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Why the famed Appalachian Trail keeps getting longer — and harder

As America has transformed, so too has its celebrated footpath. Less than half the A.T. remains where it was originally laid.

Robert Weiss of Tewksbury, Mass., left, photographs his brother-in-law, Matthew Ferri of Dracut, Mass., and his wife, Andrea Weiss, just before sunrise from their campsite on the Appalachian Trail in Beans Purchase, N.H., in September 2017. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

By Lizzie Johnson and Lauren Tierney, Washington Post

MCAFEE KNOB, Va. — The morning fog had just begun to clear as the hikers made their way uphill, beckoned by a series of white blazes splashed on the trunks of hardwood and tall pine, the paint cracked where the bark rippled and whorled.

It was a weekday in mid-May on the Appalachian Trail, and their footsteps were muffled by the forest. Away they hiked — from the cramped parking lot glittering with vehicles, from the frenetic buzz of highway traffic, from the busyness and anxiety that compel people to step out of their lives, if only for a few hours, and escape into the wilderness.

Here, on what everyone calls the A.T., it was quieter. The leaves on the oaks were pearled with rain. Mushrooms erupted from softened logs, and in the crepey mass of damp leaves on the ground, roses and purple irises bloomed, sweetening the air.

One woman, a sweatshirt tied around her waist, pulled at the retractable leash of her German shepherd. She passed two brown-haired sisters in oversize T-shirts, hunched beneath the weight of their backpacks. With each step, their cooking pans tinkled like wind chimes. They paused beside a device that counts the hikers passing by on the trail.

“Did you know?” a sign read. “McAfee Knob is considered the most photographed spot on the Appalachian Trail.”

Four more miles uphill was the landmark, where hikers meet the open sky. The rocky ledge — at 3,200 feet — resembles a diving board. In the valley below, creeks slanted through the green. There were pinpricks of farms and shaved fields. The vast ocean of Jefferson National Forest lapped the horizon.

This panorama atop Catawba Mountain draws more than 50,000 people each year, causing a logjam and necessitating a seasonal shuttle to the trailhead on weekends.

“Once at the top, you can’t put words to it,” one hiker wrote on the popular outdoor website AllTrails.

But for almost a decade, McAfee Knob wasn’t part of the A.T. at all.

Read the full story here and see maps of the relocated trail

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Federal funds enable cleanups at 22 Pa Superfund sites, along with 100 ongoing

Jackson Ceramix, Inc. and Ryeland Road Arsenic sites in Jefferson and Berks counties are among them

From the Environmental Protection Agency

WASHINGTON (Feb. 10, 2023) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the second wave of approximately $1 billion in funding today from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to start new cleanup projects at 22 Superfund sites, including the Jackson Ceramix, Inc. and Ryeland Road Arsenic sites in Jefferson and Berks counties and expedite over 100 other ongoing cleanups across the country.

There are thousands of contaminated sites across the country due to hazardous waste being dumped, left out in the open, or otherwise improperly managed. Superfund cleanups help transform and repurpose contaminated properties into residences, retail and office space warehouses, solar power generation, and more. In addition, these sites can support natural areas, parks, and recreation facilities, providing greenspace and safe places for families to play outside.

The Jackson Ceramix, Inc. Superfund Site, located in Falls Creek, Jefferson County, is a former china manufacturing facility that operated until 1985. Historical operations resulted in primarily lead contamination in soils, sediments, surface water, and a nearby wetland. New BIL investments will be used to clean up the Site and will include repairing the existing soil cover, thermal treatment, and removal of contaminated soils and sediments.

“We are very excited to be moving forward with the cleanup of the Jackson Ceramix Superfund site. We feel that once this project is completed it will open up this property for economic development in our community, providing a facility that will offer jobs for our extended community, and an increased tax base for our Borough,” said Chuck Case, Borough Manager, Falls Creek, Pa.

