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L.A. air officials approve port pollution pact as skeptics warn of 'no clear accountability'

Southern California air officials voted overwhelmingly Friday to give themselves the power to levy fines on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach if they don't fulfill their promises to transition to cleaner equipment.

Southern California air officials voted overwhelmingly Friday to give themselves the power to levy fines on the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach if they don’t fulfill their promises to transition to cleaner equipment. The ports remain the largest source of smog-forming pollution in Southern California — releasing more emissions than the region’s 6 million cars each day. The South Coast Air Quality Management District’s governing board voted 9-1 in favor of an agreement that commits the ports to installing zero-emission equipment, such as electric truck chargers or hydrogen fuel pumps, to curb air pollution from the heaviest polluters. The plans will be submitted in three phases: heavy-duty trucks and most cargo-moving equipment by 2028; smaller locomotives and harbor crafts by 2029; and cargo ships and other large vessels by 2030. If the ports don’t meet their deadlines, they would be fined $50,000 to $200,000, which would go into a clean-air fund to aid communities affected by port pollution. The AQMD, for its part, forgoes imposing new rules on the ports for five years. Many environmental advocates voiced disappointment, saying the agreement doesn’t contain specific pollution reduction requirements. “I urge you not to sign away the opportunity to do more to help address the region’s air pollution crisis in exchange for a pinky promise,” said Kathy Ramirez, one of dozens of speakers at Friday’s board meeting. “This is about our lives. I would encourage you to think about why you joined the AQMD board. If not for clean air, then for what?” Port officials and shipping industry officials lauded the decision as a pragmatic way to transition to a zero-emissions economy.“The give and take of ideas and compromises in this process — it mirrors exactly what a real-world transition to zero emissions looks like,” said William Bartelson, an executive at the Pacific Maritime Assn. “It’s practical, it’s inclusive and it’s grounded in shared goals.”The vote answers a long-standing question over how the AQMD intends to reduce pollution from the sprawling trade complex, a focus of environmental justice efforts for decades. The twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, known as the San Pedro Port Complex, is the largest container port in the Western Hemisphere, handling 40% of all container cargo entering the United States. Despite years of efforts at reducing pollution, the vast majority of heavy machinery, big rigs, trains and ships that serve the region’s bustling goods movement still are powered by diesel engines that emit toxic particles and nitrogen oxides, a precursor to smog. For nearly a decade the AQMD has vacillated between strict regulation and a pact with the ports with more flexibility. Several negotiations over a memorandum of understanding failed between 2017 and 2022. The board was prepared to require the ports to offset smog-forming pollution from trucks, trains and ships through clean air projects, like solar panels or electric vehicle chargers. Instead, the ports presented the AQMD with a proposed cooperative agreement, prompting the agency to pause its rulemaking. The AQMD doubled the penalties in that proposal and agreed not to make new rules for five years, not the 10 the industry wanted. Perhaps the most important details of the agreement — the types of energy or fuel used; the appropriate number of chargers or fueling stations — won’t be published for years. The lack of specifics prompted skepticism from many environmental advocates.“It’s just a stall tactic to make a plan for a plan in the hope that emission reductions will come sometime in the future,” said Fernando Gaytan, a senior attorney with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.The contract also includes a clause that the AQMD or ports could terminate the agreement “for any reason” with a 45-day written notice. Wayne Nastri, the AQMD’s executive officer, said this gives the agency the option to switch back to requiring zero-emission infrastructure at the ports. “If we report back to you and you’re not seeing the progress being made, you can be confident knowing that you can pivot and release that [rulemaking] package,” Nastri said to the board. At the end of public comment, opponents of the agreement broke into loud chants. The AQMD cleared the gallery as the board discussed the proposal. Board member Veronica Padilla-Campos, the lone “no” vote, said the agreement lacked the necessary emission reductions and offered “no clear accountability” to local communities.Fellow board member Nithya Raman acknowledged many criticisms of the agreement but ultimately voted for it. “I really have come to believe that the choice before us is this cooperative agreement or no action at all on this issue — continuing a decade of inaction,” Raman said. “I will be voting to support it today, because I do think that it is our only pathway to take any steps forward toward cleaner air at the single largest source of air pollution in the region.”The plan still must be approved by commissioners at the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach Harbor Commission at meetings this year.

