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Study shows mucus contains molecules that block Salmonella infection

MIT researchers now hope to develop synthetic versions of these molecules, which could be used to treat or prevent foodborne illnesses.

Mucus is more than just a sticky substance: It contains a wealth of powerful molecules called mucins that help to tame microbes and prevent infection. In a new study, MIT researchers have identified mucins that defend against Salmonella and other bacteria that cause diarrhea.The researchers now hope to mimic this defense system to create synthetic mucins that could help prevent or treat illness in soldiers or other people at risk of exposure to Salmonella. It could also help prevent “traveler’s diarrhea,” a gastrointestinal infection caused by consuming contaminated food or water.Mucins are bottlebrush-shaped polymers made of complex sugar molecules known as glycans, which are tethered to a peptide backbone. In this study, the researchers discovered that a mucin called MUC2 turns off genes that Salmonella uses to enter and infect host cells.“By using and reformatting this motif from the natural innate immune system, we hope to develop strategies to preventing diarrhea before it even starts. This approach could provide a low-cost solution to a major global health challenge that costs billions annually in lost productivity, health care expenses, and human suffering,” says Katharina Ribbeck, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study.MIT Research Scientist Kelsey Wheeler PhD ’21 and Michaela Gold PhD ’22 are the lead authors of the paper, which appeared Tuesday in the journal Cell Reports.Blocking infectionMucus lines much of the body, providing a physical barrier to infection, but that’s not all it does. Over the past decade, Ribbeck has identified mucins that can help to disarm Vibrio cholerae, as well as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can infect the lungs and other organs, and the yeast Candida albicans.In the new study, the researchers wanted to explore how mucins from the digestive tract might interact with Salmonella enterica, a foodborne pathogen that can cause illness after consuming raw or undercooked food, or contaminated water.To infect host cells, Salmonella must produce proteins that are part of the type 3 secretion system (T3SS), which helps bacteria form needle-like complexes that transfer bacterial proteins directly into host cells. These proteins are all encoded on a segment of DNA called Salmonella pathogenicity island 1 (SPI-1).The researchers found that when they exposed Salmonella to a mucin called MUC2, which is found in the intestines, the bacteria stopped producing the proteins encoded by SPI-1, and they were no longer able to infect cells.Further studies revealed that MUC2 achieves this by turning off a regulatory bacterial protein known as HilD. When this protein is blocked by mucins, it can no longer activate the T3SS genes.Using computational simulations, the researchers showed that certain monosaccharides found in glycans, including GlcNAc and GalNAc, can attach to a specific binding site of the HilD protein. However, their studies showed that these monosaccharides can’t turn off HilD on their own — the shutoff only occurs when the glycans are tethered to the peptide backbone of the mucin.The researchers also discovered that a similar mucin called MUC5AC, which is found in the stomach, can block HilD. And, both MUC2 and MUC5AC can turn off virulence genes in other foodborne pathogens that also use HilD as a gene regulator.Mucins as medicineRibbeck and her students now plan to explore ways to use synthetic versions of these mucins to help boost the body’s natural defenses and protect the GI tract from Salmonella and other infections.Studies from other labs have shown that in mice, Salmonella tends to infect portions of the GI tract that have a thin mucus barrier, or no barrier at all.“Part of Salmonella’s evasion strategy for this host defense is to find locations where mucus is absent and then infect there. So, one could imagine a strategy where we try to bolster mucus barriers to protect those areas with limited mucin,” Wheeler says.One way to deploy synthetic mucins could be to add them to oral rehydration salts — mixtures of electrolytes that are dissolved in water and used to treat dehydration caused by diarrhea and other gastrointestinal illnesses.Another potential application for synthetic mucins would be to incorporate them into a chewable tablet that could be consumed before traveling to areas where Salmonella and other diarrheal illnesses are common. This kind of “pre-exposure prophylaxis” could help prevent a great deal of suffering and lost productivity due to illness, the researchers say.“Mucin mimics would particularly shine as preventatives, because that’s how the body evolved mucus — as part of this innate immune system to prevent infection,” Wheeler says.The research was funded by the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Army Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Institute of Health and Environmental Sciences, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the German Research Foundation.

Food
Health
Water

America's blame game over Canada's wildfire smoke misses the point, experts say

US officials have blamed Canada for not doing enough to stop its wildfire smoke from wafting south. Climate experts say it’s not so simple.