The Ryeland Road Arsenic Superfund Site, located in Heidelberg Township, formerly housed facilities that made pesticides, fungicides, paints, and varnishes, and disposed of waste. Past operations contaminated soil and groundwater with arsenic, lead, and other chemicals. New federal dollars will be used to further the cleanup efforts, which will include removing soil contamination.

The $1 billion investment announced today is the second wave of funding from the $3.5 billion allocated for Superfund cleanup work. With the first wave of funding announced in December 2021, EPA deployed more than $1 billion for cleanup activities at more than 100 sites across the country. Thanks to this historic funding, EPA started 81 new cleanup projects in 2022, including projects at 44 sites previously on the backlog. By starting four times as many construction projects as the year before, EPA is aggressively bringing more sites across the country closer to finishing cleanup.

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EPA to Accelerate Lead Pipe Replacements in Underserved Pennsylvania Communities

1,204 Lead Pipe Stock Photos - Free & Royalty-Free Stock ...

From the USEPA

PHILADELPHIA (January 27, 2023) – Today, EPA announced a new initiative to accelerate progress toward the goal of achieving 100% lead service line removal and replacement.

The “Lead Service Line Replacement Accelerators” initiative was introduced during a White House convening with Vice President Kamala Harris and EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan, alongside state and local leaders celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan.

“EPA’s partnership with Pennsylvania will go a long way in helping thousands of small drinking water systems begin to address aging lead pipes and ultimately provide safe drinking water to their communities,” said EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz. “This historic funding is going to improve lives and we’re eager to get started in the Commonwealth.”

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invested an unprecedented $50 billion in the nation’s water and wastewater infrastructure, including $15 billion dedicated to lead service line replacement and $11.7 billion for general Drinking Water State Revolving Funds that can also be used for lead service line replacement.

The EPA said it is committed to this work and using every tool available— statutory authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act, technical assistance, funding for lead service line replacement, and more—to protect all Americans from lead in drinking water.

For more information about water technical assistance for communities and the Lead Service Line Replacement Accelerators, please visit. https://www.epa.gov/water-infrastructure/water-technical-assistance.

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New Jersey targets Monsanto in latest natural resource damage environmental lawsuit

*File photo: Men in protective clothing work at a Superfund site in Camden.*

By Jon Hurdle, NJ Spotlight

New Jersey filed its latest lawsuit seeking compensation for alleged damages to the environment, this time claiming that Monsanto and two former affiliates produced toxic PCBs that leaked into the state’s air and water over almost 50 years.

The lawsuit says the companies caused “significant, long-term damage” to the state’s waterways and groundwater, as well as to soil, air, and wildlife by allowing and encouraging disposal of the chemicals that they knew to be hazardous at Monsanto’s plant beside the Delaware River in Bridgeport, Gloucester County.

The companies advised their customers to dispose of PCB waste directly into sewers and to vent the chemical vapors into the atmosphere despite knowing that the actions would cause environmental contamination and expose residents to substances that are linked to health complaints, including liver damage, respiratory infections, and some cancers, the suit said.

“PCB contamination has harmed natural resources and threatened the health of humans and wildlife in every corner of New Jersey, from remote rural areas to suburban neighborhoods, to our cities,” said acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin, in a statement last week.

First of its kind

It’s the state’s first suit alleging that PCBs damaged the natural environment.

The Murphy administration has now filed 19 “natural resource damage” lawsuits against industrial polluters, alleging long-term damage to the environment and public health and seeking a court order for the companies to pay for the investigation and cleanup. None of the lawsuits has so far been resolved, according to the attorney general’s office.

In 2019, the state sued Sherwin-Williams claiming it discharged waste products from manufacturing paints, lacquers, and varnishes into a Camden County creek. Contamination at this location, along with lead and arsenic, also led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to designate it a Federal Superfund site in 2008. It became one of New Jersey’s 114 Superfund sites, the most of any state.

Also in 2019, the state sued Handy & Harman Electronic Materials Corp. for allegedly discharging hazardous materials including TCE (trichloroethylene), a degreasing chemical, into groundwater near its factory in Bergen County in the 1980s.

