Extreme heat is a health crisis, Columbia experts say
Isabella O’Malley – February 27, 2023
Two firefighters watch for spot fires, Oct. 13, 2017, near Calistoga, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, file)Farmer Barry Evans examines the soil at a cotton crop he shredded and planted over with wheat, Oct. 3, 2022, in Kress, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, file)Fire crews work a wildfire on Sept. 1, 2022, near Dulzura, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, file)
The record-breaking heat Earth endured during the summer of 2022 will be repeated without a robust international effort to address climate change, a panel of scientists warned Monday.
Heat-related deaths, wildfires, extreme rainfall, and persistent drought are expected to become increasingly severe as both ocean and atmospheric temperatures continue to rise, the experts said. Even if all greenhouse gas emissions ceased today, Earth will continue to warm for several decades.
The presentation, “Earth Series Virtual: Blazing Temperatures, Broken Records,” featured a multidisciplinary panel of scientific experts from Columbia University.
Radley Horton, a research professor at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, stated that human-induced climate change has caused the global average atmospheric temperature to warm by about 2 degrees (1.1 degrees Celsius) in the last several decades.
“One of the key takeaways is that a little bit of change in global temperature has an enormous impact,” said Horton. Some of the main consequences include longer and more intense heat waves that are hitting increasingly larger areas.
Additionally, Horton said, certain climate models have underestimated just how extreme certain events can be, such as the European heat wave of 2022 and the Pacific Northwest heat wave of 2021.
“We are locked into a lot of additional climate hazards, there is no way around it,” said Horton.
Diana Hernandez, Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, is researching how certain vulnerabilities, such as medical conditions or access to energy, could be affected by changing climate domestically and internationally. The expected impacts include shade inequalities, urban heat islands, and inequitable access to energy-powered medical devices.
“The climate is changing, and we are not adapted to be able to deal with it from a health perspective,” said Cecilia Sorensen, a physician and associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center.
Sorensen noted that she and colleagues referred to summer as “trauma season” early in her career, even before she focused on the health impacts of climate change. “We used to get inundated with patients … people coming in with heart attacks and asthma exacerbations.”
Despite the foreboding climate projections, the panelists expressed hope that considerable strides can be made to minimize future climate impacts related to extreme heat.
Hernandez said a community-focused approach, especially with an emphasis on engagement that is inclusive, will be successful in implementing a wide range of climate adaptation strategies.
Sorenson said one solution that can be implemented by hospitals is developing emergency room protocols to treat a large influx of patients suffering from heat stroke or related conditions during extreme weather. Improved communications are also needed to increase awareness about the medical risks of extreme heat and how impacts can be prevented, she said.
“Within the problem lies the solution,” said Sorensen.
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Grass-powered gas to heat homes for the first time
Telegraph reporters – February 26, 2023
Green gas will be made from grass material using anaerobic digestion – Ecotricity
Grass-powered gas is set to heat thousands of homes for the first time in the coming weeks.
Green energy firm Ecotricity is expected to begin supplying 5,300 homes from its plant near Reading in April.
Research has estimated that the grass biogas can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 90 per cent.
It is hoped the scheme can be scaled up to supply fuel to more homes around the country.
The £11 million mill uses bacteria to break down grasses and herbs, which absorb carbon dioxide while growing, in an anaerobic digester.
This produces biogas which is then “scrubbed” to remove some carbon dioxide and upgraded to biomethane for use in the gas network.
An organic fertiliser, which is intended to help grow more grass, is also produced.
Hopes for expansion
Homes in Berkshire will be supplied through the distribution company Southern Gas Networks.
Ecotricity owner Dale Vince hopes to expand across the country, building mills which minimise the use of fossil fuels while avoiding damage to the environment, and boost energy security.
Mr Vince, 61, said: “We are ready to go and once the gas supply company’s measuring and checking equipment is in place we expect to start in April.”
Green gas has previously been made from food waste or “high energy” crops such as maize, but both face sustainability issues and problems with a lack of scale.
Maize, for example, is fertiliser-hungry, attracts birds that struggle to survive in it, and is harvested around autumn, leaving topsoil run-off.
“Our mix of grass with herbs and clovers makes carbon neutral gas, pulling carbon out of the atmosphere,” said Mr Vince. “It’s a cycle of carbon rather than a net emission.
“When you burn fossil fuel it’s carbon from millions of years ago that gets released into the atmosphere.
“We’re buying the grass from farmers. Instead of them using it to grow for animals, they’re selling it to us.
“It’s better for farmers, they get a better price and more security because animal agriculture is a super marginal business. It only exists with massive subsidies.”
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90pc
On average, the amount of grass being used initially could be cultivated every year from around 3,000 acres to provide over 48 million kWh of gas, while saving nearly 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – but the ultimate goal is to expand on a national scale.
A report by Imperial College Consultants estimated the UK has 6.46 million hectares of suitable grassland not involved in food production, enough for 5,400 green gas mills to provide up to 236.5TWh – sufficient to heat 98.8 per cent of British homes if made energy efficient.
The research estimated that gas made from grass can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 90 per cent when compared to the current use of North Sea gas and synthetic fertilisers.
The report also said the Government’s national air source heat pump roll-out – its alternative plan for heating homes without carbon emissions – would cost six times as much as a green gas roll out and would not be possible in 20 per cent of British homes.
Asked about Ecotricity’s biomethane project, a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesman said: “Initiatives like this show how the UK is leading in the development of innovations in green technologies that can help increase our energy security, tackle climate change and bring down people’s bills.”
Southern Gas Networks said: “We’ve partnered with Ecotricity to deliver a biomethane to grid project at a site in Farley Hill near Reading. The project will supply 5,300 nearby properties with renewable green gas for heat and power, helping to reduce each household’s annual carbon emissions by an equivalent of 2.2 tonnes.
“Our role is to commission the gas entry unit infrastructure at the plant. This equipment will measure the flow of gas into our network and ensure it meets the required specification. Approximately 700m3 of biomethane-powered renewable energy will be injected into our local intermediate pressure network every hour.”
A National Gas Transmission spokesman: “Biomethane will play an important supporting role in the journey to Britain achieving net zero.”
In a California Town, Farmworkers Start From Scratch After Surprise Flood
Soumya Karlamangla and Viviana Hinojos – February 26, 2023
A teacher holds class on a playground at Planada Elementary School because classrooms in the building were flooded, in Planada, Calif. on Feb. 14, 2023. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)
PLANADA, Calif. — Until the floodwaters came, until they rushed in and destroyed nearly everything, the little white house had been Cecilia Birrueta’s dream.