America's blame game over Canada's wildfire smoke misses the point, experts sayNadine YousifSenior Canada reporterGetty ImagesSmoke from Canada's wildfires have drifted south to the US several times this summer, clouding the sky with an orange haze. As deadly wildfires raged in the Canadian province of Manitoba this summer, Republican lawmakers in nearby US states penned letters asking that Canada be held accountable for the smoke drifting south."Our skies are being choked by wildfire smoke we didn't start and can't control," wrote Calvin Callahan, a Republican state representative from Wisconsin, in a letter dated early August.Callahan, along with lawmakers from Iowa, Minnesota and North Dakota, filed a formal complaint with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging an investigation into Canada's wildfire management.Manitoba premier Wab Kinew quickly condemned the move, accusing the lawmakers of throwing a "timber tantrum" and playing "political games".By August, the wildfires had scorched more than two million acres in Manitoba, forced thousands to evacuate, and killed two people – a married couple who authorities said were trapped by fast-moving flames around their family home. As September draws to a close, data shows that 2025 is on track to be Canada's second-worst wildfire season on record.A study published in the Nature journal in September has revealed that smoke from Canada's wildfires has also had far-reaching, fatal consequences. It estimates that the 2023 wildfires - the country's worst on record by area burned - caused more than 87,500 acute and premature deaths worldwide, including 4,100 acute, smoke-related deaths in the US and over 22,000 premature deaths in Europe.Wildfire smoke contains PM2.5 - a type of air pollution - that is known to trigger inflammation in the body. It can exacerbate conditions like asthma and heart disease, and, in some causes, can damage neural connections in the brain."These are big numbers," said Michael Brauer, a professor at the University of British Columbia who co-authored the study. He added the findings show wildfire smoke should be treated as a serious health issue, akin to breast cancer or prostate cancer.For some American lawmakers, the blame falls squarely on Canada. "Canada's failure to contain massive wildfires," Callahan wrote in August, "has harmed the health and quality of life of more than 20 million Americans in the Midwest."Their complaints raise the question: Could Canada be doing more to curb its wildfires – and by extension, their smoke?Climate and fire experts in both countries told the BBC that the answer is largely no. "Until we as a global society deal with human-cased climate change, we're going to have this problem," said Mike Flannigan, an emergency management and fire science expert at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia.Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2025Wildfire smoke can often travel hundreds of thousands of miles. A sattelite image here from August shows smoke from a fire in Newfoundland drifting over the Atlantic Ocean.Metrics show Canada's wildfires, a natural part of its vast boreal forest, have worsened in recent years. Fire season now starts earlier, ends later, and burns more land on average. The 2023 fires razed 15 million hectares (37 million acres) – an area larger than England – while the 2025 blazes have so far burned 8.7 million hectares (21.5 million acres).As of mid-September, there are still more than 500 fires burning, mostly in British Columbia and Manitoba, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.Roughly half of Canada's wildfires are sparked by lightning, while the rest stem from human activity, data from the National Forestry Database shows. Experts warn that hotter temperatures are making the land drier and more prone to ignition.Wildfires are not only worsening in Canada. The US has recently seen some of its most damaging blazes, including the 2023 Hawaii wildfires that killed at least 102 people, and the Palisades fire in January, the most destructive in Los Angeles history.Both countries have struggled to keep pace, often sharing firefighting resources. Canadian water bombers were deployed in California this year, while more than 600 US firefighters travelled north to assist Canada, according to the US Forest Service.In Canada, strained resources – and worsening fires – have fuelled calls for a national firefighting service. Wildfire emergency response is currently handled separately by each of the provinces and territories."The system we have right now worked 40 years ago. Today? Not so much," argued Mr Flannigan.Others propose controlled burns, a practice used in Australia and by indigenous communities, as a solution, though these fires would still generate smoke. Some argue for better clearing of flammable material in forests and near towns, or investing in new technology that can help detect wildfires faster.Some of that work is already underway. In August, Canada pledged more than $47m for research projects to help communities better prepare for and mitigate wildfires.Getty ImagesMajor Canadian cities, like Vancouver, have also been dealing with wildfire smoke. Still, experts like Jen Beverly, a wildland fire professor at the University of Alberta, warn there is little Canada can do to prevent wildfires altogether."These are high intensity fire ecosystems" in Canada, she said, that are different from fires in Australia or the US. "We have very difficult fires to manage under extreme conditions, and we're seeing more of those because of climate change."With a warmer climate, Prof Beverly said attention should be paid to pollution. She noted that the US is the second-worst carbon emitter in the world behind China. "I mean, we should be blaming them for the problem," she argued.In recent months, the Trump administration has also rolled back environmental policies designed to reduce emissions, and has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate accords.Sheila Olmstead, an enviromental policy professor at Cornell University, noted that Canada and the US have a history of cooperation on pollution and climate, including an air quality agreement signed by the two in 1991 to address acid rain."It was a very clear framework for addressing the problem, and that's what seems to be missing here," Olmstead told the BBC. Both countries, she said, would benefit from working together on wildfires instead of trading blame.As for the EPA complaint, it is unclear what the agency could do to address the US lawmakers' concerns. In a statement to the BBC, the EPA said it is reviewing it "and will respond through appropriate channels".Prof Brauer said the data in his study shows that even though the fires are burning in Canada - often in remote areas - their impact can reach far beyond.The findings, he told the BBC, call for a re-framing of how the consequences of climate change are understood. "The effects of a warmer climate are localised, and there are winners and losers," Prof Brauer said. "But this is an illustration that some of these impacts are becoming global."He argued that the US lawmakers' complaints are an "unfortunate distraction," and that the focus should instead be on collaboration and learning how to "live with smoke"."This stuff isn't going away," Prof Brauer said, adding that there are ways to prevent future deaths if there is a will to adapt.

Climate
Forests
Indigenous

Environment Agency failed to visit serious pollution incidents, files show

Data from inside England's environment watchdog show an agency struggling to monitor serious pollution.

