May 2021 – Page 3 – The Tarbabys Blog

New Mexico Stuck With $8 billion in Cleanup for Oil Wells, Highlighting Dangers From Fossil Fuel Dependence

DeSmog

New Mexico Stuck With $8 billion in Cleanup for Oil Wells, Highlighting Dangers From Fossil Fuel Dependence

The oil industry boasts that it fills state coffers with revenues from drilling, but a new study finds a serious gap in funding available to tackle the environmental legacy of abandoned wells.

Nick Cunningham May 26, 2021

New Mexico is facing more than $8 billion in cleanup costs for oil and gas wells, an enormous liability that taxpayers could be left to pick up if drillers go out of business or walk away from their obligations.

Cleaning up old wells at the end of their operating lives can be expensive, and typically states require drillers to cover part of the cleanup cost at the outset, known as financial assurance requirements. The money is tapped later on when the well or pipeline must be dismantled and cleaned up.

But a study commissioned by the New Mexico State Land Office published on April 30 found that “financial assurance requirements do not exist for much of the oil and gas infrastructure explored in this study, and in some cases where such requirements are imposed, operators may have multiple ways of minimizing or avoiding those requirements.” The study was conducted by the Center for Applied Research, an independent analytical firm.

Inadequate bonding requirements means there is a serious gap in available funding to properly clean up after the fossil fuel industry. According to the report, it could cost as much as $8.38 billion to clean up the state’s tens of thousands of wells and associated pipeline infrastructure. Alarmingly, however, New Mexico only has $201 million tucked away for cleanup, leaving a hole of $8.1 billion.

“That’s $8.1 billion that we don’t have,” New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard said in a statement. “Enormous sums of taxpayer money and money meant for public schools, along with the long-term health of our lands, are on the line.”

The industry likes to boast that oil and gas revenues contribute roughly a third of the state’s general fund — a fact that the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association (NMOGA) triumphantly advertised in a recent report and regularly highlights on social media.

Indeed, drilling accounts for a large source of state revenues. In April 2021, for example, the state took in $109 million in royalties, a record high. Those funds will be funneled into public services, including schools and hospitals.

As the report exposed, however, the massive liability put onto the public in cleanup costs somewhat undercuts the notion that the oil and gas industry is a financial godsend.

The industry has helped fill state coffers in recent years, with oil production booming to roughly 1 million barrels per day, more than double production levels from five years ago. According to the report, last year the oil and gas industry produced nearly 370 million barrels of oil and 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from roughly 60,000 wells, which was transported on 35,000 miles of pipelines.

But as the State Land Office study highlights, the industry is leaving behind enormous costs for the state and the general public to deal with at a later date, a liability that is mostly obscured from public discussion.

The average cost to plug an old well and reclaim the surface is over $182,000 per well, but the state only has the finances to cover a little over $3,200 per well. The funding gap is even more staggering for pipelines. Decommissioning and reclamation costs are roughly $211,000 per mile of pipeline, but available financial assurance only totals about $51 per mile.

A pump jack in Roswell, New Mexico. Credit: BLM. (CC BY 2.0)

The risk to the public from inadequate bonding requirements is compounded by the fact that oil and gas drillers can go out of business long before wells are cleaned up, which can be years or even decades later. The U.S. shale industry has burned through hundreds of billions of dollars in cash, and there have been more than 250 bankruptcies of North American oil and gas companies since 2015. And as the clean energy transition accelerates, the financial challenges to the industry are likely to only grow more severe.

The state has long suffered from the roller coaster cycles of extractive industry, according to James Jimenez, executive director of New Mexico Voices for Children, a health, education, and economic advocacy organization. “We’ve made policy choices in boom times that have really exacerbated our over-dependence on oil and natural gas revenues,” Jimenez told DeSmog.

“Because of the really volatile nature of the oil and gas industries, we haven’t had sustainability in the programs,” he said. A dependence on a boom-and-bust industry has forced the state to make cuts to school systems during downturns in the past.

“We need to reduce this over reliance we have on oil and natural gas to fund really basic important programs like our K-12 education and higher education systems,” Jimenez said. He added that the state should diversify its revenue base, such as through progressive taxation on the wealthy and supporting non-extractive business sectors.

Even as money flows to the state from drilling today, the unfunded liabilities of cleanup that are dumped onto the public also highlight the downside to such high levels of drilling. “The $8 billion that it would take to do the cleanup would have to come from somewhere,” Jimenez said. Dollars spent on cleaning up the waste from the oil and gas industry, are dollars not spent on other important needs, such as rural broadband or road infrastructure, he added.

“The answers are simple and urgent — raise royalty rates and taxes on the industry, stash away the revenues in our Permanent Fund to stabilize cash flows, and spend current budget dollars on investments to diversify our economy,” Thomas Singer, senior policy advisor at the Western Environmental Law Center, told DeSmog via email.

NMOGA did not respond to a request for comment.

Well pad near Roswell, NM. Credit: BLM. (CC BY 2.0)

On top of the financial risks from abandoned wells, the fossil fuel industry brings numerous environmental and public health hazards as well. Oil and gas operations have contributed to a deterioration in air quality in the state. And in northwestern New Mexico, there have been more than 300 accidents since 2019, including oil spills, fires, blowouts, and gas releases, and much of it has occurred on Navajo land, as reported by Capital & Main.

A recently published peer-reviewed study found that shut-in conventional oil wells in the Permian basin could be leaking a substantial amount of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that exacerbates climate change.

“New Mexicans must recognize that while industrialization of our landscape to produce oil and gas brings revenue today, if not properly cleaned up, it also jeopardizes our economy of the future,” Singer said. Allowing drillers “to defer this obligation indefinitely puts the state and taxpayers at great risk that they will have pick up the tab or leave these areas as polluted sacrifice zones.”

