The president wants to win the state he narrowly lost in 2016, but he may be jumping into an energy issue.
People leave the south portal of the proposed radioactive waste dump of Yucca Mountain in July 2018 during a congressional tour near Mercury, Nev. | John Locher, File/AP Photo
President Donald Trump is seeking to woo Nevada voters by abandoning the GOP’s decades of support for storing the nation’s nuclear waste under a mountain northwest of Las Vegas — a move that could drag the White House into an unsolvable political stalemate.
Trump, who is targeting a state that he narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton in 2016, announced the turnabout in a tweet this month, writing: “Nevada, I hear you on Yucca Mountain and my Administration will RESPECT you!”
He also pledged to find “innovative approaches” to find a new place to store the 90,000 metric tons of nuclear plant leftovers stranded at 120 temporary storage sites — an impasse that is on course to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.
The statement surprised people involved in the debate because developing a permanent nuclear repository at Yucca has long been a priority of Republicans, and even Trump’s own budget proposals in previous years had sought money to keep it alive. Taxpayers spent $15 billion developing the nuclear site after Congress selected the location during the Reagan era, only to see the Obama administration freeze the plan amid opposition from the state’s political leaders.
Trump’s Yucca reversal echoed his previous efforts to untangle a political food fight involving the federal ethanol mandate, an attempt that left both gasoline refiners and Iowa’s corn growers furious. Once again, Trump could face political risks by intervening in a politically charged, no-win energy quagmire.
Some lawmakers also fear that Trump is undermining their efforts to work out a compromise in which some states agree to host a small number of interim waste storage sites while the search for a long-term solution continues.
“Not working on a permanent repository is going to make it harder to do consent-based interim storage, ’cause all of a sudden those communities are going to be going, ‘s—, we’re going to become permanent storage,’” Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a senior House appropriator who has long-championed the Yucca project, told
“It’s a no-win situation for anybody, that doesn’t seem to change,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety for the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is neutral on Yucca but supports building a repository somewhere.
Washington — The U.S. Air Force says it is allocating $13.5 million toward cleaning up drinking-water contaminants around the former Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda.
The funding is part of the $60 million that Congress provided last year to the U.S. Department of Defense to address contamination by certain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances known as PFAS at decommissioned military bases, lawmakers said.
Former Wurtsmith Air Force Base grounds in Oscoda Township, Michigan. (Photo: Garret Ellison, AP)
In a letter this week to U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett said the funding would expedite the remediation investigation at Wurtsmith by a year.
That investigation is meant to determine the extent and nature of the contamination, conduct interim remedial actions, and expand or construct treatment systems if needed, Barrett wrote.
Michigan lawmakers had written to the Air Force last month urging officials to prioritize Wurtsmith and the former K.I. Sawyer Air Force in Marquette County.
“Wurtsmith has been waiting for additional resources for far too long,” said Peters, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee and who took the assistant secretary of the Air Force last year to visit Wurtsmith.
“This has been a multi-year process with what seems to be ongoing delays and additional resources need to be applied. I’m certainly appreciative out of the $60 million in additional funding around the country, Wurtsmith got $13.5 million. That’s a pretty big chunk of it.”
Sawyer in Marquette was not given any additional money, as there is only one contaminated well on that base, Barrett said, compared with “multiple exposure pathways” at Wurtsmith.
Pails of firefighting foam containing PFAS sit in a Lansing Fire Department garage on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2019. Michigan has launched a statewide initiative to collect and dispose of the foam. (Photo: Craig Mauger / The Detroit News)
Wurtsmith is in the district of U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint Township, who said still more aid is needed to protect residents from PFAS leaching into their drinking water supply.
“Oscoda residents and families have been waiting far too long for the Air Force to act more urgently,” Kildee said in a statement.
PFOS and PFOA have been used in firefighting foam, deployed for emergency response and training at military and civilian airfields. Bipartisan members of Michigan’s delegation have been pressing the Air Force for swifter clean up of chemical contamination at Wurtsmith, Sawyer and other military installations.
“We need to keep the inertia behind the Department of Defense initiative, knowing the Department of Defense is not the EPA,” which plans to regulate the chemicals, said Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet.
“But it’s a collaborative effort by all concerned to continue to test for and mitigate PFAS.”
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Last year, I published a thriller set on a cruise. A few weeks ago, I found myself quarantined on the Diamond Princess.
