One million gallons of saltwater and an unknown quantity of crude oil have leaked from a North Dakota pipeline into a creek that feeds the Missouri River.
The spill was on Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation land approximately 15 miles north of Williston, North Dakota. The leak comes from a saltwater collection line owned by Summit Midstream Partners LP. The saltwater is a byproduct of the hydraulic fracturing process.
The Saltwater is usually filtered and re-injected back into the earth after the oil is extracted.
Williston is considered a center of the oil boom in the state of North Dakota.
Chairman Tex Hall said that the spill has been isolated and contained. A quantity of 1 million gallons of the liquid entered Bear Den Bay, which leads into Lake Sakakawea, a source of drinking water on the reservation.
This is precisely why Native Americans have been protesting #NoDAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline).
Wilderness areas on Earth have experienced alarming losses in the past two decades, a new study suggests. By comparing global maps from the present day and the early 1990s, researchers have concluded that a 10th of all the world’s wilderness has been lost in just 20 years.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, finds that just over 30 million square kilometers (or 11.5 million square miles) of wilderness remains on Earth, composing nearly a quarter of the planet’s terrestrial area. On the other hand, 3.3 million square kilometers have been lost since the early 1990s.
The losses were more pronounced in some areas than in others. South America lost nearly 30 percent of its wilderness area, and Africa lost about 14 percent. Overall, most of the remaining wilderness is concentrated in North America, North Asia, North Africa and Australia, the researchers note.
“Wilderness was defined as any area on Earth which didn’t have a human footprint,” explained James Watson, an associate professor at the University of Queensland, director of science and research at the Wildlife Conservation Society and the new study’s lead author.
We know the least about the plant we love the most in the mountains.
When Tabitha Graves took up carnivore research for the U.S. Geological Survey base at Glacier National Park, one of the biggest puzzles needing attention was the role huckleberries play in the food chain. Although creatures from grasshoppers to grizzlies like the purple fruit, we know little about what the berries themselves like.
“The more I’ve gotten into this, the more I’ve realized how important they are,” Graves said. “All kinds of birds eat them, as do small mammals. We’ve found coyote scats with berries in them. We’ve seen wasps eating them. And of course, humans eat a lot of them.”
Then there are the snowshoe hares and deer and moose that munch on huckleberry leaves, at least six species of bee that collect huckleberry pollen, and who knows what kinds of mycorrhizal fungi that grow together with the roots. Did we mention bears eat them, too?
All that might explain why huckleberries have resisted all attempts at domestication. The inability to grow huckleberry bushes in a greenhouse or garden has frustrated researchers for decades. It’s also left big parts of the plant’s life cycle unknown.
Hidden in an unknown corner of Inner Mongolia is a toxic, nightmarish lake created by our thirst for smartphones, consumer gadgets and green tech.
The city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Stretching into the distance lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge.
Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a torrent of thick, black, chemical waste from the refineries that surround the lake. The smell of sulphur and the roar of the pipes invades the senses. It feels like hell on Earth.
Welcome to Baotou, the largest industrial city in Inner Mongolia. You may not have heard of Baotou, but the mines and factories here help to keep our modern lives ticking. It is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of “rare earth” minerals.
These elements can be found in everything from magnets in wind turbines and electric car motors, to the electronic guts of smartphones and flatscreen TVs. In 2009 China produced 95% of the world’s supply of these elements, and it’s estimated that the Bayan Obo mines just north of Baotou contain 70% of the world’s reserves.
On a February, 2016 morning, biologists with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission visited a Waynesville dairy farm where the landowner said he had shot three elk damaging his property — a bull, a cow and a calf.
While walking the farm’s wheat fields and ridge lines, the biologists found even more dead elk, some gruesomely decomposed, some buried, which were not reported.
Emails retrieved through an Asheville Citizen-Times public records request reveal that the biologists were furious, saying they believed the deaths were “spite killing” by the landowner, and “an in your face challenge to the existence of elk and the WRC’s authority. If (the landowner) continues to simply shoot any elk found on his property he alone can significantly impact the sustainability of this elk herd.”
