Category: Labor and Working

Sunny day flooding could get a lot worse in St. Petersburg, study shows

Sunny day flooding could get a lot worse in St. Petersburg, study shows

Zachary T. Sampson, Tampa Bay Times               

 

ST. PETERSBURG — Sunny day flooding could go from an occasional nuisance to a regular problem in the city, according to a new study. It projects that St. Petersburg might see inundation at high tide more than 60 times a year in the coming decades.

Sea level rise, periodic shifts in tides and weather patterns are to blame, researchers said.

“The reason we’re worrying about it now is this has been going on forever, but we never noticed it before,” said University of South Florida College of Marine Science Associate Dean Gary Mitchum, one of seven authors on the study. “Now the high tide increase every decade or two is superimposed on sea level rise, and the combination of the two is giving us vastly increased events.”

The area could reach what the report deems a tipping point in 2033. In the decade before then, the researchers suggest, St. Petersburg will see high-tide flooding about 6 days a year. In the decade after, that number could reach 67 days of tidal flooding in one year.

This type of inundation is not catastrophic, like the impact of storm surge from a tropical storm or hurricane. It is a persistent nuisance that already soaks streets and bubbles through drains in some Florida cities, most notoriously Miami and in the Keys.

Residents of flood-prone coastal neighborhoods, like St. Petersburg’s Shore Acres, may see several inches of water on roads, forcing them to re-route drives to work, school or home — even on days when it doesn’t rain. City infrastructure, like pipes and pavement, would be submerged more often in corrosive saltwater.

The dramatic rise in flooding stems in part from a roughly 18-year tidal cycle, determined by the alignment of the sun, earth and moon, Mitchum said. This predictable pattern, he said, leads to spikes and drops in the maximum height of tides. The cycle is about to see years of declining tides, which Mitchum said will offset or mask the effects of sea level rise.

In 2033, the cycle is expected to turn around. Heightened tides in conjunction with sea level rise could create a compound effect that Mitchum said will offer a glimpse of how flooding decades into the future may reshape the region because of rising seas alone.

The lead author of the study, Philip Thompson, director of the University of Hawaiʻi’s Sea Level Center, said St. Petersburg is especially affected by the tidal changes across decades because it generally has one high tide per day, compared to other regions that experience two.

Nuisance flooding is already a worry for local planners. Pinellas County is studying the prospect of future floods in a vulnerability assessment paid for using money dispersed after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Local engineers in some cities are installing valves to stop the sea from filling stormwater systems at high tide.

“It just leads to constant environmental degradation of systems — mechanical, electrical, infrastructure,” said Pinellas Sustainability and Resiliency Coordinator Hank Hodde. He recalled a meeting where he heard a resident of the Florida Keys ask local leaders to install a car wash for cleaning off vehicles exposed to saltwater flooding.

“It’s going to be here all the time,” Hodde said. “Like rain.”

A lot of research and writing has been dedicated to understanding nuisance flooding, said Jayantha Obeysekera, director of the Sea Level Solutions Center at Florida International University. But the latest analysis offers a window into how soon it could become a bigger problem. Obeysekera was not involved in writing the paper, though he knows the authors and his work was cited in the report.

The researchers used National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrative flooding standards and tidal gauge data as their foundation and an intermediate projection for how far seas could rise.

“If it happens once a year, maybe people can live with it,” Obeysekera said. But as flooding becomes more regular, he said, residents “expect the communities to come up with adaptation so they don’t have to basically walk on water 5, 10 times a year.”

Knowing more precisely when and where flooding will hit at high tide would allow public works departments to prepare. In the next phase of his research, Mitchum said he wants to find a way for scientists to make those nearer term forecasts possible.

The almost 70 nuisance floods a year projected in St. Petersburg would not be spaced out evenly across months, according to the study. The flooding might instead happen in clusters, Mitchum said, with peaks depending on the season.

Eventually nearly every high tide in certain bad months could bring flooding, he said. Water levels around St. Petersburg tend to be highest when the sea is warmer in summer and early fall.

Although sunny day flooding should stay infrequent in the near term, Thompson, of the University of Hawaiʻi, said it would be a mistake for governments to be complacent in the coming years. Building better drainage systems and modifying zoning around Tampa Bay are two ways he imagines officials could look to mitigate future damage.

King tides that cause flooding across the state should be a bellwether, he said. “Florida is already sort of the epicenter.”

This story was produced in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multi-newsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, WLRN Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times.

‘It Is All Connected’: Extreme Weather in the Age of Climate Change

‘It Is All Connected’: Extreme Weather in the Age of Climate Change

Henry Fountain and John Schwartz                  

 

 

The images from Germany are startling and horrifying: houses, shops and streets in the picturesque cities and villages along the Ahr and other rivers violently washed away by fast-moving floodwaters.

The flooding was caused by a storm that slowed to a crawl over parts of Europe on Wednesday, dumping as much as 6 inches of rain on the region near Cologne and Bonn before finally beginning to let up Friday. There was flooding in Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, too, but the worst impacts were in Germany, where the official death toll passed 125 on Friday and was sure to climb.

The storm was a frightening example of an extreme weather event, with some places getting a month’s worth of rain in a day. But in an era of climate change, extreme weather events are becoming more common.

The question is, how much did climate change affect this specific storm and the resulting floods?

A complete answer will have to await analyses, almost certain to be undertaken given the magnitude of the disaster, that will seek to learn if climate change made this storm more likely, and if so, by how much.

But for many scientists the trend is clear. “The answer is yes — all major weather these days is being affected by the changes in climate,” said Donald J. Wuebbles, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois.

Already studies have shown an increase in extreme downpours as the world warms, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-backed group that reports on the science and impacts of global warming, has said that the frequency of these events will increase as temperatures continue to rise.

Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, a researcher with the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, said that in studies of extreme rain events in the Netherlands, “the observed increase is stronger than we expected.”

Van Oldenborgh is one of the primary scientists with World Weather Attribution, a loose-knit group that quickly analyzes specific extreme weather events with regard to any climate-change impact. He said the group, which just finished a rapid analysis of the heat wave that struck the Pacific Northwest in late June, was discussing whether they would study the German floods.

One reason for stronger downpours has to do with basic physics: warmer air holds more moisture, making it more likely that a specific storm will produce more precipitation. The world has warmed by a little more than 1 degree Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 19th century, when societies began pumping huge amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.

For every 1 Celsius degree of warming, air can hold 7% more moisture. As a result, said Hayley Fowler, a professor of climate change impacts at Newcastle University in England, “These kinds of storm events will increase in intensity.”

And although it is still a subject of debate, there are studies that suggest rapid warming in the Arctic is affecting the jet stream, by reducing the temperature difference between northern and southern parts of the Northern Hemisphere. One effect in summer and fall, Fowler said, is that the high-altitude, globe-circling air current is weakening and slowing down.

“That means the storms have to move more slowly,” Fowler said. The storm that caused the recent flooding was practically stationary, she noted. The combination of more moisture and a stalled storm system can lead to extra-heavy rains over a given area.

