Biden approves huge Willow oil drilling in Alaska

By MATTHEW DALY and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday it is approving the controversial major Willow oil project on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope, one of President Joe Biden’s most consequential climate choices that is likely to draw condemnation from environmentalists who say it flies in the face of the Democratic president’s pledges.

The announcement comes a day after the administration, in a big conservation move, said it would bar or limit drilling in some other areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean.

Biden’s Willow plan would allow three drill sites initially, the sources said, which project developer ConocoPhillips has said would include about 219 total wells. A fourth drill site proposed for the project would be denied. The company has said it considers the three-site option workable.

TikTokers target controversial Willow oil project

Climate activists have been outraged that Biden appeared open to greenlighting the project, which they said put Biden’s climate legacy at risk. Allowing oil company ConocoPhillips to move forward with the drilling plan also would break Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil drilling on public lands, they say.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips will relinquish rights to about 68,000 acres of existing leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.

The administration’s decision is not likely to be the last word, with litigation expected from environmental groups.

ConocoPhillips Alaska’s Willow project could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day, create up to 2,500 jobs during construction and 300 long-term jobs, and generate billions of dollars in royalties and tax revenues for the federal, state, and local governments, the company says.

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New York City Begins Its Climate Change Reckoning on the Lower East Side

The city redesigned much of a $1.5 billion floodwall project along the East River without any community input, shattering trust. Now, New York is pursuing similar climate resiliency projects in Manhattan that Mayor Eric Adams calls “complex, novel and unparalleled compared to any other American city.”

By Delaney Dryfoos, Inside Climate News

Next to the Brooklyn Bridge, on an unassuming red brick building, a preserved chalk line serves as a permanent reminder of the 14-foot waves from Hurricane Sandy that inundated Lower Manhattan in October 2012, closed Wall Street, blacked out power to a quarter of a million city residents and killed 44 New Yorkers. 

Less than a year later, in August 2013, the Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development picked a well-known Danish architecture firm, the Bjarke Ingels Group—BIG for short—in a competition called Rebuild by Design. Bjarke Ingels was selected for its plan to protect a vast expanse of Manhattan from future flooding “as we prepare communities across the country for the impacts of a changing climate,” HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said at the time.

The following June, the department sent New York a $335 million check to build a 2.4-mile span of berms, floodwalls, and water gates along the city’s Lower East Side as the first phase in the firm’s “BIG U” vision for a 10-mile, U-shaped water defense that would run from 57th Street on the West Side to the tip of Lower Manhattan, and then up to 42nd Street on the East Side. 

Connect Resilience Projects to Form the 'BIG U'

The first phase, now called the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, was described by city and federal officials in 2014 as a “nature as buffer” approach that would allow the beloved East River Park, built by Robert Moses in the 1930s, to flood during climate-amplified extreme weather events. Officials said that phase would cost $770 million and be finished in as little as four years.

None of that turned out to be true.

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Can novel methods restore the ailing salt marshes of New Jersey and Delaware?

Standing water will be helped to escape more rapidly, restoring the marshes to their natural state

By ZOE READ, WHYY NEWS

Large storms can devastate coastal communities when no buffers exist to protect them.

But salt marshes, which are coastal wetlands flooded and drained by salt water from the tides, can shield buildings and homes.

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“When Hurricane Sandy hit, if we didn’t have salt marshes there, a lot of homes would actually be more damaged,” said Emmy Casper, a wildlife biologist with the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey. “They’re like little sponges that absorb a bunch of water that would otherwise be flooding houses.”

However, coastal towns are at greater risk of flooding today. That’s because salt marshes have been degraded by farming methods, and even historic practices meant to prevent mosquito breeding. Sea-level rise caused by climate change puts more strain on the marshes.

“We’re really realizing the importance of saving our salt marshes, and realizing we need to do something now,” said Kaity Ripple, a fish and wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

So, the environmental group Ducks Unlimited is using more than $500,000 in funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and other donors to restore salt marshes in Delaware and New Jersey. The organization is partnering with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and other local groups such as the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

Ducks Unlimited will dig shallow channels called “runnels,” allowing standing water to escape more rapidly and restore the marshes to their natural state. This project uses a technique that’s low-cost and could potentially decrease the need for large-scale projects. The technique is new to the mid-Atlantic region but has already shown success in New England.

“If you look at an unhealthy salt marsh, it’s very saturated. You’ll see a lot of bigger pools,” said Joe Genzel, a communications coordinator for Ducks Unlimited. “With a healthy salt marsh, you’ll see a lot of interconnected smaller pools. And so that’s what runnels do.”

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Alabama landfill fire still burning after three months

Fire burns beneath a landfill in St. Clair County, Alabama, in a photo released by Moody Fire Department on Dec. 19, 2022.

By Hadley Hitson, Montgomery Advertiser

The underground landfill fire in St. Clair County is almost out — over three months since it started burning and disrupted the lives of families in Moody and surrounding areas. 

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management reports that no smoke has been seen at the landfill since Feb. 28, and the “prevalent” odor faded over the last week. Still, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it “could be several more weeks before the fire is completely out.”

Now, state and local leaders are looking to learn from the shortcomings that the fire exposed across all levels of government. ADEM announced last week that it established a working group to examine the response to the fire and make recommendations on how to improve the statewide response to emergency situations like the fire in the future. 

“The one thing we’ve got to work on is: How do we make this go faster? Because we cannot put citizens through this again,” State Sen. Lance Bell said at an ADEM press conference last week. “We were all talking on the phone, working through the different channels, but when you have a property that’s owned by an individual and an unregulated landfill in an unincorporated county, it becomes a nightmare.”

The fire at Environmental Landfill, Inc. started burning in late November. The Moody Fire Department responded immediately but was unable to reach the underground source. From there, authority over the response shifted several times before ADEM called in the EPA for help.

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Bee-boosting bill buzzes through NJ Senate panel

Legislation sponsored by NJ State Senator Anthony M. Bucco that encourages homeowners and businesses to make their property more bee-friendly has cleared the Senate Environment and Energy Committee.

“New Jersey is the Garden State, but gardens don’t flourish without pollinators including bees,” said Bucco (R-25). “Unfortunately, our bee populations continue to fall at an alarming rate, which puts everything from home gardens to commercial agriculture at risk. This legislation encourages homeowners and businesses to install bee-friendly habitats to help stop the decline.”

Researchers at Rutgers University recently published a study that highlighted concerns about the sharp decline of bee populations in New Jersey. The lack of bee habitats can have severe impacts on the ecosystem, as bees, certain insects, and even birds account for pollinating more than 80% of all plants.

Sen. Bucco’s bill, S-3643, establishes a pilot program within the New Jersey Department of Agriculture to offer reimbursement to homeowners and businesses for certain costs associated with converting their lawns and gardens into bee-friendly habitats.

The program would offer eligible homeowners up to $250 in reimbursement while businesses could receive up to $500. Under the bill, the state Agriculture department would be required to develop a webpage with information about the pilot program and a list of plants that qualify homeowners and businesses to receive reimbursement.

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