At least 13 people die in stampede, as police raid nightclub breaking coronavirus restrictions in Lima, Peru

By Jimena de la Quintana and Daniel Silva, CNN
Updated 9:00 AM ET, Sun August 23, 2020

Lima, Peru (CNN)At least 13 people have been killed and three others injured in a stampede at a nightclub in Lima, Peru, as partygoers attempted to escape a police raid on the venue, according to Orlando Velasco Mujica, general of the Peruvian National Police.

Protests across Latin America reflect a toxic cocktail of pandemic and recession

Protests across Latin America reflect a toxic cocktail of pandemic and recession

Peru was one of the first nations in the Americas to take strict preventative coronavirus measures, but is now one of the worst affected countries in Latin America, with more than 576,000 cases, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
More than 27,000 have died of the virus so far, JHU reports.In an official statement, the Ministry of the Interior reported that the police did not use “any type of weapon or tear gas to clear the premises.”

When people began to flee the 2nd floor venue trying to get away from the police they were crushed on the stairs.

Police said in a statement they have started an investigation to identify the owners of the nightclub and those responsible for the event. Police said 23 people were arrested.

“The Ministry of the Interior profoundly regrets the deaths of 13 people as a consequence of the criminal irresponsibility of an unscrupulous business owner,” the statement said.

Jimena de la Quintana reported from Lima, Daniel Silva Fernandez reported from Miami

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Grow crops, not solar panels, on New Jersey’s best farmland

By Michele S. Byers, New Jersey Conservation Foundation

If there’s any doubt that New Jersey is the Garden State, visit a local farm stand or a farmers’ market. This time of year, you will find some of the world’s most delicious produce: fresh Jersey tomatoes, peaches, sweet corn, peppers, blueberries, melons, squash and much more.

What makes them so good? One key ingredient is excellent soil. New Jersey has some of the best agricultural soils on Earth, perfect for growing a wide variety of foods.

These “prime” and “statewide important” soils are an incredibly precious natural resource that should never be taken for granted or squandered.

That’s why a proposed law to encourage large utility-scale solar projects without provisions to keep it off our best farmland and open space is a bad idea, no matter how well intentioned it may be.

The proposed legislation, S-2605, would toss out New Jersey’s existing solar siting policies, including provisions to restrict solar on farmland and redirect it to sites like brownfields, landfills, rooftops and parking lots.

The proposed law would not only make it easier to build large, utility-scale solar arrays on the state’s best farmland, it would also allow forests to be clear-cut to make way for solar projects, which makes no sense. Forests store the equivalent of 8% of New Jersey’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.

Make no mistake, encouraging solar energy is essential and is a critical part of New Jersey’s clean energy future.

By using a mix of solar, offshore wind and other clean technologies, this state we’re in plans to transition to 100% clean energy by 2050 for its power supply. Reducing the state’s reliance on fossil fuels is critical to combating climate change.

But solar energy projects must be built in the right places. And high quality farmland and forests are most definitely not the right places.

Read the full essay

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California wildfires, among largest in state’s history, still growing

By Andrew Freedman, Heather Kelly, Jason Samenow, Washington Post
August 22, 2020 at 1:44 p.m. EDT

The heat wave and lightning-sparked barrage of California wildfires continues to escalate, with one of the blazes now ranking as the second-largest fire in state history, while another also occupies a spot in the top five. The fires have claimed hundreds of homes and threaten tens of thousands more, forcing more than 100,000 to flee amid a coronavirus pandemic that makes evacuation decisions fraught with challenges.

Although firefighters have seen a letup in the high winds and heat that plagued Central and Northern California for much of the week, another round of thunderstorms that will deliver little rain but lightning discharges that could start even more blazes is anticipated as early as Sunday and lasting through Tuesday.

The fires have been blamed for at least six fatalities.

In seven days, the California blazes have charred nearly a million acres, according to Cal Fire, more than tripling the area burned during a typical fire season (a little over 300,000 acres). The area of land burned is larger than Rhode Island.

The largest blaze in the state, known as the LNU Lightning Complex, had spread to a staggering 314,207 acres across Napa, Lake, Solano and Sonoma counties by Saturday morning. It was only 15 percent contained, and firefighters report that “extreme fire behavior” is making battling the blaze difficult.

The size of the blaze puts it behind only the Mendocino Complex Fire of 2018, which burned about 459,000 acres, on the state’s list of largest fires on record since 1932. The fire complex, composed of several blazes burning in proximity, has destroyed 480 structures and threatens 30,500 more, according to Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency.

California wildfires send evacuees scrambling toward another threat: covid-19

Blazes burned through Big Basin Redwoods State Park, the state’s oldest and home to treasured redwood trees between 800 and 1,500 years old. California State Parks wrote that the park, which officials closed, suffered “extensive damage.”

A second large fire, known as the SCU Lightning Complex, now ranks as the third-largest blaze in state history, at 291,968 acres. This beats the Rush Fire of 2012, which burned about 272,000 acres.