Kai Kornhuber, a climate scientist with the Earth Institute of Columbia University, said that his and his colleagues’ research, and papers from other scientists, drew similar conclusions about slowing weather systems. “They all point in the same direction — that the summertime mid-latitude circulation, the jet stream, is slowing down and constitutes a more persistent weather pattern” that means extreme events like heat waves and pounding rains are likely to go on and on.

Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University, has studied the effects of a different summertime jet stream phenomenon known as “wave resonance” in locking weather systems in place.

Climate change, he said, is making the stalling weather events more frequent. But he said it was premature to say that the European disaster was caused by wave resonance.

Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist with the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts, said that while dawdling weather systems can have many causes, they generally don’t occur in a vacuum.

The European storm is “part of this bigger picture of extremes we’ve been seeing all along the Northern Hemisphere this summer,” she said, include the heat in the American West and Pacific Northwest, intense rainfall and cooler temperatures in the Midwest, and heat waves in Scandinavia and Siberia.

“It’s never in isolation when it comes to an odd configuration of the jet stream,” Francis said. “One extreme in one place is always accompanied by extremes of different types.”

“It is all connected, and it’s all the same story, really,” she added.

When it comes to floods, however, there are other factors that can come into play and complicate any analysis of the influence of climate change.

For one thing, local topography has to be taken into account, as that can affect rainfall patterns and how much runoff gets into which rivers.

Human impacts can complicate an analysis even further. Development near rivers, for instance, often replaces open land, which can absorb rain, with buildings, streets and parking lots that increase the amount of water that drains into rivers. Infrastructure built to cope with heavy runoff and rising rivers may be under-designed and inadequate.

And meteorological conditions can sometimes lead to different conclusions.

A 2016 study by World Weather Attribution of flooding in France and Germany in May of that year found that climate change affected the French flooding, which was caused by three days of rain. But the situation in Germany was different; the flooding was caused by a one-day storm. The computer simulations did not find that the likelihood of shorter storms in that area had increased in a changing climate.

While some development can make flooding worse, other projects can reduce flooding. That appears to have been the case in the Netherlands, which was not as severely affected by the storm.

After several major floods on the Meuse River in the 1990s, the Dutch government began a program called Room for the River to reduce flooding, said Nathalie Asselman, who advises the government and other clients on flood risk.

The work involved lowering and widening river beds, lowering flood plains and excavating side channels. “The aim of these measures is to lower flood levels,” she said.

While a dike near the Meuse in southern Netherlands suffered a breach that caused some flooding until it was repaired on Friday, the measures appear to have worked.

Flood levels on the Meuse were about a foot lower than would have been the case without them, Asselman said. That meant smaller tributaries backed up less where they met the Meuse, producing less flooding.

“If we wouldn’t have implemented these measures, then the situation would have been worse,” she said. “Both on the main river and the tributaries.”

Scorched, Parched and Now Uninsurable: Climate Change Hits Wine Country

Scorched, Parched and Now Uninsurable: Climate Change Hits Wine Country

Christopher Flavelle                   

Stuart Smith, owner of Smith Madrone Vineyards & Winery, inspected burned tree stumps near his vineyards, which were charred in last year’s wildfires, in St. Helena, Calif. (Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times)

 

ST. HELENA, Calif. — Last September, a wildfire tore through one of Dario Sattui’s Napa Valley wineries, destroying millions of dollars in property and equipment, along with 9,000 cases of wine.

November brought a second disaster: Sattui realized the precious crop of cabernet grapes that survived the fire had been ruined by the smoke. There would be no 2020 vintage.

A freakishly dry winter led to a third calamity: By spring, the reservoir at another of Sattui’s vineyards was all but empty, meaning little water to irrigate the new crop.

Finally, in March, came a fourth blow: Sattui’s insurers said they would no longer cover the winery that had burned down. Neither would any other company. In the patois of insurance, the winery will go bare into this year’s burning season, which experts predict to be especially fierce.

“We got hit every which way we could,” Sattui said. “We can’t keep going like this.”

In Napa Valley, the lush heartland of America’s high-end wine industry, climate change is spelling calamity. Not outwardly: On the main road running through the small town of St. Helena, California, tourists still stream into wineries with exquisitely appointed tasting rooms. At the Goose & Gander, where the lamb chops are $63, the line for a table still tumbles out onto the sidewalk.

But drive off the main road, and the vineyards that made this valley famous — where the mix of soil, temperature patterns and rainfall used to be just right — are now surrounded by burned-out landscapes, dwindling water supplies and increasingly nervous winemakers bracing for things to get worse.

Desperation has pushed some growers to spray sunscreen on grapes, to try to prevent roasting, while others are irrigating with treated wastewater from toilets and sinks because reservoirs are dry.

Their fate matters even for those who cannot tell a merlot from a malbec. Napa boasts some of the country’s most expensive farmland, selling for as much as $1 million per acre; a ton of grapes fetches two to four times as much as anywhere else in California. If there is any nook of U.S. agriculture with both the means and incentive to outwit climate change, it is here.

But so far, the experience of winemakers here demonstrates the limits of adapting to a warming planet.

If the heat and drought trends worsen, “we’re probably out of business,” said Cyril Chappellet, president of Chappellet Winery, which has been operating for more than a half-century. “All of us are out business.”

‘I Don’t Like the Way the Reds Are Tasting’

Stu Smith’s winery is at the end of a two-lane road that winds up the side of Spring Mountain, west of St. Helena. The drive requires some concentration: The 2020 Glass fire incinerated the wooden posts that held up the guardrails, which now lie like discarded ribbons at the edge of the cliff.

In 1971, after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, Smith bought 165 acres of land here. He named his winery Smith Madrone, after the orange-red hardwoods with waxy leaves that surround the vineyards he planted. For almost three decades, those vineyards — 14 acres of cabernet, 7 acres each of chardonnay and riesling, plus a smattering of cabernet franc, merlot and petit verdot — were untouched by wildfires.

Then, in 2008, smoke from nearby fires reached his grapes for the first time. The harvest went on as usual. Months later, after the wine had aged but before it was bottled, Smith’s brother, Charlie, noticed something was wrong. “He said, ‘I just don’t like the way the reds are tasting,’” Stu Smith said.

At first, Smith resisted the idea anything was amiss, but he eventually brought the wine to a laboratory in Sonoma County, which determined that smoke had penetrated the skin of the grapes to affect the taste.

What winemakers came to call “smoke taint” now menaces Napa’s wine industry.

“The problem with the fires is that it doesn’t have be anywhere near us,” Smith said. Smoke from distant fires can waft long distances, and there is no way a grower can prevent it.

Smoke is a threat primarily to reds, whose skins provide the wine’s color. (The skins of white grapes, by contrast, are discarded, and with them the smoke residue.) Reds must also stay on the vine longer, often into October, leaving them more exposed to fires that usually peak in early fall.