She and her husband bought the two-bedroom fixer-upper 13 years ago, their reward for decades of working minimum-wage jobs, first cleaning houses in Los Angeles and now milking cows and harvesting pistachios in California’s Central Valley.
The couple replaced the weathered wooden floors, installed a new stove and kitchen sink, and repainted the living room walls a warm burgundy. Here, they raised their three children, the oldest now at the University of California, Davis. They enjoyed tomatoes, peaches and figs from neighbors who worked on the nearby farms.
Birrueta and her husband felt content. Until last month. Until the floodwaters came.
A brutal set of atmospheric rivers in California unleashed a disaster in Planada, an agricultural community of 4,000 residents in the flatlands about an hour west of Yosemite National Park. During one storm in early January, a creek just outside of town burst through old farm levees and sent muddy water gushing into the streets.
For several days, the entire town looked like a lagoon. Weeks after record-breaking storms wreaked havoc across California and killed at least 21 people, some of the hardest-hit communities are still struggling to recover.
The flood ruined the two cars owned by Birrueta and her family and destroyed most of their clothes. The walls with the burgundy paint that she had carefully picked out had rotted through. Their house may need to be demolished.
Birrueta, her husband and their 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter had to move into a camp that typically houses migrant farmworkers, who arrive each spring with few belongings and the hope of building a life like the Birruetas had. There, 41 families from Planada are staying in long beige cabins and relying on space heaters for warmth because the camps lack furnaces.
“We came as immigrants, we started with nothing,” said Birrueta, 40, who was born in Mexico. “We bought a place of our own that we thought would be safe for our kids, and then we lost it. We lost everything.”
Nine miles east of Merced in California’s agricultural heartland, Planada’s wide streets are dotted with bungalows and lead to a central park shaded by towering spruce and elm trees. Less than 2 square miles, Planada was created in 1911 to be an idyllic, planned farming community — its name means “plain” in Spanish, a nod to its fertile, low-lying lands — but was eventually abandoned by its Los Angeles developers.
The quiet town, surrounded by almond orchards and cornfields, has since become a desirable place for farmworkers to settle with their families. When California farmworkers marched through Planada last summer on their way to the state Capitol in Sacramento, hundreds of children lined the streets to cheer them on.
The recent floods dealt a painful blow to a community in which more than one-third of households are impoverished. Planada is more than 90% Latino and overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking. Roughly one-fourth of the residents are estimated to be immigrants living in the country illegally, making them ineligible for some forms of disaster relief.
Agricultural workers in California are often on the front lines of catastrophes. They worked during the early, uncertain days of the COVID-19 pandemic, have endured record heat waves and toiled in the smoke-choked air that gets trapped in the Central Valley during wildfires.
During the recent floods, tens of thousands of farmworkers most likely lost wages because of water damage to California’s crops, compounding their already precarious financial situations, said Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers of America.
“The very workers who put food on our table are getting hot meals from the Salvation Army,” said De Loera-Brust. “Whether California is on fire or underwater, the farmworkers are always losing.”
On a recent morning in Planada, huge piles of furniture were stacked more than 6 feet high along the curb, as if standing guard in front of each home. Once cherished possessions had become trash: A child’s tricycle. A green velvet armchair. An engraved wooden crib.
When Birrueta returned to her home after evacuating Jan. 9, it had a sour smell inside, she said. A floral rug in her daughter’s room that had once been white and blue appeared black after being caked in mud. The girl rushed to grab her soaked toys, some of them recent Christmas gifts. Birrueta had to wrest them from her hands. They threw away her pink wooden dollhouse, a Build-a-Bear she called Rambo, her beloved collection of Dr. Seuss books.
“I don’t really know how to talk to my kids about it,” Birrueta said, choking up.
Birrueta applied for relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency but has yet to hear back. Although Planada is in a flood zone, most homeowners said they couldn’t afford to pay thousands of dollars for flood insurance. Besides, they said, so many years of severe heat and drought made wildfires seem a much greater concern than a deluge.
Maria Figueroa, a FEMA spokesperson, said the agency would provide, at most, $41,000 per flooded household. The funds are intended to jump-start recovery, not cover a full rebuild. “We’re not an insurance agency,” she said.
In 1910, Los Angeles real estate developer J. Harvey McCarthy decided Planada would be his “city beautiful,” a model community and an automobile stop along the road to Yosemite. “The town will be laid out similar to Paris,” The San Luis Obispo Daily Telegram reported at the time.
An infusion of money brought Planada a bank, hotel, school, church and its own newspaper, the Planada Enterprise, by the next year. But McCarthy eventually abandoned the community when he ran out of funds, leaving its settlers to pick up the pieces.
One thing wasn’t mentioned in advertisements for Planada: the floods. On Feb. 3, 1911, The Merced County Sun reported that during a 48-hour downpour, a creek overflowed its banks and that Planada was “under water.”
More than a century later, Maria Soto, 73, was sleeping when her grandson, who lives in the house behind hers, banged on her door around 2 a.m. A family member was driving a pickup truck through Planada to rescue their relatives, dozens of whom lived there.
Soto clambered onto the truck bed, and her feet dangled in the rising waters as they fled. When the engine stalled momentarily, she was frightened but didn’t tell anyone else that she didn’t know how to swim.
At her low-slung, peach-colored home, with an overgrown avocado tree out front and wind chimes hanging from the eaves, water breached the roof and poured down the walls.
Black patches of mold have begun to spread inside, so she is living at her daughter’s house next door while trying to scrape together money on her fixed income for the repairs.
“This is where I raised my children, and it’s always been dry,” said Soto, who in the late 1970s moved to Planada with her husband, who picked lettuce. “We weren’t prepared. No one was prepared.”
Disasters only exacerbate the health dangers that farmworkers face. Mold in flooded homes, for example, can prompt symptoms of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which are more common in low-income communities. Farmworkers often battle pesticide exposure and, even in good times, can only afford substandard housing.
“A small community like Planada, that has so many low-wage workers, you can only imagine the extent to which these problems were already existing,” said Edward Flores, an associate professor of sociology at University of California Merced and who co-wrote a new study revealing California farmworkers’ poor living conditions.
The flood’s impacts extend beyond inundated homes. Planada Elementary School lost 4,000 books as well as student desks, beanbag chairs and rugs. Hundreds of students had to be relocated to a nearby middle school.
“We were doing a really good job recovering from COVID,” said José L. González, superintendent of the Planada Elementary School District. “This just feels like we’re cut off at the knees again.”
Another major storm arrived this past week in California, bringing rain and snow, but Planada residents have been spared from further disaster.