An investigation by wildlife law enforcement officers found the elk were damaging property on the Ross and Sons Dairy Farm, the largest agricultural operation in Haywood County, and declined to charge the landowners.
The incident drew public criticism on two sides – from those who enjoy seeing the giant animals return to the landscape after hundreds of years, and those who believe their property and their rights are being trampled by the reintroduced species.
In response, in part, to these incidents, the Wildlife Commission will hold a public hearing to take comment on proposed changes to elk management regulations, 15A NCAC 10B .0106 (Wildlife Taken for Depredations). The hearing on the proposed amendment will be 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 8, 2016 at Haywood Community College.
New analysis from the Clean Air Task Force shows that by 2025 America’s children will experience 750,000 asthma attacks each summer that will be directly attributable to the oil and gas industry.
The report, Gasping for Breath, is the first to quantify the effects of smog caused by oil and gas production and distribution. The authors used industry data submitted to the EPA’s National Emissions Inventory, particularly looking at methane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which can interact to create smog. This chemical reaction is facilitated by ultraviolet rays and heat — which is why smog is a bigger problem in the summer than the winter.
VOCs, which include gasoline, benzene, and formaldehyde, are particularly concerning. Not only are they often heavier than air, allowing them to pool in low-lying areas, where people live and breath, and many VOCs are known carcinogens.
Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania are the most-impacted states, according to the report. And, frankly, not much is being done about it.
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission is telling operators to shut down 35 disposal wells that may have played a role in a 5.6-magnitude earthquake that shook at least six states September 3, 2016, Gov. Mary Fallin said.
The disposal wells, which are linked to fracking and other industries that need to dispose of toxic waste water by injecting it deep into the earth, have recently drawn concern that they may actually induce earthquakes.
The commission, which regulates fuel, oil, gas, public utilities and transportation industries, is investigating to determine the epicenter of the quake. The Environmental Protection Agency is also investigating.
Earthquakes in Oklahoma are generally not directly caused by fracking, but rather by pressure from the disposal wells, which are used by the industry to get rid of the toxic waste water that comes out of the earth along with oil and gas.
“The disposal wells dispose into the state’s deepest formation, the Arbuckle formation, which is right above what we call the basement,” said commission spokesman Matt Skinner. The basement is above where the critical faults lie that shift and make earthquakes.”
Two hours to the east of Cincinnati lies Ohio’s only state-designated wilderness area, the largest contiguous protected forest in the Buckeye State. Now, it’s getting bigger.
A U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy project has resulted in the addition of 929 acres – known as the “Little Smokies of Ohio” – to the forest’s current 63,747 acres, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
The forest surrounds 1,168-acre Shawnee State Park in Portsmouth, which features some of the best backcountry camping in the state, as well as boating, hiking, golfing and fishing opportunities.
“Once the hunting grounds of the Shawnee Indians, the region is one of the most picturesque in the state, featuring erosion-carved valleys and wooded hills,” the park’s website says.
It will also protect the trails and scenic byways along there, including the North Country National Scenic Trail, American Discovery Trial, the Buckeye Trail and the Scenic Scioto Heritage State Byway.
Any creature with a name like “hellbender” is bound to raise some eyebrows. But what if this animal was also one of the oldest, most interesting, and least known creatures to inhabit the creeks and streams of southern Appalachia?
The eastern hellbender, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis, is our region’s largest salamander species with adults reaching up to two and a half feet in length and a lifespan that is believed to exceed 60 years. “No one really knows how long they can live,” says Dr. J.J. Apodaca, professor of conservation biology at Warren Wilson College.
For J.J., who specializes in salamander conservation, the hellbender story is about much more than its remarkable size and longevity. “They are excellent indicators of stream quality,” he says, “and they cannot survive in water that has been polluted through human alteration of their habitat.”
Western North Carolina is one of the last strongholds for hellbenders, a protected species listed as “of special concern” in the state. Hellbenders are either struggling or extinct in 85 percent of the streams where they were once healthy and abundant. Their biggest threat is the siltation of streams due to runoff caused by forestry, agriculture, and development.
