Ohio Court Overturns Law Preventing Cities From Voting on Anti-Fracking Measures

DeSmog

Ohio Court Overturns Law Preventing Cities From Voting on Anti-Fracking Measures

By Simon Davis-Cohen              November 1, 2017 

https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/full_width_blog_image/public/blogimages/Ohio_State_Office_Building_supreme-court_credit-Sixflashphoto_creative-commons.jpg?itok=DajTIJa8The Thomas J. Moyer Ohio Judicial Center, Ohio State Office Building, is home to the Supreme Court of Ohio. Credit: Sixflashphoto, CC BY-SA 4.0

In a slight break with previous state policies that have encouraged fracking activity and new pipelines, the Ohio Supreme Court recently struck down a controversial provision restricting citizen efforts to vote locally on these and other issues through the ballot initiative process.

Getting Out (of) the Vote

The state Supreme Court ruling, which came on October 19, is a departure from earlier rulings that prevented residents* from placing county charters and a city ordinance to ban fracking from appearing on ballots. In 2015 the network had expanded beyond municipal ballot initiatives to include new county charters to elevate rights of local residents and ecosystems. Fossil fuel-friendly Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted responded by claiming he possessed “unfettered authority” to remove the county charters from the ballot, regardless of whether they gathered enough signatures.

Central to Husted’s argument was an assertion that local residents do not have the power to vote on laws that challenge the state’s supremacy. Since 2015, Husted, Husted-appointed county boards of elections, and the Ohio Supreme Court have removed a total of 10 proposed fracking-related county charters from Ohio ballots.

To justify keeping the charters off the ballot, the Ohio Supreme Court developed a legal rationale that gave Husted and his boards of elections broad discretion to use what proved to be unpredictible technicalities to prevent all 10 from being voted on, despite petitioners gathering the needed signatures. However, that legal approach was not applied to municipal ballot initiatives, which continued to be proposed, voted on, and in some cases passed.

But at the end of 2016, HB463 passed in a lame duck legislative session and allowed unelected boards of elections to remove municipal initiatives from ballots as well. The bill also granted boards of elections similar unilateral power to strike proposed county charters, freeing them from having to rely on revolving technical arguments.

Taking Initiative

Apparently unfazed by the new law, this year local community groups* advanced county charters in Athens and Medina counties and ballot initiatives for the cities of Bowling Green and Youngstown. These efforts all included “Community Bills of Rights,” which would outlaw fracking, injection wells, and related infrastructure for producing and transporting natural gas in their respective counties and cities.

Bowling Green’s ballot initiative, which threatens to complicate the development of the nearby NEXUS natural gas pipeline, proposes an amendment to an existing city charter. Although the NEXUS pipeline is not slated to pass through the city itself, the ordinance would bar the pipeline from a piece of farmland owned by the city, which is key to the pipeline’s proposed route.

All of the ballot initiatives gathered the required number of signatures to get on the ballot. And all but Bowling Green’s initiative were opposed and removed by their boards of elections, whom Secretary Husted had appointed. However, Bowling Green’s board voted to allow the people to vote first.

Then came the legal challenges. After hearing appeals, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled against the two county charters and the Youngstown initiative. But in each of the rulings the court avoided weighing in on the constitutionality of HB463, instead relying on technical arguments to keep the initiatives off the ballot.

The Ballot’s in Your Court

But then the court ruled on the Bowling Green initiative.

Because Bowling Green’s board of elections ruled to allow a vote, in this case it was the board of elections — rather than citizen-petitioners — defending the local ballot process and arguing that HB463 was unconstitutional.

The issue was only brought to the state Supreme Court after a private individual appealed the board’s decision to allow voting to take place. (The challenge was defended by a law firm that last year wrote briefs for the American Petroleum Institute and Affiliated Construction Trades Ohio Foundation to defend the practice of keeping anti-fracking initiatives off local ballots.)

In a 4-3 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court struck down and ruled unconstitutional the section of HB463 that applied to municipal ballot initiatives, but not county charters. The ruling leaves unanswered how future proposed county charters will be treated. And because of how long the court took to make its decision, according to Terry Lodge, an attorney who represented the petitioners in all the cases, there is no time for Youngstown to use the ruling to return its previously removed initiative to this November’s ballot. That means Bowling Green’s “Citizens Right to a Healthy Environment and Livable Climate” initiative will be the only one in Ohio up for a vote in 2017.

Should it pass, as a similar effort did in the nearby City of Waterville last year, Nexus Gas Transmission, LLC may face yet another challenge from local communities as it attempts to build its pipeline across this stretch of northwestern Ohio.

Still, petitioners face an uphill battle from Bowling Green officials. “Our city [officials are] coming out so vehemently against [the ordinance],” local petitioner Lisa Kochheiser told DeSmog. Kochheiser also shared with DeSmog emails she obtained through a freedom of information request, showing Bowling Green’s mayor and law director knew about the proposed pipeline route — which passes within 700 feet of the Bowling Green regional drinking water treatment plant — two years before the public did. In addition, when the pipeline company filed a lawsuit to invoke eminent domain against individuals and local governments “holding out” access to their land in early October, Bowling Green’s law director quickly granted the company access to the disputed piece of farmland. Lodge wonders if the city “would even lift a finger to enforce [the ordinance]” if it passes.

The campaign is on in Bowling Green, but the numerous legal hoops that delayed the campaign until two and half weeks before the election means petitioners were “late coming out of the gate,” according to Kochheiser.

Update 11/2/17: This was corrected to clarify that local community groups, not the Ohio Community Rights Network, which works to support groups working on these issues, were advancing ballot initiatives.