Nick Cunningham is an independent journalist covering the oil and gas industry, climate change and international politics. He has been featured in Oilprice.com, The Fuse, YaleE360 and NACLA.

U.S. freeways flattened Black neighborhoods nationwide

Reuters

U.S. freeways flattened Black neighborhoods nationwide

Andy Sullivan May 25, 2021

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (Reuters) – Syracuse wasn’t the only city where Black residents were displaced by the U.S. freeway-building boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

Across the country, local officials saw the proposed interstate system as a convenient way to demolish what they regarded as “slum” neighborhoods near their downtown business districts, historians say. With the federal government picking up 90% of the cost, freeway construction made it easier for politicians and business leaders to pursue their own “urban renewal” projects after residents were evicted.

“It was a mistake that many cities were making,” said University of California, Irvine law professor Joseph DiMento, an expert in the policies of the freeway-building era. “The reasons they were built were heavily for removal of Blacks from certain areas.”

Existing long-distance highways, like the New York State Thruway, largely skirted city centers. The new interstates were built right through them.

Road builders at the time were largely free to ignore environmental, historical, social or other factors, allowing them to focus on the most direct route from one point to another.

More often than not, that meant routing those freeways through Black neighborhoods, where land was cheap and political opposition low.

Some black neighborhoods were targeted even when more logical routes were available, research by the late urban historian Raymond Mohl shows. According to his findings:

*In Miami, Interstate 95 was routed through Overtown, a Black neighborhood known as the “Harlem of the South,” rather than a nearby abandoned rail corridor.

*In Nashville, Interstate 40 took a noticeable swerve, bisecting the Black community of North Nashville.

*In Montgomery, Alabama, the state highway director, a high-level officer of the Ku Klux Klan, routed Interstate 85 through a neighborhood where many Black civil rights leaders lived, rather than choosing an alternate route on vacant land.

*In New Orleans and Kansas City, officials re-routed freeways from white neighborhoods to integrated or predominantly Black areas.

Residents in a handful of cities, including Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Baltimore, successfully mobilized to block freeway construction in Black neighborhoods. But that was not typically the case.

The road-building program ultimately displaced more than 1 million Americans, most of them low-income minorities, according to Anthony Foxx, who served as transportation secretary under Democratic President Barack Obama.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; editing by Marla Dickerson)

Turn off the gas: is America ready to embrace electric vehicles?

The Guardian

Turn off the gas: is America ready to embrace electric vehicles?

Tom Perkins May 23, 2021

Joe Biden inside the new Lightning last week. ‘This sucker’s quick,’ he declared. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Ford unveiled its new F-150 Lightning pickup this week – but the success of EVs in this car-loving nation is far from certain

In Detroit, auto plants have for decades churned out trucks built with Motor City steel and fueled by gasoline. But this week’s rollout of the Ford F-150 Lightning electric truck offered a vision of the future in America’s automotive heartland: aluminum-clad pickups running off of electric powertrains with lithium batteries.

An electric model of the nation’s best-selling vehicle at an accessible $40,000 has the potential to shift the auto industry’s course, and do more to advance the transportation sector’s electrification than any recent development, analysts say.

“Offering a well-known vehicle at a competitive price could really help push the EV agenda in the US,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights at Edmunds.com.

Meanwhile, Ford characterized the Lightning’s introduction as a “watershed moment”, but it also represents a major gamble. The F-150 embodies American ruggedness, and it raises the question: is the truck market’s meat-and-potatoes base ready to embrace environmentally friendly electric vehicles (EVs)?

It’s uncharted territory, said Michelle Krebs, Autotrader executive analyst. The success of the Lightning or any EV hinges on a major infrastructure build-out that’s far from certain.

“There’s no EV pickup market at the moment, so we just don’t know how big it could be, or what consumer acceptance will be,” she said.

Truck consumers are generally unwilling to switch to cars just to go electric, Krebs said. So pitching them on the Lightning not only opens a new market for Ford, but is a critical step in the nation’s efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions, of which the transportation sector accounts for 29%. The EV transition is a key component of Joe Biden’s climate plan, which calls for the nation to cut emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030, and net-zero emissions economy-wide by 2050.

Though EVs only make up less than 2% of new-vehicle sales in the US, there’s perhaps no better line to push the needle on those figures than the F-Series. Last year, Ford generated about $42bn in the sale of over 800,000 F-Series trucks, according to data from the company and Edmunds.com. Sales of the F-150, the line’s light-duty truck, exceeded 556,000.

The Lightning feature that seems to be catching the most attention isn’t under the hood or in the cab, but on the price tag. With EV tax incentives, the truck’s base model could cost about $32,000 – less than a $37,000 gas-powered F-150 with a crew cab. By contrast, the GMC Hummer EV and Rivian R1T, are priced at $80,000 and $70,000 though they are slightly flashier.

The Lightning also marks one of the first attempts to electrify a well-known, everyday vehicle that appeals to a mass market. Previously, EVs were mostly small, unconventionally designed cars that appealed to environmentally minded people who made a personality statement with their vehicle, Caldwell said. The “pendulum has swung” in terms of design, she added.

The Lightning’s range is also notable. One charge will take a base model Lightning 230 miles, or, for an additional $20,000, the extended range trim will travel 300 miles. It can haul up to 2,000lb of payload and tow up to 10,000lb. However, Ford doesn’t offer any data on range with a heavy payload or tow, and Car And Drive estimated it at as little as 100 miles.

That’s the type of detail that could keep consumers away from not just the Lightning, but all electric pickups. On a 150kw DC fast charger, the extended-range trim targets up to 54 miles of range in 10 minutes, or just under an hour for a full charge.

It’s not hard to imagine a scenario in which someone who may be buying a truck to tow a camper a long distance once or twice per year opting for a gas-powered F-150 instead being inconvenienced with an hour-long stop to recharge every 100 miles or so, Caldwell said.