This summer, nine student interns, two student supervisors, three universities, and two professors have come together in a unique collaboration with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the U.S. Forest Service to help give the hellbender a better chance at survival. Warren Wilson College, UNC Asheville, and Duke University all have student representatives who are working on this with Wild South, a regional environmental organization.
The U.S. Forest Service will hold open houses at district offices on the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests in September and October, 2016 to provide the public with opportunities to talk with forest staff about local issues, district projects, and forest plan revision.
The open houses will have a flexible format allowing the public to come at any time during the specified hours and talk directly with Forest staff one-on-one. District rangers and members of the forest plan revision team will be present from 3 to 6 pm on each of the following days and locations:
– September 15, Nantahala Ranger District Office, 90 Sloan Rd, Franklin
– September 22, Cheoah Ranger District Office, 1070 Massey Branch Rd, Robbinsville
– September 27, Tusquitee Ranger District Office, 123 Woodland Dr, Murphy
– October 6, Grandfather Ranger District, 109 Lawing Dr, Nebo
– October 12, Pisgah Ranger District Office, 1600 Pisgah Hwy, Brevard
– October 13, Appalachian Ranger District Office, 632 Manor Rd, Mars Hill
The Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests have been revising their forest plan, a required document that provides a general framework to guide management of the forest. As part of the process, 24 public meetings have been held in communities throughout western North Carolina.
“A successful forest plan depends on the engagement of local residents, organizations, and local governments,” explains James Melonas, Deputy Forest Supervisor for National Forests in North Carolina. “We will continue to engage the public in a transparent and thoughtful manner.”
Throughout the spring and summer, the Forest Service has been releasing draft plan materials on the National Forests in North Carolina website. Additional materials will be available this fall and posted to the Plan Revision Under Construction page as they become available.
“Like all parts of our forest plan, we are accepting public feedback on these initial building blocks and we expect to make changes before we complete the draft plan,” said Michelle Aldridge, planning team lead. “Feedback will also help us shape our analysis. Specific feedback about desired changes, as well as information gaps is very useful at this stage.”
By fall 2016, the public will have had an opportunity for early review and input on nearly all aspects of the developing plan, and will again have an opportunity to review the plan during the formal comment period once a complete draft plan and alternative analysis are released.
While there is no formal NEPA or legal comment period at this time, the Forest Service is accepting input on the building blocks at [email protected] with the subject line “Summer building blocks” or by mail at this address: Attn: Plan Revision Team Leader; National Forests in North Carolina; 160 Zillicoa St. Suite A; Asheville, NC 28801.
Drive down any of the roads in a national forest or park that follow a river and you can probably spot a cairn — a stack of rocks balanced carefully on top of each other. The word comes from the Gaelic for “heap of stones” and many can be quite beautiful.
Cairns can be good things when they are done right. Properly built cairns help mark trails to keep hikers from getting lost and can endure for decades. As trail markers, cairns keep hikers on a single route, protecting fragile soil and vegetation. In foggy or stormy weather, they can be lifesavers, helping to keep you safely on the trail. Each of these is a critical function of cairns, protecting the mountain or desert landscape, and you.
But they have no place in the middle of a river.
Some people stack rocks like this as a form of meditation. Some do it and call it art. More often than not, it makes for a neat Instagram picture and is never thought of again.
But what you may not realize is that stacking river rocks is doing serious damage to the delicate river ecosystem. And it’s not just cairns, the same goes for moving rocks and creating dams to make chutes or pools in a stream for tubing. Aquatic plants and animals make their homes on, under, and around these rocks. Fish build their nests in small cavities under rocks. When people move the rocks, the nest is destroyed and the eggs and young fish die.
Planting trees in an effort to slow climate change is a complicated solution to a complicated problem — and experts caution that countries looking to implement robust reforestation programs need to be extremely deliberate in the kind of reforestation and forest management that they choose.
