Time to step up to defend bees, wasps and butterflies
Nearly one third of the food we eat requires pollination. New Jersey must act now to protect pollinators from the threat of chemicals, specifically neonicotinoids
Kelly Mooij is vice president for government relations at New Jersey Audubon. Her op-ed appeared yesterday in NJ Spotlight
Kelly Mooij
Pollinators — animals that move pollen from one plant to another while feeding — enable the production of fruits and seeds through plant fertilization. This not only provides food sources crucial to native wildlife, nearly one third of the food we eat requires pollination. Most pollinators are flying insects such as bees, wasps and butterflies as well as flies and beetles, and like other wildlife, are greatly impacted by habitat loss, growing populations of invasive non-native species, a changing climate and other threats such as disease.One threat looms largest of all: chemical exposure. The class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids pose a pervasive threat across a variety of environments — from agricultural fields, to home gardens and our waterways. Based on accumulating scientific evidence, New Jersey Audubon is calling for increased scrutiny and a more limited use of these products to avoid further impacts to already imperiled pollinator populations.New Jersey beekeepers report nearly half their honeybees die off each year, significantly higher than the national average. Our wild native bees also provide pollination services to New Jersey crops; they forage in colder and wetter conditions than honeybees and significantly supplement crop production. In 2017, the Rusty Patched Bumblebee was listed as an endangered species, marking the first time a bumblebee has reached endangered status in the U.S. This species, known as an excellent pollinator of cranberries and other crops, was once commonly distributed across the East (including New Jersey) and Midwest but disappeared from 87 percent of its range.Although many causes contributed to this disappearance, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cited neonicotinoids as a significant factor. Pollinators encounter these broad-spectrum systemic insecticides when feeding because they are readily absorbed by plants either by the roots or leaves and then transported throughout plant tissues, nectar and pollen.
Death by a thousand cuts
While certain levels of the chemicals can cause outright mortality, research shows that neonicotinoids also impact bee behavior by impairing foraging, navigation and motor function, leading to disoriented and inefficient worker bees that struggle or fail to carry out basic survival tasks. Studies also show that neonicotinoids weaken bee immune systems and thus jeopardize colony survival, as well as reduce reproductive success. Combined with other stressors encountered by pollinators, including other chemicals such as fungicides, exposure to these chemicals can culminate in death — of entire colonies — by a thousand cuts.Many studies focus on bees, but impacts to other pollinator species are also documented, such as reduced survival of butterfly and moth larva following neonicotinoid soil injections. The chemical properties of neonicotinoids allow for easy transport through our soils and to our waters and cause declines of aquatic and other invertebrates, such as mayflies, that are critical to supporting aquatic and terrestrial food webs. This reduction in prey availability has in turn reduced bird populations in areas with elevated surface water concentrations of neonicotinoids. The evidence indicating impacts to a variety of species from neonicotinoid use is not lacking. But a plan to more closely monitor and limit their use is.Read the full storyLike this? Click to receive free updates
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A relatively painless guide to cutting plastics in your life
Last year may have been the beginning of the end for plastic. It may have taken a while for the average person to wake up to its dangers, but many were shaken into action by the images and videos of plastic’s impact on the natural world that flooded the media in 2018.
Elizabeth Segran writes in Fast Company
A viral video showed a turtle with a straw stuck up its nose. Stories about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch revealed how island-sized trash mounds had collected in the ocean between Hawaii and California. And then there was that National Geographic cover of a plastic bag floating in the water, beneath the scrawled words “Planet or Plastic?” The issue publicized a remarkable statistic: Despite the world’s efforts to recycle, 91% ends up in the trash.
You may already be part of the growing number of people who are trying to ditch plastic. I’ve tried to faithfully bring my reusable Baggubags ($12) to the grocery store, and carry my own metal straw ($4 for three) with me when I go out to restaurants. I use S’well and BKR bottles ($25 and $45) instead of plastic water bottles. I like to congratulate myself for these small steps, but something weird happened once I began cutting down. I suddenly saw how much other plastic filled my kitchen, bathroom, and closet. I saw it in my toddler’s sippy cups and toys, in the cling film enveloping the meat and produce at the grocery store, and in the contents of my medicine cabinet. How could I ever hope to curb plastic, given that it’s woven into every part of my life?