Environment Agency failed to visit serious pollution incidents, files showJonah FisherEnvironment correspondentGetty ImagesOne reservoir's fish were all killed by pollution in one incident Documents and data shared with BBC News from inside England's much criticised environment watchdog show an agency struggling to monitor incidents of serious pollution.The information shows the Environment Agency (EA) only sent investigators to a small fraction of reported incidents last year and often relied on water companies - who may be responsible for the pollution - for updates.An internal EA document from this year states that all potentially serious incidents should be attended by staff. But in 2024, the EA didn't go to almost a third of nearly 100 water industry incidents that were eventually ruled to have posed a serious threat to nature or human health. The agency also downgraded the environmental impact of more than 1,000 incidents that it initially decided were potentially serious without sending anyone to take a look.The EA says it does "respond" to all incidents but has ways to assess pollution that don't involve going in person. It says when reports come in it is "careful not to underestimate the seriousness of an incident report".But the EA insider who provided the BBC with the data was critical of the agency. "What not attending means is that you are you are basically only dealing with water company evidence. And it's very rare that their own evidence is very damning," the insider said.Among the incident reports shared with the BBC were an occasion when a chemical spilled into a reservoir killing all its fish and which the EA did not attend. Another time, sewage bubbled up into a garden for more than 24 hours with no deployment from the EA.The BBC is not printing specific details from the reports to protect the identity of the whistleblower. But they show an agency often slow to respond and frequently copying water company updates into EA documents verbatim before downgrading incidents.Other documents show pollution incidents that were reported to the EA by water companies hours after the problem had already been solved, making the impact much harder to assess as the evidence may have washed away. The data show that overall the agency went to just 13% of all the pollution incidents, serious and more limited, that were reported to it in 2024.Jonah Fisher/BBCAshley Smith from the campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) says its "virtually impossible" to get the Environment Agency to come out. "It's virtually impossible to get them to come out," Ashley Smith a veteran water quality campaigner from the Oxfordshire based campaign group Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) told the BBC."(When you call the EA) they go through a scenario where they'll say 'are there any dead fish'. And, typically there are not dead fish because often the fish are able to escape."The EA then says – we'll report that to Thames Water – and it will be Thames Water if anyone who gets in touch with you."Jonah Fisher/BBCMatt Staniek (front row) is leading a campaign to get Windermere in the Lake District cleaned upMatt Staniek is a water quality campaigner in the Lake District and cited several incidents where he says the EA took explanations from the local water company about sewage spills at face value, which later through his own data requests were proved wrong."The Environment Agency has not been holding United Utilities accountable," he says. "And the only way that we get them to properly turn up to pollution incidents and now actually try and do a proper investigation is by going to the media with it, and that should not be the case."A United Utilities spokesperson responded saying "we are industry leading at self-reporting incidents to the Environment Agency".As part of the government's landmark review of water industry regulation it has promised to end "self reporting" of incidents by water companies.There is widespread agreement that the current system is not working and plans are being drawn up to merge the regulators – including the EA - which oversee different parts of the water industry – into just one."The Environment Agency is so hollowed out that it cannot investigate pollution crimes, effectively telling polluters they can act with impunity," James Wallace, the chief executive of campaign group River Action, told the BBC.In July the BBC revealed that staff shortages had led to the EA cancelling thousands of water quality tests at its main laboratory in Devon."We respond to every water pollution incident report we receive," an Environment Agency spokesperson said."To make sure we protect people and the environment, we are careful not to underestimate the seriousness of an incident report when it comes in. Final incident categorisations may change when further information comes to light. This is all part of our standard working practice."

Pollution
Chemicals
Health

Energy Department plans to claw back $13B in green funds

The Energy Department is planning to claw back $13 billion in unspent climate funds, it announced Wednesday. In a press release, the department said that it plans to "return more than $13 billion in unobligated funds initially appropriated to advance the previous Administration’s wasteful Green New Scam agenda." The press release did not specify exactly where the...

The Energy Department is planning to claw back $13 billion in unspent climate funds, it announced Wednesday.  In a press release, the department said that it plans to "return more than $13 billion in unobligated funds initially appropriated to advance the previous Administration’s wasteful Green New Scam agenda." The press release did not specify exactly where the money would have otherwise gone or what it will be used for now, if anything. Spokespeople for the Energy Department did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for additional information. Asked about the money during the New York Times's Climate Forward event on Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the funds "hadn't been assigned to projects yet" but that they were aimed at subsidizing more wind and solar energy, as well as electric vehicles.  The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to curtail spending on renewable energy — and set up barriers that hamper its deployment — while trying to expedite fossil fuels and nuclear power.  The Energy Department has made several attempts to cut climate spending, including previous funding recissions.  The Environmental Protection Agency has separately sought to rescind billions of its own climate spending that was issued under the Biden administration. 

Energy
Climate
Waste

Will Portland weaken its policy to phase out diesel, replace it with biofuels?

Portland’s Renewable Fuels Standards Advisory Committee is poised to recommend delaying the phase-out -- but the decision on how to move ahead will be made by city leaders.