Tougher than Christie

Overall, the actions signal that the Murphy administration is taking a more aggressive stance against corporate polluters than its predecessor, the Christie administration, which filed no such suits.

Jeff Tittel, former director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, welcomed this latest lawsuit but said the state would have a better chance of winning such legal challenges if the state Department of Environmental Protection had a regulatory framework that addressed corporate responsibility for damage to natural resources.

“The DEP has never developed rules and standards for natural resource damages,” he said. “Not having clear standards in place hinders our ability to prosecute these cases to the extent that we need to.” The absence of such regulations also limits the amount of money that the state can seek in damages and makes settlements more likely, he said.

“The AG is taking the right approach by suing; the DEP has a lot of work to do to move these things along,” Tittel said.

That criticism was echoed by the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, which said the DEP has failed to comply with a 2004 agreement between the attorney general’s office and plaintiffs, including the council, to develop regulations on natural resource damages and to stop filing those cases until such regulations are published.

Read the full story here

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Steel fabriator secures $70M contract to build turbine foundations for Ørsted offshore wind projects in NJ and Md

Typical types of wind turbine foundations

By LORRAINE MIRABELLA Baltimore Sun

A Caroline County steel fabricator will supply $70 million in wind turbine foundations for projects that offshore wind farm developer Ørsted plans to develop in the ocean off Maryland and New Jersey, state and company officials announced Thursday.

Ørsted’s agreement with Crystal Steel Fabricators in Federalsburg will establish the state’s first offshore wind steel fabrication center. The manufacturer plans to expand its workforce by a third, hiring 50 additional welders, fitters, machine operators, painters and truck drivers.

Workers will make steel components used to construct wind turbine foundations for all of Ørsted’s mid-Atlantic projects, which are designed to power at least 1.3 million homes with renewable energy.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan toured Crystal Steel’s plant Thursday, joining officials and workers of both companies for the announcement.

“Ørsted is a cutting-edge company that has made it their mission to create a world that runs on green energy, and they are progressing toward that goal by their continued investment here in Maryland,” said the Republican governor, calling the potential economic benefits “an absolute game-changer.”

“Offshore wind presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the state of Maryland to grow and diversify our economy and our energy portfolio,” Hogan said.

Crystal Steel said the manufacturer’s work, to start this month, will support a long-term supply chain for an expanding offshore wind industry.

Read the full story here

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EPA to clean up contamination at Riverside Industrial Park Superfund site in Newark

From an EPA news release

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues its important work toward Environmental Justice by finalizing its cleanup plan for the Riverside Industrial Park Superfund site on the bank of the Passaic River in Newark, New Jersey. The final decision, in the form of a Record of Decision (ROD), includes a combination of cleanup technologies and other measures to address contaminated soil, soil gas, groundwater, sewer water and waste at the site.

“We have already taken action to address some of the more immediate risks facing this community, and this final cleanup plan will allow us to move forward on the work needed to address risks in the longer-term,” said Acting Regional Administrator Walter Mugdan. “This final decision builds on previous EPA actions of plugging a discharge pipe and addressing the underground storage tanks, which were releasing hazardous chemicals into the Passaic River.”

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EPA’s cleanup plan calls for:

Excavating contaminated soil. Lead-contaminated soil and fill material around Building #7 will be removed and disposed of off-site. The bulkhead bordering the site along the river will be reinforced or reconstructed, and a site-wide cap will be constructed. To protect the cleanup measures, deed notices will be recorded and amended, and fencing will be maintained and enhanced, as appropriate, across the site.
Assessing vapors in the soil and the indoor air in occupied buildings on the site and, if needed, installing mitigation systems to protect people in those buildings from vapor intrusion. EPA will require that special systems be installed in any buildings constructed in the future to protect occupants. EPA will establish site-wide deed notices and appropriate restrictions on property use.
Installing a system to pump and treat contaminated groundwater to minimize migration of groundwater contaminants to the Passaic River. Groundwater will also be monitored to ensure the pump and treat systems is effective. EPA will also restrict the use of groundwater.
Removing sewer water and solids from an inactive sewer line and transferring it into appropriate containers for off-site treatment and disposal. The sewer line will be closed.
Transferring waste from underground storage tanks (USTs), contaminated soil surrounding the USTs and various waste found across the site into appropriate containers for off-site treatment and disposal.