Gay Courter, a novelist, writes in The Atlantic ** We erroneously reported earlier that this appeared in the Washington Post**
Gay Courter in federal quarantine COURTESY OF PHILIP COURTER
Some bad outcomes, you half expect: This time the mammogram will detect an abnormality; this time the cop will notice you were 10 miles over the speed limit; this time the IRS is serious about a total audit. But you don’t expect that your luxury cruise from Japan will harbor a killer virus, resulting in your being returned to the U.S. in a cargo plane that lands at a remote Air Force base where you are ordered into federal quarantine for a minimum of two weeks, leaving you without rights, without agency, and on the wrong side of a heavily guarded fence.
At least, I didn’t expect any of this, even though I wrote a thriller set on a cruise ship—or perhaps in part because I wrote a thriller set on a cruise ship, and figured my imagination was more fevered than reality. I had imagined a murder mystery with medical clues, but I had not imagined this. I had prepared for everything, but I had not prepared for this.
My husband, Phil, and I had planned the trip meticulously for more than a year as an indulgence, an escape. My sister brags about traveling with only carry-on luggage, but my approach is to pack everything I might ever need—and then some. Phil grumbles about the lugging, but he knows me: It’s against my principles to travel light. Our plan was to spend a week in Tokyo, visiting trendy art installations and sampling the best of Japanese cuisine, from ramen and tofu treats to Wagyu beef and haute sushi.
In mid-December, a worrywart friend, who knew that our itinerary included a stop in Hong Kong, started sending me stories about a SARS-like coronavirus disease. “Might you postpone?” he asked.
“Not going to China, let alone Wuhan,” I replied.
“Hong Kong is China,” he reminded me.
“Only going to be there one day!”
I watched as the numbers in Wuhan began to rise and as the Chinese government imposed draconian measures to keep residents within the city’s borders—but without a frisson of concern, I finished packing city gear for metros, walking, rain, and moderate winter temperatures, plus layers for cold and snow for our winter excursion after the cruise. I added dressy pantsuits for three formal nights on the ship and showy but inexpensive necklaces to match. The stops in Vietnam and Okinawa called for a few summery outfits. I had stuffed everything into one large suitcase, along with two folding bags for the inevitable treasures we would find.
We took our long-anticipated first-class flight, wore the airline’s designer PJs, slept in the cushy bed, and dined on foie gras, abalone, and other delicacies, accompanied by glasses of champagne. Once we arrived, we were wowed by the Prince Gallery hotel’s soaring views of Tokyo, cutting-edge electronics, and plumbing wizardry, and we were impressed by how one of the most populous cities in the world manages to be so clean and easy to navigate. We enjoyed learning to make washi paper from slurry and visiting a whole building dedicated to origami.
Then we traveled to Yokohama, boarded the Diamond Princess, and looked forward to spending the lunar new year in Hong Kong and visiting Vietnam, Taiwan, and then several other Japanese ports.
By the time we arrived in Hong Kong, on January 25, the combined concerns over the political protesters and the virus had caused the city to cancel all the new-year festivities. Still, we went into town for a dim sum lunch, tram ride to Victoria Peak, market shopping spree, and Peking-duck feast. It was the vacation of a lifetime.
On the last night of the cruise, the captain’s voice came over the speaker in our room, announcing that a passenger who had not returned to the ship in Hong Kong had tested positive for the novel coronavirus—so novel it had not yet been named—and that Japanese authorities would not let us off the ship until everyone on board filled out a questionnaire, ominously delivered by the quarantine division, and had our temperatures checked. We slept fitfully, awaiting the knock on the door.
That was three weeks ago. It soon became clear that we would be confined to our rooms for at least 14 days. Unlike some others staying in windowless rooms, we had a small suite with a balcony. Meals for the 2,666 people on board were delivered three times a day. There was no butter, no salt, as this post-cruise fare was meant to satisfy only hunger, not the palate. Our decadent vacation was very much over. Out came a mini-salt shaker that I keep with my toothpaste in case I need a saltwater gargle for a sore throat. I dug into my stockpile of Earl Grey and the mountain oolong I had purchased in Taipei. After talking with several doctor friends, we decided to take Tamiflu prophylactically. I always pack it during flu season. I opened my cold-prevention packet of high doses of vitamin C, zinc, and echinacea to boost our immune systems. A friend needed something for a feminine itch, and was surprised I had both the cream and suppository versions of the medication she needed, to her great relief.