Portland leaders may soon weigh whether to roll back parts of the city’s signature climate policy on replacing diesel with renewable fuels, a first-in-the-nation standard critical to reducing emissions and harmful particulate matter pollution. The policy, adopted by the City Council in 2022 and aimed at medium and heavy trucks, phases out the sale of petroleum diesel by 2030, gradually replacing it with diesel blended with renewable fuels at increasingly higher increments.Council members had hailed the diesel phase-out as a tool to reduce pollution in low-income neighborhoods often located near freeways with high concentrations of diesel emissions. As part of the policy, a 15% blend requirement began in 2024, a 50% blend will be required by 2026 and a 99% blend by 2030. Medium and heavy trucks affected by the policy include delivery trucks, school and transit buses, dump trucks, tractor trailers and cement mixers. But Portland’s Renewable Fuels Standards Advisory Committee is poised to recommend weakening the phase-out. The committee was established in July 2023 to advise the city Bureau of Planning and Sustainability director on technical and economic issues related to the renewable fuel supply as well as meeting the policy’s fuel requirements. A draft memo, made public in advance of the committee’s meeting this week, shows the committee is planning to ask the city to reduce the 2026 biofuel percentage requirement from 50% to 20% and delay implementation until 2028 or 2030. The memo was obtained by the Braided River Campaign, a Portland nonprofit that advocates for a green working waterfront, and shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive. The proposed rollback essentially would allow trucks to continue to emit black carbon or “soot” at a higher level and for longer than under the original plan.The draft also recommends pausing for at least two years strict restrictions on the type of feedstock used to make renewable fuels – a standard that three years ago was hailed as the most innovative, emission-reducing part of Portland’s diesel phase-out. The pause would allow retailers to fall back on using biofuels made from feedstocks such as soybean, canola and palm oils which have been linked to much higher carbon emissions, displacing food production and causing deforestation. The draft memo, addressed to Planning and Sustainability’s Director Eric Engstrom, says the changes would respond to unfavorable biodiesel and renewable diesel market conditions in Oregon and Portland, including the scarcity of low-carbon intensity feedstocks such as used cooking oil and animal tallow.It’s unclear who will decide on the future of the diesel phase-out. While Engstrom has sole discretion to make changes to the program’s rules, the City Council holds the authority to amend city code. Engstrom did not immediately comment on whether the recommended changes would require rule or code changes. Portland officials have said they are fully committed to electrification of trucks but that transition will take many years. Moving from diesel to biofuels is an interim step, they said, allowing for faster emission and particulate matter reductions. The committee’ draft recommendation comes as Portland leaders are debating the future of the Critical Energy Infrastructure Hub, a 6-mile stretch on the northwest bank of the Willamette River where most of Oregon’s fuel supply is stored. Zenith Energy, which operates a terminal at the hub that has drawn environmental opposition, has promised the city to convert from fossil fuel loading and storage to renewable fuels. Other companies at the hub are also eyeing renewable fuels as a new income stream. Earlier this week, the city unveiled four alternatives for the hub, one of which allows for unlimited renewable fuel expansion. Environmental advocates said the committee’s recommendations are unacceptable and would gut the renewable fuel policy’s environmental credibility.“This is a complete walk-back of a promise made to Portlanders,” said Marnie Glickman, Braided River Campaign’s executive director. “The city sold this policy on the promise of a rapid decline in carbon pollution. Now, before the strongest rules even take effect, the industry-dominated advisory board is asking for a hall pass to continue using the cheapest, dirtiest biofuels.” The committee is set to refine the memo at its meeting on Thursday and may vote on the recommendation. It must submit the final recommendation to Engstrom by mid-October. Biofuel cost is one of the major reasons the committee cites for the recommended changes. “If the RFS (renewable fuel standard) is left unchanged, the cost of the diesel fuel in Portland could get significantly higher in the City of Portland compared to the rest of the state of Oregon due to the combined higher requirement of renewable content and lower carbon intensity,” the memo said. The draft memo also says Portland’s program has trouble competing with other regional markets such as California for scarce low-carbon intensity biofuels. It also mentions Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill excluding feedstocks supplied from countries outside North America from tax incentives – which is likely to further reduce the supply of low-carbon feedstocks. Glickman said she’s also concerned about the committee’s potential conflict of interest when making recommendations to the sustainability director – a fact the draft memo acknowledges. Six of the seven members of the advisory committee are representatives of fuel producers and suppliers – including bpAmerica, Phillips 66 and the Western States Petroleum Association. The committee’s only non-industry member – Andrew Dyke, a senior economist at ECOnorthwest – declined to comment on the draft memo. In 2006, Portland became the first city in the U.S. to adopt a renewable fuel standard, which required the city’s fuel retailers to sell a minimum blend of 5% biodiesel. The city updated the policy in 2022 to a full diesel phase-out. The current policy far exceeds the federal and state renewable fuel standards.If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Animals
Climate
Energy

China, World’s Largest Carbon Polluting Nation, Announces New Climate Goal to Cut Emissions

China, the world’s largest carbon polluting nation, has announced a new climate fighting goal to cut emissions by 7% to 10% by 2035

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — As Earth keeps heating up and its weather gets more extreme, more than 100 world leaders lined up Wednesday to talk of increased urgency and the need for stronger efforts to curb the spewing of heat-trapping gases.But few large concrete national plans — especially from major polluters China, Europe and India — were unveiled despite a pressing deadline and sticky Wednesday warmth.With major international climate negotiations in Brazil 6½ weeks away, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened a special leaders summit during the General Assembly to focus on climate change. The idea is to get the countries to submit warming-fighting plans that are stronger, incorporate them throughout their economies and have them in line with an international temperature limit goal that is fast slipping away from reality. “The science demands action. The law commands it. The economics compel it. And people are calling for it,” Guterres said in opening the Wednesday afternoon marathon session with 121 leaders scheduled to speak. ‘Here we must admit failure’ “Warming appears to be accelerating,” climate scientist Johan Rockstrom said in a science briefing that started the summit. “Here we must admit failure. Failure to protect peoples and nations from unmanageable impacts of human-induced climate change.”“We’re dangerously close to triggering fundamental and irreversible change,” Rockstrom said. Under the 2015 Paris climate accord, 195 nations are supposed to submit new more stringent five-year plans on how to curb carbon emissions from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Technically the deadline was in February and about 50 nations — responsible for one-quarter of the world's carbon emissions — have filed theirs, including Pakistan, Micronesia, Mongolia, Liberia and Vanuatu. All of those nations submitted on Wednesday. UN officials said countries really need to get their plans in by the end of the month so the U.N. can calculate how much more warming Earth is on track for if nations do what they promise.Before 2015, the world was on path for 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times, but now has trimmed that to 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), Guterres said.Kenyan President William Ruto said Wednesday that climate change was both the single greatest threat and development opportunity facing Africa, with the right action making the difference between survival and devastation.Without urgent action on climate change the world is “walking blindfolded towards the abyss,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a speech that opened the General Assembly on Tuesday.“Bombs and nuclear weapons will not protect us from the climate crisis,” said Lula, who will host the November climate negotiations in the Amazon city of Belem. He announced the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), a billion dollar program aimed at compensating countries for keeping forests standing.José Raúl Mulino Quintero, the president of Panama, said that although his country is already one of the few that emits less carbon than it absorbs with its forests, he promised they would reduce their carbon emissions further by 2035. “We believe one can always take another step for sustainability for future generations,” Quintero said. He said Panama would restore almost 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares) of critical ecosystems including mangroves and watersheds, “because nature is our first line of defense against climate change.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Climate
Crisis
Nature

