Environment – Page 54 – The Tarbabys Blog

Will the West Turn Ukraine into a Nuclear Battlefield?

Resilience – Energy

Will the West Turn Ukraine into a Nuclear Battlefield?

By Joshua Frank, originally published by Tom Dispatch

April 20, 2023

Why Depleted Uranium Should Have No Place There

It’s sure to be a blood-soaked spring in Ukraine. Russia’s winter offensive fell far short of Vladimir Putin’s objectives, leaving little doubt that the West’s conveyor belt of weaponry has aided Ukraine’s defenses. Cease-fire negotiations have never truly begun, while NATO has only strengthened its forces thanks to Finland’s new membership (with Sweden soon likely to follow). Still, tens of thousands of people have perished; whole villages, even cities, have been reduced to rubble; millions of Ukrainians have poured into Poland and elsewhere; while Russia’s brutish invasion rages on with no end in sight.

The hope, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is that the Western allies will continue to furnish money, tanks, missiles, and everything else his battered country needs to fend off Putin’s forces. The war will be won, according to Zelensky, not through backroom compromises but on the battlefield with guns and ammo.

“I appeal to you and the world with these most simple and yet important words,” he said to a joint session of Great Britain’s parliament in February. “Combat aircraft for Ukraine, wings for freedom.”

The United Kingdom, which has committed well over $2 billion in assistance to Ukraine, has so far refused to ship fighter jets there but has promised to supply more weaponry, including tank shells made with depleted uranium (DU), also known as “radioactive bullets.” A by-product of uranium enrichment, DU is a very dense and radioactive metal that, when housed in small torpedo-like munitions, can pierce thickly armored tanks and other vehicles.

Reacting to the British announcement, Putin ominously said he would “respond accordingly” if the Ukrainians begin blasting off rounds of DU.

While the UK’s decision to send depleted-uranium shells to Ukraine is unlikely to prove a turning point in the war’s outcome, it will have a lasting, potentially devastating, impact on soldiers, civilians, and the environment. The controversial deployment of DU doesn’t pose faintly the same risks as the actual nuclear weapons Putin and his associates have hinted they might use someday in Ukraine or as would a potential meltdown at the embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility in that country. Still, its use will certainly help create an even more lethal, all too literally radioactive theater of war — and Ukraine will end up paying a price for it.

The Radioactive Lions of Babylon

Stuart Dyson survived his deployment in the first Gulf War of 1991, where he served as a lance corporal with Britain’s Royal Pioneer Corps. His task in Kuwait was simple enough: he was to help clean up “dirty” tanks after they had seen battle. Many of the machines he spent hours scrubbing down had carried and fired depleted uranium shells used to penetrate and disable Iraq’s T-72 tanks, better known as the Lions of Babylon.

Dyson spent five months in that war zone, ensuring American and British tanks were cleaned, armed, and ready for battle. When the war ended, he returned home, hoping to put his time in the Gulf War behind him. He found a decent job, married, and had children. Yet his health deteriorated rapidly and he came to believe that his military service was to blame. Like so many others who had served in that conflict, Dyson suffered from a mysterious and debilitating illness that came to be known as Gulf War Syndrome.

After Dyson suffered years of peculiar ailments, ranging from headaches to dizziness and muscle tremors, doctors discovered that he had a severe case of colon cancer, which rapidly spread to his spleen and liver. The prognosis was bleak and, after a short battle, his body finally gave up. Stuart Dyson died in 2008 at the age of 39.

His saga is unique, not because he was the only veteran of the first Gulf War to die of such a cancer at a young age, but because his cancer was later recognized in a court of law as having been caused by exposure to depleted uranium. In a landmark 2009 ruling, jurors at the Smethwick Council House in the UK found that Dyson’s cancer had resulted from DU accumulating in his body, and in particular his internal organs.

“My feeling about Mr. Dyson’s colon cancer is that it was produced because he ingested some radioactive material and it became trapped in his intestine,” Professor Christopher Busby, an expert on the effects of uranium on health, said in his court testimony. “To my mind, there seems to be a causal arrow from his exposure to his final illness. It’s certainly much more probable than not that Mr. Dyson’s cancer was caused by exposure to depleted uranium.”

The U.S. Department of Defense estimated that American forces fired more than 860,000 rounds of DU shells during that 1991 war to push Iraqi autocrat Saddam Hussein’s military out of Kuwait. The result: a poisoned battlefield laced with radioactive debris, as well as toxic nerve agents and other chemical agents.

In neighboring southern Iraq, background radiation following that war rose to 30 times normal. Tanks tested after being shelled with DU rounds had readings 50 times higher than average.

“It’s hot forever,” explains Doug Rokke, a former major in the U.S. Army Reserve’s Medical Service Corps who helped decontaminate dozens of vehicles hit by DU shells during the first Gulf War. “It doesn’t go away. It only disperses and blows around in the wind,” he adds. And of course, it wasn’t just soldiers who suffered from DU exposure. In Iraq, evidence has been building that DU, an intense carcinogenic agent, has led to increases in cancer rates for civilians, too.

“When we were moving forward and got north of a minefield, there were a bunch of blown-out tanks that were near where we would set up a command post,” says Jason Peterson, a former American Marine who served in the first Gulf War. “Marines used to climb inside and ‘play’ in them … We barely knew where Kuwait was, let alone the kind of ammunition that was used to blow shit up on that level.”

While it’s difficult to discern exactly what caused the Gulf War Syndrome from which Dyson and so many other soldiers suffered (and continue to suffer), experts like Rokke are convinced that exposure to depleted uranium played a central role in the illness. That’s an assertion Western governments have consistently downplayed. In fact, the Pentagon has repeatedly denied any link between the two.