Birrueta used to tuck sentimental items into suitcases that she stored in her son’s closet. Old photographs of relatives in Mexico, including of her father, who recently died. Socks she crocheted for her children when they were newborns. Pictures of her oldest daughter’s birthday celebrations, from an era before iPhones.
The floodwaters drenched those suitcases and everything inside. Still, Birrueta said she was grateful because her family safely escaped the floods and that they have a roof over their heads, albeit temporarily. Families can stay in the migrant camps until March 15, after which the county may provide other lodging.
Birrueta and her husband plan to rebuild their home in Planada.
“We started with nothing,” she said. “So in a way, we know how to start over again.”
Rail Industry Pushes Sensors Over Brakes After Ohio Train Crash
Thomas Black – February 26, 2023
(Bloomberg) — The train derailment that spilled toxic chemicals into a small Ohio town has revived a long-running debate about railroad safety — and some industry players think they have just the thing to resolve it.
The Feb. 3 crash of the Norfolk Southern Corp. train in East Palestine, Ohio, has renewed a push for railroads to adopt electronic brakes that could help prevent a malfunctioning train from endangering people and property. Electronically controlled pneumatic, or ECP, brakes have been touted for their capacity to bring trains to a halt in shorter distances and prevent dangerous pileups.
The Biden administration has blamed industry stonewalling for blocking regulations that would have mandated use of the systems on some trains — even though it isn’t clear that ECP brakes would’ve done much to mitigate an accident similar to the one in Ohio, and the proposed rules wouldn’t have applied to the train that crashed.
The railroad industry has found itself in a tight spot as the political furor around the accident grows, with former President Donald Trump turning up in East Palestine, and the derailment becoming a talking point on cable news and Capitol Hill. The episode has aggravated fears about the safety of sending chemicals and other hazardous materials over the rails, and raised the specter of new regulation at a time when railroads are coping with restive workers and annoyed customers.
Installing ECP brakes that the Biden administration and safety advocates favor would be expensive and cumbersome for a business beset by complaints about delays and lackluster service. The brakes need to be installed on each car to work properly — a daunting prospect for an industry with some 1.5 million cars on the tracks and little idle capacity.
A coalition that includes railcar makers, shippers and two large railroads say they have a different idea. They want to place sensors on railcars that could flag faulty equipment immediately to a train’s crew and others monitoring remotely. The system is being tested on 400 railcars and could be available commercially by the end of this year, according to the group, which calls itself RailPulse.
Such sensors could potentially catch problems like the overheated wheel bearing that likely caused the East Palestine wreck. Electronically controlled brakes, on the other hand, may not have even done much to mitigate the derailment if they were installed, based on a 2017 study by the National Academy of Sciences.
Notably, a sensor apparatus also would likely be much less expensive for the industry to put into place. RailPulse says its system would cost about $400 to $900 per railcar.
Smart Railcars
The use of remote sensing technology on the railroads isn’t entirely new. Currently, sensors known as wayside heat detectors placed along the tracks screen train cars for defects — and they sniffed out the trouble in Ohio. Wayside detectors were voluntarily adopted by railroads to reduce accidents; Norfolk Southern said it has nearly 1,000 of them.
According to a preliminary report by the National Safety Transportation Board, Norfolk Southern’s wayside detectors in Ohio were working, but caught the overheated wheel too late. The NTSB found that a wayside detector about 20 miles before the crash site measured the wheel bearing at 103 degrees Fahrenheit above ambient temperature — hot, but below a level that calls for the crew to stop and take a look.
However, the next detector, just ahead of the crash site, recorded a wheel temperature at 253 degrees above, a critical level. The sensor sounded an alarm, but it was too late. The wheel failed and caused 38 of the train’s 149 railcars to careen off the rails.
Sensors mounted directly on railcars could diagnose the issue sooner and buy critical time, backers say. Railcars will likely have multiple sensors in the near future that can detect anything from open doors to signs that equipment is in danger of failing, said David Shannon, general manager of RailPulse.
“Our objective is to make railcars smart,” Shannon said.
The group’s pilot program, which is testing five types of sensors, will be on 1,000 railcars by this summer, he said, and should be ready for real-world use by the end of this year. RailPulse plans to provide a subscription service to transmit the data to the cloud, and is counting on manufacturers to design the sensors the industry needs.
ECP Debate
Norfolk Southern was on the forefront of testing ECP brakes before the US Department of Transportation decided to require them on high hazard flammable trains in 2015. The company opposed the mandate because of cost, the brakes’ reliability and the inability to mix locomotives and railcars that didn’t have the system.
One of the biggest drawbacks of ECP brakes is that all the railcars on a train must have them or the system doesn’t work, making it impossible to phase in gradually. The rule followed a spate of derailments by trains shuttling crude oil from fracking hotspots where there were no pipelines to refineries.
As part of an infrastructure bill in 2015, Congress required the transportation department to justify the need for ECP braking. The National Academy of Sciences was ordered to examine computer modeling the department used to support its position that they had a significant safety advantage over conventional brakes.
After tests at a Norfolk Southern rail yard in Conway, Pennsylvania, and the New York Air Brake Facility in Watertown, New York, the academy said in a 2017 report that the department’s efforts to validate its modeling “do not instill sufficient confidence in DOT’s comparison of the estimated emergency performance of ECP braking systems” with other systems. That paved the way for the Trump administration to rescind the mandate.
In a Feb. 19 letter to Norfolk Southern Chief Executive Officer Alan Shaw, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg faulted the industry for opposing ECP brakes. “Rather than support these efforts to improve rail safety, Norfolk Southern and other rail companies spend millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common-sense safety regulation,” Buttigieg wrote.
However, others in the federal government have pushed back on the idea that the ECP mandate would have prevented the Ohio crash.
“Some are saying the ECP (electronically controlled pneumatic) brake rule, if implemented, would’ve prevented this derailment. FALSE,” NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said in a Feb. 16 tweet. She went on to explain why the Norfolk Southern train wasn’t designated as high hazard flammable. “This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes.”
Uphill Battle
The prospect that regulators would swiftly put the electronic-braking rules in place following the Ohio crash is remote. To reinstate the mandate would be an uphill battle, a senior White House official acknowledged during a Feb. 17 briefing. The rulemaking process takes years and it would be difficult to pull off after Congress weighed in against the technology.
Similarly, persuading the entire railroad industry to go along with RailPulse’s sensors could be a tall order.
Workers are wary of new safety technologies that the industry touts, especially if they are aimed at replacing human inspections, said Mark Wallace, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. For the past five years, the railroads’ first priority has been profit, not safety, Wallace said. Operating profit margin for North American railroads increased to 39% last year from 34% in 2017.