But several once-in-a-while Lightning features are generating a buzz, like a drain hole in case the cab needs to be hosed out. Its dual battery system can power tools in the field, or a house for three days during an outage. The F-150 Hybrid was utilized as a mobile generator in the recent deadly Texas blackouts.

Ford’s chief executive engineer Linda Zhang unveils the Ford F-150 Lightning in Dearborn on Wednesday. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/AP

The Lightning’s power is another selling point – it can go 0-60mph in just over four seconds, offers 775lb-ft of torque, and the extended range model targets 563 horsepower.

That was enough to impress the president, who test drove a Lightning during a Michigan stop last week. “This sucker’s quick,” he declared.

Among those who will need to harness the truck’s full power and hauling capacity are contractors. It’s worth consideration, said Dave Alder, an electrician in Detroit, especially if it could save on gas money. But he worried about where he would charge it, and said it’s a bit of a “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” situation with his gas-powered Chevy Silverado.

The Lightning has the support of the United Auto Workers union, which at times has been skeptical of electrification. The truck will be built at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, which sits just outside of Detroit and next to the Dearborn Truck Plant that produces gas-powered and hybrid F-150s. Lightning production is slated to start next spring, with the trucks hitting the lot in mid-2022.

Critical to its success is an infrastructure build out, and Biden’s $2tn infrastructure plan includes $174bn to support the EV transition.

Biden has framed his pitch by repeatedly claiming the US is in an electrification race with China.

“The future of the auto industry is electric. There’s no turning back,” he said during the Lightning’s unveiling. “The question is whether we will lead or we will fall behind in the race to the future.”

Buy-in from the auto industry could help Biden push his proposal with Congress, though it’s uniformly opposed by the GOP. Republican leadership has pointed to the lack of infrastructure as a chief reason for opposing spending on the EV transition, but at the same time opposes funding an infrastructure build-out.

American consumers have said they won’t buy an EV without the infrastructure in place, Krebs said, which leaves the industry facing a “chicken and egg” situation.

“That’s key – they have got to have the charging infrastructure in place or this will all go kaput,” she said.

Trucks of fresh water used to feed Taiwan’s semiconductors as crops left to die in punishing drought

The Telegraph

Trucks of fresh water used to feed Taiwan’s semiconductors as crops left to die in punishing drought

Nicola Smith May 22, 2021

The dried lakebed of Sun Moon Lake in Nantou county in central Taiwan - AP — The dried lakebed of Sun Moon Lake in Nantou county in central Taiwan – AP

The world’s largest microchip maker is buying tanker trucks full of water to keep its plant going as farmers struggle to make ends meet during the worst drought in the history of Taiwan.

The Taiwanese government this week said it would tighten water rationing from June 1 in the semiconductor making hubs of Hsinchu and Taichung if there is no significant rainfall by then. This would require companies to cut water consumption by 17 per cent.

Chip manufacturing requires a significant amount of water, and the shortfall in Taiwan, the rainswept island that hasn’t seen a typhoon in the last last year, has sounded alarm bells across the world.

The global economy is suffering from a major shortage of semiconductors that are key to almost all consumer appliances and vehicles.

A cut in supply from factories shut by Covid first hit the market last year, but a surge in spending on electrical items during lockdown has savaged the industry.

The automotive sector is by far the hardest hit, with Ford, Volkswagen and Jaguar Land Rover shutting down factories and laying off workers.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), the world’s largest chipmaker, told the Telegraph it had a contingency plan for the punishing drought compounding global supply issues further.

“We have initiated some measures including cutting back water usage and ordering water by tanker trucks for some of our facilities. So far there’s no impact on production and we are closely monitoring the water supply situation,” said a spokesperson.

People fish at the Sun Moon Lake with low water levels during an island wide drought - ANNABELLE CHIH /REUTERS — People fish at the Sun Moon Lake with low water levels during an island wide drought – ANNABELLE CHIH /REUTERS

But the 18-month drought, which has seen reservoirs in the island’s central and southern region plunge below 5 per cent of capacity, not only threatens Taiwan’s technological dominance, it has damaged farmers’ livelihoods and revived calls for long term action over climate change.

In parts of central Taiwan, taps are now turned off two days a week.

“With climate change accelerating, it is a sign that we have to think about how to transform,” said farmer Liu Cheng-yu, 37, who is facing significant losses from his rice paddy fields due to irrigation restrictions.

“That means our previous investment and effort will go to waste completely, and we won’t be able to earn any income,” he said. “We are desperately looking for other water resources to prevent the irrigation from halting.”

Mr Liu said he saw the crisis as an opportunity, but other farmers believe they have been shortchanged to save the chip industry.

“We had no choice but to stop planting for this season,” said Ho Wan-chin, 57, who was forced to lease his 100 hectares of land in Hsinchu county fallow.

“The government’s policy has always prioritized water supply to industries like the Hsinchu Science Park,” he said. “We are frustrated by the drought, and with climate change, drought will only happen again in the future.”

The island’s Greenpeace chapter agrees, concluding that Taiwan will face a more intense drought by 2030 if nothing is done to reduce carbon emissions.

People visit dried up Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan's Nantou County — People visit dried up Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan’s Nantou County

“Because of semiconductors and the regulation of domestic water use, the public awareness of climate change has indeed increased. However, climate change is never the focus of the discussion,” said June Liu, climate and energy campaigner.

“A long-term and climate-orientated water management policy is lacking and must be built up as soon as possible. Crossing fingers is not how we deal with risks.”

Dr Hsu Huang-hsiung, a climate change expert at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, said that although this year’s drought was likely more attributable to bad luck rather than proven to be global warming, that it served as a wake-up call for the island.

“This has been a good lesson for the Taiwanese people and government to learn,” he said. “Although this particular event was not necessarily caused by global warming, similar phenomena occurred so that we know that our water resources policy is not well planned.”

