 is notoriously hard to reduce, which is why it lives for decades in the atmosphere," Sharada said. "But this negatively charged anion is capable of reducing even something as stable as CO2, which is why it's promising and why we are studying it."

The rapidly growing concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere is one of the most urgent issues humanity must address to avoid a climate catastrophe.

Since the start of the industrial age, humans have increased atmospheric CO2 by 45%, through the burning of fossil fuels and other emissions. As a result, average global temperatures are now two degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial era. Thanks to greenhouse gases like CO2, the heat from the sun is remaining trapped in our atmosphere, warming our planet.

The research team from the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science was led by third year Ph.D. student Kareesa Kron, supervised by Sharada, a WISE Gabilan Assistant Professor. The work was co-authored by Samantha J. Gomez from Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School, who has been part of the USC Young Researchers Program, allowing high school students from underrepresented areas to take part in STEM research.

Many research teams are looking at methods to convert CO2 that has been captured from emissions into fuels or carbon-based feedstocks for consumer products ranging from pharmaceuticals to polymers.

The process traditionally uses either heat or electricity along with a catalyst to speed up CO2 conversion into products. However, many of these methods are often energy intensive, which is not ideal for a process aiming to reduce environmental impacts. Using sunlight instead to excite the catalyst molecule is attractive because it is energy efficient and sustainable.

"Most other ways to do this involve using metal-based chemicals, and those metals are rare earth metals," said Sharada. "They can be expensive, they are hard to find and they can potentially be toxic."

Sharada said the alternative is to use carbon-based organic catalysts for carrying out this light-assisted conversion. However, this method presents challenges of its own, which the research team aims to address. The team uses quantum chemistry simulations to understand how electrons move between the catalyst and CO2 to identify the most viable catalysts for this reaction.

Sharada said the work was the first computational study of its kind, in that researchers had not previously examined the underlying mechanism of moving an electron from an organic molecule like oligophenylene to CO2. The team found that they can carry out systematic modifications to the oligophenylene catalyst, by adding groups of atoms that impart specific properties when bonded to molecules, that tend to push electrons towards the center of the catalyst, to speed up the reaction.

Despite the challenges, Sharada is excited about the opportunities for her team.

"One of those challenges is that, yes, they can harness radiation, but very little of it is in the visible region, where you can shine light on it in order for the reaction to occur," said Sharada. "Typically, you need a UV lamp to make it happen."

Sharada said that the team is now exploring catalyst design strategies that not only lead to high reaction rates but also allow for the molecule to be excited by visible light, using both quantum chemistry and genetic algorithms.

The research paper marks high school student Gomez's first co-authored publication in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal.

Gomez was a senior at the Bravo Medical Magnet school at the time she took part in the USC Young Researchers Program over the summer, working in Sharada's lab. She was directly mentored and trained in theory and simulations by Kron. Sharada said Gomez's contributions were so impressive that the team agreed she deserved an authorship on the paper.

Gomez said that she enjoyed the opportunity to work on important research contributing to environmental sustainability. She said her role involved conducting computational research, calculating which structures were able to significantly reduce CO2.

"Traditionally we are shown that research comes from labs where you have to wear lab coats and work with hazardous chemicals," Gomez said. "I enjoyed that every day I was always learning new things about research that I didn't know could be done simply through computer programs."

"The first-hand experience that I gained was simply the best that I could've asked for, since it allowed me to explore my interest in the chemical engineering field and see how there are many ways that life-saving research can be achieved," Gomez said.

New catalyst efficiently turns carbon dioxide into useful fuels and chemicals

More information: Kareesa J. Kron et al, Computational Analysis of Electron Transfer Kinetics for CO2 Reduction with Organic Photoredox Catalysts, The Journal of Physical Chemistry A (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.0c03065

Journal information: Journal of Physical Chemistry A

Provided by University of Southern California

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Wednesday, September 02, 2020

A bit rich: Business groups want urgent climate action after resisting it for 30 years

Rubber debris litters miles of Puyallup River after artificial turf was used in dam project without permit

U.S. will agree to remove plutonium waste from South Carolina

Can sunlight convert emissions into useful materials?

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