“I’m a warrior, and warriors want to fulfill their mission,” Rokke, who also suffers from Gulf War Syndrome, told Vanity Fair in 2007. “I went into this wanting to make it work, to work out how to use DU safely, and to show other soldiers how to do so and how to clean it up. This was not science out of a book, but science done by blowing the shit out of tanks and seeing what happens. And as we did this work, slowly it dawned on me that we were screwed. You can’t do this safely in combat conditions. You can’t decontaminate the environment or your own troops.”

Death to Uranium

Depleted uranium can’t produce a nuclear explosion, but it’s still directly linked to the development of atomic weaponry. It’s a by-product of the uranium enrichment process used in nuclear weapons and fuel. DU is alluring to weapons makers because it’s heavier than lead, which means that, if fired at a high velocity, it can rip through the thickest of metals.

That it’s radioactive isn’t what makes it so useful on the battlefield, at least according to its proponents. “It’s so dense and it’s got so much momentum that it just keeps going through the armor — and it heats it up so much that it catches on fire,” says RAND nuclear expert and policy researcher Edward Geist.

The manufacturing of DU dates back to the 1970s in the United States. Today, the American military employs DU rounds in its M1A2 Abrams tanks. Russia has also used DU in its tank-busting shells since at least 1982 and there are plenty of accusations, though as yet no hard evidence, that Russia has already deployed such shells in Ukraine. Over the years, for its part, the U.S. has fired such rounds not just in Kuwait, but also in Bosnia, Iraq, Kosovo, Syria, and Serbia as well.

Both Russia and the U.S. have reasons for using DU, since each has piles of the stuff sitting around with nowhere to put it. Decades of manufacturing nuclear weapons have created a mountain of radioactive waste. In the U.S., more than 500,000 tons of depleted-uranium waste has built up since the Manhattan Project first created atomic weaponry, much of it in Hanford, Washington, the country’s main plutonium production site. As I investigated in my book Atomic Days: The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America, Hanford is now a cesspool of radioactive and chemical waste, representing the most expensive environmental clean-up project in history with an estimated price tag of $677 billion.

Uranium, of course, is what makes the whole enterprise viable: you can’t create atomic bombs or nuclear power without it. The trouble is that uranium itself is radioactive, as it emits alpha particles and gamma rays. That makes mining uranium one of the most dangerous operations on the planet.

Keep It in the Ground

In New Mexico, where uranium mines were primarily worked by Diné (Navajo People), the toll on their health proved gruesome indeed. According to a 2000 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, rates of lung cancer in Navajo men who mined uranium were 28 times higher than in those who never mined uranium. The “Navajo experience with uranium mining,” it added, “is a unique example of exposure in a single occupation accounting for the majority of lung cancers in an entire population.”

Scores of studies have shown a direct correlation between exposure to uranium and kidney disease, birth defects in infants (when mothers were exposed), increased rates of thyroid disease, and several autoimmune diseases. The list is both extensive and horrifying.

“My family had a lot of cancer,” says anti-nuclear activist and Indigenous community organizer Leona Morgan. “My grandmother died of lung cancer and she never smoked. It had to be the uranium.”

One of the largest radioactive accidents, and certainly the least reported, occurred in 1979 on Diné land when a dam broke, flooding the Puerco River near Church Rock, New Mexico, with 94 million gallons of radioactive waste. The incident received virtually no attention at the time. “The water, filled with acids from the milling process, twisted a metal culvert in the Puerco and burned the feet of a little boy who went wading. Sheep keeled over and died, while crops curdled along the banks. The surge of radiation was detected as far away as Sanders, Arizona, fifty miles downstream,” writes Judy Pasternak in her book Yellow Dirt: A Poisoned Land and the Betrayal of the Navajo.

Of course, we’ve known about the dangers of uranium for decades, which makes it all the more mind-boggling to see a renewed push for increased mining of that radioactive ore to generate nuclear power. The only way to ensure that uranium doesn’t poison or kill anyone is to leave it right where it’s always been: in the ground. Sadly, even if you were to do so now, there would still be tons of depleted uranium with nowhere to go. A 2016 estimate put the world’s mountain of DU waste at more than one million tons (each equal to 2,000 pounds).

So why isn’t depleted uranium banned? That’s a question antinuclear activists have been asking for years. It’s often met with government claims that DU isn’t anywhere near as bad as its peacenik critics allege. In fact, the U.S. government has had a tough time even acknowledging that Gulf War Syndrome exists. A Government Accountability Office report released in 2017 found that the Veterans Affairs Department had denied more than 80% of all Gulf War illness claims by veterans. Downplaying DU’s role, in other words, comes with the terrain.

“The use of DU in weapons should be prohibited,” maintains Ray Acheson, an organizer for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and author of Banning the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy. “While some governments argue there is no definitive proof its use in weapons causes harm, it is clear from numerous investigations that its use in munitions in Iraq and other places has caused impacts on the health of civilians as well as military personnel exposed to it, and that it has caused long-term environmental damage, including groundwater contamination. Its use in weapons is arguably in violation of international law, human rights, and environmental protection and should be banned in order to ensure it is not used again.”

If the grisly legacy of the American use of depleted uranium tells us anything, it’s that those DU shells the British are supplying to Ukraine (and the ones the Russians may also be using there) will have a radioactive impact that will linger in that country for years to come, with debilitating, potentially fatal, consequences. It will, in a sense, be part of a global atomic war that shows no sign of ending.

Striking before-and-after satellite photos show the great California snowmelt underway

Los Angeles Times

Striking before-and-after satellite photos show the great California snowmelt underway

Terry Castleman – April 19, 2023

LONE PINE, CA - MARCH 22: The east side of the Sierra Nevada mountain range along HWY 395 on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 in Lone Pine, CA. Flash flooding along the eastern Sierra Nevada a week ago caused an unprecedented breach in the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Los Angeles Aqueduct, as well as other damage. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times) — Cars on Highway 395 along the east side of the Sierra Nevada near Lone Pine, Calif., on March 22, 2023. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

As California’s wet winter has given way to warmer spring weather, the state’s record snowpack has begun to melt.