Exxon Refinery Catches Fire Day After Government Settles Over Pollution From Other Gulf Plants

DeSmog

Exxon Refinery Catches Fire Day After Government Settles Over Pollution From Other Gulf Plants

By Julie Dermansky            November 1, 2017

https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/styles/full_width_blog_image/public/blogimages/J46A5331-Edit.jpg?itok=aBBzKNAsEarly morning skies Wednesday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were alight from a fire that started around 2:30 a.m. at an ExxonMobil refinery. The blaze, though contained before the sun came up, is a reminder to the surrounding community of yet another danger of living next to refineries and chemical plants.

Exxon’s refinery is located along the stretch of Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans known as “Cancer Alley” due to the high number of chemical plants and refineries — and illnesses possibly connected to emissions — along the river’s banks.

Exxon issued a statement to CBS affiliate WAFB while the fire smoldered, saying the community was not impacted by emissions from the refinery fire and that air quality readings were “below detectable limits.”

Mary Lee Orr, executive director of The Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), questions the possibility of making such a determination so fast. Her group has been working with Cancer Alley communities, helping to reduce their exposure to pollution from the area’s oil and petrochemical industry.

Exxon’s Baton Rouge refinery is adjacent to one of the company’s eight facilities named in a settlement reached with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) and announced October 31.

Last year LEAN filed a lawsuit against Exxon chemical facility in Baton Rouge, next to the refinery that caught on fire Wednesday. That suit alleges the facility has been violating the Clean Air Act by failing to report pollution releases correctly. Lisa Jordan, director of Tulane University’s Environmental Legal Clinic and representing LEAN in this case, said it is too early to say how the recent agreement between the federal government and Exxon will impact their own case. Jordan said LEAN’s case encompasses a broader range of issues than those in the one recently settled.

https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/114A4508.jpgFlare at ExxonMobil Beaumont, Texas, facility after Hurricane Harvey.

According to the DOJ, the settlement “resolves allegations that ExxonMobil violated the Clean Air Act by failing to properly operate and monitor industrial flares at their petrochemical facilities, which resulted in excess emissions of harmful air pollution.”

It requires Exxon to install and operate air pollution control and monitoring technology to reduce air pollution from 26 industrial flares at five facilities in Texas and three in Louisiana, at a cost of about $300 million. In addition, the company must pay a civil penalty of $2.5 million.

Some environmental groups have described the fines as a slap on the wrist, but LEAN’S technical adviser Wilma Subra believes the settlement is substantial. “The amount of money to be spent on air pollution improvements is a positive step in the right direction,” she told me.

https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/114A6916-Edit.jpg
Flare at ExxonMobil Beaumont, Texas, facility after Hurricane Harvey.

However, Subra is concerned that the air pollution monitoring devices in the agreement will only monitor benzene, which is known to cause cancer. In her view, Exxon should be required to monitor a whole host of other potentially harmful chemicals it is emitting.

The instances of pollution cited in the recently settled suit do not include emissions from any of Exxon’s Texas facilities affected by Hurricane Harvey. Subra pointed out that the pollution incidents at Texas refineries and chemical facilities following the hurricane show that industry has no method for controlling pollution when hurricanes hit, something she hopes industry will change soon.

https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/114A4450.jpg
Flare at Exxon’s Baytown, Texas, refinery following Hurricane Harvey.

Exxon’s Baytown, Texas, operation was among the eight industrial facilities included in the recent settlement. It was also one of the plants that reported pollution releases due to Hurricane Harvey. In this case, the refinery’s roof sank due to the storm’s heavy rains, which resulted in the release of hazardous gases — including volatile organic compounds and benzene above permitted levels, according to The New York Times.

Orr also sees the agreement between Exxon and the Trump administration as a positive step toward protecting Cancer Alley communities. But “sadly, in the short term, the agreement won’t help the community,” she told me. “It will take time to implement the new pollution reduction devices.”

And though EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt stated that “this agreement shows, EPA is dedicated to partnering with states to address critical environmental issues and improving compliance in the regulated community to prevent future violations of the law,” the agency under Trump has been racing to undo its previous work. Recently Pruitt announced a measure to repeal former President Barack Obama’s EPA policy to curb greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, a plan Trump’s EPA has concluded would have substantial health benefits.

Furthermore, a list of potential names for the agency’s Science Advisory Board and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee includes a sizable increase in industry representatives and consultants, as reported by the Intercept. On that  list are two scientists who have worked for Exxon, indicating the oil and gas giant could have greater influence over EPA science and policies in the future.

Main image: ExxonMobil’s refinery and chemical plant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2011. Credit: All photos by Julie Dermansky

Falling Oil Demand May Eliminate a Quarter of the World’s Refining Capacity

TriplePundit

Falling Oil Demand May Eliminate a Quarter of the World’s Refining Capacity

by Leon Kaye, Climate & Environment         November 3, 2017

http://cdn.triplepundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/An-oil-refinery-in-Ontario-Canada.jpgAn oil refinery in Ontario, Canada      Image credit: Jeff S. PhotoArt/Flickr

In what is often called a “2⁰C world,” falling demand for oil means that a quarter of the world’s refining capacity may soon not be necessary.

At least, that is the assessment offered by Carbon Tracker, a London-based think tank that studies the impact of the global energy transition on capital markets. The group partnered with the Danish pension fund PKA and Swedish pension fund AP7 on this report, Margin Call: Refining Capacity in a 2⁰C World.

Carbon Tracker’s researchers analyzed 492 refineries, which combined account for 94 percent of the world’s total oil capacity. The think tank says its study is likely the first analysis that gauges how the energy sector would perform as governments and companies scramble to meet international objectives to limit climate change to 2°C by ramping up investments in clean energy and technology.

Earlier this year, Carbon Tracker issued a study saying that electric vehicles (EVs) and solar could displace oil and coal by as soon as 2020. And therein lies why oil companies face long-term threats to their business: Carbon Tracker’s staff concluded that oil companies may be grossly underestimating the rapid growth and scale of electric vehicles, which could comprise one-third of the global transportation market by 2035.