The island needed to address leakage in water pipes, hike consumption prices, and explore other water resources like retention pools, he said.

“I think the government will start to come up with better plans for long term policies for water resources for the future.”

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed – WSJ

Reuters

Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care before COVID-19 outbreak disclosed – WSJ

May 23, 2021

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) sought hospital care in November 2019, a month before China reported the first cases of COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing a U.S. intelligence report.

The newspaper said the previously undisclosed report – which provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits – may add weight to calls for a broader investigation into whether the COVID-19 virus could have escaped from the laboratory.

The Journal said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence expressed a range of views about the strength of the report’s supporting evidence, with one unnamed person saying it needed “further investigation and additional corroboration.”

The first cases of what would eventually be known as COVID-19 were reported at the end of December 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the advanced laboratory specializing in coronavirus research is located.

Chinese scientists and officials have consistently rejected the lab leak hypothesis, saying SARS-CoV-2 could have been circulating in other regions before it hit Wuhan, and might have even entered China from another country via imported frozen food shipments or wildlife trading.

China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, said on Monday that it was “completely untrue” that three members of staff at WIV had fallen ill.

“The United States continues to hype up the lab leak theory,” he said. “Does it care about traceability or is it just trying to distract attention?”

The Journal report came on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

Asked about the report, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said via email that the organization’s technical teams were now deciding on the next steps. He said further study was needed into the role of animal markets as well as the lab leak hypothesis.

A U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman had no comment on the report but said the Biden administration continued to have “serious questions about the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, including its origins within the Peoples Republic of China.”

She said the U.S. government was working with the WHO and other member states to support an expert-driven evaluation of the pandemic’s origins “that is free from interference or politicization.”

“We’re not going to make pronouncements that prejudge an ongoing WHO study into the source of SARS-CoV-2, but we’ve been clear that sound and technically credible theories should be thoroughly evaluated by international experts,” she said.

A joint study into the origins of COVID-19 by the WHO and China published at the end of March said it was “extremely unlikely” that it had escaped from a lab.

But China was accused of failing to disclose raw data on early COVID-19 cases to the WHO team, and the United States, the European Union and other Western countries called on Beijing to grant “full access” to independent experts.

A State Department fact sheet released near the end of the Trump administration said “the U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illnesses.” It did not say how many researchers.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Gabriel Crossley in Beijing, David Stanway in Shanghai and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Andrew Heavens)

A couple just moved into a 3D printed concrete home for about $1,400 a month- see what it’s like to live in

Business Insider

A couple just moved into a 3D printed concrete home for about $1,400 a month- see what it’s like to live in

Brittany Chang May 23, 2021

3d printed concrete home with project milestone — A 3D printed concrete home with Project Milestone. Bart van Overbeeke

A couple recently moved into a 1,012-square-foot 3D printed concrete home in the Netherlands.
It’s one of five homes that are part of the first 3D printed concrete “commercial housing project.”
The home’s makers say concrete 3D printed homes could help alleviate housing shortages.

On April 30, a Dutch couple began calling a 3D printed concrete house their home.

The home is located in Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

It’s the first of five 3D printed homes under Project Milestone, a collaboration among the Eindhoven University of Technology, the municipality, industry experts, architects, and several private companies.

Project Milestone serves as the world’s first 3D printed concrete “commercial housing project,” according to its maker.

The five homes are being built one at a time, which allows the makers to apply learnings from previous builds into each new home. Each house is meant to be more complex than its predecessors.

The housing crisis has been escalating in recent years, especially in the US.

The project’s teams hope to make 3D concrete printing a sustainable home-building option to help alleviate housing shortages, according to its makers.

Source: 3D Printed House

Creating a 3D printed home is often seen as more sustainable and faster than traditional homebuilding …

… especially because the precise printer used in Project Milestone uses less concrete than traditional construction methods.

Aesthetics-wise, the printer can also create a more creative and nontraditional home, as seen with this new boulder-shaped house.

“In addition to affordable homes, the market increasingly demands innovative housing concepts,” Yasin Torunoglu, the housing and spatial development alderman at the municipality of Eindhoven, said in a press release.

“With the 3D printed home, we’re now setting the tone for the future: the rapid realization of affordable homes with control over the shape of your own house,” Torunoglu continued.

As of now, 3D printed homes aren’t more affordable than “traditional” homes despite reduced labor costs. But it’s a goal the project is working toward.

This new home is made up of 24 concrete pieces that were printed at a printing plant.

The pieces were then trucked to the home’s final site and assembled on the house’s foundation.

A roof and frames were later added.

The homes are described as durable despite this multipiece process: The units are meant to serve as functioning homes for a few decades.

The 3D printed bungalow is now owned by Vesteda, a real-estate investor. It’ll be rented out to private occupants via six-month contracts at about $1,400 a month.

The home is now occupied by two retirees from Amsterdam, The Guardian reported.

Source: The Guardian

“It has the feel of a bunker – it feels safe,” Harrie Dekkers, one of the occupants, told The Guardian.

Now, let’s take a look at the home.

The almost 1,012-square-foot home has a living room, a kitchen, and two bedrooms.

Its distinct “large boulder-shaped” appearance was designed to fit into its surroundings and show off the 3D printer’s ability to create free-formed buildings.

The unit’s curved walls and spaces are different from spaces of other 3D printed homes.

Besides its eccentric shape, the interior of the concrete home doesn’t look any different from that of a traditional home.

The front door can be locked and unlocked using a digital key.

Source: The Guardian

It’s also well insulated and comes with connections to a heating system, similar to any modern home.

The home is also full of large windows for more natural light.

The living room has an open concept …

… which means the kitchen space opens out into the conjoined dining and living room.

There’s even room for a home office inside one of the two bedrooms.

And of course, there’s a bathroom with necessities like sinks and a shower.

The first unit stands at one story tall. But future homes in Project Milestone are expected to be multilevel.