Though the accumulated snow still measures 249% of normal as of April 18, new satellite photos show that the white blankets enveloping mountains across the state have started to recede.

The Southern Sierra continues to be the standout region, with snow levels on slopes there at more than 300% of normal.

Satellite images seen below from NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System, or EOSDIS, show the snowy Sierra on March 16 (left), and a month later (right).

While the snowpack remains substantial in the more recent image , it has dissipated significantly at lower elevations. The Mendocino Range, seen in the top left of the image, also shows significant snow loss.

In Southern California, the change has been even more dramatic.

The San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains were blanketed in snow on March 24, but by April 8 much of the snow had melted away.

Images below from a European Space Agency satellite captured the snow melt.

While the Southern California snowpacks have caused relatively little flooding as they melt, the snow in the Sierra may be a different story.

Farm equipment stands in floodwater just South of Tulare River Road. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Flood danger could last through the year in the adjacent San Joaquin Valley, officials told the Times. The valley has already endured significant flooding this year, with excessive rains wreaking havoc in small towns and fueling the renaissance of Tulare Lake.

Tulare Lake continues to rise along its northern border. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Typically, about a quarter of snow melt takes place in April, with the majority coming in May and June as the weather warms up.

But the remarkably wet winter means flooding could linger through much of the year, the latest outlooks show.

View from aboard a whitewater raft during a tour of the upper Kern River in Kernville. (Jack Dolan / Los Angeles Times)

The Tulare Lake basin and the San Joaquin River basin remain the areas of top concern, as record-deep snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada is expected to send a cascade of water down into the San Joaquin Valley as it melts.

Isabella Lake as seen from Wofford Heights. — Isabella Lake as seen from Wofford Heights on April 7, 2023. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The threat comes after one of the state’s coldest, wettest winters on record. Mammoth Mountain in the Sierra received more than 700 inches of fresh powder this season, and there is now more water contained in the state’s snowpack than the capacity of Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

Though most of the focus is on the Central Valley, officials in L.A. are also keeping an eye on on spring and summer flooding as it could cause additional damage to the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

The aqueduct, which delivers water from the Owens Valley to millions of Angelenos, has already suffered damage from this winter’s storms.

Times Staff Writer Hayley Smith contributed to this report.

I Lost My House in the Fort Lauderdale Flood While Ron DeSantis Campaigned in New Hampshire

Daily Beast

I Lost My House in the Fort Lauderdale Flood While Ron DeSantis Campaigned in New Hampshire

Elijah Manley – April 18, 2023

Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Getty

Fort Lauderdale last week was inundated with a historic downpour that caused massive floods and catastrophic property damage, upending the lives of thousands of people. According to experts and meteorologists such as Dan DePodwin of AccuWeather, this level of rain was so historic and rare that it is expected to only occur once every thousand years. Some areas saw over 25 inches of rain.

Cars and trucks floated through the city, and artery roads were turned into rivers that can only be passed by swimming through them. Many residents lost their homes, their vehicles, and their every material possession.

I know all this to be true because my family experienced it all.

Ron DeSantis May Fall Into His Own Abortion Trap

As I was heading home last Wednesday night, I got a frightening text. It was from my mom, telling me not to come home. “You can’t come home. Water is everywhere, inside and outside. We’re flooded.”

Though it was pouring, I wasn’t gravely concerned. “It’s just a little water,” I thought to myself. I was wrong.

I would have no home to return to that night, but I would swim through two feet of water across the city just to sleep on the ground downtown. When the waters receded days later, I came back to what had been my home to find all my belongings destroyed and the interior of the house flooded.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Elijah Manley</div> — Elijah Manley

Pictures, clothes, books, everything: gone. They’re irreplaceable. Everything I spent my life building was gone in one night. It’s like the memory of your identity has been wiped away. I couldn’t help but feel destroyed inside knowing that everything I had to my name is gone. It takes me back to a time in my childhood when my family was homeless. During that time, it was difficult maintaining all of our belongings.

And as I and countless others were experiencing this tragedy, our governor was in other states, far away, hawking his book and hyping up donors for a likely presidential run. In a time of historic crisis, the leader of our state’s government went AWOL.

It was only a few years ago when another Florida Republican governor, Rick Scott, traveled to areas affected by other natural disasters. He’d put partisanship aside and advocate for emergency aid to support affected communities. “We can rebuild homes. We can rebuild businesses. We cannot rebuild your life,” Scott said.

Our current governor, Ron DeSantis, is no Rick Scott.

While our local mayors, city commissioners, and emergency management personnel were on the ground immediately working to address the crisis, Gov. DeSantis didn’t even have the time to call Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis to offer his support.

This angers me beyond words. I’m not rich. My family is working class, and we have been blue-collar all our lives. It hurts my heart to know that my governor couldn’t make time to visit my city, witness our suffering, and demonstrate leadership. He could have promised swift and aggressive relief, pledged to help us rebuild, and looked into our eyes and let us know some things are more important than politics. But he didn’t.

Some DeSantis supporters have argued that his book tour and speaking engagements were planned in advance, while these floods could not have been predicted. That excuse might work for a day. Once it became clear there was a catastrophe back home, he could (and should) have hopped on the first jet back to Florida.

Instead, he continued his journey across the country to three states, including the early primary state of New Hampshire.

Yes, you read that correctly: while a major city in the governor’s home state was underwater, Ron DeSantis continued to sell books and campaign across the country.

Ron DeSantis Isn’t a Tough Guy. He’s Just Another Cowardly Bully.

When he did fly back, it was in the middle of the night for a quick stop at the state Capitol to sign the six-week abortion ban. Then he left again, making no stops in Fort Lauderdale or affected areas. (His campaign and office staff did muster up the energy to attack critics on social media and lambaste the media for pointing out his absence.)