The global oil and gas industry has long been bullish on its future prospects, due largely to expected growth in emerging economic powerhouses such as China and India. But the specter of Asian megacities rife with polluting fossil fuel-powered cars has recently been displaced by an altered vision of cities still suffering from even more traffic in the future – but largely due to electric cars.

Hence the problem of stranded assets that oil companies’ refineries could face in the coming years. Generally, refineries account for about 25 percent of the assets on oil companies’ ledgers. These facilities are valued at tens of billions of dollars and are critical to these energy companies’ profitability. But Carbon Tracker’s 2˚C scenario modelling found that over the next two decades, many of these companies’ profits could crater. Total and Eni are the oil companies most exposed, as they could suffer a 70 to 80 percent drop in their refineries’ earnings as worldwide demand decreases. Shell and Chevron also could face a decline ranging from 60 to 70 percent; ExxonMobil and BP could see their earnings fall by as much as half by 2035.

So despite a growing global middle class and population growth, Carbon Tracker insists the convergence of EVs and renewables means that oil companies are most likely beyond their halcyon days. Under this 2˚C scenario, this group’s researchers conclude there is plenty of capacity to meet future energy demands. Furthermore, Carbon Tracker warns investors that overall and with few exceptions, the world has no need to add additional refinery capacity.

Andrew Grant, a senior analyst at Carbon Tracker who co-authored the report, envisions many energy companies leaving this market in the years ahead. “Many players will exit the market rather than hemorrhage cash. Investors should beware that the risk of wasting capital extends to all new investments, including expansions or upgrades to existing facilities,” said Grant.

No Mr Trump, You’re Disrespecting The Flag

BBC Sport

Osi and Jason’s passionate defence of NFL players’ right to protest is well worth watching.

Osi and Jason's passionate defence of NFL players' right to protest is well worth watching.

Posted by BBC Sport on Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Trump’s Strange Alliance With Russia

MoveOn.org

Donald J. Trump may be the president, but he’s no longer the leader of the free world. Amy Siskind explains.

Protect the Mueller investigation, we must get to the bottom of this: MoveOn.org/investigation

Trump’s Strange Alliance with Russia

Donald J. Trump may be the president, but he's no longer the leader of the free world. Amy Siskind explains.Protect the Mueller investigation, we must get to the bottom of this: MoveOn.org/investigation

Posted by MoveOn.org on Thursday, November 2, 2017

Trump Administration Moves to End Ban on New Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon

EcoWatch

Trump Administration Moves to End Ban on New Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon

Lorraine Chow     November 2, 2017

https://resize.rbl.ms/simage/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.rbl.ms%2F13265719%2Forigin.jpg/1200%2C630/mk9B650kC433pwtD/img.jpgSunrise from Cape Royal, North Rim, Grand Canyon. Dan Miller / Flickr

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service released a recommendation Wednesday to lift former President Obama’s uranium mining ban in the watershed of the Grand Canyon.

The move was made in response to President Trump’s sweeping “energy independence” executive order in March to ease regulatory burdens on energy development.

“This appalling recommendation threatens to destroy one of the world’s most breathtakingly beautiful regions to give free handouts to the mining industry,” said Allison Melton, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Trump administration’s willingness to sacrifice our natural treasures to polluters knows no bounds. But this reckless, shortsighted proposal won’t be allowed to stand.”

Amber Reimondo, Energy Program Director with the Grand Canyon Trust, had similar sentiments.

“The Forest Service should be advocating for a permanent mining ban, not for advancing private mining interests that threaten one of the natural wonders of the world,” Reimondo said. “The Grand Canyon and the people and communities that depend on it cannot be left to bear the risks of unfettered uranium mining, which is what will happen if the moratorium is removed.”

The 20-year ban was issued in 2012 by former Interior Sec. Ken Salazar. It prohibits new claims for mining in the region, which includes more than one million acres of public land adjacent to the Grand Canyon. The ban, however, does not restrict existing mines, four of which continue within just a few miles of the rim of the Colorado River.

Reimondo noted in a blog post that it is currently unclear what part of the ban the Forest Service intends to revise.

“It could mean shrinking the duration of the ban, set to expire in 2032, or reducing the acreage included in the ban, or both,” she wrote.

https://assets.rbl.ms/13265877/980x.jpgGrand Canyon Trust

The Hill reported that the federal government does not get any royalties from uranium mining since it is regulated as hard-rock mining, but Republicans, industry groups and some local leaders have pushed for mining to spur local economic activity.

“Uranium mining would have brought in nearly $29 billion to our local economy over a 42-year period,” the board of supervisors of Arizona’s Mohave County wrote in June to Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke, whose Bureau of Land Management agency owns some of the land. “This ban took away much needed growth and jobs from our area.”

However, the Center for Biological Diversity warned that past uranium mining in the region has polluted soils, washes, aquifers and drinking water. Abandoned uranium mines, including more than 500 on the Navajo Nation, still await clean up.

“This is a dangerous industry that is motivated by profit and greed with a long history of significantly damaging lands and waters. They are now seeking new mines when this industry has yet to clean up the hundreds of existing mines all over the landscape that continue to damage our home. We should learn from the past, not ignore it,” said Havasupai Tribal Chairman Don E. Watahomigie.

“The Kaibab National Forest south of Grand Canyon National Park comprises crucial wildlife habitat for mule deer, cougars, elk and pronghorn,” said Kim Crumbo of Wildlands Network. “Considered sacred by Native Americans, the forest’s ponderosa pine, woodlands and wild creatures are vulnerable to the industrial impacts of mining and increased truck traffic should the mineral withdrawal be revoked.”

Polls show that 80 percent of Arizonans as well as a number of environmental organizations and native tribes support permanent protection of Arizona’s iconic landmark.

“One million acres of public lands around Grand Canyon were protected from destructive uranium mining due to significant public support and recognition of what is at risk—Grand Canyon’s watershed, its wildlife, and so much more,” said Sandy Bahr, director of Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter. “Now, the Trump administration wants to stomp all over the public and the public’s lands by rescinding these important protections. Doing so will put at risk Grand Canyon’s waters and wildlife, as well as the economy of northern Arizona, for the short-term profits of foreign mining companies. We must keep these protections in place.”