The fifth home in the project, which will be two stories tall, will be printed on-site.

Op-Ed: Leaving California

Los Angeles Times

Op-Ed: Leaving California

Jacques Leslie May 23, 2021

After more than four agreeable decades in California, my wife and I became climate migrants — highly privileged ones, to be sure — and moved to Vermont.

Our life in Marin County had turned into a tightrope walk.

Jacques Leslie's former home in Mill Valley. — Jacques Leslie’s former home in Mill Valley. (Eric Rorer)

In 2014, our savvy financial advisor, whom we’d acquired after a substantial bequest from my mother, told us we didn’t quite have the funds to build a new house. Leslie — yes, she’s Leslie Leslie — and I demurred. We tore down the house in Mill Valley where we’d lived for 31 years. It was beloved but it was shambly, and when we leveled it, we discovered it was filled with black mold.

In its place we built a new house, which, in addition to being sleek and beautiful, was environmentally state-of-the-art.

Designed by a skilled “green” architect, the new house had solar panels and radiant heat. Graywater, bioswales, a spectacularly performing induction stove — it oozed with environmental appurtenances. The ventilation system silently and meticulously cleansed the air, turning the place into an oasis during fire season. Compressed-bamboo framing made each room nearly soundproof and markedly increased the walls’ insulation capacity.

Outside, a glistening garden — the collaborative vision of Leslie and a landscape architect couple — consisted of 80% native plants and grasses, plus fruit trees and scores of David Austin roses. The property exuded tranquility, an antidote for the surrounding suburban bustle.

Many people who build a house end up bemoaning the experience. We didn’t. Creating a functional work of art was fundamentally pleasurable. We appreciated our perfectionist contractor and the skill of his craftsman workers. Leslie, an artist, wrote a Buddhist prayer of loving kindness and compassion on the roof and walls before they were painted over. In gentle reply, the painter added a faint white cross on a bathroom ceiling, which he also painted over. We all took pride in building something gorgeous.

I’ve written often about megaprojects — dams, bridges, concert halls, high-speed trains and Olympic Games — that almost invariably overshoot original cost and duration estimates, often by many multiples. As months passed and expenses mounted, I knew we were having our own little megaproject.

The house ended up consuming so much of our money that before it was finished, we understood we could not expect to live in it for the rest of our lives. From that point on, we felt as if we were merely borrowing the place, residing in it until we could no longer afford it, while it beguiled and occasionally seemed to taunt us with its suavité.

None of this detracted from the experience of inhabiting the house, but it induced a kind of detachment that prepared us for the end.

We lasted five years. In that time, the advance of climate change meant that each fire season was hotter and longer than the one before it. Then came the surrealistic orange-black morning in Mill Valley last September that looked like a solar eclipse, only more ominous, when ashes from nearby fires blotted out most light until close to noon. Soon after, we heard that insurers had declined to offer renewals to some homeowners in our area, and we knew it was time to sell, before the house’s value declined.

Our resolve was reinforced by serendipity, as Leslie’s close friend from college days told her he was selling a 5-acre plot in Woodstock, Vt., with a postcard-perfect view of a distant mountain. We can attest that on this verdant property, birdsong, not car traffic, is audible, and the Milky Way is visible at night. An expert contractor, our friend didn’t just sell us the land, he’s building us a new house on it — for a fraction of what the Mill Valley one cost and, we think, in half the time. Vermont’s lower cost of living and simpler regulations make this eminently plausible. In the meantime, we are renting.

We moved with more excitement than regret. We understand our enormous good fortune: Most people can’t afford to pick up stakes, no matter how dire the prognosis on home ground. We loved the Bay Area, and now, most likely, we will love another place, too.

We departed with gratitude for the kindnesses and thoughtfulness of many people we’ve known, with pain over dear family members and friends (and the neighbors’ dog we loved looking after) whom we are leaving behind, and with grief for the suffering and chaos that climate change has just begun to generate, emphatically in California and eventually everywhere.

We’re at the beginning of the diaspora, and we shudder at the thought.

Jacques Leslie is a contributing writer to Opinion.

Cannibal Mice Threaten Sydney Homes and Australian Farms

Bloomberg

Cannibal Mice Threaten Sydney Homes and Australian Farms

Sybilla Gross May 24, 2021

(Bloomberg) —

The plague of mice attacking parts of Australia is turning into a horror story, with the rodents threatening to invade Sydney, reports of the vermin eating their own, and the farming industry being thrown into turmoil.

Millions of mice have swarmed schools, homes and hospitals in the eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland, wreaking havoc and leaving entire towns suffocating from a lingering pungent odor. Now there are reports of them munching on the remains of dead rodents and even predictions that they could reach Sydney in a matter of weeks, riding on freight trucks and food crates.

While the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority hasn’t approved the use of a highly toxic chemical to tackle the scourge, the state of New South Wales is already gearing up for the permit. Local authorities have secured 5,000 liters of Bromadiolone, one of the strongest mice killers, for distribution across 20 treatment sites in the worst affected areas of the region.

Giant Mice Plague Forces Australia to Turn to Banned Poison

The swarm is also threatening Australia’s $51 billion agriculture industry. Mice numbers have exploded after a bumper crop last season. With the crisis showing no signs of abating, some farmers are refraining from planting winter crops for fear of damage to freshly sown seeds and ripened grain, according to Matthew Madden, the grains committee chair for industry group NSW Farmers.

Abandoning Crops

“People are actually just abandoning crops because they think — why am I going to plant this if it’s going to get eaten?” he said from his Moree farm in northern New South Wales. “The anxiety is — even if I get it to spring, if these vast numbers are still here they’ll just eat the crop as it ripens.”

Some sorghum crops harvested earlier this year have sustained significant damage, ranging from 20% to 100% in some fields, Madden said, adding that the grains in storage from last year, if they weren’t eaten, have been subject to contamination from mouse droppings. That’s leading to extra cleaning costs for farmers, or in some cases, outright rejection of shipments at ports.