Pollution
Crisis
Energy

How a Historic Meeting Between Pope Leo and King Charles Might Shift the Narrative on ‘Creation Care’

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Tony Juniper, the chairman of Natural England, a government conservation agency. The serene music of the choirs of Windsor Castle, the Sistine Chapel and children from the choir of Saint James Chapel, floated up to the […]

A longtime advisor to King Charles offers perspective on the value of the leaders coming together on climate and environmental concerns ahead of COP30, the upcoming global climate conference.Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on EarthFrom our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Tony Juniper, the chairman of Natural England, a government conservation agency.

Conservation
Government

England facing drastic measures due to extreme drought next year

Government and water companies are devising emergency plans for worst water shortage in decadesWater companies and the government are drawing up emergency plans for a drought next year more extreme than we have seen in decades.Executives at one major water company told the Guardian they were extremely concerned about the prospect of a winter with lower than average rainfall, which the Met Office’s long-term forecast says is likely. They said if this happened, the water shortfall would mean taking drastic water use curtailment measures “going beyond hosepipe bans”. Continue reading...

Water companies and the government are drawing up emergency plans for a drought next year more extreme than we have seen in decades.Executives at one major water company told the Guardian they were extremely concerned about the prospect of a winter with lower than average rainfall, which the Met Office’s long-term forecast says is likely. They said if this happened, the water shortfall would mean taking drastic water use curtailment measures “going beyond hosepipe bans”.Droughts are usually multi-year events. While much of England went into drought this summer, with hosepipe bans across large swathes of the country, things were not as bad as they could have been because it had been a rainy autumn and winter the year before. This meant reservoirs were full and that groundwater – storage of water under the soil – was charged up.But months of record dry weather meant a lot of that water was used, and it has not been replaced, despite roughly average September and October rainfall. Average reservoir storage is at 63.3% compared with the average of 76% for this time of year. Ardingly, in West Sussex, and Clatworthy and Wimbleball in Somerset, are below 30%.Groundwater takes significantly longer than reservoirs to recharge, and the situation in England is still fragile despite recent rainfall; South East Water has applied for a local water restriction order, which would ban some businesses from using water for certain things, such as cleaning buildings and equipment or filling hotel pools.Alastair Chisholm, the director of policy and external affairs at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management, said: “In UK drought management terms, a second dry winter is when things start to get serious. So Met Office warnings of increased risk of dry spells through an important time of year for recharge of our water resources will ring alarm bells. This, coupled with dry weather next spring and summer will mean more drought orders – more abstraction from rivers when they’re at low levels, more hosepipe bans and likely restrictions on some business water use.”England has a lack of water resilience, with a growing population, higher risks of hot, dry summers and the fact no new major reservoir has been built in more than 30 years. This means that the country is reliant on consistent rainfall to keep taps running, and when we do not get it, rivers have to be sucked dry and hosepipe bans imposed.Chisholm said building new reservoirs was not enough, and that water efficiency measures for businesses and homes could be taken very quickly, for example by stopping leaks, more widespread smart metering and ensuring water-efficient appliances were installed in new homes.He said: “Whilst government has been fixated on announcing new reservoirs it’s been far less proactive or ambitious on its water efficiency policies. Reservoirs will take decades to build whilst water users can be supported to reduce their consumption quickly. This is nonsensical. It’s not an either-or question on these. We’re a densely populated nation facing increasingly extreme and variable weather, with growing water demand to support new homes, datacentres, food production and more. Without new reservoirs and leakage reductions alongside ambitious water efficiency and domestic or development-level rainwater harvesting and reuse, droughts are likely to become a growing problem for the UK.”The drought is expected to continue into next year. If that happens, and we have a spring and summer with below-average rainfall, England runs a risk of running out of water.The Met Office’s chief meteorologist, Dr Will Lang, said: “This year has been characterised by notable rainfall deficits across much of England. By 28 October, provisional data shows England had only 61% of its expected annual rainfall, when we’d normally have about 80% at this time of the year (based on 1991–2020 average).“Looking ahead, there is an increased risk of dry spells through late autumn and early winter and regional differences in rainfall continue to be likely. Without sustained and widespread precipitation, a consistent recovery from drought remains uncertain.”Water minister Emma Hardy said: “We are closely monitoring all regions – especially those still experiencing drought – and working with the National Drought Group and water companies to maintain supplies. We face increasing pressure on our water resources. That is why this government is taking decisive action, including the development of nine new reservoirs to help secure long-term water resilience.”Hydrologists are alarmed by the extent of the drought and the very real possibility it could cause problems next summer. The strategy of waiting for significant rain carries big risks.Prof Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said: “We now need exceptional rainfall all winter just to recover. Even with recent improvements in some areas, many drought orders and hosepipe bans are staying in place. That tells you how serious the water resource deficit really is. Some reservoirs are sitting at less than a third of their capacity, which is alarming at this point in the year.“With climate change drying Britain out for longer periods in the future, we need to adapt to the climate we have now. Building new reservoirs will help, but we also need much more management of demand, and a more ambitious plan for water resilience.”Dr Megan Klaar, associate professor in the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, said: “We know that climate change is making rainfall patterns more variable, with longer dry periods and more intense wet periods. This growing volatility makes it harder to plan or foresee with certainty making the reliance on rain to arrive ‘just in time’ an unreliable strategy.”There are actions the country could take now, she said: “Nature-based solutions including restoring wetlands, reforesting catchments and improving soil health all help retain water in the landscape and slow its movement through river systems. Households can also help by reducing water use, especially during dry periods, and slowing and storing water during high rainfall by replacing impermeable surfaces like concrete and installing water butts to collect rainwater from roofs which stores water locally and reduces runoff during heavy rainfall.”