Vintners could switch from red grapes to white, but that solution collides with the demands of the market. White grapes from Napa typically sell for around $2,750 per ton, on average. Reds, by contrast, fetch an average of about $5,000 per ton in the valley, and more for cabernet sauvignon. In Napa, there is a saying: Cabernet is king.

The damage in 2008 turned out to be a precursor of far worse to come. Haze from the Glass fire filled the valley; so many wine growers sought to test their grapes for smoke taint that the turnaround time at the nearest laboratory, once three days, became two months.

The losses have been stunning. In 2019, growers in the county sold $829 million worth of red grapes. In 2020, that figure plummeted to $384 million.

Among the casualties were Smith, whose entire crop was affected. Now the most visible legacy of the fire is the trees: The flames scorched not just the madrones that gave Smith’s winery its name but also the Douglas firs, the tan oaks and the bay trees.

Trees burned by wildfires do not die immediately; some linger for years. One afternoon in June, Smith surveyed the damage to his forest, stopping at a madrone he especially liked but whose odds were not good. “It’s dead,” Smith said. “It just doesn’t know it yet.”

Sunscreen for Grapes

Across the valley, Aaron Whitlatch, head of winemaking at Green & Red Vineyards, climbed into a dust-colored jeep for a trip up the mountain to demonstrate what heat does to grapes.

After navigating steep switchbacks, Whitlatch reached a row of vines growing petite sirah grapes that were coated with a thin layer of white.

The week before, temperatures had topped 100 degrees, and staff sprayed the vines with sunscreen.

“Keeps them from burning,” Whitlatch said.

The strategy had not worked perfectly. He pointed to a bunch of grapes at the very top of the peak exposed to sun during the hottest hours of the day. Some of the fruit had turned black and shrunken — becoming, effectively, absurdly high-cost raisins.

“The temperature of this cluster probably reached 120,” Whitlatch said. “We got torched.”

As the days get hotter and the sun more dangerous in Napa, wine growers are trying to adjust. A more expensive option than sunscreen is to cover the vines with shade cloth, Whitlatch said. Another tactic, even more costly, is to replant rows of vines so they are parallel to the sun in the warmest part of the day, catching less of its heat.

At 43, Whitlatch is a veteran of the wine fires. In 2017, he was an assistant winemaker at Mayacamas Vineyards, another Napa winery, when it was burned by a series of wildfires. This is his first season at Green & Red, which lost its entire crop of reds to smoke from the Glass fire.

After that fire, the winery’s insurer wrote to the owners, Raymond Hannigan and Tobin Heminway, listing the changes needed to reduce its fire risk, including updating circuit breaker panels and adding fire extinguishers. “We spent thousands and thousands of dollars upgrading the property,” Hannigan said.

A month later, Philadelphia Insurance Cos. sent the couple another letter, canceling their insurance anyway. The explanation was brief: “Ineligible risk — wildfire exposure does not meet current underwriting guidelines.” The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Heminway and Hannigan have been unable to find coverage from any other carrier. The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow wineries to get insurance through a state-run high-risk pool.

But even if that passes, Hannigan said, “it’s not going to help us during this harvest season.”

Half the Insurance, Five Times the Cost

Just south of Green & Red, Chappellet stood amid the bustle of wine being bottled and trucks unloading. Chappellet Winery is the picture of commercial-scale efficiency, producing some 70,000 cases of wine a year. The main building, which his parents built after buying the property in 1967, resembles a cathedral; gargantuan wooden beams soar upward, sheltering row after row of oak barrels aging a fortune’s worth of cabernet.

After the Glass fire, Chappellet is one of the lucky ones; he still has insurance. It just costs five times as much as it did last year.

His winery now pays more than $1 million a year, up from $200,000 before the fire. At the same time, his insurers cut by half the amount of coverage they were willing to provide.

“It’s insane,” Chappellet said. “It’s not something that we can withstand for the long term.”

There are other problems. Chappellet pointed to his vineyards, where workers were cutting grapes from the vines — not because they were ready to harvest but because there was not enough water to keep them growing. He estimated it would reduce his crop this year by one-third.

“We don’t have the luxury of giving them the normal amount that it would take them to be really healthy,” Chappellet said.

To demonstrate why, he drove up a dirt road, stopping at what used to be the pair of reservoirs that fed his vineyards. The first was one-third full; the other, just above it, had become a barren pit. A pipe that once pumped out water instead lay on the dusty lake bed.

“This is the disaster,” Chappellet said.

Water by the Truckload

When spring came this year, and the reservoir on Sattui’s vineyard was empty, his colleague Tom Davies, president of V. Sattui Winery, crafted a backup plan. Davies found Joe Brown.

Eight times a day, Brown pulls into a loading dock at the city of Napa’s sanitation department, fills a tanker truck with 3,500 gallons of treated wastewater and drives 10 miles to the vineyard, then turns around and does it again.

The water, which comes from household toilets and drains and is sifted, filtered and disinfected, is a bargain at $6.76 a truckload. The problem is transportation: Each load costs Davies about $140, which he guesses will add $60,000 or more to the cost of running the vineyard this season.

And that is assuming Napa officials keep selling wastewater, which in theory could be made potable. As the drought worsens, the city may decide its residents need it more. “We’re nervous that at some point, Napa sanitation says, ‘No more water,’” Davies said.

After driving past the empty reservoir, Davies stopped at a hilltop overlooking the vineyard.

If Napa can go another year or two without major wildfires, Davies thinks insurers will return. Harder to solve are the smoke taint and water shortages.

“It’s still kind of early on to talk about the demise of our industry,” Davies said, looking out across the valley. “But it’s certainly a concern.”

© 2021 The New York Times Company

Conservation isn’t enough. Booming Fort Worth area needs new lake as a water source

Conservation isn’t enough. Booming Fort Worth area needs new lake as a water source

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial Board            

 

No one builds a lake on a lark.

It takes decades of discussion and planning to designate a reservoir site, conduct extensive environmental reviews and acquire permits and property. Along the way, stakeholders at every level have ample opportunity to weigh in.

That process has been playing out for nearly 25 years when it comes to the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir. It’s a key part of the future for much of the Dallas-Fort Worth region, including Tarrant County. So, its inclusion in the latest version of the state’s master water-supply and regulation plan is good news.

Landowners in northeast Texas, the proposed site of the lake, and some environmentalists are reinforcing their opposition to the new reservoir, which still wouldn’t be built yet for decades. There’s no question its creation will be a hardship for many, and property rights deserve the utmost respect and defense.

But it’s in the best interest of the region and state to build Marvin Nichols, and it’s not a close call. The process must move forward.

Dan Buhman, general manager of the Tarrant Regional Water District, which ensures a safe and reliable water supply for the area, said that the agency always seeks first to maximize conservation, reuse water and seek other efficiencies. But the need for a new source in the coming decades is inevitable.