Dakota Access builder and Corps object to tribal proposal

McClatchy   D.C. Bureau

Dakota Access builder and Corps object to tribal proposal

Associated Press        November 02, 2017  

Bismarck, N.D. The builder of the Dakota Access oil pipeline and the federal agency that permitted the project are objecting to an effort by American Indian tribes to bolster protections for their water supply.

Lawyers for Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners and the Army Corps of Engineers argue separately in documents filed Wednesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., that the proposals by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux are unnecessary or unwarranted.

“Measures are already in place to achieve the objectives behind each proposed set of conditions,” company attorneys wrote.

The dispute centers around the $3.8 billion pipeline’s crossing of the Missouri River’s LakeOahe reservoir in southern North Dakota.

Both tribes get water from the lake and fear contamination should the pipeline leak. They are among four Dakotas tribes suing to shut down the pipeline that began moving North Dakota oil to a distribution point in Illinois on June 1.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is requiring the Corps to further review the project’s impact on tribal interests, but he’s allowing oil to continue flowing while that work is done over the next several months. In the meantime, the tribes are seeking increased public reporting of pipeline issues such as repairs, and implementation of an emergency spill response plan at the lake crossing with tribal input. The spill response plan will include equipment staging.

ETP said it already has emergency equipment and personnel staged “near” the crossing and has also “taken steps to include the tribes in response planning.” The company said it is willing to continue working with them on a voluntary basis.

Corps attorneys argue that the tribal request is “unnecessary, duplicative and burdensome” and note that “the court has already upheld the Corps’ conclusion that the risk of a spill is low.”

In a separate legal dispute in federal court in North Dakota, landowners who claim ETP deceived and defrauded them while acquiring land easements for the pipeline will appeal the dismissal of their lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland in October sided with a subsidiary of ETP and the land acquisition consulting business Contract Land Staff. Both businesses disputed the claims of the 21 landowners who were seeking more than $4 million in damages.

The landowners have filed a notice of appeal to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Attorney Peter Zuger declined to discuss their argument until a formal appeal brief is filed in the next couple of months.

ETP spokeswoman Vicki Granado said the company does not comment on pending legal matters.

USA Today

Dakota Access sued over farmland damage in South Dakota

USA Today Network John Hult,       November 2, 2017

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/56cefca4e7d49745c87e93f1df10ae25554a839c/r=540/https/videos.usatoday.net/Brightcove3/29906170001/201706/2691/29906170001_5457451270001_5457431867001-vs.jpgThe oil pipeline at the center of an environmental controversy has started transporting oil. Video provided by Newsy Newslook (Photo: Tom Stromme, AP)

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A Harrisburg-area farm family has sued the Dakota Access pipeline for failure to keep its promise to restore their land after construction.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind in South Dakota state court, and speaks to fears of lost productivity expressed by farmers in the planning stages of the controversial four-state pipeline.

Slack Family Properties LLC is accusing the pipeline company of breach of contract, unauthorized taking of property, fraud and deceit in its lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Lincoln County.

The Slack family says five parcels of its farm ground were disrupted and drain tiles were disconnected by the pipeline’s construction, causing damage to two growing seasons’ worth of corn and soybeans.

The 800 acres saw compacted soils and heavy flooding, and the company has yet to reattach the drain tiles or compensate the family for the damages, which it had promised to cover in its easement deal with the family.

More: Dakota Access pipeline developer sues Greenpeace, others for $1 billion

Previously: Iowa opponents still think they can shut down Dakota Access Pipeline

“It’s just been disgusting to have something said to us — that we’re going to be taken care of — then to have them just pull the pin and say ‘we’re not going to do anything,’” said Greg Slack.

Glenn Boomsma, a Sioux Falls lawyer who represents the Slack family and also represented to several families during the pipeline’s South Dakota permit hearings, said his clients’ experience is evidence the company is unwilling to uphold its responsibilities.

“We got them the Cadillac version of the easement agreement, but in the end, Dakota Access still didn’t follow it,” Boomsma said.

The company’s lawyer and declined to comment on Wednesday. It’s public relations firm did not respond to requests for comment.

Boomsma and Slack have heard similar tales from other South Dakota farmers who signed pipeline easements with the Texas-based company, and that he suspects others are quietly suffering uncompensated losses.

In its easement agreements with landowners, Dakota Access promised to restore all farm land over the pipeline to its previous condition and to compensate farmers for any losses due to the construction of the controversial four-state pipeline.

Landowners testified at the 2015 permit hearing before the PUC of their worries about soil compaction and impacts to crops.

The guarantees of loss compensation were made in both individual easements and through the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, which approved construction on the condition that such promises were kept.

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/a615ea3cab58b503aadc3db7eae0271ccea89cda/c=315-0-6103-4352&r=x393&c=520x390/local/-/media/2017/03/10/USATODAY/USATODAY/636247487898364041-EPA-USA-PIPELINE-PROTEST.jpgProtestors rally against the Dakota Access pipeline outside the White House in Washington, DC.   Jim Lo Scalzo, European Pressphoto Agency

Watchdogs approved for Dakota Access

When the PUC approved a third-party liaison to resolve disputes between the company and landowners, Commissioner Chris Nelson expressed concerns that the man recommended for the job didn’t have any specific experience with drain tile and soil compaction issues.

Commissioners ultimately approved the liaison, upon further assurances of his commitment to tracking drain tile and soil issues.

The latest quarterly liaison report listed 11 contacts with landowners, most of whom reported agriculture-related problems. Two of the landowners had “chosen to work out issues with DAPL on a civil level with their attorneys.”

The liaison reports don’t offer landowner names or details on the complaints, however.

The Slack lawsuit outlines the Lincoln County family’s troubles far more directly.