“In general, [reforestation] is all good in the sense that trees, as they grow, take carbon out of the atmosphere,” Richard Houghton, a senior scientist with the Woods Hole Research Center, told ThinkProgress. “The more wood you have, the more carbon is on land and out of the atmosphere. That’s the reason why planting trees is good.”
There are, however, a few factors that generally make reforestation a better idea in some parts of the world than in others. In northern boreal forests, for example, planting more trees can actually have a warming effect, even if trees are taking up carbon dioxide as they grow. That’s because trees in boreal forests can obscure snow that falls during winter months, which normally helps to reflect sunlight — and therefore heat. When trees are planted, they absorb the sunlight instead of reflecting it (it’s the same albedo effect principle as melting sea ice in the Arctic — dark ocean absorbs sunlight instead of white ice reflecting sunlight).
The particular kind of forest being planted also contributes to the efficacy of reforestation programs. When forests are planted to mimic natural forests, they can offer more ecosystem benefits than forests simply planted for the sake of planting trees — whether as part of a one-off project or as part of a tree plantation.
Five years ago, just after archaeologist Marcy Rockman joined the National Park Service’s new climate change response program, the GOP-controlled Congress slashed its budget by 70 percent. Republicans were determined to squash President Barack Obama’s climate agenda, and many federal officials were deeply discouraged. So Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis convened his top staff and climate team. Rockman says he pounded his fist on a table and bellowed: “Say the ‘c’ word!” It was a clear battle cry, she adds: “Jarvis was so forceful in saying, ‘We are doing this!’ ”
With only $2.8 million and a tiny staff, the program began a major research blitz, studying climate change impacts on national parks from Acadia in Maine to American Samoa in the Pacific. Meanwhile, Jarvis convened a panel of independent scientists, who, in 2012, produced a report titled Revisiting Leopold. They urged the agency to jettison its decades-old mandate to preserve each park as a “vignette of primitive America.”
Rather, parks should steward America’s treasures through the continuous and unpredictable changes to come. Managers should “act immediately, boldly and decisively” to prepare for volatile conditions, including severe wet seasons and deep droughts, and unite with nearby public lands to address landscape-wide challenges, such as creating corridors for wildlife seeking new habitat. A permanent policy reflecting the panel’s thinking is due out later this year.
“That’s a huge paradigm shift; it’s driven by recognition that climate change is making the former strategy impossible,” says University of Arizona professor Jonathan Overpeck. “The shift in climatic extremes will affect just about anything in a park, other than the solid rock. The Park Service is taking climate science and climate change seriously, which is really important if we’re going to manage these precious resources into the future.”
“We’ve never been through climate change before. It is extremely difficult to figure out what to do to adapt to something we have never experienced as a species before.”
Long before Lewis and Clark paddled by, Native Americans built homes here at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers, using the thick earth to guard against brutal winters and hard summer heat. They were called the Mandan people.
Now, Native Americans are living here again. They sleep in teepees and nylon tents. They ride horses and drive quad cabs. They string banners between trees and, when they can get a signal, they post messages with hashtags such as #ReZpectOurWater, #NoDakotaAccess and #NODAPL. For weeks, they have been arriving from the scattered patches of the United States where the government put their ancestors to protest what they say is one indignity too many in a history that has included extermination and exploitation.
It is called the Dakota Access oil pipeline and it could carry more than 400,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the Bakken region of western North Dakota across South Dakota and Iowa to connect with an existing pipeline in Illinois.
New resistance against what they say is a seemingly endless number of pipelines, export terminals and rail lines that would transport fossil fuels across or near tribal reservations, risking pollution to air, water and land.
California has long prided itself on being a world leader on climate change — and with good reason.
Within the United States, California is No. 1 (by far) in solar power and No. 3 in wind power. It boasts the third-lowest carbon dioxide emissions per capita behind New York and Vermont. Since 2000, the state has managed to shrink its overall carbon footprint slightly even as its population grew and economy boomed.
But now California is taking on a far, far more audacious task: trying to prove to the world that it’s possible — desirable, even — to pursue the really drastic emission cuts needed to stave off severe global warming.