The financial pain isn’t just confined to farms. Damage to machinery, storage vessels, homes and health of people have also been reported. Madden, who himself recently lost a tractor to fire after mice bit through a live cord, said the devastation could cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Lost opportunity costs are hard to quantify, he added.

“We won’t know until harvest time,” Madden said. “It’s just unimaginable.”

The situation has spiraled ahead of buoyant expectations for a record Australian canola output this year, as a combination of high oilseed prices and optimal weather created perfect conditions for the crop. The disruption to seeding due to the mice in New South Wales has tempered enthusiasm about production this season, according to the Australian Oilseeds Federation.

The risk that the situation will escalate in spring continues to weigh on the outlook. Rodent numbers usually start to dwindle during the colder months heading into winter, but this year has bucked the trend. That’s a problem if numbers keep building ahead of the typical surge during warmer months.

Last year’s plentiful rains, which offered farmers a respite after a prolonged drought, paved the way for an explosion in mice numbers, Madden said.

“Over the drought we didn’t have these issues,” he said. “It’s been a perfect storm.”

‘It’s just shocking’: How Missouri Republican politics drove twin crises in Medicaid

The Kansas City Star

‘It’s just shocking’: How Missouri Republican politics drove twin crises in Medicaid

Jonathan Shorman, Jeanne Kuang May 23, 2021

Mike Levitt’s nursing homes have experienced a difficult 14 months.

Still recovering after being ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic, Levitt’s Tutera Senior Living & Health Care, which operates five facilities in the Kansas City region, suddenly finds itself at the edge of financial oblivion.

Missouri lawmakers are at fault.

The General Assembly adjourned earlier this month without renewing a tax that funds vast swaths of Medicaid in Missouri. Nursing homes are heavily reliant on Medicaid patients, who have spent down their savings and now depend on the program to pay for their care.

Levitt, Tutera’s vice president, was so frustrated in an interview this week he was reluctant to even discuss what would happen to the homes if the tax is not renewed before it expires this September. Medicaid recipients make up 45% to 95% of residents at Tutera’s facilities.

“It’s unthinkable,” he said. “I hate to think if it doesn’t … We’ve never been here before.”

Missouri’s $12 billion Medicaid program is in the midst of twin crises driven by Republican lawmakers that will play out in the weeks and months ahead. Hundreds of nursing homes, hospitals and pharmacies — and their hundreds of thousands of residents, patients and customers — are caught in the middle.

For the first time in three decades, legislators failed to approve a Medicaid provider tax that generates about $1.6 billion every year. More importantly, the tax allows Missouri to receive an additional $3 billion in federal funds that are then returned to the providers to care for elderly, disabled and low-income residents. Failure to renew the tax would set the program on the course to financial apocalypse.

Hard-right Republicans, led by Sen. Paul Wieland of Imperial, are demanding anti-abortion provisions be included in any renewal.

Gov. Mike Parson is all but certain to call a special session this summer to renew the tax, called the Federal Reimbursement Allowance or FRA. But it remains unclear whether he can focus the session narrowly enough to foreclose an acrimonious birth control debate and how much power Republican leaders really have to end what has become a high-stakes game of chicken.

“It’s just shocking to me and so disheartening to me that we’re using this to leverage any other piece of legislation,” said Nikki Strong, director of the Missouri Health Care Association, which advocates for nursing homes.

The consequences of not renewing the tax are catastrophic, Strong warned. “Without the FRA, every nursing home in the state will be out of business,” she said.

At the same time, Medicaid expansion is in limbo after most Republican lawmakers balked at budgeting the roughly $130 million in state funds needed to expand eligibility for the program on July 1 under the terms voters approved last August. Without funding, Parson officially halted expansion earlier this month.

Advocates for expansion sued Parson’s administration this past week, triggering a legal fight that may lead to a judge ordering the program extended. Months of planning by the health care industry and coverage for an estimated 275,000 residents hinge on the lawsuit’s outcome.

The simultaneous fights over the provider tax and expansion have led to an unparalleled moment of uncertainty for Medicaid. Health care workers and patients are contemplating worst-case scenarios even as they tell themselves Missouri must, eventually, pull back from the edge.

“I think right now people are in shock and feel like we’ve got four months or so to get this thing sorted out,” said Ron Fitzwater, CEO of the Missouri Pharmacy Association.

Michael Levitt, vice president of Tutera Senior Living and Health Care, said he believes nursing homes, such as Northland Rehabilitation & Health Care, are facing a dire financial situation and potentially closure if a key tax that funds Medicaid and pays hospitals and nursing homes is not renewed.

Contraceptives targeted

Wieland, 58, a Catholic who has been in the General Assembly since 2011, is no stranger to showdowns over abortion and contraceptives.

He sued in 2013 to stop his state health insurance plan from covering contraception, saying it violated his religious beliefs. He eventually prevailed in court.

Term-limited and due to leave office in 2023, he is waging one more fight over contraception coverage.

In late March, he inserted provisions into a bill renewing the provider tax that would ban Medicaid coverage of “any drug approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration that may cause the destruction of, or prevent the implantation of, an unborn child.”

That means the abortion pill, RU-486, but it also encompasses common forms of birth control, including IUDs.

Under federal and state law, Medicaid already does not cover abortions, including RU-486, unless the mother’s life is at risk.

“For several years I’ve been figuring out a way to make it so that the state of Missouri taxpayers do not have to fund these drugs that destroy human life,” he said. “I need to do it while I’m still there.”

Wieland’s proposal caused the provider tax to stall and, despite weeks of negotiations, an apparent compromise collapsed in the final hours of session.