Government
Water
Climate

This November is COPD Awareness Month: Take Action in Texas to Improve Health, Policy, and Lives

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects an estimated 30 million Americans, yet half remain undiagnosed. In Texas, the burden is especially high — both in human and economic terms. As November marks COPD Awareness Month, the COPD Action Alliance urges Texans to not only raise awareness but also advocate for stronger policies that improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment

BY COPD ACTION ALLIANCE COPD impacts Texas in a Big Way Texas ranks among the states most burdened by COPD. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the age-adjusted adult COPD prevalence in Texas is 5.6 percent, representing roughly 1.3 million Texans living with the disease. The economic toll of COPD in Texas is significant. The state spends over $2.35 billion annually on medical costs associated with COPD. Additionally, absenteeism due to the condition costs the state approximately $3.7 million each year.  Prevalence is highest in rural and Gulf Coast counties, where access to pulmonologists and pulmonary rehabilitation remains limited. State surveillance data from the Texas Department of State Health Services show that Texans living in rural areas and those with lower incomes or less education face significantly higher rates of COPD. What Is COPD? COPD is a progressive lung disease that causes inflammation and airflow blockage, making breathing a daily challenge. It includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema and is now the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more than 130,000 lives each year. While smoking is a leading cause, one in four COPD patients have never smoked. Environmental exposure, occupational hazards, asthma, and genetic factors like Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency also contribute. The good news: COPD is highly treatable — particularly when caught early. Today’s options range from inhalers and pulmonary rehabilitation to breakthrough biologic therapies recently approved by the FDA. Suzi Media – stock.adobe.comThe Changing Faces of COPD The image of COPD as a “smoker’s disease” no longer holds true. The COPD Action Alliance’s 2025 survey found that 14 percent of respondents with COPD had never smoked, and many cited workplace and environmental exposure as key factors.  Veterans are more likely to be diagnosed with COPD than civilians. Over 1 million U.S. veterans live with COPD, which is about 25 percent of the veteran population. COPD rates are rising, especially among those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Firefighters and first responders face increased risk from smoke and airborne toxins. Retired firefighters were 7.4 times more likely to have COPD than those still on active duty. Women are 35 percent more likely to have COPD than men, possibly due to smaller airways that are more prone to inflammation. “There’s a stigma around COPD. Many people assume I have it because I smoked cigarettes, but I’ve never smoked. I grew up in a smoker’s home and worked in jobs that contributed to my COPD,” one survey participant shared. COPD Action Alliance: Advocating for a Better Future The COPD Action Alliance is a leading advocacy coalition dedicated to improving outcomes for people living with COPD. The Alliance brings together stakeholders to push for patient-centered policies at both state and federal levels. Through their efforts, they aim to: Encourage Policies that Elevate the COPD Community: By collaborating with policymakers, the Alliance seeks to ensure COPD is recognized as a public health priority. Improve COPD Awareness and Education: The Alliance works to increase public understanding