The state is already on track to nudge its greenhouse-gas emissions back down to 1990 levels by the year 2020. Then last week, after much fierce debate, the California Assembly and Senate passed a new bill, known as SB 32, that would go much further, mandating an additional 40 percent cut in emissions by 2030.
The stakes are enormous: Policymakers everywhere will be watching to see if California can pull this off. Getting a 40 percent cut will require more than bucking up wind and solar and putting more electric cars on the road. It will mean reshaping virtually every facet of the state’s economy, from buildings to transportation to farming and beyond.
The Black Mountains’ Crest Trail scales the spine of the Black Mountains’ most prominent peaks in Yancey County – Mount Craig (6,645 feet), Big Tom Wilson (6,552 feet), Balsam Cone (6,611 feet), and Cattail Peak (6,583 feet), until now, the highest elevation, privately owned peak in the Eastern United States.
Thanks to recent events, the maps will change, with a piece of the jigsaw puzzle soon to be colored purple – indicating state-owned land for public enjoyment.
The Conservation Fund, a Raleigh-based land trust, has purchased 2,744 acres in the Black Mountains – 783 acres in the Laurel Branch Area and 1,961 acres in the Cattail Peak area, including Cattail Peak – adjoining Mount Mitchell State Park. The fund will convey the land to the state this year, timed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the N.C. State Park System and Mount Mitchell, the state’s first park.
The land acquisition will more than double the size of Mount Mitchell State Park, which was 1,996 acres. The land acquisition has greater, more far-reaching importance, said Mike Leonard, Conservation Fund board chairman.
“By doing this, we are going to the highest, privately owned peak in the Eastern United States and close that privately held gap between the U.S. Forest Service and state parks,” Leonard said.
“We also got the opportunity to acquire lands from Cattail Peak going down 3,500 feet in elevation to the Cane River itself. This will make the park boundary for the first time from the base of the mountain all the way to the top. That much elevation is really important for climate resiliency.”
Have you ever seen a cool bird in your backyard and wondered if there was some way to share what you saw with others? Better yet, have you thought about sharing your observations and having them used to help study and conserve those birds? These thoughts are an indicator that you might have the makings of a great citizen scientist.
The U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service are engaged in a wide variety of citizen science projects that encourage public involvement in natural and cultural resource science and conservation. Volunteers can contribute by forming research questions, collecting and analyzing data, or interpreting results. If you have a sense of wonder and discovery, citizen science may be for you.
Citizen science can help in conservation and protecting natural resources in two ways: increasing scientific knowledge just like conventional research; and creating a conversation about scientific information and policy and to encourage public input and action.
Many scientific projects would be difficult to research without the help of volunteers because of their size, complexity, or cost. Volunteers can contribute in many ways including helping to track patterns in space and time of one or more parts of the ecosystem, or in the discovery of species or important cultural resources. At the same time, getting local communities engaged in projects can increase the relevancy of scientific research locally and can foster environmental stewardship. It can also build a better understanding between the community, scientists and decision makers about social aspects in environmental issues.
I have been involved in a citizen science project at Great Smoky Mountains National Park the past two years. It has been a rewarding experience, one where I feel my individual piece is contributing to a greater whole.
The dog days of summer were particularly dogged this year. July clocked in as the hottest month on record, marking the midpoint of what is likely to be the hottest year on record. With sweltering temperatures came a litany of crummy climate news — floods in Louisiana, Zika in Miami, searing heat waves across the Northeast — with dire implications for human health.
Last year’s Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change warned that the carbon crisis could undo the last half-century of progress in public health. And yet, for many, it remains unclear how climate change could land them in the hospital. Just one in four Americans can identify the ways that rising temperatures threaten their health.
To clarify that link, Climate Nexus and the American Public Health Association developed a series of infographics that illustrate the connection between climate change and all manner of life-threatening illness.
Let’s begin with air quality. Climate change is producing shorter winters and longer summers, extending allergy season. Warmer weather is also worsening pollution by fueling the formation of ozone. Heat and drought are setting the stage for wildfires, like the blaze recently seen in California, which produce smoke, threatening respiratory health.
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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