This isn’t about partisanship, this is about responsibility. I have levied the same criticism at President Joe Biden for not visiting East Palestine, Ohio, after the catastrophic train derailment that devastated the working-class region.

If Ron DeSantis is more interested in running for president than being the governor we deserve in difficult times, then he must resign immediately. When we lost everything, our governor was absent. If DeSantis can’t demonstrate basic humanity and offer effective leadership during an emergency as governor, how can we expect him to handle larger crises as president? We shouldn’t.

Southwestern US rivers get boost from winter snowpack

Associated Press

Southwestern US rivers get boost from winter snowpack

Susan Montoya Bryan – April 18, 2023

FILE - In this May 9, 2021, photo a dam along the Rio Grande is seen near San Acacia, N.M. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File) — In this May 9, 2021, photo a dam along the Rio Grande is seen near San Acacia, N.M. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)

FILE - Low water levels are seen at Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences, N.M., on July 10, 2021. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File) — Low water levels are seen at Elephant Butte Reservoir near Truth or Consequences, N.M., on July 10, 2021. Forecasters with the National Weather Service are delivering good news for cities and farmers who depend on two major rivers in the southwestern U.S. The headwaters of the Rio Grande and the Pecos River recorded some of the best snowfall in years, resulting in spring runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs along the rivers. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Federal water managers have more room to breathe this spring as two Southwestern rivers that provide New Mexico and Texas with drinking water and irrigation supplies are seeing the benefits of record snowpack and spring runoff.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service delivered the good news Tuesday for water managers, cities and farmers as federal officials rolled out operating plans for the Rio Grande and the Pecos River.

The mountain ranges in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico that serve as headwaters for the two rivers last winter saw nearly double the snowpack of historic averages, resulting in runoff that will provide a major boost to reservoirs.

And even more of that snowmelt will reach streams and rivers since soil moisture levels were able to recover last summer during what was one of the strongest monsoons the region had seen in 130 years.

“This is really good news for us because one of the big things that’s been killing water supply for the last 10, 15 years is really dry soils soaking up a lot of that runoff before we could ever get any of it. That is not going to be the case nearly as much this year,” said Andrew Mangham, a senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service. “We’re going to have a much more efficient runoff coming out of this.”

The same story is playing out around the West. In California, most of that state’s major reservoirs were filled above their historical averages at the start of spring thanks to one of the massive snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. In neighboring Nevada, the snowfall was so overwhelming that the final day of the high school ski championships had to be cancelled.

Many of the officials gathered for Tuesday’s river briefing were combing their collective memories, trying to recall when they last saw hydrology graphs this favorable.

“We’re in better shape than we’ve been for a real long time,” Mangham said.

New Mexico’s largest cities that rely on diverted water from the San Juan and Chama rivers are expected to get a full allocation this year — the first time since 2019.

The Carlsbad Irrigation District on the southern end of the Pecos River opted to allocate a bit more to farmers this year due to the increased runoff.

“With the snowmelt coming in and still the chance for the monsoon season, things are looking pretty good,” said Coley Burgess, the irrigation district’s manager.

Still, he said farmers have had to be economical about how they use what amounts to just a little over half of a full allotment. Some have left fields unplanted so they can shift their share of water to their best alfalfa crops.

On the Rio Grande, managers say they have enough water stored in Elephant Butte — the largest reservoir in New Mexico — to avoid restrictions that prevent storing water in some upstream reservoirs. Under a water sharing agreement with Colorado and Texas, New Mexico is required to deliver a certain amount to Texas each year.

The states also are tangled up in litigation over management of the Rio Grande that is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. A special master is considering a proposed settlement that would resolve the decade-long fight.

Officials with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in New Mexico said whether the state can keep enough water in Elephant Butte later this year will depend on the monsoon season.

Farmers across southern New Mexico and in West Texas will be crossing their fingers, too.

Former Navy NCO running pro-Russian social account under investigation for helping spread classified documents

Fox News

Former Navy NCO running pro-Russian social account under investigation for helping spread classified documents

Michael Lee – April 17, 2023

A former Navy non-commissioned officer is reportedly the subject of a Justice Department investigation into her role in helping spread classified documents recently leaked online.

Sarah Bils, a 37-year-old former aviation electronics technician in the Navy, is allegedly behind the pro-Russian “Donbass Devushka” social media account that helped classified documents originally leaked by Massachusetts Air Guardsman Jack Teixeira reach a wider audience, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Donbass Devushka, which translates as “Donbas Girl,” is a series of social media accounts popular on Telegram, Twitter and YouTube that pushed a pro-Kremlin view for an English-speaking audience. Despite presenting itself as being a single Russian blogger, the accounts are run by multiple administrators, including Bils.

US DEFENSE SECRETARY LLOYD AUSTIN SAYS LEAKED CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS WERE ‘SOMEWHERE IN THE WEB’

The social media accounts and Bils’ role are now the subject of a Justice Department investigation, according to a report from USNI News on Monday.

Bils last served at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island before leaving the service late last year. She reached the grade of E-7, or chief petty officer, during her time in the service, but she left the military as an E-5, or petty officer second class. It is unclear why the former service member was demoted.

The Navy did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.

Selfie Jack Teixeira alleged leaker — Jack Teixeira

SOUTH KOREA SAYS LEAKED PENTAGON DOCUMENT SUGGESTING US SPYING IS ‘UNTRUE’ AND ‘ALTERED’: REPORTS

Classified documents allegedly posted to the internet by Teixeira had gone relatively unnoticed until they were picked up by the Donbass Devushka social media account, which boasts a much larger following than the invite-only Discord server that was run by the Massachusetts Guardsman.

From there, the documents were picked up by several large Russian social media accounts, spurring the Pentagon investigation into the leaks.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bils, who had access to classified material in her capacity in the Navy, said the documents were posted to Donbass Devushka by another administrator and later deleted by her.

“I obviously know the gravity of top-secret classified materials. We didn’t leak them,” she told the outlet.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered a review of intelligence access and procedures in response to the leaks.