Drain tiles, which keep fields from over-saturation that can limit crop growth, were crushed or disconnected during construction in 2016, the complaint said, and soils compacted after being replaced.

Last October, the PUC was alerted to the disconnected drain tile and flooded fields through an informal complaint. Dakota Access told the PUC it had repaired the problem, but the lawsuit said no repairs had taken place.

“Defendant knew this statement and representation was false at the time it was made,” the lawsuit said.

The family notified the company of the continuing troubles on six occasions in 2017, the lawsuit said, but the company did not take action. The family hired a contractor to repair the tiles over the summer.

The drain tilling moves water and nutrients into the soil. Without functioning tile, Slack said, the pools along the pipeline route continued to do damage.

“The longer it sits, the worse the damage gets,” said Slack, who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to install the underground piping system.

Further damage to next year’s crop is likely, because the construction and pooling altered the carefully-managed soil biology.

The lawsuit also says the company built a road to access the construction area that it was not authorized to.

The Slack family has asked for a jury to decide its claims and monetary damages.

Millions Of Q-Tips Are Flushed Down the Toilet

EcoWatch

WATCH and SHARE: This story is proof that collective action works!

Read about plastic pollution: http://bit.ly/2xbb5Xg

via Rob Greenfield City to Sea

WATCH and SHARE: This story is proof that collective action works! Read about plastic pollution: http://bit.ly/2xbb5Xgvia Rob Greenfield City to Sea

Posted by EcoWatch on Thursday, November 2, 2017

Artist Gives New Life to Flint’s Empty Water Bottles by Turning Them Into Clothing

EcoWatch

Artist Gives New Life to Flint’s Empty Water Bottles by Turning Them Into Clothing

Lorraine Chow     October 31, 2017

https://resize.rbl.ms/simage/https%3A%2F%2Fassets.rbl.ms%2F13146129%2Forigin.jpg/1200%2C630/Uzd0rynjtdjrrBEh/img.jpgFlint, Michigan water distribution. U.S. Department of Agriculture / Flickr

Flint, Michigan doesn’t just have a water problem—it has a water bottle problem. Ever since the 2014 lead contamination crisis, city residents have had no choice but to turn to bottled water for their daily H2O needs.

The state is required to give each Flint resident 14 bottles daily, and when you multiply that with its population of approximately 97,000, that’s more than 1.3 million bottles that could be handed out in a single day. That’s a lot of plastic—and it’s not always recycled.

But artist Mel Chin has come up with a genius solution for this massive water bottle surplus—the Flint Fit project. He’s teamed up with fashion designer and Detroit native Tracy Reese and the Queens Museum in New York City to turn the bottles into raincoats, swimwear and other clothing items.

According to mlive.com, empty plastic water bottles are currently being gathered from homes, community centers and other locations and will be sent to Greensboro, North Carolina-based processing facility, Unifi Inc. There, the bottles will be transformed into thread and fabric to be used for the clothing.

The thread and fabric will then come back to Flint, where participants of the St. Luke’s N.E.W. Life Center‘s sewing program will put together the patterns designed by Reese.

Chin, who helped spearhead the Fundred Dollar Bill project to eliminate lead poisoning in children, commented about the importance of having Flint residents contribute to the project.

“It’s about something that is empty, like a water bottle, fulfilling the potential of jobs and manufacturing that has also been lost,” he told FOX 66 News, referring to the once-thriving “Vehicle City” that was the original home of General Motors.

“This project would only work with the people in this city,” Chin added. “Having the people finish all of the designs in Flint is what makes this a very amazing opportunity.”

A fashion show of the designs is planned for New York City in April 2018. A show in Flint will follow.

Trump is Leading the Most Corrupt Administration in U.S. History, One of First-Class Kleptocrats

Newsweek    Politics

Trump is Leading the Most Corrupt Administration in U.S. History, One of First-Class Kleptocrats

Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek      November 2, 2017

He’d promised to build the wall. To make America great again. To lock her up. Now, in the last weeks of his campaign for president, Donald J. Trump needed one more stirring slogan. And since he was badly trailing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, it would have to be a marketing marvel worthy of Mad Men’s Don Draper, one that encapsulated the vague yet compelling promise of his candidacy—its worship of American ideals and its total break from them.

On October 17, 2016, the Trump-Pence campaign released a five-point plan for ethics reform that featured lobbying restrictions that would insulate Trump and his administration from corporate and interests. The plan was called “drain the swamp.”

Trump tried out the phrase that day at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He used it the next day at a rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “We’re going to end the government corruption,” Trump vowed, “and we’re going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” He then recited a litany of accusations regarding Clinton and her use of a private email server, calling her “the most corrupt person to ever run for the presidency.”

“Build the wall” had been the raw opening cry of the Trump campaign. “Make America great again” was its chorus. “Drain the swamp” was its closing number. But while talk of a border wall plainly thrilled Trump, he was apparently never too worked up about the festering bog that was the nation’s capital. He said as much in an October 26 rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, in one of his unsettling bouts of honesty: “I said that about a week ago, and I didn’t like it that much, didn’t sound that great. And the whole world picked it up.… Funny how things like that happen.… So ‘drain the swamp,’ I didn’t like it. Now, I love it, right?”

“Drain the swamp” fit perfectly with Trump’s constant complaints about the “rigged system,” thereby excusing what some said was going to be a historic defeat. As the campaign concluded, Trump turned himself into a martyr for the cause of American democracy, waging a principled but doomed campaign.

Donald J. Trump @ realDonaldTrump     I will make our government honest again–believe me. #DrainTheSwamp in D.C.    Twitter

But a funny thing happened on the way to a third Obama term. Winning endowed the things Trump said during the campaign with an import they’d previously lacked. He was, back then, a hopeless renegade, troubling but not threatening. Then, the returns from Florida and Wisconsin came in on the evening of November 8. And while many understood that his “rigged system” was just an excuse, “drain the swamp” sure sounded like a promise.