“If you’re going to implement the technology, then you have to maintain the technology and you have to have somebody in place to make sure that it’s working properly,” he said.
Additionally, railcars are mostly owned by shippers and by leasing companies. Shippers are pushing to be able to track their freight cars just as they can for trailers on trucks, the railroads’ main competitor for freight. Some large railroads, including CSX Corp. and BNSF Railway, aren’t part of the coalition.
In Town Where Train Derailed, Lawyers Are Signing Up Clients in Droves
Campbell Robertson – February 25, 2023
A welcome sign on the outskirts of East Palestine, Ohio on Feb. 23, 2023. (Maddie McGarvey/The New York Times)
EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — In the three weeks since a freight train derailed in East Palestine and released more than 100,000 gallons of toxic chemicals, lawyers have poured into the little town, signing up clients, gathering evidence and already filing more than a dozen lawsuits in federal court on behalf of local residents.
They have held information sessions nearly everywhere a crowd can gather, including at a nearby Best Western, at the American Legion hall and in the packed cafeteria at East Palestine High School. Their message overall has been one of warning: It may be months, years or possibly even decades before the derailment’s ultimate effect on people’s health, property values or the soil and water becomes clear.
Further, the lawyers say, early moves by Norfolk Southern, the operator of the train, suggest that getting comprehensive answers from the company will not be easy.
Among a public that is deeply skeptical of official test results — Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, and other state and federal officials say they have not shown anything alarming so far — or camera-friendly efforts at reassurance, these warnings have resonated.
The distrust has been deepened by a sense that politicians are not being diligent enough in their response to the disaster; on Friday, President Joe Biden said that he had no plans to visit, although he pointed out that federal officials had arrived there within hours of the crash, and that he was “keeping very close tabs on” the situation.
“They get what’s happening,” Rene Rocha, a lawyer with supersize personal injury firm Morgan & Morgan, said during a state hearing about the derailment Thursday in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, just across the border from East Palestine.
Referring to residents there who had spoken at the hearing about headaches, coughs and other classic symptoms of chemical exposure, he added: “They see they’re not getting the truth from the politicians and the company. That leaves the lawyers.”
Norfolk Southern declined to comment Friday on matters involving litigation.
The huge scale of the chemical burn-off and the harrowing images of the fire, as well as the intense politicization of it all, have made the derailment in East Palestine among the most high-profile environmental disasters in the country in years.
Television cameras are still routine fixtures on the sidewalks of the town’s central street. On Friday night, Erin Brockovich, the famed environmental activist who years ago exposed corporate wrongdoing that polluted drinking water, spoke to a packed town hall at the East Palestine High School auditorium.
The event, billed as an “educational seminar” and organized by a law firm based out of Akron, Ohio, consisted mostly of a detailed presentation by Mikal Watts, a prominent Texas lawyer, about the potential health effects of the derailment and the legal landscape that plaintiffs would be facing. But it began with a short speech from Brockovich to the hundreds sitting in the auditorium and watching an overflow screen in the gym.
“You’re going to be told it’s safe, you’re going to be told not to worry: Well that’s just rubbish,” she said. Of the derailment in East Palestine, she said, “I’ve never seen anything in 30 years like this.”
To some local attorneys, the army that has descended on the town is exasperating. “Did they even know where East Palestine was prior to this accident?” fumed David Betras, a lawyer who has spent his career just up the road in Youngstown, Ohio, and is planning to file a suit on behalf of hundreds of local residents. “They come in with this star power. Like, ‘Oh, Erin’s gonna solve it.’”
On Thursday night, Steve and Kelly Davis sat down in a yet-to-be-opened wine bar a short walk from where the train cars left the tracks nearly three weeks earlier. Thousands of their bees had been found dead after the burn-off, thousands of dollars’ worth of boxes that had housed the bees were now in questionable condition and the reputation of the family honey business was in jeopardy.
Their son, on the verge of buying a house downtown, was suddenly getting a cold shoulder from the bank. No one had come to test their well water. And to top it all off, Steve Davis had developed a cough.
They had come to meet with Robert Till, a Texas-based investigator for the law firm of Cory Watson who for weeks has been meeting people at a table set up in the empty bar. Till has met with hundreds so far, he said, talking with people about their health conditions, learning how their businesses have been affected and asking whether they have cleaned their homes — and if they have held onto the cleaning materials, which he said would contain critical data about contamination.
“I’m putting you guys on for priority testing,” he told the Davises.
“For the water?” Steve Davis asked.
“For everything,” Till said.
The legal machinations are in their early stages. Cases might ultimately be consolidated as class-action or multidistrict litigation; most of the suits will almost surely end up bundled before one or several federal judges in an Ohio courtroom.
Norfolk Southern may offer some sort of resolution voluntarily, whether by setting up a compensation fund with an independent administrator, as BP did after the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, or establishing a court-supervised medical monitoring program, where people could come for free testing related to possible health effects.
The company has already been paying $1,000 in “inconvenience compensation” to people who had to evacuate. Although Norfolk Southern insists that the payments do not curtail anyone’s right to sue, many are skeptical.
Lawyers point to certain moves made by the company — including a letter sent Thursday notifying plaintiffs’ attorneys that they had two days to inspect the rail cars before the cars were removed or destroyed — as signs that it would be combative.
There is no shortage of experience among the members of the plaintiff’s bar arriving in town: Train derailments are not unusual in the United States, nor are oil spills, chemical leaks or industrial accidents.
“It looks like these dadgum railroads would get it right after that many years and stop falling off the tracks, but they just can’t do it,” said Calvin Fayard Jr., a Louisiana lawyer who took the lead in a suit after a train carrying vinyl chloride — one of the substances that spilled and burned in East Palestine — derailed in a small Louisiana town in 1982.
As part of a $39 million settlement arising from the 1982 derailment, a commission was set up to monitor long-term health effects and oversee the decontamination of soil and water. That commission continued its work for more than 30 years, dissolving less than a decade ago, said Fayard, whose law partner has been in East Palestine talking with potential clients.
But a program of that magnitude is never a sure thing. After a train carrying vinyl chloride derailed in Paulsboro, New Jersey, in 2012, a federal judge ruled against any medical monitoring program and dismissed the suit; settlements were ultimately reached in state court.
No sooner had Till signed up the Davises as clients Thursday evening than another couple walked in, keeping him at work. The Davises stepped outside to talk with Michael McKim, the owner of the wine bar, which so far remains on track to open next month.
McKim had met Till in a hotel lobby during the town’s initial evacuation, and had been letting him use his place as an office ever since. This was all new to both couples.
“I feel like a baby seal in the middle of the ocean surrounded by great white sharks,” McKim said. But with as big a shark as Norfolk Southern as the defendant, he said, joining up with a law firm was his best chance. “It’s kind of nice to at least hang out with a shark that maybe understands.”