I mention these details knowing they’re wildly out of keeping with the situation. What’s unsalted food when you’re stuck on a boat and more than 600 of your fellow passengers have tested positive for a deadly virus, and some of them have died? But the fact that I had a solution for the tasteless food kept me sane; it kept me feeling somewhat in control when I utterly lacked control.
The atrium of 50 Jericho Quadrangle, where J.S. Held is headquartered.
Consulting firm J.S. Held, based in Jericho, NY, has acquired Brennan Environmental Inc. (BEI), an environmental consulting firm headquartered in Summit, NJ.
BEI provides due diligence, remediation design and oversight, regulatory compliance, health, and environmental services for the public and private sectors, as well as clients in the insurance, legal, real estate, and utility sectors.
“The addition of the BEI team furthers our efforts to support clients on complex environmental and regulatory matters, especially in the Northeastern United States,” said Tracey Dodd, EVP and J.S. Held’s environmental, health & safety practice leader.
BEI’s clients will have access to J.S. Held’s suite of specialized services, including construction consulting, property damage assessments, water, and fire restoration consulting, surety services, project and program management, equipment consulting, forensic architecture and engineering, and forensic accounting services.
Every spring, a road in East Brunswick, New Jersey, is closed for a few nights so that hundreds of frogs, newts, and salamanders can safely get to woodland pools to breed.
And on this misty February evening, David found one, a female capable of living up to 30 years and carrying 100 eggs and, perhaps, in debt to David for her species’ survival on this piece of parkland.
“On my left is forest,” David said. “On my right is a forest with two vernal pools.”
For a few nights every spring, all those amphibians cross this road from the forest on the left to the forest on the right to reach one of those vernal pools to mate and lay their eggs.
(A vernal pool is, “essentially, a little woodland pond,” David said. The EPA describes it as a seasonal wetland ranging in size from a small puddle to a shallow lake.)
“All these frogs and salamanders have to have that pool to breed,” David said.
One night 16 years ago, David lit up this same stretch of pavement with his flashlight hoping to witness this migration.
“We saw that there were salamanders and frogs that had been killed by cars,” David said.
So, David brought the East Brunswick spotted salamander’s plight to the mayor, who agreed to close Beekman every spring, allowing hundreds of frogs, newts and salamanders to cross and a growing number of biologists—amateur and professional, child and adult—to watch them do so in safety.
“We get them out on a rainy raw night instead of sitting in front of the TV and they’re learning something about nature that they couldn’t learn anywhere else,” David said.
Before 2004, David believes he never saw a wood frog near Beekman’s vernal pools.
“By closing this road,” he said, “the population’s rebounded and we now have hundreds of wood frogs.”
On this moonless evening, David found one of those too, just by stalking up and down this dark road, all bundled up, staring down at his flashlight’s beam on the wet pavement.
“That’s all you’re doing—just walking and hoping that one crosses your path,” he said.
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Shenzhen is set to become the first city in mainland China to ban the eating of dogs and cats, if a draft regulation released by the municipal government in a wider push to restrict the consumption of wild animals is approved.
On Monday, China’s National People’s Congress issued an order to ban all consumption of wild animal meat and further restrict the wildlife trade nationwide. The measures are expected to be enshrined in the country’s wildlife protection law later this year.
The ban is a swift response to the Covid-19 outbreak, thought to have originated in wildlife sold at a market in Wuhan, Hubei province in early December.
However, the Shenzhen government’s potential ban on dog and cat meat is framed not as part of an effort to reduce disease transmission, but as an aspect of the special relationship between people and pets, which it has called the “consensus of all human civilization”.
“Shenzhen might just be able to do it, as it is a progressive city in many ways,” said Deborah Cao, a professor at Griffith University in Australia and an expert on animal protection in China. “I really hope so.”
Consumption of dog and cat meat is most common in Shenzhen’s home province of Guangdong, neighboring Guangxi, and parts of north-east China, though it is not universally practiced across the country and has become less acceptable over time. Taiwan outlawed the consumption of dog and cat meat in 2017.
“Dog eating has become increasingly controversial in China, with frequent violent clashes between dog thieves and angry dog owners,” said Wendy Higgins, director of international media at Humane Society International (HSI).
“There is a growing and vocal Chinese opposition to the dog and cat meat trade, and young people in China are far more likely to think of dogs as companions than cuisine,” she said.
The draft regulation is now in a public comment phase running until 5 March and no timeline has been given for the final determination.