So as the presidential inauguration approached, anticipation bubbled through the sulfurous nexus of Capitol Hill politicians, special interest groups and their K Street lobbyists, the media, the establishment and just about everyone else who had dismissed Trump and his slogans as a publicity stunt. There was now a question, rather urgently in need of an answer: Was he serious about all that “swamp” stuff?

Not really, revealed former House Speaker and loyal Trump supporter Newt Gingrich, admitting to NPR on December 21 that “drain the swamp” was never a genuine promise. “I’m told he now just disclaims that,” Gingrich said a month before Trump was to assume the Oval Office. “He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore.”

Someone from Trump Tower must have placed an angry call, because the former speaker soon tweeted that he’d overstated the case. But that didn’t kill the story. That same day, Politico wondered if “drain the swamp” would be Trump’s “first broken promise.” It cited the access-peddling lobbying firm of Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey R. Lewandowski, as well as the consulting firm with troubling foreign ties run by his incoming national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. “Trump and his allies have engaged in some of the same practices they accused Hillary Clinton of exploiting and vowed to change,” Politico wrote.

Now, a year after the election—and more than a year after Trump first made that pledge to the American people—many observers believe the swamp has grown into a sinkhole that threatens to swallow the entire Trump administration. The number of White House officials currently facing questions, lawsuits or investigation is astonishing: Trump, being sued for violating the “emoluments clause” of the U.S. Constitution by running his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.; Paul J. Manafort, the second Trump campaign manager, indicted on money laundering charges in late October; Flynn, for undisclosed lobbying work done on behalf of the Turkish government; son-in-law and consigliere Jared Kushner, for failing to disclose $1 billion in loans tied to his real-estate company; and at least six Cabinet heads being investigated for or asked about exorbitant travel expenses, security details or business dealings.

An allegation of corruption is, of course, not proof that corruption took place, but when has the American body politic ever awaited certitude before passing judgment? “The most corrupt presidency and administration we’ve ever had,” says Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham University law professor who authored a book titled Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United.

To supporters of the president, charges of corruption are being leveled with undue zeal by anti-Trump forces that will say or do anything to thwart the president’s agenda and lead to his removal from office. “President Trump came to Washington to drain the swamp and is following through on his promises,” White House deputy press secretary Raj S. Shah told me, citing Trump’s executive order on ethics, the elevation to deputy status of ethics lawyers in the White House counsel’s office and “unprecedented steps to rein in waste of taxpayer funds.”

Trump friend Christopher Ruddy, the publisher of conservative outlet Newsmax, laughed off the suggestion that Trump would enter public service to enrich himself, as critics have suggested. At the same time, he added, “I don’t think it’s like they wake up in the morning and say, ‘How can we drain the swamp today?'”

Ruddy thinks Trump can only do so much to fulfill his promise on ethics. “At the end of the day, the swamp rules,” he told me, referencing the enormous class of unelected technocrats that will outlast Trump’s presidency, as well as all the ones that come after.

But according to the presidential historian Robert Dallek, no American leader has acted with more unadulterated self-interest as Trump. Dallek says that in terms of outright corruption, Trump is worse than both Ulysses S. Grant and Warren G. Harding, presidents who oversaw the most flagrant instances of graft in American political history. Grant’s stellar reputation as a Civil War general is tarnished in part by the Whiskey Ring scandal, in which Treasury Department officials stole taxes from alcohol distillers; members of Harding’s administration plundered oil reserves in Teapot Dome, a rock outcropping in Wyoming that has lent its name to the most notorious example of government corruption in American political history. In both cases, the fault of the president was in his lack of oversight. As far as Dallek is concerned, something more nefarious is at work in the White House of Donald Trump.

“What makes this different,” Dallek says, “is that the president can’t seem to speak the truth about a host of things.” Trump isn’t just allowing corruption, in Dallek’s view, but encouraging it. “The fish rots from the head,” he reminds.

Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, puts the matter even more bluntly: “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

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Disgusting Displays of Wealth

On June 29, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David J. Shulkin sent a memorandum to top managers in his department. In the memo, “Essential Employee Travel,” Shulkin outlined a new process by which travel would be approved and documented. “I expect this will result in decreased employee travel and generate savings,” he wrote.

Two weeks later, Shulkin and his wife, Merle Bari, got on a plane and flew from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Copenhagen. With them were three VA staffers and one staffer’s husband. There was also a six-person security detail. “The 10-day trip was not entirely a vacation,” reported The Washington Post. But it wasn’t a three-day conference in Tulsa, either. Shulkin planned the trip so that it began with meetings in Denmark and ended about a week later with meetings in London. In between, there was watching tennis at Wimbledon, visiting medieval castles, touring and shopping. A tourist from Madison, Wisconsin, told the Post she spotted Shulkin and company “whisked to the front of the line” at an attraction in Copenhagen. One of Shulkin’s taxpayer-funded security guards, she said, was hauling a “large number of shopping bags.”

The Post noted that American taxpayers reimbursed Bari for her expenses during the trip, which may have been as high as $3,600 per day. Although some of the other members of the party paid for their travel, taxpayers nevertheless incurred significant costs associated with flights and security. Perhaps it is naïve to expect a Cabinet head to Skype into international gatherings, but the previous VA head, Robert McDonald, had not needed to take a single trip abroad to do his work.

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Shulkin is one of six Trump Cabinet members being investigated for (or at the very least, being asked uncomfortable questions about) travel or security expenses:

The inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency is investigating its administrator, Scott Pruitt, for what The Washington Post says are “at least four noncommercial and military flights” in the past eight months, these having cost the government more than $58,000. Pruitt has also built himself a $25,000 soundproof booth in his office, for reasons that remain unclear. Pruitt’s personal security detail includes high-ranking EPA investigators who are supposed to be tracking environmental violations.