The Riverside Industrial Park Superfund site is a 7.6-acre active industrial property, located at 29 Riverside Avenue in Newark, New Jersey. From 1902 to 1971, the Patton Paint Company (which merged into the Paint and Varnish Division of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in 1920, later changing its name to PPG Industries, Inc. in 1968) manufactured paint, resins, linseed oil, and varnish.

From 1971 to the present day, the site was subdivided into fifteen lots and has been used by many companies for a variety of businesses from warehousing and packaging to chemical and cosmetics manufacturing. The soil and groundwater contamination are attributed to historic site operations, accidental spills, illegal dumping, improper handling of raw materials, and improper waste disposal.

EPA held a virtual public meeting on August 5, 2020, to explain its cleanup plan. EPA accepted public comments and considered public input before finalizing the plan. EPA granted several comment period extensions and closely reviewed all public comments that were submitted.

EPA’s final decision, outlined in the ROD and EPA’s complete response to all comments, can be found at: https://www.epa.gov/superfund/riverside-industrial

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As Newark eliminates lead water pipes, NJ advances a 10-year plan for statewide removal

By Stacey Barchenger, Trenton Bureau, NorthJersey News

Two summers ago, a typically underground problem exploded into national controversy when water filters in Newark failed to remove lead from residents’ tap water.

Headlines compared New Jersey’s largest city to a notorious water crisis years earlier in Flint, Michigan.

Officials all the way up to Gov. Phil Murphy acknowledged the lead pipes that tainted Newark’s water were not just in the city, but in homes — and hundreds of schools — across the state. It was a decades-old problem that New Jersey had repeatedly failed to fix.

Alongside advocates for clean water and children’s health, leaders pledged to make change.

Now, environmental advocates say, New Jersey is at a turning point when it comes to eradicating lead, a dangerous metal used in older pipes and paint that can permanently damage a child’s brain.

New copper pipping, replacing an old lead service water line, leads to a house on Sanford Ave in Newark on March 24, 2021 as part of Newark's Lead Service Replacement Program.

Newark is on the verge of completing its lead pipe replacement program, removing more than 20,000 pipes in about two years. For comparison, Flint has replaced about 10,000 pipes in five years.

And lead pipes across the state would be replaced with safer plumbing in the next decade under a bill that lawmakers are expected to send to the governor on Thursday.

New Jersey would be just the third state to mandate replacement of lead pipes, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

“The lead service line replacement bill is a revolutionary step forward in making New Jersey lead-free,” said Chris Sturm, managing director of policy and water at New Jersey Future.

Sturm said replacing lead pipes “is the most important step toward safe drinking water.”

Read the full story

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Working on a sharp new look for Philly’s 120-year-old tall ship, Gazela

The Gazela is pictured in Philly in June 2015

The Gazela, a barquentine ship whose home port is Philadelphia, in June 2015. (Emma Lee/WHYY)

By Buffy Gorrilla, WHYY News

Patrick Flynn was a teenager from Havertown when he first boarded Gazela, the wooden tall ship currently moored at Penn’s Landing. It was 1986, and the ship needed a fresh coat of white paint and other repairs to get it ready for the Statue of Liberty centennial celebration. Gazela was a place for him to learn shipwrighting and a wide range of skills that would lead him to a career at sea.

“What started out as volunteering became a profession, and I got my Coast Guard captain’s license and worked on probably about a dozen ships like this around the country. But I seem to keep coming back to Gazela,” said Flynn, who is now the superintendent of ships for the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild.