In Less Than a Decade, You Won’t Be Able To Afford a Home in These Cities
Joel Anderson – February 25, 2023
dszc / iStock.com
Rising home values can quickly transition a reasonable housing market into the type of real estate monster that has consumed places like the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City. While the idea of affordable housing in an urban center isn’t implausible for plenty of Americans living in some areas, that’s rapidly changing in many places.
GOBankingRates conducted a study to determine which major U.S. cities are on track to lose their label of affordability. GOBankingRates took the overall U.S. median home value and projected its growth over 10 years using Zillow’s September 2022-23 one-year forecast. This projection was then compared to the projections of 537 U.S. cities that currently have home prices below the national median of $356,026, with those surpassing the national median in the next 10 years (plus its projected growth rate over the same period) being deemed “not affordable.”
GOBankingRates notes that projecting into the future based on a single year’s growth rate might paint an unfair picture in markets where the current rate is an anomaly. Additionally, Zillow’s estimated home values don’t necessarily reflect the list prices or sale prices in each market.
Still, identifying the areas that are outpacing the national average for growth can help shed light on the cities where you should buy a home sooner rather than later. If you end up living in one of these cities 10 years down the line, you might want to check out other cities with more affordable housing.
will_snyder_ / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Roseburg, Oregon
August 2022 home value: $321,807
One-year projected growth rate: 20.4%
Roseburg is in the Hundred Valleys of the Umpqua in southwestern Oregon, known for having seasonal, but pleasant, temperatures – never too hot or too cold. It sits 123 miles north of the California border.
kaceyb / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2023
Projected home value: $387,456
U.S. median projected home value: $382,019
Difference in value: $5,437
2032 projected home value: $2,059,967
Steven Liveoak / Shutterstock.com
Auburn, Alabama
August 2022 home value: $321,643
One-year projected growth rate: 19.4%
Auburn, in the eastern part of central Alabama, is just 35 miles west of Columbus, Georgia, and a 3 ½-hour drive from vacation spots along the Gulf of Mexico. Auburn University is the city’s largest employer, with about 7,100 people working there
disorderly / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2023
Projected home value: $384,042
U.S. median projected home value: $382,019
Difference in value: $2,023
2032 projected home value: $1,894,163
DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 2022 home value: $307,909
One-year projected growth rate: 23.1%
Another college town, Fayetteville is home to the University of Arkansas. Bill and Hillary Clinton called Fayetteville home before he was elected the state’s governor, and then president of the United States, and the home they lived in is now a museum preserving memories of their time in the city.
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When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2024
Projected home value: $466,593
U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
Difference in value: $18,485
2032 projected home value: $2,460,384
SeanPavonePhoto / iStock.com
Knoxville, Tennessee
August 2022 home value: $299,342
One-year projected growth rate: 23.1%
Knoxville, Tennessee sits at the foothills of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and is a diverse city known for celebrating its many different ethnicities in festivals and cultural events. This city of over 192,000 people is also home to the University of Tennessee and the Knoxville Ice Bears professional hockey team.
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When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2024
Projected home value: $453,611
U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
Difference in value: $5,503
2032 projected home value: $2,391,928
Patricia Elaine Thomas / Shutterstock.com
Dallas, Texas
August 2022 home value: $308,661
One-year projected growth rate: 22.4%
Dallas, with 1.3 million residents, is the third-largest city in Texas but also the ninth-largest in the United States. It boasts many firsts. The nation’s first planned shopping center (Highland Park Village Shopping Center) and convenience store (7-Eleven) opened in Dallas, and the frozen margarita and precursor to the microchip were invented there.
Trong Nguyen / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2024
Projected home value: $462,429
U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
Difference in value: $14,321
2032 projected home value: $2,329,678
Chris Rubino / Shutterstock.com
Tucson, Arizona
August 2022 home value: $307,232
One-year projected growth rate: 21.5%
Tucson is an hour north of the border with Mexico, and it lays claim to some of the best Mexican food in the U.S. Start on 12th Avenue in the city to begin your tour of what is called The Best 23 Miles of Mexican food.
Tim Roberts Photography / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2024
Projected home value: $453,544
U.S. median projected home value: $448,108
Difference in value: $5,436
2032 projected home value: $2,153,918
chapin31 / iStock.com
Pueblo, Colorado
August 2022 home value: $291,995
One-year projected growth rate: 22.6%
A city of about 112,000 people, Pueblo is located along the Arkansas River in Colorado, which once was the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico. The Colorado State Fair has been held in Pueblo since 1872.
J. Michael Jones / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2025
Projected home value: $538,080
U.S. median projected home value: $525,631
Difference in value: $12,449
2032 projected home value: $2,240,166
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Fort Worth, Texas
August 2022 home value: $292,963
One-year projected growth rate: 22.4%
A city of about 920,000, Fort Worth grew by more than 175,000 people between the censuses of 2010 and 2020. Fun fact: 60 percent of America’s paper money is printed at the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing Western Currency Facility in Fort Worth.
Christopher Boswell / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2025
Projected home value: $537,226
U.S. median projected home value: $525,631
Difference in value: $11,595
2032 projected home value: $2,211,195
Susilyn / Shutterstock.com
Lakeland, Florida
August 2022 home value: $263,818
One-year projected growth rate: 25.6%
Lakeland is located along Interstate 4 between Tampa and Florida. It’s name is appropriate. Lakeland has 38 named lakes within its 74.4 square miles.
Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2026
Projected home value: $656,543
U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
Difference in value: $39,978
2032 projected home value: $2,577,513
Shutterstock.com
Daytona Beach, Florida
August 2022 home value: $258,118
One-year projected growth rate: 25.5%
Daytona Beach is known as the home of the Daytona International Speedway and the Daytona 500, but even amateur drivers have a spot in the city. Visitors are allowed to drive – slowly – along designated areas of the 23-mile-long white-sand beaches.
Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2026
Projected home value: $640,314
U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
Difference in value: $23,749
2032 projected home value: $2,501,817
Arizona: 3.00% APY
Yuma, Arizona
August 2022 home value: $266,546
One-year projected growth rate: 24.1%
Yuma has about 95,000 residents, and there’s a good many of them help to put some of the food on your table. According to the city’s tourism website, Yuma is the “winter vegetable capital of the world” and produces 91% of the leafy greens served in North America each winter. Instead of watching the ball drop on New Year’s Eve, you can watch the Iceberg Lettuce Drop.