of COPD, addressing stigma and empowering patients with knowledge. Ensure Access to Appropriate Care: Advocating for better access to screenings, treatments, and clinical resources is central to the Alliance’s mission. Prioritize the Clinician-Patient Relationship: The Alliance emphasizes the importance of communication and trust between healthcare providers and patients, leading to more effective and personalized care. Yuri Arcurs peopleimages.comWhat COPD Looks Like Across America Nationwide, COPD remains one of the most under-recognized chronic diseases—yet its human and economic toll is profound. A 2024 study published in Chest and available through the National Institutes of Health estimated that from 2016 to 2019, COPD accounted for roughly $31 billion per year in direct medical costs, with total national costs projected to reach $60.5 billion by 2029. The researchers found that COPD-related medical spending averaged $4,322 per patient annually, underscoring the significant financial burden on families and the health-care system alike.  Despite these figures, COPD continues to receive limited research funding and policy attention. Nearly one in three patients recently surveyed by the COPD Action Alliance reported facing barriers to obtaining medications or equipment due to prior authorization or high out-of-pocket costs. Meanwhile, 79 percent said navigating the health-care system is difficult, and nearly half believe current U.S. policies are failing to improve COPD care. COPD is both a medical and economic challenge—and addressing it will require a stronger national commitment to prevention, early diagnosis, and equitable access to treatment. Policy Priorities for a Healthier Future The COPD Action Alliance recommends targeted policy actions that could improve care for Texans and millions nationwide: Increase Awareness and Education Launch public health campaigns that address COPD stigma and encourage early diagnosis. Improve Access to Treatment Eliminate prior authorization barriers and expand telehealth and pulmonary rehabilitation in rural communities. Fund COPD Research Direct more federal and state funding toward biomedical research and data collection to close diagnostic and treatment gaps. Implement the National COPD Action Plan Fully realize the 2018 NIH blueprint for reducing the burden of COPD through education, data tracking and research coordination. Doctor or nurse caregiver showing a tablet screen to senior man and laughing at home or nursing home Lumos sp – stock.adobe.comThe Path Forward COPD is the third leading cause of death worldwide and the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. It is twice as common in rural areas as in large cities, pointing to the need for targeted awareness and healthcare interventions in rural communities. The COPD Action Alliance, in collaboration with policymakers, healthcare providers, and community leaders, aims to create a future where patients have the support and resources they need to manage their condition effectively. With increased awareness, expanded research, and improved healthcare access, Texans living with COPD can look forward to better outcomes and a higher quality of life. To learn more about COPD and the COPD Action Alliance’s efforts, please visit copdactionalliance.org. For additional resources, check out the COPD Fact Sheet, watch a video introduction to the Alliance, or read about the latest breakthroughs in biologic treatments for COPD. The COPD Action Alliance is an advocacy coalition that helps to increase awareness, support grassroots advocacy and improve COPD policy.

Health
Education

James Watson, Co-Discoverer of DNA's Double Helix, Dead at 97

(Reuters) -James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of...