Historic Sale of Dams Clears the Way for Salmon to Return to the Kennebec River

The Nature Conservancy has announced that it will purchase and oversee four hydroelectric dams on the lower Kennebec River in Maine, paving the way for their eventual removal

The Nature Conservancy on Tuesday announced a landmark investment worth $168 million to purchase and oversee Brookfield Renewable’s four hydroelectric dams on the lower Kennebec River in Maine, paving the way for their eventual removal.The sale all but guarantees unfettered access for endangered Atlantic salmon and other seagoing fish from the Gulf of Maine to their historic spawning grounds upstream on the Sandy River for the first time since the Kennebec River was permanently dammed more than a century ago.The four dams are located in and between Waterville and Skowhegan and are the last impediments between the mouth of the Kennebec River and its confluence with the Sandy River near Norridgewock. The two parties finalized a purchase agreement on Sept. 15 that requires Brookfield to continue operating the dams over the next few years while The Nature Conservancy establishes a broader river restoration plan with stakeholder input, said Alex Mas, deputy state director for The Nature Conservancy in Maine, in an exclusive interview with The Maine Monitor.“Ultimately, the bigger vision is a free-flowing lower Kennebec that restores the ecology and strengthens the economy,” Mas said.The agreement does not include any of the five Brookfield dams farther upstream on the main stem of the Kennebec River and near its headwaters with Moosehead Lake, which experts say provides inferior fish habitat compared with the Sandy River.In addition to the $138 million already raised for the purchase of the dams, Mas said The Nature Conservancy plans to raise an additional $30 million to complete the acquisition and fund the budget of a new nonprofit entity that will take ownership of the dams and continue to staff them with Brookfield engineers and technicians.The nonprofit would then maintain the dams and ensure their continued energy production over the next five to 10 years or however long the lengthy federal regulatory process takes to decommission the dams. Meanwhile, The Nature Conservancy plans to solicit input from residents along the Kennebec River and others about how to remove the dams or redevelop their infrastructure.That includes working with Sappi North America, whose paper mill in Skowhegan relies on water diverted by the nearby Shawmut dam for plant operations, to find a technical solution to continue to fulfill the mill’s water needs, Mas said. Sappi employs 780 people at the Somerset Mill and recently completed a $500 million update that will double the production capacity of one of Somerset’s paper machines. It was the second of two multi-million-dollar improvements Sappi has made over the past decade.“We are 100 percent committed to developing a solution with Sappi for the Somerset Mill and their long-term water system needs,” Mas told The Monitor. “The Nature Conservancy is a large forest landowner in the state, so we are very keenly aware of how important that mill is, not just to the economy in the region, but also to the forest products industry as a whole.”It was only four years ago that Gov. Janet Mills’ administration recommended removing the Shawmut dam to improve habitat for Atlantic salmon and other seagoing fish. Sappi officials condemned the proposal and said Shawmut’s loss would cause it to close its paper mill. The Maine Department of Marine Resources backed away from that proposal shortly after Sappi’s backlash and a lawsuit from the dams’ owner, Brookfield Renewable, demonstrating the contention around the dams and their role in Maine’s shrinking paper industry.Sean Wallace, a vice president for Sappi North America, reiterated the company’s concern with removing Shawmut dam but said Sappi was open to negotiating a technical solution with The Nature Conservancy.“We believe there are solutions that preserve the impoundment and allow fisheries to thrive without sacrificing the livelihoods and investments tied to the mill,” Wallace said in a statement.Brookfield Renewable declined an interview request. In a statement given to The Monitor, CEO Stephen Gallagher said, “Brookfield remains committed to ensuring that Maine homes and businesses continue to benefit from reliable and clean hydropower on the Kennebec River and throughout the State.” The return of the Atlantic salmon Wabanaki officials, fishermen groups and others have advocated to remove the dams for decades. They hail the dams’ demolition as one of the last hopes to save federally protected Atlantic salmon from extinction after centuries of the species’ decline.Once abundant across New England, today wild Atlantic salmon are only found in eastern Maine rivers. Roughly 1,200 total Atlantic salmon on average return to Gulf of Maine tributaries such as the Kennebec River each year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Of those, fewer than 100 adult salmon annually are captured at the Lockwood dam on the Kennebec River near Waterville and trucked around the three other upstream dams to their breeding grounds in the Sandy River, according to John Burrows, vice president of U.S. operations for the Atlantic Salmon Federation.Improvements to the fish passways at the lower Kennebec River dams and others have only caused marginal gains for Atlantic salmon populations in recent years. Adults rely on truck transport to migrate upstream, and the juveniles they produce there often die when they migrate through the dams back downstream to the ocean.“If the dams weren’t there, then we would have far better downstream passage and great upstream passage,” Burrows told The Monitor. “This run of adult fish could go from less than 100 on average to several hundred in a really short time.”Ensuring unimpeded access to the cold, nutrient-rich habitat of the Sandy River is the single most important step to restore the species, state and federal officials have said.