As I’ve begun to explore more ways to cut down, I’ve realized that the task ahead is not as painful as it might seem. This is partly thanks to a flock of new startups coming up with alternatives to everyday plastic products. I’ve researched many of these brands and tested many of their products to give you a totally achievable, relatively painless, and very convenient guide to get started curbing your plastic use.
[Photo: Stasher]
THE KITCHEN
Let’s tackle the hardest part first: your kitchen. If you look around, you’ll see that most food comes in plastic. It’s the cheapest material on the market, so brands use it to package food and families often use Ziploc bags, Saran wrap, and Tupperware to store it. But there are ways around it.
Buy in bulk: You don’t need to buy prepackaged food. Many grocery stores sell rice, pasta, beans, nuts, flour, and many other ingredients in bulk. And skip the plastic bags offered in-store. You can bring your own containers. Some people like to bring glass or stainless steel jars, but I find them heavy and inconvenient. You also need to figure out how much the jars weigh so that you can correctly tally the weight of the bulk food you’re buying.
No more packaged fruit: There’s no reason for produce to be packaged in plastic. (I’m looking at you, Trader Joe’s.) Most groceries sell their fruit and vegetables by weight, so just buy your items piecemeal if you can. When you get home, you can give your produce a wash when you’re preparing it. Eco-friendly brand Full Circle has a very handy veggie scrubber ($5) I keep by the sink.
Buy in bulk: You don’t need to buy prepackaged food. Many grocery stores sell rice, pasta, beans, nuts, flour, and many other ingredients in bulk. And skip the plastic bags offered in-store. You can bring your own containers. Some people like to bring glass or stainless steel jars, but I find them heavy and inconvenient. You also need to figure out how much the jars weigh so that you can correctly tally the weight of the bulk food you’re buying.
Personally, I prefer carrying some lightweight silicone Stasher (starting at $10) bags with me, then store my food in jars when I get home. The company is launching a large, flat-bottomed bag on March 12 that is ideal for bulk buying.
No more packaged fruit: There’s no reason for produce to be packaged in plastic. (I’m looking at you, Trader Joe’s.) Most groceries sell their fruit and vegetables by weight, so just buy your items piecemeal if you can. When you get home, you can give your produce a wash when you’re preparing it. Eco-friendly brand Full Circle has a very handy veggie scrubber ($5) I keep by the sink.
Stock up on reusable containers and wraps: Clear out your Ziploc and Saran wrap drawer, and fill it with reusable versions. I now pack my daughter’s snacks in reusable Lunchskin bags (starting at $5) or paper sandwich bags ($4). They come in cute patterns, which is an extra perk for the toddler set.
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Cutbacks in local news leave some towns in the dark
Photo: ORLIN WAGNER / AP
David Bauder and David A. Lieb report for The Associated Press
WAYNESVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Five minutes late, Darrell Todd Maurina sweeps into a meeting room and plugs in his laptop computer. He places a Wi-Fi hotspot on the table and turns on a digital recorder. The earplug in his left ear is attached to a police scanner in his pants pocket.
He wears a tie; Maurina insists upon professionalism.
He is the press — in its entirety.
Maurina, who posts his work to Facebook, is the only person who has come to the Pulaski County courthouse to tell residents what their commissioners are up to, the only one who will report on their deliberations — specifically, their discussions about how to satisfy the Federal Emergency Management Agency so it will pay to repair a road inundated during a 2013 flood.
Last September, Waynesville became a statistic. With the shutdown of its newspaper, the Daily Guide, this town of 5,200 people in central Missouri’s Ozark hills joined more than 1,400 other cities and towns across the U.S. to lose a newspaper over the past 15 years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data compiled by the University of North Carolina.