With 18 hours left, at the urging of Sen. Bob Onder, a Lake St. Louis Republican, the Senate voted to send the bill to a conference committee where it would be paired with Wieland’s birth control ban. Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz cast the deciding vote.

His vote marked an apparent backtracking on a deal with Democrats and some Republicans to pass the provider tax without abortion-related language.

The move effectively killed the bill. Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, an Independence Democrat, was furious at what he described as a betrayal. He moved with no opposition on the last day of session to adjourn four hours early.

Wieland said this week he, too, was betrayed. The Republican caucus, he said, had agreed to pass yet another version of the tax renewal with his contraceptive ban included.

“It sounds to me like they ignored the will of the Republican caucus and went and tried to make a deal with the Democrats and that blew up in their face,” he said.

Schatz has said he thought the move to send the bill to conference would succeed regardless of his vote, and found it “difficult” to “be in a position of voting against pro-life measures.”

Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz, left, speaks to reporters as Senate Majority Leader Caleb Rowden stands nearby. Schatz cast a deciding vote in whether to send a bill renewing a Medicaid provider tax back to conference committee.

As the fight over contraception was developing, lawmakers were also taking steps to block Medicaid expansion.

Wieland’s first proposal came days before a House committee voted down funding to expand Medicaid, the first in a string of defeats for expansion in the General Assembly. Lawmakers ultimately passed a budget without it.

Unlike the dispute over the provider tax, efforts to block expansion garnered the support of a majority of Republican lawmakers. Some justified their votes against the voter-approved initiative by saying their districts oppose expansion or that constituents didn’t have all the necessary information.

The refusal forced Parson to decide whether to implement expansion without funding or call it off. He chose to call it off and a lawsuit quickly followed.

Parson’s office didn’t respond to questions for this story. Parson has said that without revenue “we are unable to proceed with the expansion at this time” to keep Medicaid financially afloat.

“I think that was the appropriate response on their part,” Rep. Cody Smith, a Carthage Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, said of Parson’s decision.

As for litigation, Smith said lawmakers “will sit back and watch that process unfold.”

Parson expected to recall lawmakers

The twin developments — the failure to renew the provider tax and the blocking of expansion — have rocked the health profession in Missouri.

The provider tax had been renewed on time so often that its continued existence was almost assumed. And the health care industry had been preparing for expansion for months.

“We’ve been on this wild ride on Medicaid expansion for quite a while now and this latest turn is a bit of a surprise,” said Timothy McBride, a health economist at Washington University in St. Louis.

Health care industry representatives said the tax renewal is nearly always a bargaining chip for conservative Republicans. But Alina Salganicoff, director of Women’s Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said she’s never heard of lawmakers trying to ban coverage of specific forms of birth control through the provider tax.

“The particular language that is being used in Missouri is not a language I have seen used in other states,” she said. “These are not medical terms. This is not how medical organizations define and classify drugs.”

Facing the prospect the provider tax will expire, health care advocates remain confident for now legislators will eventually act. They are unanimous in predicting Parson will call a special session.

At the same time, advocates are keeping up pressure. Missouri Foundation for Health President and CEO Dwayne Proctor said Friday that every day “this process is delayed is another day nearly 250,000 Missourians go without the access to health care they need.”

In theory, Parson could voluntarily reverse his stance and implement expansion. But even before advocates filed a lawsuit this week seeking to force him to open up eligibility, he had said he expected the issue to head to the court.

A Cole County Circuit Judge will almost certainly now decide at least the short-term future of expansion. The lawsuit seeks an order requiring Missouri to enroll newly-eligible individuals on July 1.

As for the provider tax, Wieland has vowed to bring up the birth control ban in any special session that allows it. Some political observers have suggested Parson could set strict limits on what lawmakers can consider in a special session.

“I don’t see how you can draft a call and say we’re not going to allow you to amend a bill, and I don’t think the governor will do it anyway,” Wieland said. “He’s not a dictator … I will fight on whatever I need to to get this done, yes.”

Running out of money?

The fights have left Sen. Bill White, a Joplin Republican, frustrated and concerned that Medicaid is likely to run out of money this year, sooner or later.

He voted against paying for the expansion, but acknowledged a court could force the state to enroll new recipients. That would leave the program underfunded regardless of whether the provider tax is renewed.

“It’s a have-to scenario,” White said. “Individual programs we’ve had little fights … they just don’t equal this dollar amount or this impact.”

Jillian Winkler, a nurse at Northland Rehabilitation & Health Care, prepares medication Thursday, May 20, 2021. Nursing homes are facing a dire financial situation and potentially closure if a key tax that funds Medicaid and pays hospitals and nursing homes is not renewed.

Providers like Tutera, the Kansas City-area chain of nursing homes, will be watching.

For Levitt, Tutera’s vice president, imperiling the tax only adds “insult to injury,” as nursing homes across the state struggle to recover financially from revenue losses and high costs fighting the pandemic.

Without the funding, services for 23,000 elderly Missourians, covering everything from changing bedpans to monitoring medications, are on the line.

“We have all these other challenges we dealt with and fought through, and now we’re faced with a 40% cut in Medicaid, just because?” Levitt said. “It’s unconscionable.”

Tips to know before a brutal tick season

The Washington Post

Tips to know before a brutal tick season

Angela Haupt May 24, 2021

Dermacentor Variabilis. (Photo By: MyLoupe/UIG Via Getty Images)

A few weeks ago, Goudarz Molaei went on a research expedition to a wooded coastal area in southwestern Connecticut. Within minutes, droves of troublesome residents of the area were crawling across his coveralls. He was covered in ticks.

Molaei, who directs the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station’s tick surveillance and testing program, collected as many as he could and took them back to his lab. The final tally: more than 200 of the tiny, parasitic arachnids.

The experience was “quite disconcerting,” he said, and in line with predictions that we’re in for a bad tick year. “We have to be extremely vigilant,” he said. “We’re going to have higher than average tick activity this year.”