Bils is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Washington state. She joined the Navy in 2009 and completed “A” school at Naval Aviation Technical Training Center in Pensacola, Florida, and first reported to Fleet Readiness Center Northwest, Whidbey Island, in 2011.

Her awards include two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, a Meritorious Unit Commendation, four Good Conduct Medals and the National Defense Service Medal, according to USNI News.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the case.

Watch: Harp Seal Cub Clings to Diver for Life As Ice Melts Around It

Pet Helpful

Watch: Harp Seal Cub Clings to Diver for Life As Ice Melts Around It

Liz O’Connell – April 17, 2023

It’s a miracle that she came along when she did.

Marine Biologist and Photojournalist Jennifer Hayes shared a recent experience she had with a Harp Seal Cub that is truly heartbreaking. The story, which was shared on the TikTok account @c4news, is just a small glimpse into what is happening around the world due to climate change.

Temperatures rising is affecting every living creature and on Quebec’s Magdalen Islands, the Harp Seals that migrate there to give birth are experiencing difficulties as the ice is melting rapidly. And Hayes’ interaction with a baby Harp Seal is a sad reality. Take a look.

View the original article to see embedded media.

Ugh, watching this video hurts our hearts. We can’t believe 2020 was the last time this area captured seals nursing on it. Changes need to be made so we can save not only these precious animals but all the other animals that are affected by the climate crisis.

“This needs to be shared. We must keep fighting for our home,” wrote @brazilwolf2000. If seeing these precious animals won’t light a fire under people’s butts to help protect the earth, we don’t know what will. @clementinesamples suggested, “These films need to be shown in Congress. Make them watch.” Anything to get the ball rolling on slowing or stopping climate change.

Another TikToker, @btsforlifexyz, commented, “They are so so cute we need cuteness in our world.” YES! Say it louder for the people in the back! @andrenava43 added, “Awwwww it’s so cute we need to do something about this. We don’t want them to die.” None of us want these beautiful animals to go extinct. Time to take action!

Who says Florida property insurers aren’t taking new customers?

South Florida Sun Sentinel

Who says Florida property insurers aren’t taking new customers? See whether yours added or subtracted policies

Ron Hurtibise, South Florida Sun Sentinel – April 17, 2023

Apparently not all Florida-regulated property insurance companies are too financially troubled to take on new customers.

Thirty-two companies added customers between the second and third quarters of 2022, according to a South Florida Sun Sentinel analysis of market share data released by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

A few companies added significant numbers of what are called personal residential policies that cover single-family homes, condominiums and even renters.

Of 18,243 new policies written by State Farm Florida, currently the third-largest carrier in the state, 8,595 were homeowner policies, 2,538 were new tenant policies, and 7,110 were new condo policies.

Castle Key Indemnity, a subsidiary of Allstate, added 8,508 new policies, including 3,987 homeowner policies and 3,805 tenant policies.

Edison Insurance, owned by Boca Raton-based Florida Peninsula, added 4,766 policies, of which 4,176 were homeowner policies.

The analysis suggests that reforms enacted in two special legislative sessions to reduce litigation against insurers — though disliked by plaintiffs attorneys, repair contractors and public adjusters — are encouraging carriers to expand their presence here.

Insurance insiders contacted for this report said it’s a promising sign that so many companies are deciding to take on new business.

Restrictions intended to reduce lawsuits against insurers that were enacted during two special sessions have given some companies confidence to expand in the state, said Mark Friedlander, communications director for the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute.

“The data shows some positive signs for Florida’s property insurance market,” Friedlander said in an email. “Several private insurers have indicated they are willing to take on more risk based on the property insurance reform that was passed in December and the new tort reform bill that was passed in March.

“Based on the Q3/Q4 2022 data, it appears a few insurers were willing to assume more risk even before the market reforms were enacted. Insurance agents are also starting to see more options when trying to place a customer’s business.”

The Sun Sentinel’s analysis compares market share data that insurance companies have tried to keep confidential over the past six years. Since 2017, more than 60 private-market companies, including most of the largest, have blocked quarterly release of their county-by-county and — until this year — statewide market data after State Farm won a court battle that allowed companies to declare the information a “trade secret.”

State Farm objected to county-level dissemination of its policy counts, saying it provided competitors with too much insight into markets where the company was targeting its marketing efforts.

But last May, lawmakers included, among reforms desired by insurers, the required disclosure of aggregated statewide policy data with no option to declare it a trade secret.

Formerly ‘trade secret’

The first statewide spreadsheet released under the new law disclosed policy counts, total premium collected, the value of insured property, cancellations, and other information, for the third quarter of 2022. The second release, for the fourth quarter, made it possible to compare which companies added and subtracted policies, as well as average policy costs and average value of property covered, between the third and fourth quarters.

Not surprisingly, insurers that posted significant policy count increases weren’t eager to share their reasons why. Insurers are generally tight-lipped about all aspects of their business.

“We can’t talk about our growth strategy but we can share that State Farm continues to maintain the financial strength to be there for our Florida customers,” a State Farm spokeswoman said by email.

Clint Strauch, president of Edison Insurance and Florida Peninsula, credited its professional network of agents, traditional underwriting practices and fiscal conservatism, “which gives us the financial ability to take on new policies.

He added, “We are bullish about the state of insurance in Florida, in light of the positive steps taken by the Governor and the Legislature to stabilize the market for all Floridians.”

Even as it revealed a number of companies willing to take on new business, the data comparison showed that an even larger number of companies continued to lose policies, either deliberately to reduce the amount of risk on their books and thus, their reinsurance costs, or because policyholders are shopping for lower prices, possibly from state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp.

Seventy companies saw reduced policy counts between the third and fourth quarters. Of them, 16 lost or shed more than 1,000 policies each.