(Reuters) -James D. Watson, the brilliant but controversial American biologist whose 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, the molecule of heredity, ushered in the age of genetics and provided the foundation for the biotechnology revolution of the late 20th century, has died at the age of 97.His death was confirmed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, where he worked for many years. The New York Times reported that Watson died this week at a hospice on Long Island.In his later years, Watson's reputation was tarnished by comments on genetics and race that led him to be ostracized by the scientific establishment.Even as a younger man, he was known as much for his writing and for his enfant-terrible persona - including his willingness to use another scientist's data to advance his own career - as for his science.His 1968 memoir, "The Double Helix," was a racy, take-no-prisoners account of how he and British physicist Francis Crick were first to determine the three-dimensional shape of DNA. The achievement won the duo a share of the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine and eventually would lead to genetic engineering, gene therapy and other DNA-based medicine and technology.Crick complained that the book "grossly invaded my privacy" and another colleague, Maurice Wilkins, objected to what he called a "distorted and unfavorable image of scientists" as ambitious schemers willing to deceive colleagues and competitors in order to make a discovery.In addition, Watson and Crick, who did their research at Cambridge University in England, were widely criticized for using raw data collected by X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin to construct their model of DNA - as two intertwined staircases - without fully acknowledging her contribution. As Watson put it in "Double Helix," scientific research feels "the contradictory pulls of ambition and the sense of fair play."In 2007, Watson again caused widespread anger when he told the Times of London that he believed testing indicated the intelligence of Africans was "not really ... the same as ours."Accused of promoting long-discredited racist theories, he was shortly afterwards forced to retire from his post as chancellor of New York's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL). Although he later apologized, he made similar comments in a 2019 documentary, calling different racial attainment on IQ tests - attributed by most scientists to environmental factors - "genetic."James Dewey Watson was born in Chicago on April 6, 1928, and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a zoology degree. He received his doctorate from Indiana University, where he focused on genetics. In 1951, he joined Cambridge's Cavendish Lab, where he met Crick and began the quest for the structural chemistry of DNA.Just waiting to be found, the double helix opened the doors to the genetics revolution. In the structure Crick and Watson proposed, the steps of the winding staircase were made of pairs of chemicals called nucleotides or bases. As they noted at the end of their 1953 paper, "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material."That sentence, often called the greatest understatement in the history of biology, meant that the base-and-helix structure provided the mechanism by which genetic information can be precisely copied from one generation to the next. That understanding led to the discovery of genetic engineering and numerous other DNA techniques.Watson and Crick went their separate ways after their DNA research. Watson was only 25 years old then and while he never made another scientific discovery approaching the significance of the double helix, he remained a scientific force."He had to figure out what to do with his life after achieving what he did at such a young age," biologist Mark Ptashne, who met Watson in the 1960s and remained a friend, told Reuters in a 2012 interview. "He figured out how to do things that played to his strength."That strength was playing "the tough Irishman," as Ptashne put it, to become one of the leaders of the U.S. leap to the forefront of molecular biology. Watson joined the biology department at Harvard University in 1956."The existing biology department felt that molecular biology was just a flash in the pan," Harvard biochemist Guido Guidotti related. But when Watson arrived, Guidotti said he immediately told everyone in the biology department – scientists whose research focused on whole organisms and populations, not cells and molecules – "that they were wasting their time and should retire."That earned Watson the decades-long enmity of some of those traditional biologists, but he also attracted young scientists and graduate students who went on to forge the genetics revolution.In 1968 Watson took his institution-building drive to CSHL on Long Island, splitting his time between CSHL and Harvard for eight years. The lab at the time was "just a mosquito-infested backwater," said Ptashne. As director, "Jim turned it into a vibrant, world-class institution."In 1990, Watson was named to lead the Human Genome Project, whose goal was to determine the order of the 3 billion chemical units that constitute humans' full complement of DNA. When the National Institutes of Health, which funded the project, decided to seek patents on some DNA sequences, Watson attacked the NIH director and resigned, arguing that genome knowledge should remain in the public domain.In 2007 he became the second person in the world to have his full genome sequenced. He made the sequence publicly available, arguing that concerns about "genetic privacy" were overwrought but made an exception by saying he did not want to know if he had a gene associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Watson did have a gene associated with novelty-seeking.His proudest accomplishment, Watson told an interviewer for Discover magazine in 2003, was not discovering the double helix - which "was going to be found in the next year or two" anyway - but his books."My heroes were never scientists," he said. "They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood - you know, good writers."Watson cherished the bad-boy image he presented to the world in "Double Helix," friends said, and he emphasized it in his 2007 book, "Avoid Boring People."Married with two sons, he often disparaged women in public statements and boasted of chasing what he called "popsies." But he personally encouraged many female scientists, including biologist Nancy Hopkins of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."I certainly couldn't have had a career in science without his support, I believe," said Hopkins, long outspoken about anti-woman bias in science. "Jim was hugely supportive of me and other women. It's an odd thing to understand."(Editing by Bill Trott and Rosalba O'Brien)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

Chemicals
Health
Science

Radioactive pollution still haunts Hunters Point in San Francisco

Last week, residents were informed by the San Francisco Department of Health that a test taken in November 2024 at the former site of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard showed radiation levels of airborne Plutonium 239 had exceeded the Navy's "action level."