“We have to meet the demands of a growing region,” Buhman said. “Marvin Nichols has got to be part of our portfolio of our possible water supplies. But it’s not our only option. The first priority is always efficiency.”

Dallas-Fort Worth remains primed for huge population growth for decades. That’s a good thing: It means vitality and more opportunity for all. But growth brings challenges, including the need to secure resources and infrastructure for households and businesses alike.

There was a time when conservation efforts were insufficient. But the entire area has made tremendous strides. Per-capita water usage rates in area cities has dropped over the years. Fort Worth and Arlington receive some of the highest scores on conservation from Texas Living Waters, a coalition of advocacy groups seeking to protect freshwater sources.

Buhman said the water district’s service area conserves 20 billion gallons annually, a testament to better technology, more efficient use of resources and a constant reinforcing of the message that saving water is important.

And such efforts should continue. Buhman noted that many new arrivals to Tarrant County come from places where water is abundant, so ongoing education about the challenges of ensuring our water supply is important.

“We have to do everything we can do to use the resources we have responsibly,” said Buhman, who recently ascended to the district’s top job. But “based on all our studies, conservation is insufficient to deal with our growth.”

Even with robust conservation and reuse, the North Texas region (as defined for state water planning purposes) will see its demand increase 67 percent over the coming decades, the Texas plan notes. Where will it come from? The Tarrant district once tried to get more from across the Red River, but it lost a dispute with Oklahoma at the Supreme Court. We simply must have other options to supply and store water. Buhman noted that one of the predicted effects of climate change for the region is fewer rainfall events that are more intense. Capturing that water when it comes is important.

That’s where Marvin Nichols comes in. The state doesn’t build reservoirs on a whim. A new one hasn’t opened in decades, and the last lake built in the DFW area, Joe Pool, is more than three decades old.

Opponents to Marvin Nichols seem reinvigorated by the North Texas region’s push to include the reservoir in the long-term plan. It’s uniting property owners, environmentalists and timber interests. Federal review will take many more years, and they’ll have ample opportunity to weigh in.

No one should pretend that building Marvin Nichols comes without cost. But tradeoffs are necessary. For a glimpse of what can happen when the right decisions aren’t made decades in advance, look no further than California, where a failure of planning and worsening drought have much of the state on the precipice of a water crisis.

Elected and appointed officials alike must stay well ahead of the curve. That kind of prudence, temperament and vision necessary are a reason to pay close attention when offices such as the water district’s board of directors are on the ballot.

After all, as Buhman says, no one wants the day to come when we turn the tap and wonder what, if anything, will come out.

‘We are so unprepared’: Extreme heat fueled by climate change putting farmworkers’ lives on the line

‘We are so unprepared’: Extreme heat fueled by climate change putting farmworkers’ lives on the line

Lindsay Schnell, USA TODAY                         

 

Ricardo Sotelo called his wife, Lupita, three times on June 30, 2015. He repeated the same message at 10 a.m., noon and 3 p.m.: “I don’t feel good. I really don’t feel good.”

They were both working Olsen Brothers Farms in eastern Washington – Lupita in the warehouse, and Ricardo picking blueberries in the scorching sun. Temperatures topped 107 degrees that day, and Lupita recalls there was no shade or water in sight.

At home by 5 p.m., Ricardo clutched his chest and complained of a severe headache. Worried, his 15-year-old daughter rushed him to the hospital. By 6 p.m. he was dead. The cause: heatstroke.

“I never thought, coming from Mexico, that this would happen in the United States, that my husband would die at work,” Lupita said through a translator, explaining that she and Ricardo had come to America from Sonora, in 2011 in search of a better life.

But for thousands of farmworkers, extreme temperatures – as evidenced in intense heat waves gripping the U.S. this summer – pose an increasing threat, particularly as climate change warms the planet at a rapid rate.

A deadly and record-breaking heat wave in parts of the Western U.S. and Canada earlier this summer would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of climate change, according to a study by leading scientists, who said global warming made the intense temperatures at least 150 times more likely to occur.

Pedro Lucas, center, nephew of farmworker Sebastian Francisco Perez, talks about his uncle's death on July 1, 2021, near St. Paul, Ore.
Pedro Lucas, center, nephew of farmworker Sebastian Francisco Perez, talks about his uncle’s death on July 1, 2021, near St. Paul, Ore.
Just 3 states have protective rules in place

Farmworkers, most of them immigrants, some documented and some not, are responsible for the lush spreads that adorn most Americans tables: They pick blueberries and cherries in Washington, figs and olives in California, citrus in Florida, peaches, plums and apples in Texas.

That fragrant fir decorating your living room every December likely arrived because of a farmworker in Oregon, the nation’s main producer of Christmas trees.

But farmworkers feed Americans often without any sort of protections from the American government. Just three states – California, Washington and Minnesota – have permanent rules and regulations that protect farmworkers from extreme heat.

When a heat wave suffocated the Pacific Northwest and temperatures soared to 117 degrees two weeks ago in Oregon, Sebastian Francisco Perez, a farmworker who had just arrived from Guatemala, died in St. Paul, 30 miles south of Portland. He was only 38.

‘He liked to be in the United States’: Family remembers farm worker who died in heat

As extreme temperatures and weather events become more common – often forcing workers to complete tasks in the hottest part of the day – advocates and sympathetic lawmakers worry about the future of farmworking in America. Will regulation and enforcement keep pace with climate change? Or will debates about the validity of science continue to put lives at risk?

Lorena González, a candidate for Seattle mayor, grew up working in fields with her family and says "thousands of people who work outside every day are bearing the brunt of our inaction" on climate change.
Lorena González, a candidate for Seattle mayor, grew up working in fields with her family and says “thousands of people who work outside every day are bearing the brunt of our inaction” on climate change.

 

Lorena González, 44, the president of Seattle’s city council and a candidate for Seattle mayor, spent her childhood in central Washington picking cherries with her migrant family, earning her first paycheck at 8.

She still remembers the crippling heat, the layers of clothing worn to protect her skin from sunburns, the gallons of water they carried to every tree. She knows first-hand the risks farmworkers face every day, and what could happen if local and federal regulations aren’t passed in a timely fashion.

“It is a danger that our legislatures are stuck in their status quo of ‘legislate as usual,’” González said. “When you’re in the midst of a crisis, which is what climate change is, you have to figure out how to adapt your governance model in order to respond to the emerging need that’s before you.

“It’s just outrageous … there are thousands and thousands of people who work outside every day who are bearing the brunt of our inaction.”

Farmworker life expectancy: 49 years

On June 28, as temperatures skyrocketed to 117 degrees in the Willamette Valley, threatening Oregon’s all-time high of 119, Reyna Lopez told USA TODAY that something catastrophic could happen.

Lopez, the executive director of Pineros Y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), Oregon’s largest farmworkers union, had already started to hear whispers that the heat had turned deadly. By Tuesday she had confirmation, when news broke about Perez.