Those companies are among the largest in the state, including the second-largest behind Citizens, Fort Lauderdale-based Universal Property & Casualty, which reported 23,100 fewer policies at the end of the fourth quarter compared to three months earlier.

Others were ASI Preferred (down 16,014), a subsidiary of Progressive, which last year announced plans to stop writing new policies in Florida; American Integrity (-7,051); Security First (-6,729); and Heritage Property & Casualty (-6,528).

Slide Insurance Co., which was founded by former Heritage CEO Bruce Lucas in early 2020, saw a 6,272-policy reduction. However, since Dec. 31, the company announced plans to add up to 91,000 policies covered by United Property & Casualty when that company went into dissolution in February.

Travis Miller, spokesman for Universal Property & Casualty, said it’s not accurate to assume that the company “shed” 23,100 policies.

“Instead, the data more simply shows that during the quarter, the reduction in (Universal’s) policies exceeded the number of new business policies it wrote,” he said by email. “An insurer can see reductions in its policy count for reasons beyond its typical renewal underwriting process.”

Many customers in the current climate of rapidly rising rates are comparative shopping, he said, including many with Citizens, which by law offers premiums below market rates to homeowners who cannot find comparable coverage that costs less than 20% more.

“To a lesser degree, some insureds also are making the difficult decision to forego coverage,” Miller said.

Those decisions can be inferred from the data that show the number of overall homeowner policies stayed relatively flat between the third and fourth quarters even though 57,004 single-family homes were sold between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, according to the Florida Association of Realtors.

And Citizens, the “insurer of last resort,” added 73,617 personal residential policies in the fourth quarter, more than any single private-market company.

Citizens’ continued growth is a sign that insurance industry troubles persisted into the fourth quarter as it became the insurer of last resort for homeowners unable to find an affordable policy elsewhere.

The next set of data, for the first quarter, will show a similar increase for Citizens, according to data posted on the company’s website. But brightening conditions could begin to nudge policyholders back to private-market insurers, Friedlander said.

“We learned this week that more than 61,000 policies have been approved for take-out from Citizens by three Florida insurers — Monarch National Insurance, Florida Peninsula and Edison Insurance Co.,” he said.

Tallahassee-based Monarch National alone was approved to take out up to 46,218 policies, Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier said.

In addition, a new company has been approved by Florida regulators to enter the market: Tailrow Insurance is being launched by publicly traded HCI Group, which also owns Homeowners Choice and TypTap Insurance, and will begin writing new business this year, according to a consent order filed by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation.

Both the Citizens takeouts and the newly launched Tailrow Insurance “are positive signs,” Friedlander said, adding, “It would not surprise us if some of the property insurers that posted a net decline in policies during 2022 begin to move in the other direction in 2023.”

More insurance availability if you can pay

Yet, increased availability of insurance is coming at higher prices, as policyholders hit hard by rate increases over the past two years can attest.

John Rollins, former chief risk officer at Citizens, notes that strong headwinds are still facing companies trying to secure required levels of reinsurance — coverage insurers buy to guarantee the ability to file all claims after a catastrophe — by June or July, ahead of the most active part of the hurricane season that begins around mid-August. Whatever they’ll end up having to pay will be passed along to their customers.

The reinsurance renewal period “by all accounts is set to feature the largest year-over-year price hikes in living memory,” Rollins said.

Gallagher Re, a global reinsurance broker, said reinsurance rate increases for catastrophe loss have ranged from 50% to 100% according to Artemis.bm, a website targeted to capital markets investors.

“This would make four years in a row of reinsurance prices ratcheting up — slightly at 2020 and 2021, 30% at 2022, and now this,” Rollins said. “Companies will pass through the costs in rate filings once they are clear, but nobody knows where the market will settle right now.”

Until the dust settles, “smart managers would not be adding policies,” he said.

Other observations

Tenant policies up: Even as the overall number of homeowner policies remained flat, the number of insurance policies purchased by renters increased statewide by 53,999 to 1.15 million at the end of the fourth quarter.

“The spike is not surprising as Florida’s rental market has become the most robust in the U.S.,” Friedlander said. “The cost of renters insurance is extremely reasonable for consumers and fairly low risk for insurers compared to property coverage. Most landlords required their tenants to have individual renters coverage, which is a very good thing.”

Tenant insurance is so cheap, there’s no excuse to forego it. The average annual premium, according to the data, was $200. The highest average premium, $13,643 was charged by a company that insures just 12 condos in the state, Pacific Indemnity Co., and the average insured value of those 12 condos was $1.2 million. The lowest average premium was $11 paid by 10,924 customers of Markel Insurance Co.

Homeowner premiums: Average homeowner premiums as of Dec. 31 ranged from a low of $346 for the 2,848 properties covered by Farmers Casualty to $51,823 for the 252 properties insured by Century-National.

The average homeowner premium increased from $2,908 to $3,026.

The average insured value of covered single-family homes — known in the industry as “exposure” — jumped from $624,126 on Sept. 30 to $641,253 on Dec. 31. The average exposure ranged from $12.7 million for each of five houses insured by Ace Insurance Co. of the Midwest to $285,823 for customers of White Pine Insurance Co.

Condos: The average cost to insure a condominium unit increased from $1,375 to $1,419 between Sept. 30 and Dec. 31. Because they are smaller and have common areas insured by separate commercial policies, it costs less to insure condo units. The highest average condo premium in Florida was $13,643 from American Home Assurance Company, while the lowest was $348 from Teachers Insurance Co., which insures exactly one condo unit in the state. The average insured value for condos increased from $154,431 on Sept. 30 to $156,777 on Dec. 31.

18,000 cows killed in Texas explosion. Next: The massive, messy task of disposing of them

USA Today

18,000 cows killed in Texas explosion. Next: The massive, messy task of disposing of them

Rick Jervis, USA TODAY – April 14, 2023

The fire that killed 18,000 dairy cows in a West Texas farm has been extinguished and the staggering death count revealed.