Blame revenue siphoned by online competition, cost-cutting ownership, a death spiral in quality, sheer disinterest among readers or reasons peculiar to given locales for that development. While national outlets worry about a president who calls the press an enemy of the people, many Americans no longer have someone watching the city council for them, chronicling the soccer exploits of their children or reporting on the kindly neighbor who died of cancer.
Local journalism is dying in plain sight.
A rock outcropping painted by a local tattoo artist to resemble a frog greets visitors who follow the old Route 66 into Waynesville. Along with its sister city St. Robert, the military towns are dominated by the nearby Fort Leonard Wood, which has kept the county’s population steadily around 50,000 for the past decade.
Five of Waynesville’s eight city council members are former military, and Mayor Luge Hardman says the meetings run efficiently as a result.
“This is a small town where you can be from somewhere else and not feel like an outsider,” said Kevin Hillman, Pulaski County prosecuting attorney.
The Daily Guide, which traces to 1962, was a family-owned paper into the 1980s before it was sold to a series of corporate owners that culminated with GateHouse Media Inc., the nation’s largest newspaper company. Five of the 10 largest newspaper companies are owned by hedge funds or other investors with several unrelated holdings, and GateHouse is among them, said Penelope Muse Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies news industry trends.
Critics have said GateHouse and some other newspaper companies follow a strategy of aggressive cost-cutting without making significant investments in newsrooms. GateHouse rejects the notion that their motivations are strictly financial, pointing to measures taken in Waynesville and elsewhere to keep the news flowing, said Bernie Szachara, the company’s president of U.S. newspaper operations.
All newspaper owners face a brutal reality that calls into question whether it’s an economically sustainable model anymore unless, like the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, the boss is the world’s richest man.
That’s especially true in smaller communities.
“They’re getting eaten away at every level,” said Ken Doctor, a news industry analyst at Harvard’s Nieman Lab.
Newspaper circulation in the U.S. has declined every year for three decades, while advertising revenue has nosedived since 2006, according to the Pew Research Center. Staffing at newspapers large and small has followed that grim trendline: Pew says the number of reporters, editors, photographers and other newsroom employees in the industry fell by 45 percent nationwide between 2004 and 2017.
In the mid-1990s, when former Daily Guide publisher Tim Berrier was replaced, the newspaper had a news editor, sports editor, photographer and two reporters on staff. Along with traditional community news, the Daily Guide covered the Army’s decision to move its chemical warfare training facility to Fort Leonard Wood in the 1990s, and a flood that swept a mother and son to their deaths in 2013.
As recently as 2010, the Daily Guide had four full-time news people, along with a page designer and three ad salespeople.
But people left and weren’t replaced. Last spring, the Daily Guide was cut from five to three days a week. In June, the last newsroom staffer, editor Natalie Sanders, quit — she was burned out, she said. She made a bet with the only other full-time employee, ad salesperson Tiffany Baker, over when the newspaper would close. Sanders said three years; Baker said one.
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Arguments heat up as PSEG fights for nuclear subsidy in NJ
Company claims South Jersey plants uneconomic otherwise. Rate Counsel Stefanie Brand accuses it of ‘holding a gun to the regulators’ head’
Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
PSEG’s threat to shut down its plants unless it “gets every penny’’ of a proposed $300 million ratepayer subsidy is “effectively holding a gun to the regulators’ head,” according to a brief filed by Rate Counsel director Stefanie Brand.
In responding to the company’s own filing last month, Brand sharply rebuked the former’s assertion it will close all its nuclear plants in South Jersey if the full subsidy, dubbed a zero-emission certificate (ZEC), is not paid to all three units there.
“The ZEC statute was not intended to provide a guarantee that these plants will not be retired, only a process for nuclear plant owners to seek subsidies based on a demonstration of economic necessity,’’ Brand said in the brief. The Rate Counsel contends PSEG has failed to make a compelling case on need.
PSEG countered that it has demonstrated in its filings that none of the plants are economically viable and their closure would be catastrophic for New Jersey’s clean-energy goals, according to Ralph LaRossa, president of PSEG Power, the owner of PSEG Nuclear.