Ken Lund / Flickr.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2026
Projected home value: $632,207
U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
Difference in value: $15,642
2032 projected home value: $2,309,351
Brian Stansberry / Wikimedia Commons
Crossville, Tennessee
August 2022 home value: $262,886
One-year projected growth rate: 24.1%
In 12,000-resident Crossville, residents can test their physical and mental skills. Known as the Golf Capital of Tennessee, it has nine courses. And, Crossville is the headquarters of the United States Chess Federation, too.
Swarmcatcher / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2026
Projected home value: $623,526
U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
Difference in value: $6,961
2032 projected home value: $2,277,641
B Brown / Shutterstock.com
Pocatello, Idaho
August 2022 home value: $289,072
One-year projected growth rate: 21.6%
Pocatello is in the southeastern portion of Idaho at an altitude of 4,448 feet. Home of Idaho State University, the city is along the Oregon Trail, in the western foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
Ric Schafer / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2026
Projected home value: $632,034
U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
Difference in value: $15,469
2032 projected home value: $2,043,345
virsuziglis / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Jacksonville, Florida
August 2022 home value: $281,915
One-year projected growth rate: 21.8%
At 840 square miles, Jacksonville is the largest city in the continental United States in terms of land mass. About 950,000 people live in the city – almost twice the amount of residents of Florida’s second-largest city in terms of population, Miami.
Ron_Thomas / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2026
Projected home value: $620,451
U.S. median projected home value: $616,565
Difference in value: $3,886
2032 projected home value: $2,025,774
Ocala, Fla
Ocala, Florida
August 2022 home value: $230,684
One-year projected growth rate: 25.6%
Ocala, the first town in Marion County in the early 1840s, has preserved much of its past in the Ocala Historic Downtown Square. Boutiques, restaurants, galleries and more fill the spaces. About 64,000 people live in Ocala.
Michael Warren / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2028
Projected home value: $905,639
U.S. median projected home value: $848,350
Difference in value: $57,289
2032 projected home value: $2,253,792
Lorraine Boogich / Getty Images
Cookeville, Tennessee
August 2022 home value: $262,204
One-year projected growth rate: 22.4%
Incorporated in 1903, Cookeville sits almost midway between two of Tennessee’s biggest cities – 101 miles west of Knoxville and 79 miles east of Nashville. Fun fact: According to the local visitor’s bureau, Cookeville is within a day’s drive of 75% of the nation’s population.
ESB / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2028
Projected home value: $881,714
U.S. median projected home value: $848,350
Difference in value: $33,364
2032 projected home value: $1,979,035
Sean Pavone / Shutterstock.com
Athens, Georgia
August 2022 home value: $279,410
One-year projected growth rate: 20.3%
Athens, with a population of 127,300, is 60 miles northeast of Atlanta. The home of the University of Georgia, the city is beaming with pride. Their beloved Bulldogs won the College Football Playoff national championship following the 2021 season – their first since 1980.
Sean Pavone / Shutterstock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2029
Projected home value: $1,018,829
U.S. median projected home value: $995,115
Difference in value: $23,714
2032 projected home value: $1,773,774
Manuela Durson / Shutterstock.com
Klamath Falls, Oregon
August 2022 home value: $280,201
One-year projected growth rate: 19.9%
Klamath Falls is in the south-central part of Oregon, just north of the California border. The city has a population of nearly 22,000, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The Klamath Falls website reports the city has the highest concentration of bald eagles in the Pacific Northwest.
Oregon: 66.67 Hours a Month to Afford
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2029
Projected home value: $998,169
U.S. median projected home value: $995,115
Difference in value: $3,054
2032 projected home value: $1,720,527
Sean Pavone/iStockPhoto
Savannah, Georgia
August 2022 home value: $246,657
One-year projected growth rate: 22%
Savannah’s history dates to 1733, and it became the first city in the 13th colony – Georgia – which was named for King George II of England. Today, visitors are drawn by its period architecture, art and boutiques
SeanPavonePhoto / iStock.com
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2030
Projected home value: $1,210,520
U.S. median projected home value: $1,167,270
Difference in value: $43,250
2032 projected home value: $1,801,738
Shutterstock.com
Huntsville, Alabama
August 2022 home value: $266,033
One-year projected growth rate: 20.6%
The city is named after John Hunt, who settled there in 1805. It grew rapidly from 2010 to 2020 – from 180,000 to 215,000 people – and is a bustling area for the technology, space and defense industries. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command are located in Huntsville.
Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2030
Projected home value: $1,190,458
U.S. median projected home value: $1,167,270
Difference in value: $23,188
2032 projected home value: $1,731,445
DenisTangneyJr / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Clarksville, Tennessee
August 2022 home value: $270,758
One-year projected growth rate: 20%
Clarksville is about an hour’s drive north of Nashville and is located just south of the Kentucky border. About 167,000 people live there, and the average age of residents is 29, the city reports.
Google Maps
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2031
Projected home value: $1,397,052
U.S. median projected home value: $1,369,207
Difference in value: $27,845
2032 projected home value: $1,676,462
ivanastar / Getty Images/iStockphoto
Albuquerque, New Mexico
August 2022 home value: $289,262
One-year projected growth rate: 19%
About 565,000 people live in Albuquerque, and what does it mean if one of them asks you “red or green”? You’re being asked whether you want red or green chiles in your New Mexican fare. Reply “Christmas” if you want both.
photoBeard / Getty Images/iStockphoto
When It Will Become Too Expensive
Year: 2031
Projected home value: $1,384,248
U.S. median projected home value: $1,369,207
Difference in value: $15,041
2032 projected home value: $1,647,256
Jordan Rosenfeld contributed to the reporting for this article.
Methodology: GOBankingRates took the overall U.S. median home value and projected its growth over 10 years using Zillow’s September 2022-23 one-year forecast. This projection was then compared to the projections of 537 U.S. cities that currently have home prices below the national median, with those surpassing the national median in the next 10 years (plus its projected growth rate over the same period) being deemed “not affordable.” For each “not affordable” city over the next decade, GOBankingRates found the following factors: (1) year the city will become “not affordable”; (2) projected home value for that year; (3) US average projected home value for that year; and (4) the difference in value between factors (2) and (3). NOTE: GOBankingRates does not expect growth in home value to stay stagnant at one current rate for the next decade, but using these constant figures gives us an idea where certain markets are heading without unforeseen market disruptors in the future. All data used to conduct this study was compiled and verified on October 11, 2022.
When Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, President Vladimir Putin had a lot more in his war plan than tanks and missiles. Putin also planned an energy war in parallel with his military war on the ground in Ukraine.
Putin’s military war has gone badly, his army decimated after failing to seize Ukraine, as planned. Putin’s energy war has failed, too. Neither war is over, but the many nations now allied against Russia have done a remarkable job blunting Putin’s most potent economic weapon.