At the time of his passing, Oregon had no heat-related rules to protect farmworkers. Initially expected in 2020, heat-related rules were delayed when COVID hit. Lopez called the COVID reasoning “a cop-out,” pointing out that farmworkers continued to labor through COVID, enduring historic heat waves, wildfire smoke that destroyed air quality and an ice storm in January.

OSHA adopts emergency heat rules following farmworker death

On July 8, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, in conjunction with Oregon’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), announced emergency heat rules, which mandate access to shade and cold water and, when temperatures hit 90 degrees, 10-minute breaks every two hours. Her office told USA TODAY that permeant rules are expected “by the fall” but didn’t give a specific date.

Washington followed suit the next day, announcing expanded heat exposure protections – including paid breaks – that enhance the laws already in place. Gov. Jay Inslee, one of the nation’s leading voices on climate change, acknowledged the need for updated regulations in a statement, saying, “Our state has rules in place to ensure these risks are mitigated, however, the real impacts of climate change have changed conditions since those rules were first written and we are responding.”

Neither state has rules that workers be sent home if temperatures reach a certain high.

That could be problematic, according to Kristie Ebi, a professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington. Ebi has worked on issues of climate change and health for 25 years, and says temperatures don’t have to reach 115 degrees to do long-term damage to the human body.

Multiple studies have shown that prolonged exposure to high temperatures can ravage a person’s kidneys. Some of the world’s hottest regions, including Sri Lanka and Central America, where farmworking is common, have experienced a spike in kidney disease, which can lead to death.

In the U.S., the life expectancy of a farmworker is just 49 years. Most do not have access to health insurance.

A worker looks at a photo of Sebastian Francisco Perez who died while working in an extreme heat wave near St. Paul, Ore.
A worker looks at a photo of Sebastian Francisco Perez who died while working in an extreme heat wave near St. Paul, Ore.

 

“I’m more concerned about the next decade or two than I am about the middle of the century,” Ebi said. “We are so unprepared. Temperatures will be higher mid-century, yes, and we’ll have even longer, more intense heat waves than we’re having now, and how intense will depend on our greenhouse gas emissions.

“But it’s the short-term we need to think about. How can we start investing in critical infrastructure that people need right now to be prepared for the climate change that’s already happening?”

U.S. senators propose protections

In March, a group of U.S. senators introduced the Asunción Valdivia Heat Illness and Fatality Prevention Act. In 2004, Valdivia died of heat stroke in California after picking grapes in 105 degrees for 10 consecutive hours. When Valdivia fell ill, his employer declined to call an ambulance and told Valdivia’s son to drive him to the ER instead. During the drive Valdivia, then 53, started foaming at the mouth. He died before he reached the hospital.

Organizations such as United Farm Workers, headquartered in California and the nation’s largest farmworking union, have lobbied strongly for the bill, and previously testified in front of Congress about the risks farmworkers face working in the heat. The bill has not been brought to the floor for a vote.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., a co-sponsor of that bill, told USA TODAY in an email that he was “deeply saddened” by the death of Perez and that it was “a stark reminder that as climate chaos progresses, those who will pay the steepest costs will often be the most vulnerable in society … we can and must do more to ensure farmworkers receive every necessary protection from extreme heat.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, gestures before a chart showing warming temperatures.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, gestures before a chart showing warming temperatures.

 

Merkley is also bullish about the need to protect farmworkers from wildfire smoke. Previously, he’s pushed for legislation that would do exactly that, introducing the Farmworker Smoke Protection Act with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in 2019. Merkley said he plans to introduce an updated version of that legislation in the coming weeks.

At PCUN, Lopez was frustrated and surprised to see that Oregon’s emergency heat rules didn’t include anything for smoke, despite a historic drought in 2021 that’s likely to lead to another brutal fire season in the West. Lopez wants those rules now, not after wildfire smoke chokes anyone who steps outside to work.

California has smoke-related rules, but Ira Cuello-Martinez, PCUN’s climate policy associate – a position the organization recently added because climate change has become such a crucial piece of protecting farmworkers – said the California rules should not be the standard.

According to the California OSHA website, smoke-related rules are based on the Air Quality Index. When AQI hits 151, which is officially considered “unhealthy,” employers must provide workers with respirators, like N-95 masks, and encourage use of them. When the AQI hits 500, employers must require use of respirators even though at 301 AQI and higher, air is considered hazardous.

And there’s nothing that says when AQI hits a certain number – the scale only goes to 500 – work should be suspended for the day.

“That was a mistake on Cal OSHA’s end – that’s unbearably unhealthy,” Cuello-Martinez said, expressing worry that Oregon might adopt similar guidelines. “No one should be outside in those conditions.”

Last summer when COVID shuttered numerous restaurants, the only work available to many immigrants was in the fields. Workers told Cuello-Martinez about wildfire smoke so bad it stung their eyes and made them unable to see, how they got so nauseous they couldn’t stop vomiting. They were worried about working in hazardous conditions, but they didn’t have any other income opportunities.

A farmworker wipes sweat from his neck while working in St. Paul, Ore., as a heat wave bakes the Pacific Northwest in record-high temperatures on July 1, 2021.
A farmworker wipes sweat from his neck while working in St. Paul, Ore., as a heat wave bakes the Pacific Northwest in record-high temperatures on July 1, 2021.

 

Cuello-Martinez is concerned about the government’s ability to keep pace with climate change and adjust rules as more data becomes available about the long-term impact of working in extreme heat or smoky conditions.

“We don’t want life expectancy to continue decreasing,” he said.

‘A life of sacrifice so Americans can eat’

Along with rules based in science, Lopez and Cuello-Martinez also want disaster pay for farmworkers, so that if conditions are hazardous for any reason, farmworkers could stay home and not suffer financially. They think rules about air conditioning in employer-provided housing – PCUN estimates that about 9,000 of Oregon’s 87,000 field workers and hand harvesters live in employer-provided housing – need to be adopted immediately.

Lopez, Cuello-Martinez and other farmworking advocates, worry that climate-related deaths among farmworkers are severely underreported.

“I think about it every day,” Lopez said. “There are people in the deepest, darkest corners of rural Oregon that I have no idea about – and I guarantee you that there were multiple people who died (because of the heat) that we don’t know about.”

For Lopez, the fight feels personal. When she heard about Perez’s death she thought about how it could have been her mother, her father, her uncle or aunt or brother or sister.

“From the moment farmworkers leave their country due to economic hardship and come work in the fields, they’re living a life of sacrifice so Americans can eat,” Lopez said.

Lupita Sotelo, second from left, lost her husband, Ricardo, in 2015, when he died of heatstroke after spending hours working in the fields of eastern Washington picking blueberries.
Lupita Sotelo, second from left, lost her husband, Ricardo, in 2015, when he died of heatstroke after spending hours working in the fields of eastern Washington picking blueberries.
It’s a truth Sotelo knows too well.