Marcus Brandt felt the same lure. “Gazela is very beautiful,” he said. “She’s not a huge ship as sailing ships go, but it’s a really nice size for training young people and sailing out on the ocean.”

Brandt, like Flynn, started out as a volunteer and is a member of the board of directors of the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild. He even met his wife on the decks. She’s a tugboat captain.

A view of the bow under the winter cover. (Buffy Gorrilla for WHYY)

The Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild is the custodian of the 120-year-old Gazela, which sailed from Portugal up the Delaware River in 1971. This has been its home ever since. Now, Gazela needs repairs including a costly and extensive hull rebuild to allow it to sail beyond the sheltered waters of the Delaware.

To keep marine growth at bay, Gazela is clad with copper sheets. In the hull rebuild, the plan is to strip off the copper, reprocess it into new copper sheets, then reinstall it.

“Completely recycled and reused,” said Brandt. “Rather than using anti-fouling paints on the hull, this is a much more environmentally friendly alternative.”

The way Brandt and the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild are approaching the renovations is “maritime stone soup,” recalling the children’s story about villagers each contributing a little to a pot of soup that started with only a few stones. If you have something to add to the mix, the PSPG could be interested.

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EPA reverses Trump stance in a push to tackle environmental racism

A fertilizer plant in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. Photograph: Bryan Tarnowski/The Guardian

By Oliver Milman, The Guardian

Michael Regan, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, has sought to revive the effort to confront environmental racism by ordering the agency to crack down on the pollution that disproportionately blights people of color.

On Wednesday, Regan issued a directive to EPA staff to “infuse equity and environmental justice principles and priorities into all EPA practices, policies, and programs”. The memo demands the agency use the “full array of policy and legal tools at our disposal” to ensure vulnerable communities are front of mind when issuing permits for polluting facilities or cleaning up following disasters.

The directive states there should be better consultation with affected communities and indicates the EPA will be tougher on companies that violate air and water pollution mandates. Regan’s memo calls for the EPA to “strengthen enforcement of violations of cornerstone environmental statutes and civil rights laws in communities overburdened by pollution”.

Enforcement of pollution violations dropped steeply under Donald Trump’s administration, with the EPA even suspending routine inspections of facilities while the Covid-19 pandemic raged in the US last year.

A lack of federal intervention further exacerbated a longstanding inequity where poorer people and communities of color in the US are far more likely to be exposed to dangerous pollutants. The pandemic has further worsened this situation, with research showing that people with chronic exposure to air pollutants have suffered worse outcomes from Covid.

Years of discriminatory decisions over the placement of highways and industrial facilities have led to Black people being exposed to 38% more polluted air than white people, with exposure to toxins from cars and trucks in parts of the US two-thirds higher than for white people. Black children are five times more likely to be hospitalized from asthma than white children.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan

“The EPA has focused on environmental justice for more than 30 years but while we have made progress there is so much more to do,” Regan told the Guardian. “We have not served communities to the level they should be served. We need to focus more on our efforts to uplift all communities, regardless of the money in their pockets, their race or zip codes.”Advertisement

The EPA administrator said that he will use the agency’s authority “to the fullest extent to protect public health, particularly vulnerable communities. Enforcement is a critical piece of this, I will be fair but tough in terms of what the agency must do.”

Joe Biden has directed all federal agencies to develop environmental justice policies and has vowed that 40% of climate and infrastructure spending be directed towards disadvantaged communities. Advocates have warned, however, that the administration has plenty of work to uproot a legacy of environmental racism that stretches back generations.

“Trump depleted the EPA but these problems didn’t just start with Trump,” said Peggy Shepard, executive director of We Act for Environmental Justice.

“Emissions from heavy-duty trucks is a priority, lead in water is a priority, lead still being in paint is a priority. There is a lot to do and we need to do more than just roll back the rollbacks. We need to really examine the whole regulatory system if we are actually committed to strong public health standards in this country.”