Now, comes the messy, unprecedented task of disposing of them.

Typically, dead farm animals – even scores of them, such as those killed in the wake of hurricanes or blizzards – can be buried, hauled to landfills or even composted, said Saqib Mukhtar, an associate dean at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension and a cattle disposal expert.

But the sheer number of carcasses in this incident makes the task monumental, he said.

“I really don’t know, if [the cows] were all intact, how in the world you can manage this even within a month,” said Mukhtar, who previously worked at Texas A&M University and helped dispose of thousands of cattle drowned by Hurricane Ike in 2008.

Smoke fills the sky after an explosion and fire at the South Fork Dairy farm near Dimmitt, Texas, on Monday, April 10, 2023. The explosion critically injured one person and killed an estimated 18,000 cows.

More: 18,000 cows killed in explosion, fire at Texas dairy farm may be largest cattle killing ever

Officials have not said what method of disposal they will use in the case of the South Fork farm disaster.

Video footage from local television stations showed front-loaders entering and exiting the pens where an estimated 18,000 cattle – a mix of Holstein and Jersey cows – perished during a fire Monday evening at the South Fork Dairy farm near Dimmitt, Texas, around 70 miles southwest of Amarillo.

A dairy worker was rescued from inside the facility and rushed to a hospital. She was in critical condition as of Tuesday.

Special report: 10 years after tragic Texas chemical explosion, risk remains high

Dealing with cattle deaths in Texas

While state fire investigators look into the cause of the blaze, officials with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service have descended onto the scene to advise and monitor the disposal of the animals.

In a statement, TCEQ said its Amarillo office “is providing assistance to South Fork Dairy to ensure that dead livestock and any other debris is disposed of in accordance with TCEQ rules and regulations,” including ensuring the animals are buried at least 50 feet from the nearest public water well and outside the 100-year floodplain.

On its website, TCEQ lists more than 13 rules surrounding the disposal of livestock carcasses, including making sure they’re buried in at least three feet of soil, and covered as soon as possible, “ideally the same day.”

The incident could also draw agents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, as well as scientists with the Environmental Protection Agency – all monitoring how the dead animals may contaminate soil, air or aquifers, said Andy Vestal, a retired professor and extension specialist at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service who has assisted in large-scale cattle disposal. The efforts are aimed at protecting both humans and livestock, he said.

“You have an element of human public health and livestock sustainability to deal with,” Vestal said.

Graphics: 18,000 cows – enough to cover 26 football fields

How many cattle were killed in the fire?

The Castro County Sheriff's Office was among several agencies to respond to a fire and explosion at a dairy farm near Dimmitt on Monday. — The Castro County Sheriff’s Office was among several agencies to respond to a fire and explosion at a dairy farm near Dimmitt on Monday.

The fire was the deadliest involving cattle recorded by the Animal Welfare Institute since it began tracking barn and animal pen fires in 2013.

Overall, the group has tracked 6.5 million animals killed in fires in that span, with chickens making up more than 90% of the fatalities. This week, the number of cattle herd killed by fires jumped from 7,385 to 25,385, after the institute added the South Fork incident.

Who owned the Texas dairy company?

State records show the South Fork Dairy farm was owned by the Brand family. Frank Brand did not return several requests for comment. A neighbor told the industry publication Dairy Herd that the Brand family was “a great family and customer, and said the community supported them.

Dimmitt Mayor Roger Malone told USA TODAY the dairy had opened in the area just over three years ago and employed 50 to 60 people.

Rules about cattle, farm animals

The incident has drawn the ire from animal activists, who have lobbied for more fire regulations at large-scale farms such as the South Fork Dairy.

Farmers and cattle raisers are not required to abide by the same fire codes or animal welfare rules as zoos and aquariums, creating disparities in treatment, said Allie Granger, a policy associate with the Animal Welfare Institute.

“There’s a huge gap in protection when it comes to animals used for agriculture,” she said.

Though there are rules for disposing carcasses, having such a large number makes the job formidable, said Mukhtar, who co-wrote a widely-used handbook on cattle disposal.

A cowboy attempts to round up cattle from receding flood waters Sept. 15, 2008, Near High Island, Texas, after Hurricane Ike. Saqib Mukhtar, an academic and expert in cattle disposal, helped dispose of thousands of cattle drowned by Hurricane Ike in 2008.

The preferred method is often taking them to a landfill that accepts animal carcasses, which are often engineered to protect the environment from the waste. But hauling so many dead cows to landfalls would be time-consuming, costly and unrealistic, he said.

Burning the carcasses would take too long since you could only burn three or four cows at a time using mobile incinerators, Mukhtar said. And composting would require an unfathomable amount of organic material – such as hay mixed with manure — to cover all 18,000 animals.

Burying them on site, though the least-recommended option because of the risks of pollutants seeping into the soil and aquifer, is the most likely outcome in the South Fork farm case, he said. The main risk with this method is what’s known as “leachate,” or liquids that eventually seep out of the carcasses and into the surrounding soil.

Whatever method is chosen, owners and regulators will need to act fast: As they decompose, cow carcasses release gasses, such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, that – if leaked in large enough quantities – could pose air pollution risks, Mukhtar said.

But nothing about disposing of 18,000 carcasses promises to be fast.

“It’s a major, complex conundrum that they’re in,” he said.

Red tide lingering? Bloom continues to impact south Sarasota County beaches

Herald Tribune

Red tide lingering? Bloom continues to impact south Sarasota County beaches

Jesse Mendoza, Sarasota Herald-Tribune – April 14, 2023

South Sarasota County is one of the few areas along the coast still affected by bloom levels of red tide, despite improved conditions throughout most of the region.

Samples published this week by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission show red tide was either not found, or only found in low levels, near most of the Sarasota and Manatee shoreline. Samples do show medium concentrations of red tide in south Sarasota County near Manasota Beach on April 10 and Blind Pass Beach on April 6.