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Steven T. Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs banker who now runs the Treasury Department, is being investigated for commandeering a government jet so that he and his wife, Scottish actress Louise Linton, could see the Great American Eclipse in Lexington, Kentucky. That trip came to light after Linton engaged in a social media spat with an Oregon woman who was disgusted by the couple’s displays of wealth. That same month, Mnuchin took a U.S. Air Force C-37 jet from New York to Washington. The trip cost taxpayers $25,000, and while use of military planes by government officials is common, there are dozens of commercial flights daily that cover the same route. Timothy F. Geithner, who was President Barack Obama’s secretary of the treasury, frequently flew coach when he made that trip.

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Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary, is being investigated for travel expenses that include a $12,375 chartered flight to Montana from Las Vegas, where he had attended an event for a hockey team owned by one of his benefactors. Zinke is being investigated for two other chartered flights as well.

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Elaine L. Chao, who heads the Transportation Department, has used government planes on at least seven occasions, according to The Washington Post. She is also facing questions about her ownership of stock in Vulcan Materials, a building company that would likely benefit from a $1 trillion infrastructure plan Trump has touted.

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Rick Perry, the energy secretary, took a private plane to visit “a uranium facility in Piketon, Ohio,” in late September, according to Reuters. He once also, the same outlet reported, flew into “a private airport in Kansas that was within a 45-minute drive of Kansas City International Airport.”

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Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, pays for her private flights (she is a billionaire), but she uses security from the U.S. Marshals Service, a highly unusual move that will cost the American taxpayer about $1 million per month. She is the first education secretary to have such extensive protection in recent history.

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Chiding chatter about the Trump administration’s high-flying ways began when Politico reporters Dan Diamond and Rachana Pradhan got a tip that Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was using private planes to jet around the globe, infuriating already-demoralized HHS employees back home with grating dispatches from Switzerland, Liberia and elsewhere. As Diamond and Pradhan wrote, the “notoriously secretive Cabinet secretary” had not been forthcoming about his travel records, in keeping with the Trump administration’s broader aversion to releasing records unless forced to. Their shoe-leather reporting included waiting at the charter terminal at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, hoping to see Price entering or leaving a private jet.

Diamond and Pradhan published their initial story on Price’s private-jet travel on September 19, their details dredged from the very swamp Trump promised to drain: costly chartered flights to Philadelphia, when Amtrak would have sufficed, as well as a trip to the Aspen Ideas Festival, a potent symbol of the elitism Trump had denounced during the campaign.

Trump was furious, and Price resigned at the end of the month, after offering to pay back $52,000 of his travel costs. The total cost of his taxpayer-funded jaunts is estimated to be $1 million.

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This behavior is outrageous—but also puzzling, since Trump’s Cabinet has been estimated to be worth at least $4 billion, making this White House the wealthiest in American history. These were people, we’d been told, who were sacrificing lucrative private-sector posts to work in the service of the American people. Now, those very same “forgotten Americans” were paying for Mnuchin, worth as much as $500 million, because he apparently didn’t want to go through airport security. In his Cabinet are many people who went to Ivy League universities, worked for Fortune 500 corporations. They had to know better. And if they didn’t, how can we trust them?

“Power and stupidity are close companions,” said Teachout when I asked her to explain how so many Cabinet members could make the same mistake, and make it so frequently. “They are actually living in a world in which they can’t see the ways in which they are being corrupted,” she speculated. “You’re so powerful that you don’t even understand that a chartered flight isn’t a right.”

A senior White House noted that it had not been the White House’s job to micromanage Cabinet-level travel plans in prior administrations. Now, those plans need approval from Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. David J. Apol, who heads the Office of Government Ethics, recently wrote a memorandum that had him “deeply concerned that the actions of some in Government leadership have harmed perceptions about the importance of ethics.” (OGE would not make Apol available for an interview with Newsweek.)

But Apol’s dismay, however welcome, is not enough for all those who believe the Trump administration is unwilling to face up to its ethical shortcomings. “You don’t see any shame here,” says E.J. Dionne Jr., the Washington Post columnist and co-author of the new book One Nation After Trump.

“And that’s really disturbing.”

The Great Enabler

On the morning of November 9, Teachout was dealing with a personal political loss: The night before, she had lost to Republican John J. Faso for a House of Representatives seat in the Hudson River Valley, north of New York City. Teachout had run an anti-corruption campaign, while Faso was a fairly conventional Northeastern Republican who never resolved his apparent unease about Trump. Voters apparently did not mind.

Sometime that day, she spoke to a Clinton critic who may have voted for Trump (he only revealed that he hadn’t voted for Clinton). “I just want to put a stick in the stream,” he told her. The vote a small act of defiance, since New York State was safely Democratic. But even a small vote can be telling. By possibly casting a ballot for Trump, the man indicated his profound exasperation with the political system, as well as his conviction that only a wholesale reimagination of what government did—and how—could make Americans believe in government again. Even if it wasn’t clear what Trump meant by “drain the swamp,” the image powerfully evoked a righteous cleansing, a renewal of the tired, infertile land.

“The language of corruption is incredibly powerful,” Teachout says, and Trump’s campaign harnessed that power to great effect. But the transition to governing presented new challenges, foremost among them questions about the inscrutable, transnational Trump Organization, which has included everything from a line of steaks to a new hotel in the heart of D.C., in a building leased from the very federal apparatus he now controls.

On January 11, just days before the presidential inauguration, Trump held a press conference at Trump Tower in midtown Manhattan to address ethics issues surrounding his administration. “I could actually run my business and run the government at the same time,” he boasted. His tax lawyer, Sheri A. Dillon, described a vague arrangement in which Trump would not manage his businesses, but also not disassociate from them. On a table next to Trump were stacks of papers, presumably relating to his finances. A reporter’s photograph suggested the papers were blank, just for show.

“The tone was set by the president when he decided not to divest,” says Walter M. Shaub Jr., who’d been appointed by Trump’s predecessor, Obama, as the head of OGE, and who remained in that post during the transition and first five and a half months of Trump’s tenure. He says this administration “came in unprepared for the rigors” of working within the federal government, “unaware of the fact that there are many requirements and a culture of accountability to the public.”