“What’s so unusual about the Sandy is that it has kind of the best possible confluence of factors,” Mas said. “You have these incredible cold water springs, great natural substrate, shade and a huge abundance of high-quality habitat. Historically, before there were any dams, the Sandy River would have been one of the most important places in the state for Atlantic salmon.”In addition to removing the four lower Kennebec dams, Burrows said two additional dam removal projects on tributaries leading to the Sandy River will open up 825 miles of river and stream habitat to the Gulf of Maine, creating a better chance for the Atlantic salmon’s survival.The Atlantic salmon isn’t the only species that would benefit from a free-flowing lower Kennebec. River herring, Atlantic sturgeon and American eel all rely on Maine’s freshwater rivers to either spawn or feed before swimming out to sea.Atlantic sturgeon — prehistoric, armored fish — are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. (That is a step down in severity from the Atlantic salmon’s endangered status.) River herring and American eel support Maine’s robust fisheries economy as both product and bait for Maine lobstermen. “River herring are a crucial forage stock in our ecosystems” and a preferred bait for lobster fishermen, said Ben Martens, executive director of Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “So there are very real benefits to the commercial fishing industry, the lobster industry, in particular, of getting local sustainable bait in the spring.”Mas, Burrows, Martens and other fisheries advocates all point to the 1999 removal of the Edwards dam near Augusta and 2008 removal of the Fort Halifax dam near Winslow as a sign of the potential upsides to removing the final four dams on the lower Kennebec River.River herring runs on the Kennebec River increased by 228 percent after the Edwards dam removal and 1,425 percent after the Fort Halifax dam removal, according to a 2020 study. After years of decline, Atlantic and endangered shortnose sturgeon are now rebounding in the Kennebec River, too, producing a spectacle near Augusta each spring when they leap above the water’s surface during their migration upstream. Energy tradeoffs, property tax changes The ultimate removal of the four lower Kennebec River dams would mean the loss of the 46 megawatts of total electric capacity they provide Maine’s grid. The four dams accounted for roughly 6 percent of the state’s hydroelectric capacity in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and an even smaller sliver of Maine’s total renewable energy capacity. The Nature Conservancy and other dam removal advocates have highlighted these figures as proof that the lower Kennebec River dams’ energy contributions are minimal and outweighed by the ecological impacts they have on the larger river ecosystem.As The Nature Conservancy continues to operate the dams for the next several years, it will work to develop new renewable energy sources and storage facilities that can be phased in as the dams are removed, Mas said.The dams’ removal will also result in the loss of more than $500,000 in annual property tax revenue for Waterville, Skowhegan, Winslow and Fairfield, municipal tax records show.Kristina Cannon, president and CEO of Main Street Skowhegan, said she’s confident that revenue can be offset by her nonprofit’s development of a whitewater river park in downtown Skowhegan and other regional redevelopment efforts happening elsewhere.The river park alone will bring in $625,000 through annual tax benefits, Cannon said, and she has broader hopes that the Kennebec River valley will continue to usher in new outdoor recreation opportunities. “What people need to remember first and foremost is that this is not happening tomorrow,” Cannon said. “This was a private sale, so this is not something that any of us locally could control, but what we should be doing is thinking about growth opportunities with what comes.”Many current Wabanaki tribal citizens descend from the Kennebec River area and have a distinct cultural connection to the river, said Darren Ranco, professor of anthropology at the University of Maine and a citizen of the Penobscot Nation.In 1724, English soldiers violently attacked the Indigenous community that lived near present-day Norridgewock, eventually driving survivors and other Indigenous people in the Kennebec River valley north toward the Penobscot River and New Brunswick.Ranco is a member of The Nature Conservancy’s board of trustees and will work with other Wabanaki officials to advise the nonprofit during its next stages of the dams’ acquisition and river restoration. He said he sees immense potential for restoring the Kennebec River ecosystem, opening up traditional hunting and fishing opportunities, and highlighting Indigenous stories associated with the river valley and its place names. “I think once you start to really open those up, you start to see the vibrancy of the ecology and the stories we’ve connected to over the last several thousand years,” Ranco told The Monitor. “And I think opening up dams opens up that flood of connectivity to places in that really deep way.”Mas, with The Nature Conservancy, said his organization is consulting both Wabanaki tribes and municipalities along the Kennebec River as it decides its next steps.As part of the sale, The Nature Conservancy will acquire many land parcels and pieces of dam infrastructure such as the historic powerhouse at Lockwood dam. The organization is open to redeveloping them for some community or commercial purpose.“Our hope would be that we could find a path that works for each (town) and not try to force them too quickly and just sort of pace it in a way that actually works,” Mas said.After the four dams officially change hands, Mas said The Nature Conservancy will need to raise at least an additional $140 million to fund the surrender of the dams’ federal energy licenses, in addition to their ultimate removal and redevelopment.Dam deregulation is a lengthy, resource-intensive process that requires in-depth environmental impact studies and technical back-and-forth between attorneys, engineers and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The four dams will also need to receive their new and amended federal licenses to operate in the interim, which could wrap up in the next few months depending on some state approvals.The Nature Conservancy has already completed some initial environmental reviews on the dams and their impoundments, ensuring no toxic sediments have built up over the years behind the dams that could be released with their removal, Mas said, but more in-depth studies will be needed for the formal decommissioning approval process.“We’re committed to both restoring the ecology of the river and strengthening the economy of the region,” Mas said. “And that means each site is a project unto itself, and we need to take the time to get the plan right.”This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Sept. 2025