The Florida Department of Health in Sarasota County issued an update on Thursday notifying the public that elevated levels of red tide continue to be found near local beaches in that area — specifically highlighting Nokomis, North Jetty, Venice Beach, Service Club, Venice Fishing Pier, Brohard, Casperson, Manasota Key, and Blind Pass.

Previously: Is red tide still impacting beaches in Sarasota, Manatee?

Red Tide: Respiratory Irritation Forecast

Red tide can cause short-lived respiratory symptoms such as eye, nose, and throat irritation like those associated with the common cold or seasonal sinus allergies. Red tide bloomed along the coastline at the end of October and came to a head in early March.

The bloom has largely cleared along most of Sarasota and Manatee since then, making for improved beach conditions during spring break and the Easter holiday weekend.

A map showing sample results for red tide published by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for the week ending on April 13.

The bloom did persist to the south and north of the region and continues to affect the south Sarasota County area as of the latest information available this week.

There is a moderate risk of red tide-related respiratory irritation over the next 36 hours in Sarasota, Pinellas, and Charlotte counties, according to a forecast issued by the National Centers for Coastal and Ocean Science issued at 6 a.m. on Friday. Red tide is present in Collier, Lee, and Pasco counties at levels that could cause respiratory irritation as well.

Visit www.redtideforecast.com for the most up-to-date respiratory irritation forecast information.

Here’s the biggest hurdle facing America’s EV revolution

The Washington Post

Here’s the biggest hurdle facing America’s EV revolution

Shannon Osaka – April 13, 2023

A curbside PlugNYC Flo electric vehicle (EV) charger near Central Park West in New York, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg)

The Biden administration just unveiled some of the most aggressive auto climate rules in the world – the latest step for an administration that has gone all-in on EVs. But America’s EV transition could soon stumble: not because of high car costs or a lack of automaker support, but thanks to the country’s broken and dysfunctional public charging system.

Most electric vehicle drivers charge their vehicles at home. But as Americans buy EVs – to the tune of 7 percent of all new vehicle registrations in January – more and more people are finding that the public charging system is unreliable, inconvenient and simply confusing.

“I’ve seen people wait because there are only four chargers and two of them are out of service,” said Bill Ferro, the founder of EVSession, a software firm that tracks charger reliability. “Everything that I’ve seen shows that it’s driving away current and potential EV owners.”

Drivers might show up at a DC-fast charging station – which can fill a vehicle’s battery by 80 percent in about 20 minutes – to find that most of the chargers are broken. Or one might work, but only if the driver installs a particular app on their phone, creates an account, and loads money onto it.

Last year, in a preprint study conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the nonprofit Cool the Earth, researchers tested every single fast charging station in the San Francisco Bay Area. They found that more than a quarter of the 657 charging points didn’t function during a 2-minute charging test. Sometimes the charging cable couldn’t reach the vehicle’s charging port; other times the payment system wouldn’t work; sometimes the charger’s screen was broken or the network was down.

Some of the chargers had the option to pay by 1-800 number – but Carleen Cullen, the executive director of Cool the Earth and one of the authors of the study, said that’s not a good solution. “If we want mass market adoption, people are going to want to pay and move along and charge their vehicles,” she said.

Another survey, from the group J.D. Power and Associates, found that one in five EV owners who had recently visited a station where unable to charge – largely due to a system malfunction.

Tesla’s proprietary charging network usually gets the highest ratings from users. But the vast majority of stations are only open to Tesla drivers. The company has agreed to open a small fraction of its stations to non-Tesla drivers by 2024, beginning now with a few select locations around the country.

Ferro, who drives an electric vehicle himself, frequently has to take road trips of around 300 miles. He ended up buying a Tesla Model 3 largely to make use of the reliable charging network. “On any other network, I wouldn’t have trusted it,” he explained.

But there’s more to the problem than that. The decentralized nature of American charging is also confusing early adopters and turning off potential EV drivers. Public charging is currently managed by a hodgepodge of private companies, utilities, government spending, and automakers. There are private companies – like Electrify America, EVgo, or ChargePoint – which each have their own machines and ways of paying for charging. (A typical EV driver may have as many as eight phone apps and several RFID cards to manage all the possible chargers on the road.)

Then there are automakers, like Tesla or Rivian, that establish their own networks tailor-made for those who buy their products. Utilities are also trying to get into the game, building up their own fast-charging networks in states like Minnesota. The result is a mess for drivers who simply want to plug in – and a logistical nightmare for regulators.

“There are so many different players in this, and they all need to be singing the same song,” said Cullen.

There have been attempts to regulate chargers’ “uptime,” or the amount of time that they are functioning properly. The Biden administration has established rules for the $5 billion in funding for public chargers in the infrastructure bill, ordering that they have at least a 97 percent uptime and are accessible via a single payment method. But the federal rules also allow networks to self-report how often their chargers work – a decision that Ferro finds troubling. “It’s letting the fox in the henhouse,” he said.

And that’s only for the chargers that will receive federal funding; the vast majority of stations will not.

Unless the United States sorts out its public charging infrastructure, it’s hard to imagine EV sales growing as quickly as the Biden administration wants. The strictest version of the rules the Environmental Protection Agency proposed Wednesday would require a whopping two-thirds of all new passenger vehicle sales to be electric by 2032.

New federal subsidies, offered under the Inflation Reduction Act, are making electric vehicles more accessible to Americans. More EV drivers means more pressure on the existing malfunctioning stations, as well as more drivers who live in apartments or don’t have easy access to home charging.

While early adopters and EV enthusiasts might be happy to build in multiple contingency plans, mainstream EV adoption is going to require a more streamlined system. U.S. public charging also lags far behind other countries: According to S&P Global, China has 1.2 million charging points, Europe has 400,000 – and the United States only has 140,000.

“We’re not yet to the mass market phase,” said Ferro. “And if the infrastructure isn’t there, it will put a damper on everybody’s plans.”