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Workable solutions to the replacement of lead service lines (in an exemplary essay)

Two solutions, both practical and efficient, if public officials are committed to addressing the problem

Editor’s Note: Those of you who take special pleasure in the written word have been schooled at one time or another on the value of the opening paragraph in an essay that seeks to influence your opinion or solve a problem. Former NJDEP Commissioner Chris Dagger serves up one of the best leads we’ve seen in some time below. It grabs your attention, summons your empathy and entices you to read on. Agree? Disagree? Lets hear from you in the Comment section

By Chris Daggett in NJ Spotlight

What if you knew of a statewide health problem that poisons at least 4,500 children each year, likely causing irreversible damage to their brain, kidneys, and nervous system? And, further, while there is no medical treatment, what if you knew how to avoid new cases, the cost of which is far exceeded by reduced expenses for medical treatment, special education and the full realization of earnings over a lifetime? What would you do?

We do know of such a problem. It’s lead exposure — from lead paint in older homes, lead service lines, indoor lead plumbing, and lead in soil. While attention has been given to each of these areas, lead service lines have received the most attention lately due to water crises in Flint, Michigan, and here in Newark, New Jersey.

An estimated 350,000 lead service lines are scattered across New Jersey, the fifth-highest total in the nation, and the projected cost of completely replacing them is $2.3 billion, a daunting cost given tight state and local budgets.

However, there are two solutions that are both practical and efficient if public officials are committed to addressing the problem. The first is found in water rates, the second in county bonding. In both cases, there is a complicating factor of the general prohibition on using public funds to improve private property when lead service lines are jointly owned by both the water utility and the property owner.

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To move forward, we need to recognize the replacement of customer-owned lines as a special case: They form an integral part of a functioning water system and many low-income customers lack the financial means to pay for the work.

A water system’s rate charges provide revenue that is stable and sufficient to cover the cost to treat, store, and distribute high quality water to customers, as well as investments that ensure a state of good repair. Typical capital needs, such as upgrades to aging treatment plants, pipes and pumping stations, are financed by ratepayers because they are considered to be part of a unified system. Individual customers are not charged based on the benefit they specifically receive from each improvement.

Negative results from earlier law

Unfortunately, that is not the case for lead service line replacements. New Jersey’s 2018 legislation to address lead service lines (P.L. 2018, c.114), authorized localities to require property owners to pay $1,000 each to offset the cost of replacing customer-owned lines.

In the first two cities to act, Trenton and Newark, the $1,000 cost share triggered three negative results: decreased participation, a slow pace, and inefficiency. Absentee landlords often refused to pay, leaving many low-income tenants in limbo, and contractors skipped around neighborhoods as handfuls of property owners gradually decided to participate, driving up costs considerably — as much as 25% by some estimates.

By including the full cost of lead service line replacement in water rates, the burden is distributed across the entire service area and, if revenue is used to support water utility debt or federal loans, it is also spread over time. Combined with the fact that the planned work is staggered over several years, the typical cost to an individual ratepayer is often low. Since the improvements are one-time in nature, the rate adjustment can be eliminated once the expense is paid.

As highlighted in a joint study by the Environmental Defense Fund and Harvard University, many other states and cities have pursued this approach, including Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Denver, and Lansing.

Besides maximizing efficiency, this approach is clearly the most equitable. Across the country, poor families in low-income areas struggle with lead poisoning long after more affluent residents have paid to address the problem.

County bonding is another solution

A second funding option is county bonding, particularly in those counties with excellent bond ratings. Newark’s line replacement has proved this concept. With money not available through rate increases, Essex County used its bonding strength to enable Newark to mandate lead service line replacements without requiring property owners to pay a cost share.

Lead service lines have been methodically replaced across entire neighborhoods, maximizing efficiency, and the pace of the program is unprecedented. Since early 2019, the city has replaced 93% of its 18,000 lead service lines. For most communities across the country, the job has taken 15 to 20 years. Newark is likely to complete the work in less than three years, while saving approximately 13% versus past service line projects.

Read the entire opinion piece here

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