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Funds secured for $32M Chicago anaerobic digester, urban farm

Permission granted by Green Era Sustainability
By Katie Pyzyk@_PyintheSky, Waste Dive

A Chicago community group in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood recently received the funding commitments needed to move ahead with a project to transform a nine-acre brownfield site into an urban farm. Construction on the $32 million project, which will include an on-site anaerobic digester (AD), begins next month and is expected to be complete by spring 2022.

Green Era Sustainability will manage the AD facility, which is expected to process 85,000 tons of food waste and organic matter each year. The facility will produce material that can be used as compost for the urban farm and renewable natural gas that will be sold through an agreement with BP.

Following a $10 million award from the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, a final $3 million in state funding helped close the deal. This includes $2 million from Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Rebuild Illinois capital plan and a $1 million loan from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfield Redevelopment Loan Fund. Additional project financing comes from a range of other sources, including a U.S. EPA brownfield cleanup grant.

The urban farm will grow an estimated 26,000 pounds of food per year for distribution in the community, which is considered a food desert. It is described as an example of working toward environmental justice in a low-income area that sustained a disproportionate impact from decades of disinvestment and industrial pollution. The site will also have an educational element to teach community members about growing their own food, healthy eating and organics recycling.

“The potential to provide environmental justice is huge,” said Patrick Serfass, executive director of the American Biogas Council. “Communities that have suffered from environmental justice issues don’t have a lot of trust for industry coming in and providing solutions because they’ve been burned so many times. One of the starting points here is to help everyone — from community members to leaders — understand the benefits that biogas can provide… The opportunity is incredible but education needs to come first.”

Green Era Sustainability Co-Founder and CEO Jason Feldman said the project was initiated with the nonprofit Urban Growers Collective, which does agricultural projects in disadvantaged neighborhoods and will oversee the urban farm portion of the site. When they couldn’t get enough compost for their community food growing projects, they started examining AD technologies, and momentum grew due to support from neighborhood groups. This project is getting a lot of attention because it is an example of a multi-benefit circular economy project to improve a traditionally underserved neighborhood, Feldman said. 

“We want to show folks in a tangible way that it’s worth taking the extra step to separate food waste,” Feldman said. “It will be recycled locally, which creates jobs, but then it also creates the great byproducts of renewable energy to strengthen infrastructure and nutrient-rich material we can use to grow more food… We’re trying to connect some of those dots. The linear economy right now is pretty unsustainable.”

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Coronavirus ‘outbreak’ after Jersey Shore party

A number of students who attended a recent beach party ​at the Jersey Shore have tested positive for the coronavirus

By Tom Davis, Patch Staff

A yacht cruises through the Manasquan Inlet as a large crowd fills the beach in Manasquan, N.J. on June 28, 2020.
A yacht cruises through the Manasquan Inlet as a large crowd fills the beach in Manasquan, N.J. on June 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)

JERSEY SHORE – Multiple students who attended a recent beach party at the Jersey Shore have tested positive for the coronavirus, officials announced this week.

Kingsway Regional High School students have tested positive for the coronavirus and the Gloucester County Health Department is “working hard” to determine the extent of the exposure, James Lavender, the district’s superintendent, wrote in a letter to parents.

Lavender said his district is working with the health department to investigate an outbreak among a number of students who attended a beach party in Sea Isle City on Thursday, Aug. 13. Sports activities have been canceled for the remainder of the summer.

“Unfortunately, inconclusive and intermittent social media posts have become our best resource of information, exhausting both education and health officials throughout the process,” he wrote.

“Therefore, we need your help as the status of the investigation is fluid and communication is vital as we work to mitigate additional community spread.”

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Pandemic leaves hundreds of firefighters short as California wildfires rage

Flames are seen on both sides of Lake Berryessa in this long-exposure photo taken in Napa, California, on Tuesday.
Flames are seen on both sides of Lake Berryessa in this long-exposure photo taken in Napa, California, on Tuesday. Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

BY SOO KIM , Newsweek

As California battles both wildfires and the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, resources have been “stretched totally thin,” the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) told Newsweek.

Cal Fire President Tim Edwards said: “In the last few weeks, resources across California have been stretched totally thin.”

Nearly 150 firefighters from Cal Fire, which is responsible for fighting fires in over 96 to 99 million acres of California’s nearly 101.7 million total acres of land, are currently in quarantine due to COVID-19 infection or exposure.

“For Cal Fire, right now statewide we have approximately 130 firefighters who are quarantined. Out of those, over half have tested positive [for COVID-19] and the rest were exposed due to it. So this adds to the strain on Cal Fire,” he said.

Even before the outbreak began, due to budget cuts Cal Fire was short by 400 firefighters to bring the department up to its minimum operational requirement, Edwards noted.

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Related news story
Bay Area fires rank in the top 5 in California history LA Times

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