“Ratepayer Advocate’s overheated rhetoric aside, her comments largely ignore the very specific matter before the Board of Public Utilities (BPU),’’ LaRossa said in an e-mailed response to Brand’s brief. “Her comments amount to rewrite New Jersey’s new law and redirect focus to the past or future while ignoring the coming three-year period the BPU has been asked to review.’’
Tom Johnson reports for NJ Spotlight:
PSEG’s threat to shut down its plants unless it “gets every penny’’ of a proposed $300 million ratepayer subsidy is “effectively holding a gun to the regulators’ head,” according to a brief filed by Rate Counsel director Stefanie Brand.
In responding to the company’s own filing last month, Brand sharply rebuked the former’s assertion it will close all its nuclear plants in South Jersey if the full subsidy, dubbed a zero-emission certificate (ZEC), is not paid to all three units there.
“The ZEC statute was not intended to provide a guarantee that these plants will not be retired, only a process for nuclear plant owners to seek subsidies based on a demonstration of economic necessity,’’ Brand said in the brief. The Rate Counsel contends PSEG has failed to make a compelling case on need.
PSEG countered that it has demonstrated in its filings that none of the plants are economically viable and their closure would be catastrophic for New Jersey’s clean-energy goals, according to Ralph LaRossa, president of PSEG Power, the owner of PSEG Nuclear.
“Ratepayer Advocate’s overheated rhetoric aside, her comments largely ignore the very specific matter before the Board of Public Utilities (BPU),’’ LaRossa said in an e-mailed response to Brand’s brief. “Her comments amount to rewrite New Jersey’s new law and redirect focus to the past or future while ignoring the coming three-year period the BPU has been asked to review.’’
Another twist in the tale
The Rate Counsel’s filing is the latest twist in an ongoing proceeding undertaken by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to decide if PSEG’s three plants — Salem I, Salem II, and Hope Creek — qualify for subsidies to be paid by ratepayers. Without the subsidies, PSEG has decided to close the plants, beginning as early as this fall with Hope Creek, according to an earlier company filing.
PSEG contends in its filings that the financial information it has provided to the state proves the plants will not cover future costs and risks, qualifying it for ZECs. That information, however, has been redacted in public filings, in what has been largely an opaque process leading up to a decision on the subsidy, expected to be made next month.
Nevertheless, there has been intense behind-the-scenes lobbying pro and con the proposed subsidies. BPU president Joseph Fiordaliso, apparently responding to the rampant speculation over the issue, declared at the agency’s monthly meeting last month, “We’re not here to destroy any industry.’’ He declined to say who he thought was making that accusation.
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The Rate Counsel’s filing is the latest twist in an ongoing proceeding undertaken by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities to decide if PSEG’s three plants — Salem I, Salem II, and Hope Creek — qualify for subsidies to be paid by ratepayers. Without the subsidies, PSEG has decided to close the plants, beginning as early as this fall with Hope Creek, according to an earlier company filing.
PSEG contends in its filings that the financial information it has provided to the state proves the plants will not cover future costs and risks, qualifying it for ZECs. That information, however, has been redacted in public filings, in what has been largely an opaque process leading up to a decision on the subsidy, expected to be made next month.
Nevertheless, there has been intense behind-the-scenes lobbying pro and con the proposed subsidies. BPU president Joseph Fiordaliso, apparently responding to the rampant speculation over the issue, declared at the agency’s monthly meeting last month, “We’re not here to destroy any industry.’’ He declined to say who he thought was making that accusation.
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Two panels to address NJ’s energy future. Are you going?
[Editor’s Note: Interested in or concerned about New Jersey’s energy future? Our friends at NJ Spotlight are presenting what promises to be an informative event on Friday morning. Sign up here]
An NJ Spotlight Roundtable: A Map To New Jersey’s Clean Energy Future
Friday, March 15, 2019, from 8 am-11:30 am
Two panels to address NJ’s energy future. Are you going? Read More »