 

Now 50, Sotelo doesn’t think her body can handle working outside much longer. The farm she works at now is better though, she said: Her supervisor checks in on workers regularly, making sure they have water and take breaks in shade. When temperatures hit 91 last week, the farm called it a day and sent everyone home around 1 p.m.

This has been the hottest year she’s experienced in the decade she’s been in the U.S., Sotelo said. And though she said she will “never get over the pain of losing my husband,” she could not mourn forever. So she’ll continue to pick blueberries and cherries, doing her part to feed America.

Working in the fields is “the only option we have,” she said in Spanish. “We have to pay bills, too.”

Follow national correspondent Lindsay Schnell on Twitter at @Lindsay_Schnell

Oregon wildfire blazes ahead against army of firefighters

Oregon wildfire blazes ahead against army of firefighters

Rich McKay                  

 

Plumes of smoke from the Bootleg Fire can be seen from Crater Lake National Park

 

(Reuters) – Fed by bone dry timbers, a massive wildfire dubbed the Bootleg blaze raged across an Oregon forest, advancing five miles (8 km) a day against an army of firefighters as it scorched another 39,000 acres (15,783 hectares) on Saturday.

Driven by 30-mph wind gusts, by midafternoon it had burned more than 280,000 acres since starting on July 6 – consuming a forested area larger than New York City.

More than 2,100 firefighters, a dozen helicopters and airplane tankers had 22% of the blaze under control, said Oregon Department of Forestry spokesman Marcus Kauffman.

While that is up from 7% on Friday, the fire is still growing across a containment line longer than 200 miles.

No clear prediction is available as to when the fire might be fully controlled, Kauffman said, but November is the estimate on the ODF’s website.

“This fire is large and moving so fast, every day it progresses 4 to 5 miles,” said ODF Incident Commander Joe Hassel. “One of the many challenges that our firefighters face every day is working in new country that can present new hazards all the time.”

Bootleg, the biggest among dozens of wildfires flaring across the tinder-dry landscape of the western United States, is about 250 miles south of Portland, in the Fremont-Winema National Forest. The cause is under investigation.

About 2,000 people have been evacuated from the area, said Nick Hennemann, another ODF spokesman. Flames destroyed at least 21 homes along with 54 other structures, and 5,000 homes are threatened.

The hot, dry, windy weather is expected to persist through Sunday and Monday, and temperatures could push toward 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius) in southern Oregon and parts of Montana and Idaho, said Eric Schoening, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

The heatwave, extending from portions of the Northern Rockies and High Plains, is driven by a high-pressure ridge building over the desert Southwest, Schoening added.

“The main concern is the continuing dry, gusty winds across southern Oregon,” he said, noting that conditions are right for lightning strikes in northern California and into Oregon through Idaho which could spark more blazes.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Richard Chang)

UPDATE 2-Sprawling Oregon wildfire, largest of dozens in U.S., continues to grow

UPDATE 2-Sprawling Oregon wildfire, largest of dozens in U.S., continues to grow

Deborah Bloom and Steve Gorman                

 

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore., July 16 (Reuters) – A sprawling wildfire raging mostly unchecked for over a week in southern Oregon forced firefighters into retreat for a fourth straight day as it expanded to become the state’s fifth largest blaze in more than a century, forestry officials said on Friday.

The Bootleg fire, the biggest among dozens of wildfires flaring across the tinder-dry landscape of the Western United States, has scorched more than 241,000 acres – an area exceeding the land mass of New York City.

Ironically, heavy smoke shrouding much of the region from the fires may act to slightly blunt the effects of yet another heat wave expected this weekend in the Rockies, extending to parts of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado.

The Bootleg blaze has been burning through drought-parched timber and brush in and around the Fremont-Winema National Forest since erupting on July 6 near Klamath Falls, about 250 miles (400 km) south of Portland. The cause is under investigation.

Flames have destroyed at least 21 homes and 54 other structures, authorities said. On Friday, the Oregon Department of Forestry listed 5,000-plus homes as threatened, about 3,000 more than a day earlier.

That figure represents a greater number of communities potentially in harm’s way as the blaze expands, said agency spokesman Marcus Kauffman. Still, fewer dwellings were in immediate danger, especially along the fire’s southern flank where crews had more success.

Consequently, the number of homes under mandatory evacuation declined by about half to just over 200 on Friday, while about 2,700 were placed on stand-by alerts.

Strike teams have carved containment lines around 7% of the fire’s perimeter. But extreme fire growth fueled by low humidity, dry vegetation and gusty winds forced firefighters to withdraw from leading edges of the blaze for a fourth consecutive day on Friday, officials said.

“The Bootleg fire perimeter is more than 200 miles long. That’s an enormous amount of line to build and hold,” incident commander Rob Allen said in a statement.

ANOTHER HEAT WAVE

Allen said hot, dry, windy conditions were expected to worsen over the weekend, while meteorologists forecast the arrival of yet another major Western heat wave, the fourth since early June.

This one, roasting portions of the Northern Rockies and High Plains through Monday, will emanate from a high-pressure ridge building over the Desert Southwest, said National Weather Service meteorologist David Lawrence.

That high-pressure dome may help pull some much-needed moisture into Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and southern Idaho, Lawrence said. A potential downside, however, is the increased chance of dry lightning storms forming in central and northern California ahead of any rain that may fall there, he added.

More than 1,900 firefighters and a dozen helicopters as well as airplane tankers and bulldozers were assigned to the Bootleg fire as demand for personnel and equipment across the Pacific Northwest strained available resources.

The Bootleg ranked as the largest by far of 70 major active wildfires listed on Thursday as having burned more than 1 million acres in 12 states, the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, reported. It also stood as the fifth largest on record in Oregon since 1900, according to state forestry figures.

As of Wednesday, the center in Boise put its “national wildland fire preparedness level” at No. 5, the highest of its five-tier scale, meaning most U.S. firefighting resources are currently deployed somewhere across the country.

The situation represented an unusually busy start to the annual fire season, coming amid extremely dry conditions and record-breaking heat that has baked much of the West in recent weeks.

Scientists have said the growing frequency and intensity of wildfires are largely attributable to prolonged drought and increasing bouts of excessive heat that are symptomatic of climate change.

Nearly 70 National Weather Service stations across the West have posted all-time high temperatures this summer, and several hundred record highs for specific dates have also been set, Lawrence said

The Bootleg fire is so large that it generates its own weather. Towering pyrocumulus clouds form from condensed moisture that is sucked up through the fire’s smoke column from burned vegetation and the surrounding atmosphere, and can spawn lightning and high winds.

The sudden “collapse” of one such cloud on Friday spread embers to the east of the main fire zone, prompting additional evacuation notices for two communities, Allen said. (Reporting by Deborah Bloom in Klamath Falls, Ore.; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by David Gregorio and Leslie Adler)

Amid flooded roads, collapsed homes and death, Europe reckons with signs of climate change

Amid flooded roads, collapsed homes and death, Europe reckons with signs of climate change

Chantal Da Silva and Matthew Mulligan             

 

When professor Dieter Gerten learned that his home village was one of many hit with torrential rains and severe flooding this week, he was devastated, but not entirely surprised.