Putin clearly anticipated sanctions against his country in response to the 2022 invasion. He also thought he could counter those sanctions using Russian energy, which Europe in particular was dependent on. Russia is the world’s third-largest oil and natural gas producer, and at the time of the invasion, it was Europe’s top source of gas, needed to produce electricity.
At first, Putin’s energy war worked as planned. Sanctions imposed by the United States and other nations largely exempted Russian energy, to protect consumers from price spikes. But the unpredictable nature of those sanctions, plus instability caused by the war itself, generated a “fear premium” in energy markets that pushed prices up. Oil prices spiked from about $90 before the invasion to nearly $125 four months later.
U.S. gasoline prices hit $5 per gallon last June, damaging President Biden’s popularity and making inflation a bigger everyday concern for Americans than the war in Ukraine. Natural gas prices rose by far more than oil and gasoline. Russia started reducing gas flows to Europe last June, then completely shut the main gas pipeline to Europe in September.
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By late August, European natural gas prices were four times higher than before the war. Wintertime rationing seemed likely, along with a recession caused by sporadic business shutdowns and painful energy inflation. Gas prices surged in the United States as well, though not by as much in Europe, given that gas is not as transportable as oil, generating regional price differences.
Soaring energy prices were exactly the kind of pain Putin planned for nations opposing his war. His hope was that high energy prices among Ukraine’s allies would wreck their economies, undermining public support for sanctions and for aid to Ukraine.
The full-blown energy crisis Putin tried to create never materialized, however. Prices tell the story. Oil, gasoline and natural gas prices are now lower than they were before Putin invaded, as the chart above shows. Russia is still a crucial source of energy, but the nations it tried to bring to heel have reconfigured their energy supply chains with speed and skill nobody foresaw a year ago.
“The last year may be remembered as the twilight for Russian energy leverage,” Richard Morningstar, founding chairman of the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, wrote in a January report. “Moscow’s energy strategy is not working, and its ability to wield energy chaos as a geopolitical weapon is waning.”
Several concerted actions by Ukraine’s allies parried Putin’s energy offensive. In the United States, President Biden released an unprecedented amount of oil from the strategic reserve, with other countries releasing smaller amounts. Though not huge relative to total oil supply, those releases seem to have reassured markets and brought price relief at the margins.
TOPSHOT – Workers repair high-voltage power lines cut by recent missile strikes near Odessa on December 7, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. – A new barrage of Russian strikes on December 5, left several Ukrainian cities without power, including the eastern city of Sumy and the southern city of Mykolaiv, according to officials. In Odessa, the water services operator said “there is no water supply anywhere” and officials in the central city of Kryvyi Rig said “parts of the city are cut off from electricity, several boiler and pumping stations are disconnected.” (Photo by OLEKSANDR GIMANOV / AFP) (Photo by OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Putin himself blinked. He could have slowed or stopped Russian oil sales, which would undoubtedly have sent prices soaring, given that Russia produces about 10% of the world’s oil. But he never did. Oil sales are Russia’s biggest source of revenue, and Putin desperately needs that funding to pay for a war that is far costlier than he anticipated. Russian oil production has actually remained stable for most of the past year, which is helping Putin keep the war going but also keeping global prices under control.
Europe also dramatically revamped its natural-gas supply chains, with the portion of gas coming from Russia dropping from 40% to less than 10%. And much of that gas goes to Turkey and Balkan nations not fully participating in sanctions. Gas shipped on tankers from the United States and Qatar backfilled much of the supply lost from Russia. Some European power plants also switched from gas to coal, which boosted carbon emissions, but is also likely temporary.
The United States and other large nations have also developed novel ways to begin sanctioning Russian energy while keeping supplies on the market and prices low. In December, a U.S.-led group of large nations imposed a price cap of $60 per barrel on Russian oil. Barrels from Russia generally sell for less than that, since global prices have been around $80 and the market demands a discount for the risk and complexity of purchasing from Russia. But this “buyers cartel” can lower the price and pinch Russia harder.
On February 5, another set of price caps went into effect for Russian petroleum products such as diesel fuel. Putin has vowed to withhold oil from any buyer participating in the price-cap regime, but so far nothing has changed.
Putin may still have some ammunition in reserve. “Given that Washington has strongly signaled an aversion to higher oil prices, and has gone to quite extraordinary lengths to keep a lid on them, there remains an elevated risk that Putin will seek to exploit this pain point in 2023,” Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in the January Atlantic Council report. “We may be entering a particularly precarious phase in the conflict. Putin may endeavor to demonstrate that he is not a spent force.”
One concern is Russian sabotage of energy facilities in regions where it has some influence, similar to the mysterious explosions that ruptured two undersea gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany last September. Russia has links to mercenary groups in oil-producing nations such as Iraq, Algeria, and Libya, and direct involvement in some energy facilities operated by former Soviet Republics. Some analysts think a surprise slowdown in production from two fields in Kazakhstan last April may have been a dress rehearsal for future Russian sabotage.
Officials plan to shoot 150 cattle from the sky Thursday. An 11th-hour lawsuit hopes to stop it.
Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY – February 24, 2023
Less than 24 hours before bullets are set to fly, a group of animal activists including the Humane Farming Association hopes an 11th-hour lawsuit stops the planned aerial slaughter of 150 cattle in New Mexico.
During a federally-approved, three day-event set to start Thursday, the U.S. Forest Service plans to shoot feral cattle from a helicopter roaming a southwestern area of the state.
The federal agency announced its decision on Feb. 16, explaining feral cattle on the 560,000-acre Gila Wilderness Area “pose a significant threat to public safety and natural resources.”
Opponents including The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association (NMCGA) this week asked a judge to grant a temporary restraining order to stop the mass killing. A hearing on the scheduled slaughter is set for Wednesday morning, court records show.
Federal officials are set to start shooting feral cattle in the Gila Wilderness starting February 23, 2023. A lawsuit filed just two days before the scheduled slaughter hopes to stop it.
On Tuesday, the group jointly filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico against the Forest Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to prevent “the inhumane aerial gunning” of cattle.
“No matter what the Forest Service claims, this is unadulterated animal cruelty,” said Humane Farming Association National Director Bradley Miller. “These animals don’t take the shots standing still – they run in fear from the helicopter chasing them. These are not clean kills; the cattle experience horrifically slow deaths. Their orphaned calves are left to starve or be killed by predators.”
USA TODAY has reached out to the Forest Service and the USDA for comment.
The animals are to be shot within the Gila National Forest, a 3-million-acre reserve in New Mexico.