Nature
Business
Extinction

Chris Bowen meets Turkey’s first lady as lobbying to hold Cop31 intensifies

Exclusive: Climate minister, who is trying to persuade Turkey to allow Australia to host the summit, appears with Emine Erdoğan at New York event Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastClimate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has appeared with Turkey’s first lady, Emine Erdoğan, at a major environment event in New York as negotiations over hosting rights for the COP31 summit come down to the wire.Bowen – who is in the US for talks at the UN general assembly – has been lobbying Turkey to drop its rival bid to host the conference in 2026 in order to secure the event on behalf of Australia and Pacific nations. Continue reading...

Climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has appeared with Turkey’s first lady, Emine Erdoğan, at a major environment event in New York as negotiations over hosting rights for the COP31 summit come down to the wire.Bowen – who is in the US for talks at the UN general assembly – has been lobbying Turkey to drop its rival bid to host the conference in 2026 in order to secure the event on behalf of Australia and Pacific nations.Anthony Albanese is seeking a meeting with the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as part of the negotiations, but the first lady is critical to any breakthrough.A longtime environmental campaigner, she hosted dignitaries at the Zero Waste Blue exhibition on New York’s upper east side on Thursday morning, Australian time. Bowen spoke to the first lady and Turkey’s climate minister Murat Kurum.The event was planned to show off Turkey’s environmental bona fides, including protection of the oceans, and to “strengthen environmental diplomacy by creating a platform for partnership and cooperation”.Organisers said the New York meeting would enhance Turkey’s “global visibility in environmental policy” and “create global awareness under the leadership of Mrs Emine Erdoğan”.Bowen’s attendance had been planned for some weeks, part of his efforts at respectful diplomatic engagement. He was the only foreign government minister in attendance.Photos provided to Guardian Australia show Bowen and Erdoğan posing with other guests.Bowen also spoke to the president of Azerbaijan’sCop29 summit, Mukhtar Babayev.Turkey is adamant its time has come to host the annual event after withdrawing from the race to host Cop26, which ultimately went to Glasgow.Any decision on the host country has to be made through consensus, or the event will default to Bonn in Germany.Both Bowen and Albanese have declined to discuss the status of negotiations with Turkey, but describe Australia’s support among partner countries as overwhelming. Australia has at least 23 votes among the critical 28-country Western European and Others Group whose turn it is to host the annual summit.“I’ve had good and positive conversations with Türkiye, and when there’s more to say, we’ll say,” Bowen told journalists a day before the event in New York.“We do want a very investment focused Cop, on investing in Australia’s renewable energy superpower, as well as lifting the agenda of the Pacific, whose very existence of several countries is at stake.”Asked if a resolution could be achieved before he leaves New York for London, the prime minister said he was not sure.“I will be having discussions with President Erdoğan as well. I’ve had a short discussion with the foreign minister… and my ministers and Turkish ministers are having those discussions.”Albanese and Bowen spruiked Australia as an investment destination to business figures at an event hosted by Macquarie Group, as they pitch returns from the growing renewable energy transition and extraction and processing of critical minerals.Albanese was due to speak at a special climate summit hosted by UN secretary general António Guterres and a separate New York Times conference on climate on Thursday.“This is the decisive decade for acting on the environmental challenge of climate change – and seizing the economic opportunities of clean energy,” he will tell the UN.“We all grasp the scale and the urgency of our task.“If we act now, if we move with common purpose and shared resolve, then we can do more than just guard against the very worst.”

Climate
Energy
Government

Salmon farmer accused of blocking UK investigations into alleged animal rights breaches

Faroese firm Bakkafrost wants to ban campaigner Don Staniford from going within 15 metres of its fish farmsOne of Europe’s largest salmon farmers has been accused of attacking the civil rights of environmental campaigners by asking for sweeping restrictions on their freedom to investigate alleged animal rights breaches.The Faroese company Bakkafrost, which produces about 20% of the UK’s farmed salmon, has asked a judge to consider banning the campaigner Don Staniford from going within 15 metres of any of its fish farms, boats and barges. Continue reading...

One of Europe’s largest salmon farmers has been accused of attacking the civil rights of environmental campaigners by asking for sweeping restrictions on their freedom to investigate alleged animal rights breaches.The Faroese company Bakkafrost, which produces about 20% of the UK’s farmed salmon, has asked a judge to consider banning the campaigner Don Staniford from going within 15 metres of any of its fish farms, boats and barges.The company is seeking an interdict, or injunction, that would extend to anyone acting with Staniford, or guided by him, from approaching, entering or boarding any of Bakkafrost’s more than 200 salmon farms, ships, factories, docks, hatcheries and offices – including its head office in Edinburgh.Don Staniford has documented conditions in Scottish salmon farms. Civil rights groups argue that Bakkafrost’s legal action amounts to an attempt to shut down legitimate investigations in the public interest, using a tactic known as a strategic lawsuits against public participation, or Slapp.Staniford, one of the UK’s most prominent fish farm campaigners, has already been ordered to stay away from fish farms and land bases in Scotland owned by the Norwegian multinational Mowi and by Scottish Sea Farms.Staniford, who is based in north-west England and known to his supporters as the “kayak vigilante”, boards salmon farms to look for any evidence of disease or parasite infestations on fish, or any evidence of illegal chemical discharges, at times with documentary film-makers and journalists.All three firms say they uphold the highest legal and welfare standards on their farms.Bakkafrost’s legal action, being heard at Dunoon sheriff court near Glasgow, is trying to establish an even broader restriction than its competitors by asking for the 15-metre exclusion zone around all its assets. Breaching that interdict would be a contempt of court, exposing campaigners to the risk of imprisonment.Mowi tried and failed to impose a similar exclusion area against Staniford but that restriction was thrown out on appeal. Staniford said Mowi is pursuing him for £123,000 in court costs and legal costs – a bill he is unable to pay.Nik Williams, a policy officer with the Index on Censorship and a co-chair of the UK Anti-Slapp coalition, said sweeping bans of this kind, particularly if the interdict appeared to include anyone associated with Staniford, had a chilling effect on public debate.He said: “Anywhere there are legal constraints like this, people will step back scrutinising these incredibly influential industries”, adding it was “quite concerning” that Bakkafrost was seeking a 15-metre exclusion area despite knowing that Mowi’s application to do so had failed.Bakkafrost wants its “extended interdict” to include Staniford “by himself or by his agents, employees, or servants, or by anyone acting on his behalf or under his instructions, or procurement”.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionIn the first day of the hearing, Staniford’s lawyer, Nicole Hogg, told the sheriff, Laura Mundell, the judge presiding over the case, that Bakkafrost wanted sweeping restrictions on him without specifying why they were needed.She said it had failed to produce evidence that it owned or leased the land-based properties it wanted to protect, or why an exclusion zone was necessary at sea. “It is not sufficiently precise,” she told Mundell.Ruairidh Leishman, acting for Bakkafrost, said the 15-metre zone was useful because it set a precise boundary for the court, but it was asking for it to be imposed only if the judge believed it necessary.He said the case it had against Staniford would be disclosed at a later hearing, but this was not an attack on his freedom of expression.Even though Staniford had voluntarily agreed not to enter its properties in December 2024 while its application was being heard, he had continued to make highly critical comments about Bakkafrost. “This a case about property rights and not freedom of expression,” Leishman told the court.The case is due to continue at a later date.