For Gerten, a working group leader at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the deadly floods that swept through the streets of western Europe this week were the latest sign of the crises humanity will face in the years ahead.

“These sorts of events are totally what is expected due to climate projections for the past 30 years, which have said there will be a higher intensity and frequency of heat waves, of droughts and of strong rain events,” he told NBC News.

Gerten acknowledged it was “not easy or possible to link a single event to climate change.” However, he said, it was “possible to link a series of events, as well as the increasing frequency and the increasing intensity.”

Pointing to the recent record-breaking deadly heat wave that affected parts of the western United States and Canada earlier this month, he said the frequency of such weather events could increase if the global community does not do more to combat climate change.

Gerten’s village, Oberkail, is part of the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate that has borne the brunt of much of the flooding in Germany. The heavy rains caused riverbanks to burst, turning streets into wild waterways that overturned vehicles and reduced houses to rubble.

Storms in neighboring Belgium have also caused deadly flooding, while Luxembourg and the Netherlands were also hit with heavy downpours.

At least 120 people have been killed and hundreds remain unaccounted for in the flooding.

Image: Damaged houses are seen at the Ahr river in Insul, western Germany (Michael Probst / AP)
Image: Damaged houses are seen at the Ahr river in Insul, western Germany (Michael Probst / AP)

 

Experts have cautioned that it is too soon to directly blame the floods on climate change, but the science is clear that such disasters could become more common due to its impact.

German politicians, including President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, have nonetheless called for greater efforts to combat global warming.

“Only if we decisively take up the fight against climate change will we be able to limit the extreme weather conditions we are now experiencing,” he said Friday.

Environment Minister Svenja Schulze also tweeted that climate change had “arrived in Germany.”

“The events show with what force the consequences of climate change can affect us all, and how important it is for us to adjust to extreme weather events in the future,” she said.

Other politicians, including Armin Laschet, the conservative candidate hoping to replace Angela Merkel in Germany’s September election, have also called for action.

Calling the disaster an “extreme event,” Andreas Friedrich, a German weather service spokesperson, said the affected areas saw “very severe precipitation,” with the amount of rainfall usually expected across two months.

However, he said, the degree of devastation had as much to do with where the downpour hit as the rain itself.

“This is a special situation,” he said. “In this region, we have small valleys, small rivers and of course, with the big amount of precipitation in a short time, we’ve had floods and damage in this region.”

Image: A damaged car and bicycles are pictured in a muddy street in Ahrweiler-Bad Neuenahr, western Germany, (Christof Stache / AFP - Getty Images)
Image: A damaged car and bicycles are pictured in a muddy street in Ahrweiler-Bad Neuenahr, western Germany, (Christof Stache / AFP – Getty Images)

 

The states affected were not used to coping with such severe precipitation, meaning they were likely unprepared for the ensuing floods, he said.

Dirk Jansen of the environmental advocacy group Friends of the Earth Germany agreed.

“The forecasts of climate researchers are clear. Man-made climate change means that such extreme weather conditions will increase in [frequency] and intensity. Such extreme weather situations will no longer be singular rare events in the future, but rather, the rule,” he said.

“Neither in Europe, nor anywhere else, are they adequately prepared for this,” he added.

Both Gerten and Jansen said they believed European countries and those around the world must do more to prepare for the realities of the effects of climate change, including by investing in climate-resilient infrastructure.

However, they said, the international community should be as focused on preventing climate change as it should be on preparing for it.

The flooding comes as the European Union seeks to set a new standard in addressing climate change, challenging leaders in the global community to match the goals laid out in its plans to reduce carbon emissions.

In its effort to cut net greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent from 1990 levels by 2030, the 27-nation bloc announced proposals Wednesday that seek to phase out the internal combustion engine entirely.

A carbon border tax that would force certain producers with looser environmental rules to pay a carbon price dictated by the level set by the E.U.’s carbon emissions market was also proposed.

While some have welcomed the plan, Jansen said he felt the bloc’s target still misses the mark. “The European climate protection goals are not ambitious enough,” he said.

He said a reduction in carbon emissions by 55 percent by 2030 was not enough to meet the limit set out by the Paris Agreement, a global climate pact that nearly every nation in the world signed up to in 2015.

“We need at least 65 percent for this,” he said.

“There is still time to handle this and cut emissions as proposed in the Paris climate agreement,” Gerten said.

The best bet the global community has in combating the effects of climate change, he said, is “reducing greenhouse gas emissions as fast and effectively as possible because the more we emit into the atmosphere, the more these extremes will increase in the future”.

Wisconsin workers fight factory move to Mexico: ‘Anxiety is through the roof’

Wisconsin workers fight factory move to Mexico: ‘Anxiety is through the roof’

Steven Greenhouse                 

 

For most of her 36 years at the Hufcor factory in Janesville, Wisconsin, Kathy Pawluk loved working there, at least until a private-equity firm took over four years ago. There were Christmas parties and summer picnics, and workers could listen to the radio as they built accordion-style room partitions for convention centers and hotel ballrooms.

“They treated people like they were family, not a number,” said Pawluk, 62. “We had the best health benefits. We had HR people who really cared about us.”

But Pawluk said things deteriorated soon after OpenGate Capital acquired Hufcor, a family-owned company founded in Janesville 120 years ago. “They basically told us ‘We don’t want to get to know you’ in so many words,” Pawluk said.

In late May, things took a turn for the worse. The company announced it was shuttering the sprawling plant and moving operations to Monterrey, Mexico, wiping out the jobs of 166 workers.

“They told us, ‘We can make a lot more money in Mexico. The labor is too high here. Parts cost too much here,’” Pawluk said “They’ll get away with paying dirt wages in Mexico.” Until she was laid off last week, she earned $20.92. Union officials now estimate that Hufcor’s workers in Mexico will make less than one-fifth that.

“I wasn’t so worried about myself. I’m close to retirement,” Pawluk said. “I’m more worried about the others. The rest of us are like family. We know each other’s kids. We know each other’s grandkids. Some friends have 30 years in, and they’re now forced to find another job. That sucks.”

The workers and their union – the IUE-CWA, the industrial division of the Communications Workers of America – sprang into action to try to get OpenGate to reverse itself. They held protests that called OpenGate a “vampire” private-equity company. They asked lawmakers to pressure Los Angeles-based OpenGate. They ran a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times. They framed things as greedy Wall Street against needy Main Street.

Some friends have 30 years in, and they’re now forced to find another job

Kathy Pawluk

“It was definitely trying to pressure them to change their mind,” said Tom Casey, the president of the factory’s union local. “Hufcor has been in this community 120 years. OpenGate really didn’t have a stake in the community.” Casey has worked at the plant for 31 years, his mother worked there for 38 years.