Last year, the NMCGA filed a temporary restraining order in an effort to stop the Forest Service’s plan to use aerial gunning to eliminate free-roaming cattle from the wilderness area, during which 65 cattle were shot at and killed from a helicopter. That legal effort was denied.
A stipulation resulting from last year’s lawsuit required that the agency provide the cattle growers and the public 75 days’ written notice before future shooting commenced, this year’s lawsuit alleges.
“Yet, this year, the Forest Service provided only one week’s notice,” according to a press release from the Humane Farming Association.
APHIS intends “to shoot as many as 150 cattle with high-powered rifles from a helicopter, leaving their carcasses strewn throughout New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness,” the new 31-page lawsuit reads. “Intervention is necessary to put an immediate stop to this unlawful, cruel, and environmentally harmful action, both now and in the future.”
Lawsuit claims violation of law
In the suit, the plaintiffs argue that, in addition to not complying with the 75-day notice, the Forest Service has no legal authority to carry out its aerial gunning plan, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
“Shooting violates the APA because it is not authorized by statute or regulation, exceeds the Forest Service’s authority, and fails to follow the existing regulations for the removal of unauthorized cattle,” the suit continues.
In addition, plaintiffs argue that, by proceeding without first conducting an environmental review of the significant harms to the wilderness ecosystem, the Forest Service is violating the National Environmental Policy Act. Because the Forest Service intends to leave all 150 dead and dying cattle in the wilderness to decompose, the government will cause catastrophic pollution of the Gila River and impermissibly interfere with the natural feeding behaviors of native wildlife.
Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY.
U.S. Man’s Death Suggests Deadly Tick Virus Is Spreading to New Regions
Ed Cara – February 24, 2023
The Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is known to spread several infectious diseases, including the Heartland virus.
A rare but sometimes fatal tickborne infection may be expanding its range in the U.S., local and federal health officials warn in a report this week. They say that a case of Heartland virus led to a man’s death in 2021. The infection is thought to have been caught in either Virginia or Maryland—a region of the country where the virus hasn’t been spotted in humans until now.
The report was published online Thursday in Emerging Infectious Diseases by officials with the Virginia Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as doctors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The man was in his late 60s and visited an emergency room in November 2021 with symptoms of fever, diarrhea, aches, and general discomfort. He didn’t appear to have any tick bites, but given his symptoms and the fact that he spent time between two homes in rural Virginia and Maryland, his doctors suspected a tickborne infection and sent him home with antibiotics. Unfortunately, two days later, he returned to the ER with new symptoms, including confusion and unsteady gait, and he was then admitted to the hospital.
The man’s health continued to worsen, and he was soon sent to a specialized care center. Despite testing for various germs, doctors couldn’t find the source of his illness. He eventually developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare but life-threatening condition in which the body’s white blood cells attack the organs. His lungs and liver started to fail, and he developed cardiac arrest. He was then placed in palliative care. Thirteen days after his symptoms began, he died.
Doctors still suspected that he had contracted an infection spread by insects or ticks. Given the possibility of an ongoing threat to the public, officials with the Virginia Department of Health launched an investigation. They sent blood samples to the CDC for more extensive testing and went to the man’s homes in eastern Maryland and central Virginia the following summer to collect ticks in the area. The CDC testing finally revealed that he was infected with the Heartland virus, and a subsequent autopsy determined that he had died from complications of the infection.
Heartland virus was discovered in 2009 by doctors at the Heartland Regional Medical Center in northwestern Missouri. It’s known to be spread by the Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), which is commonly found throughout the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. Many known cases of Heartland virus have led to hospitalization and death, but it’s only been sporadically documented in humans. Around 50 cases have been reported in over a dozen states to date, including Kentucky, Indiana, and as far north as New York.
Maryland and Virginia are within the tick’s expected range, but this case of Heartland appears to be the first ever traced back to either state. Because of the larger tick population found at the man’s home in Virginia, the report authors believe he caught it there. Interestingly enough, they failed to find the virus inside ticks at either location. But that doesn’t rule out its presence in these areas, they wrote, particularly because the virus seems to circulate in ticks at very low levels. They further suspect that the man caught the infection from larval ticks, since adults typically become inactive by late October (when he was likely bit). That could also explain why he didn’t notice the initial bite, given their smaller size, and why doctors failed to find any evidence by the time he felt sick roughly two weeks later, since any bite could have healed by then.
Especially compared to much more common tickborne diseases like Lyme disease, Heartland virus is a very rare danger to humans. But it is possible that we’re missing many milder cases of Heartland or that these infections are misdiagnosed as other tickborne diseases because they tend to share common symptoms, the authors say. And thanks in part to climate change, ticks generally are expanding their distribution throughout the U.S., which will make all of the many diseases they carry a bigger threat to worry about.
“Because tick ranges are increasing overall, incidence of previously regional tickborne infections, such as [Heartland virus], likely will continue to increase,” they wrote.
Toxic wastewater from Ohio train derailment headed to Texas
February 23, 2023
FILE – This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Friday night in East Palestine, Ohio are still on fire at mid-day Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo says “firefighting water” from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment is to be disposed of in the county and she is seeking more information.(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal.
“I and my office heard today that ‘firefighting water’ from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment is slated to be disposed of in our county,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Wednesday statement.
“Our Harris County Pollution Control Department and Harris County Attorney’s have reached out to the company and the Environmental Protection Agency to receive more information,” Hidalgo wrote.
The wastewater is being sent to Texas Molecular, which injects hazardous waste into the ground for disposal.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told KTRK-TV that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their … hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”
The company told KHOU-TV it is experienced in managing this type of disposal.
“Our technology safely removes hazardous constituents from the biosphere. We are part of the solution to reduce risk and protect the environment, whether in our local area or other places that need the capabilities we offer to protect the environment,” the company said.
The fiery Feb. 3 derailment in Ohio prompted evacuations when toxic chemicals were burned after being released from five derailed tanker rail cars carrying vinyl choride that were in danger of exploding.
“It’s … very, very toxic,” Dr. George Guillen, the executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston, said, but the risk to the public is minimal.
“This injection, in some cases, is usually 4,000 or 5,000 feet down below any kind of drinking water aquifer,” said Guillen, who is also a professor of biology and environmental science at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.
Both Guillen and Deer Park resident Tammy Baxter said their greatest concerns are transporting the chemicals more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) from East Palestine, Ohio; to Deer Park, Texas.
“There has to be a closer deep well injection,” Baxter told KTRK. “It’s foolish to put it on the roadway. We have accidents on a regular basis … It is silly to move it that far.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the derailment site Thursday, has warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, Ohio, and help the town recover.