Animals
Chemicals
Business

The Misplaced Nostalgia for a Pre-Vaccine Past

RFK Jr.’s health policies stem from the idea that the past holds the secret to health and happiness.

The way we respond to the disappointments, dangers, and defects of the present helps determine our political affiliations. If you think the answers lie somewhere in a future condition we’ve yet to achieve, then you may be persuaded by progressive politics; if you think the resources for rescuing society lie somewhere in the past, you may be attracted to conservative politics.This general pattern helps explain the recent alignment of conservative politics and the anti-vaccine movement, despite its long-standing association with crunchy, left-ish causes. Today, the two tendencies have joined in mutual agreement about the wholesomeness of natural health versus modern medicine, indulging in nostalgia for a world before the widespread use of vaccines.The past does contain its share of treasures, and it can be hard to accept that a world so rife with pain and despair is in certain ways the best it has ever been. But the idea that the past held a secret to health and happiness that we’ve lost somehow—especially with respect to infectious disease—is a fantasy with potentially lethal ramifications.[Read: The neo-anti-vaxxers are in power now]Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the vaccine-skeptical current secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, originally shared politics with the older anti-vaccine advocates, back-to-the-Earth types who themselves demonstrated a conservative impulse in their search for a primeval Eden. (Plenty of left-leaning people persist in that tradition, though it seems better fit for today’s right, which has a certain appreciation for the pastoral.) A Democrat until 2023, Kennedy entered public life as a champion of environmental protection, battling against corporate interests in court to keep harmful waste out of the air and water. Over time, this overall concern with modern impurity destroying pristine nature evidently extended to other areas of his thinking. As his career progressed, Kennedy adopted several controversial opinions regarding healthy eating, condemning, among other things, meat issued from factory farms, seed oils, and processed food. In a 2024 campaign video from his presidential-primary run, Kennedy promised to “reverse 80 years of farm policy in this country,” harkening to a time before synthetic pesticides and chemical additives to animal feed.If a conservative is, as William F. Buckley Jr. famously wrote, someone who “stands athwart history, yelling ‘Stop!’” then Kennedy certainly fits the bill. A proper conservative fights to preserve the status quo. But the most reactionary members of the right won’t settle for protecting the ground their party has already staked out; their project is to return to the status quo ante, the way things were in the (sometimes distant) past. The slogan “Make America Great Again” manages to disparage the present while promising a return to an era in which Christianity was nationally dominant, manufacturing jobs were the bedrock of the economy, and the country was ever expanding. Kennedy’s positions on processed food and pharmaceuticals fit perfectly into that picture.“Today’s children have to get between 69 and 92 vaccines in order to be fully compliant, between maternity and 18 years,” Kennedy said during a recent Senate hearing about Trump’s 2026 health-care agenda, by way of comparison with children of the past, who were required to receive fewer vaccines (if any at all). Likewise, Kennedy has rejected the introduction of fluoride into drinking water, a practice initiated in the mid-1940s to help prevent tooth decay, as well as the pasteurization of milk, which began in the late 19th century. “When I was a kid” in the ’50s and ’60s, Kennedy said earlier this year, “we were the healthiest, most robust people in the world. And today we’re the sickest.”[Read: How RFK Jr. could eliminate vaccines without banning them]This is in some respects true, but in other ways dangerously wrong. Kennedy is quick to point out the relative rarity of chronic conditions such as childhood diabetes and autoimmune disorders in the past. But he is apparently hesitant to acknowledge that mid-century America came with its own share of serious health problems, including a high rate of cigarette smoking and horrifying infant mortality rates compared with the present. When Kennedy was young, vaccine-preventable childhood illnesses such as measles routinely killed hundreds annually. So far this year, only three people in the United States have died of measles—largely the result of an outbreak of the disease caused in part by declining vaccination rates. And if modern innovations in food and medicine have come with their share of hazards, it would be wrong to conclude that their predecessors were superior. Raw milk allegedly caused the hospitalization of a toddler and the miscarriage of an unborn child as recently as this summer. At the center of the “Make America Healthy Again” crusade is a high degree of trust in the wisdom of nature. But the contemporary appeal of unadulterated nature springs from human successes in controlling the elements; it’s hard to romanticize a relatively recent vaccine-free past while considering photographs of children’s bodies ravaged by smallpox, a disease that persisted well into the 20th century. Likewise, long before COVID-19, America experienced cholera and flu pandemics with hundreds of thousands of associated deaths, as well as lesser outbreaks of illnesses such as diphtheria, polio, and pertussis, all three of which were notorious child-killers. Today, the rarity of those conditions has fostered a false sense of security, and a naive assessment of the natural world. Relinquishing the successes of general vaccine coverage, however, is guaranteed to belie the idea that untainted nature contains all the keys to health and wellness. Our historical moment has enough strife without revisiting past battles fought and won.*Illustration sources: The New York Historical / Getty; GHI / Universal History Archive / Getty; Bettmann / Getty.

Health
Animals
Food

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