Janesville, a city of 64,000 in south central Wisconsin, was slowly recovering from repeated plant closings and the pandemic. In 2008, General Motors closed its huge assembly plant in Janesville, costing more than 2,500 jobs, while Parker Pen, founded in Janesville, closed its factory in 2009.

“It seems like we were finally able to bounce back. But it seems like this will have a big effect on Janesville,” said Michelle Hilt, who has worked at the factory for 23 years, while her husband worked there for 36 years. They met at the plant.

Founded in 2005, OpenGate has made many acquisitions, the most famous being TV Guide. On its website, OpenGate says it “strives to acquire and optimize lower-to-middle market businesses” and “leverage our in-house investing” to “drive long-term value creation”.

OpenGate and Hufcor defended the decision to close the Janesville factory, saying in a statement: “Hufcor is suffering significant negative economic effects related to the Covid-19 pandemic … When considering these impacts, and Hufcor’s aging manufacturing facility in Janesville, the future of the entire business is in jeopardy. Therefore, to ensure Hufcor’s survival and long-term viability, the difficult decision was made to relocate manufacturing to an alternate facility.” Hufcor says it’s keeping its R&D and customer service operations in Janesville.

Casey, the union president, said management appeared to be making preparations to shut the plant even before Covid hit: “It wasn’t a complete shock because we had researched OpenGate and knew what we’re dealing with.”

The Janesville closing isn’t the first time OpenGate has angered communities and workers.

In 2013, OpenGate suddenly closed the Golden Guernsey Dairy in Waukesha, Wisconsin, providing no advance notice to the 100-plus workers who showed up at work and found the doors locked. In 2014, it shut Fusion Paperboard in Connecticut, soon after receiving a 10-year loan from the state and signing a six-year union contract. In 2015, OpenGate again without advance notice, closed the PennySaver newspaper in California, laying off 678 workers.

The Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin wrote to OpenGate, saying it “has a history of shutting down businesses and giving workers pink slips in Wisconsin”. In a Facebook post, Baldwin wrote: “It’s clear to me we need to take legislative action in Congress to rip up the predatory playbook that these private equity firms use to leave workers with nothing but pink slips and lost livelihoods.”

Rosemary Batt, the Alice Cook professor of women and work at Cornell and an expert on how private equity affects workers and communities, said: “OpenGate Capital does the same playbook we’ve seen again and again from private equity.” She said those firms buy out companies with good fundamentals and then cut costs and stop investing in new technologies and in maintaining and modernizing facilities. “Their financial tactics set this up and weakened the company so that the next step is Mexico,” Batt said.

The factory closing has many workers wondering what they will do next. “At first I was scared and then I was angry and now my anxiety level is through the roof,” said Michelle Hilt, alarmed that both she and her husband are losing their jobs. She plans to study to become a radiology assistant.

If there’s any silver lining, it’s that the Hufcor workers will receive federal trade adjustment assistance to help return to school. Pawluk plans to study accounting. Richard Hampton, a Hufcor worker for 14 years, hopes for some small business aid to open a soul food restaurant. “As soon as they [OpenGate] came in, they said we’re overpaid,” Hampton said. “It really sucks. They take our jobs and move them to another country.”

The workers still haven’t given up: “We’ve all been fighting this like crazy,” Hilt said.

Red Tide, stench of dead fish hangs over Fort De Soto beaches

Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Fla

Red Tide, stench of dead fish hangs over Fort De Soto beaches

Matt Cohen, Tampa Bay Times                                

 

TIERRA VERDE — A handful of anglers cast their lines off Fort De Soto’s fishing pier on Friday into Red Tide-infested waters.

 

In the sand below them lay dead snook and tarpon, grouper and horseshoe crabs, eels and pufferfish. The stench of dead marine life filled the air at Fort De Soto Park on Friday, one of the crown jewels of Pinellas County beach tourism.

One family waded out and tried putting their baby in the water. The baby cried.

They all drove past an 8 foot by 11 foot sign at the toll both with this warning in bold, italicized capital letters: RED TIDE.

None of those anglers or beach-goers wished to speak to a Tampa Bay Times reporter about why they had braved fish kills and Red Tide to visit the beach. Not many chose to join them on a summer morning in July.

While huge fish kills are being cleaned from St. Petersburg’s shoreline, Red Tide remains a problem for the Pinellas beaches as well.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Red Tide map shows high concentrations of the Karenia brevis cells that cause Red Tide were found along the county’s Gulf shores at Fort De Soto Bay Pier, Bunces Pass near the Pinellas Bayway, the 7th Avenue Pier near Pass-A-Grille Channel and as far north as Indian Shores Beach.

There were also areas of medium concentrations in water samples taken near Madeira Beach and Clearwater Beach.

The fish kills within Fort De Soto Park appeared to be mostly limited to the southern edge of the beaches, but the smell was everywhere.

While there are high concentrations of Red Tide found near Pass-a-Grille Beach, hardly any fish had washed ashore there.

Inside Fort De Soto, signs for Saturday’s Top Gun Triathlon — the biking is set to take place along the park’s roads, while the water will be used for swimming — remained in place on Friday. The organizers did not return calls for comment, but its Facebook page indicated the event will still be held.

Just outside the park, Peter Clark, president of Tampa Bay Watch in Tierra Verde, said the area is seeing far more dead fish over the last few days.

“There is a pretty strong Red Tide blooming right now,” Clark said.

Clark said the Red Tide is now killing fish in the Tierra Verde waters itself, whereas before dead fish from Tampa Bay washed ashore. He said he’s seen poisoned fish struggling on the surface of the water.

This week, his walks outside have been met with the pungent odor of dead sea life. He urges residents to check the Red Tide levels of whatever beaches or waterfront spot they visit before they go out there.

Red Tide resources

There are several online resources that can help residents stay informed and share information about Red Tide:

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has a website that tracks where Red Tide is detected and how strong it is.

Florida Poison Control Centers have a toll-free 24/7 hotline to report illnesses, including from exposure to Red Tide: 1-800-222-1222

To report fish kills and get them cleaned up in Tampa Bay, call the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at 1-800-636-0511 or file a fish kill report online.

To report them in St. Petersburg, call the Mayor’s Action Center at 727-893-7111 or use St. Petersburg’s seeclickfix website.

Visit St. Pete/Clearwater, the county’s tourism wing, runs an online beach dashboard at www.beachesupdate.com.

Pinellas County shares information with the Red Tide Respiratory Forecast tool that allows beachgoers to check for warnings.

How to stay safe near the water
  • Beachgoers should avoid swimming around dead fish.
  • Those with chronic respiratory problems should be particularly careful and “consider staying away” from places with a Red Tide bloom.
  • People should not harvest or eat mollusks or distressed and dead fish from the area. Fillets of healthy fish should be rinsed with clean water, and the guts thrown out.
  • Pet owners should keep their animals away from the water and from dead fish.
  • Residents living near the beach should close their windows and run air conditioners with proper filters.
  • Visitors to the beach can wear paper masks, especially if the wind is blowing in.

Source: Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County