That’s partly because of the weather: The mild winter and early spring – plus generous rainfall – promoted tick activity, said Michael Bentley, an entomologist and the director of training and education for the National Pest Management Association. Plus, as the coronavirus pandemic lingers, people are spending lots of time outside: on trails, in campgrounds or just lounging in the backyard.

“Everybody has taken advantage of being outdoors, which is great,” Bentley said. “But it increases the likelihood of tick encounters. It’s kind of this perfect storm of all these different conditions that could put people more at risk of encountering ticks than they would have been in years past.”

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Here’s what to know to protect yourself from tick bites.

– When it’s ‘tick season’

There are certain times of year when ticks are most active and “looking for a host to have a blood meal,” said Grace Marx, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. March, April, May and June are prime tick months, and there’s typically a peak in Lyme disease cases in June and July.

However, experts noted that ticks are becoming a year-round threat. “It seems that every season is tick season,” Molaei said. His laboratory encourages Connecticut residents to submit ticks for identification or testing. Years ago, he would receive 50 samples between December and mid-March. Now, it’s closer to 800. That highlights the importance of staying proactive year-round to protect against tickborne disease, he said.

– Which ticks are the most dangerous

While there are dozens of tick species in the United States, three spread the majority of tickborne diseases. The one responsible for the most illness is the blacklegged tick, also known as the deer tick, which spreads Lyme disease.

Blacklegged ticks, which are brown to reddish-orange and about the size of a sesame seed, have a “broad geographic range across much of the eastern United States,” Marx said, and are also found in the Upper Midwest. Last month – in news that many found surprising – research published in the journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology reported that blacklegged ticks were abundant near beaches in Northern California.

Lyme disease accounts for 70% to 80% of all tickborne diseases, said Marx. While Lyme disease can often be treated successfully with antibiotics, it has been linked with arthritis and cardiac and neurological problems. Nearly 480,000 people in the United States are treated for it each year, according to the CDC, though it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact prevalence, because the disease can be hard to diagnose.

The blacklegged tick can also cause anaplasmosis (which leads to such symptoms as fever, headache and chills), Powassan virus disease (which can cause encephalitis) and babesiosis, a rare infection of the red blood cells.

Another species, the Lone Star tick, is particularly common in the South. It’s an aggressive tick that can be identified by a white dot – a “lone star” – on its back. It causes diseases such as tularemia and Southern tick-associated rash illness.

The American dog tick, which is most prevalent east of the Rocky Mountains, is brown with grayish markings and sometimes called a wood tick. It transmits Rocky Mountain spotted fever, “which can be rapidly fatal,” Marx said.

While they’re not yet among the most common, Molaei is worried about newer tick species, such as the Asian long-horned tick – many of which he found on himself during that recent outing to the Connecticut woods (the others were Lone Star ticks). Asian long-horned ticks, which are reddish-brown, were reported in the United States for the first time in 2017, and it’s not unusual to find thousands at a time. The ticks are known to cause anemia in livestock, Molaei said, and will “almost certainly cause major disruption to the livestock industry.” The potential risk to humans is high, he said – the ticks spread harmful pathogens in Asia, including hemorrhagic fever. But it’s still unclear if they’ll transmit disease to humans in the United States and, if so, what kind.

– Which ticks are the most dangerous

You’re at risk of encountering ticks any time you’re outside; they’re “really effective at finding and latching onto a host, and hitching a ride,” Bentley said. But ticks especially thrive in areas with thick vegetation and tall grasses.

If you can’t avoid such places, walk in the center of trails if possible and dress appropriately: Experts advise wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants in light colors that help make ticks extra visible. Tucking your pants into your socks can block ticks’ easy access to your skin, and hats can keep them out of your hair.

Marx recommends treating your clothes and gear with an insecticide that contains at least 0.5 percent permethrin, which is nontoxic to humans. Or, she said, you can buy clothes that have been pretreated with permethrin.

When you get home from a hike or another outdoor activity, check yourself thoroughly for ticks, and do the same for family members and pets. Take a shower right away: “You can wash off those ticks before they get attached,” Marx said. And toss the clothing you wore outside into the dryer for at least 10 minutes on high heat, she advised. That will kill any ticks you might have picked up.

Some pathogens can be transmitted just minutes after a tick attaches to a human, Marx said. But the pathogen that causes Lyme disease can’t be transmitted until the tick has been attached for at least 24 hours – “and we think that most transmission actually occurs after 36 hours.” That’s why it’s important to check for ticks immediately after being outside. The sooner you remove a tick, the better.

– Which ticks are the most dangerous

The key to removal is to use tweezers or another fine-toothed forceps, rather than something more clunky like scissors. “Grab as close to the skin as possible, squeeze and lift straight up,” Bentley said. Be careful not to twist the tick or dig around, which could cause parts of it to break off and get stuck in your skin.

Bentley has heard about other home treatments for removing ticks, like spreading cayenne pepper on one and waiting for it to fall off. Ignore them. “Don’t do whatever weird things the internet is recommending,” he said. “Just get fine-toothed forceps. It takes two seconds to pull out, and you’re good to go.”

Dispose of ticks by putting them in a sealed bag, wrapping them in tape or flushing them down the toilet.

– When to see a doctor about a tick bite

Most tick bites don’t result in a tickborne disease, but some are considered riskier than others, Marx said, such as bites experienced in areas where there’s a high concentration of Lyme disease. In those cases, if the tick was attached for at least 36 hours, doctors will often prescribe a single dose of the antibiotic doxycycline as a preventive measure.

No matter where you live, if you develop a rash or fever within a few weeks of removing a tick, see a doctor.

The most important advice, Molaei said, is to remain aware of the threat ticks pose and take action accordingly. “What we’re seeing [this year] magnifies the scope of the problem we’re going to have with ticks and tickborne diseases,” he said. “We have to be mindful of these things.”