Shaub blames a lot of the ethical lapses on White House counsel Donald McGahn II, whom he charges with fostering an anything-goes atmosphere by interpreting rules and laws in ways that allowed Trump to skirt them. “He has been the great enabler. And he has been an amplifier of the message that ethics doesn’t matter.” McGahn did not respond to a Newsweek request for comment.

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A senior White House official who was only authorized to speak on background disputed the assertion that the Trump administration has not made ethics a priority. He says the lawyers working on ethics issues in the White House are “not shrinking violets” and points to the elevation of their office to deputy status, presumably giving those lawyers greater sway. The office is headed by Stefan C. Passantino, deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president, who, upon his appointment, was praised by Howard Dean, a former Democratic primary candidate for the presidency and governor of Vermont. “I have a lot of confidence that he will be clear about what the ethical and legal boundaries are in his advice to the White House,” Dean said at the time.

One individual who worked with Passantino in the early days of the Trump administration described him as courteous and eager about toiling in the federal government’s employ, a welcome contrast to the surly attitudes of some other high-ranking Trump officials. At the same time, this individual says Passantino was diligently figuring out how to dismantle regulations. He notes that among Passantino’s previous legal clients is Gingrich, who was sanctioned by the House of Representatives over ethical violations.

A telling episode took place on February 9, when senior administration counselor Kellyanne Conway went on Fox & Friends to defend Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and one of his most trusted advisers. Ivanka also runs a fashion business, but Nordstrom’s had recently dropped her line after protests by liberal activists who sought to have the department store sever all affiliations with the Trump family. Conway defended Ivanka, speaking on live television from the White House: “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would tell you.… I’m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody.”

This seemed a flagrant violation of ethics rules, which prohibit elected officials from endorsing a commercial enterprise. Shaub sent a letter to Passantino, informing him that “there is strong reason to believe that Ms. Conway has violated the Standards of Conduct and that disciplinary action is warranted.” Passantino wrote back that Conway “made the statement in question in a light, off-hand manner while attempting to stand up for a person she believed had been unfairly treated and did so without nefarious motive or intent to benefit personally.” In a footnote, Passantino interpreted federal rules to conclude that Shaub’s office, OGE, did not have oversight over the executive office of the president, meaning that he could not sanction Conway over the endorsement.

Shaub was stunned. “The assertion is incorrect, and the letter cites no legal basis for it,” he wrote Passantino. To him, this was evidence that the Trump administration sought not only to disregard ethics rules, but to actively dismantle them. He quit OGE on July 6 and deemed the administration he was leaving behind “pretty close to a laughingstock.” He has been making similarly withering critiques on social media and CNN, which he joined as a contributor in September.

Shaub’s migration to cable news has annoyed supporters of President Trump. Another CNN regular is Richard W. Painter, who was the chief ethics lawyer for George W. Bush and is vice chair of the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, suing Trump over the emoluments clause. Another CREW member, its chair and sometime CNN commentator, is Norman L. Eisen, who occupied the same position in the White House of President Obama. The White House senior official I spoke to expressed dismay at this “machinery” of outrage, calibrated perfectly to a liberal viewing audience.

When I raised these concerns to Shaub, he laughed them off as “deeply cynical.” He knew that the White House thought of him. He wasn’t bothered by it.

It’s a Swamp Thing; You Wouldn’t Understand

The most significant action by Trump to drain the swamp was taken a week into his presidency. On January 28, he signed Executive Order 13770, titled “Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Appointees.” All such appointees had to pledge that they would not lobby the agency to which they were appointed for five years after leaving it; they would abide by restrictions regarding contact with agency officials; would not lobby foreign governments after working for the administration; would not accept gifts from lobbyists; and would follow other regulations.

Shah calls it “the most sweeping Executive Order in U.S. history to end the revolving door” between 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the lobbying firms of K Street, singling out the injunction against foreign lobbying in particular. In some ways, the order is not dissimilar from what was in place during the Obama administration.

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But Eisen thinks the widespread granting of ethics waivers by the administration—that is, permits to violate the new rules—completely undermine the executive order. “They’ve made a mockery of the executive order and of ethics in general,” he cried out when I called him, claiming that the Trump administration has “virtually no standard” on how such waivers are granted. Fourteen such waivers had been granted as of May 31.

While Trump officials have described the executive order as being not much different from the one that guided the Obama administration, Eisen finds that assertion preposterous: “It’s an ethics calamity of a kind we have never seen in modern presidential history.” In June, a liberal super PAC called American Bridge 21st Century found 74 lobbyists working in the administration, 49 of them in agencies they once lobbied on behalf of clients. The new deputy administrator of the EPA, for example, is former coal lobbyist Andrew R. Wheeler.

“This will not take away one vote,” says Sam Nunberg, a longtime Trump associate who was fired from the presidential campaign in 2015.

That may be the case. It may also be shortsighted. Painter, the former Bush lawyer, is a Republican “Never Trumper” who endorsed Clinton in the general election. He thinks Trump isn’t just eviscerating ethics laws but destroying the conservative movement that, for decades, preached moral responsibility and fiscal prudence. “This,” he laments, “could be the end of the Republican Party.”

Cummings, the Democrat from Maryland, has begun to investigate the travel habits of Trump administration cabinet members. Yet he believes that Republicans will ultimately protect the president himself. “They’ve come to basically accept his conduct,” Cummings told me.”The things he is doing, he could not do without the Republicans in Congress aiding and abetting.” It is not clear what they will get in return. If Painter is right, it won’t be much.

As for the “drain the swamp” plan, with its vision of purified Washington? I managed to find the link to the original press release and, feeding it into my browser, was transported to those late October days when pundits mused about whether Clinton would take Arizona and whether Trump would start a television network of his own.

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Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.

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