San Francisco — More than a half century after the U.S. ignited 67 atomic weapons in the the central Pacific Ocean, a former Navy base in the Bay Area continues to carry that nuclear legacy.Last week, residents were informed by the San Francisco Department of Health that a test taken in November 2024 at the former site of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard showed radiation levels of airborne Plutonium-239 had exceeded the Navy’s “action level,” requiring the military to further investigate. The city and the residents were not informed until 11 months after that initial reading. Hunters Point, a 500-acre peninsula jutting out into San Francisco Bay, served as a military laboratory to study the effects of nuclear weapons from 1946-69 following World War II. Although the research largely focused on how to decontaminate U.S. warships and equipment targeted with atomic bombs, the experimentation left much of the shipyard laced with radioactive contaminants and toxic chemicals.For the last 30 years, the Navy has sought to clean up the area — now a U.S. Superfund site — with the long-term goal of redeveloping it into new housing and parkland. But some Bay Area community leaders say haphazard remediation work and lackluster public outreach have endangered the health and safety of residents of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood that sits beside the former shipyard. And they point to the Navy’s nearly year-long delay in informing them of the elevated Plutonium-239 reading, taken in November 2024, as just the latest example.Plutonium-239 is a radioactive isotope and byproduct of nuclear bomb explosions. The elevated readings from November 2024 came from a 78-acre tract of land on the northeast portion of the shipyard, known as Parcel C.“The City and County of San Francisco is deeply concerned by both the magnitude of this exceedance and the failure to provide timely notification,” wrote San Francisco Health Officer Susan Philip in an Oct. 30 letter to Navy officials. “Such a delay undermines our ability to safeguard public health and maintain transparency. Immediate notification is a regulatory requirement and is critical for ensuring community trust and safety.”Navy officials and some health experts insist the radiation levels detected at the site, while above the Navy’s action level, did not pose an imminent or substantial threat to public health. Exposure to this level of Plutonium-239 every day for one year would be less than one-tenth the dose of radiation from a chest X-ray, according to a Navy spokesperson. “The San Francisco Department of Public Health’s letter references a single outlier air sample that detected Plutonium-239 above the regulatory action level,” a Navy spokesperson said in a statement to The Times. “Regulatory action levels are deliberately and conservatively established below levels of health concern, and a single detection of Pu-239 at this level does not pose a risk to human health or public safety.”The Navy said it has collected more than 200 ambient air monitoring samples from Parcel C since it began performing fieldwork there in 2023. The November 2024 sample was the only reading with elevated Plutonium-239, the Navy spokesperson told The Times. Plutonium isotopes emit alpha radiation that is relatively benign outside the body, because it cannot travel through solid objects. However, if these radioactive particles are inhaled, they can damage the lungs and increase the long-term risk of developing certain cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “What we generally are concerned about for alpha emitters is if you get them into your body, and either through inhalation, ingestion, inadvertent injection — like somebody gets a cut and it gets into their body,” said Kathryn Higley, a professor of nuclear science at Oregon State University. But it’s the lack of transparency and the 11-month delay in reporting the reading that has fomented community mistrust and raised questions regarding the military’s competency to safely clean up the polluted shipyard. In 2000, the EPA admonished naval officials for neglecting to inform residents that a fire had broken out at a hazardous landfill at Hunters Point. In 2017, two employees of the consulting firm Tetra Tech, who were hired by the Navy to assess radiation levels at Hunters Point, pleaded guilty to falsifying data in an effort to avoid having to perform additional cleanup on some areas of the shipyard. The presence of radioactive air contaminants — at any level — compounds the health risks of the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, which already faces high exposure to toxic diesel particles from big rigs traveling on nearby freeways and cargo ships visiting the Port of San Francisco. Hunters Point Biomonitoring Foundation, a local nonprofit, has found concerning levels of toxic substances in urine screenings it has provided to several residents of the neighborhood, especially among older individuals and those living closer to the former Naval shipyard.“Now, you’re talking about adding one of the most devastating radionuclides known to the human cardiopulmonary system to the chemical burden,” said Dr. Ahmisa Porter Sumchai, the foundation’s medical director and principal investigator. “The particulate load is enough to kill people,” Sumchai added. “But you add ... a little Plutonium-239, and it’s a recipe for death.” Philip, the San Francisco health officer, said in a statement that she met with Navy officials Oct. 31 and received assurances that air and dust monitoring is “ongoing” and that the military agency is “reviewing their duct control methods to ensure they are fully protective of public health.”As a result, “no immediate action is required from a public health safety standpoint,” she said, adding that her office will continue to closely monitor the situation.Other experts argued the situation was overblown. Phil Rutherford, a radiological risk expert and corporate consultant, called the delayed notification “unacceptable” but said the San Francisco health department’s letter was “a storm in a teacup” considering the low levels of radioactive material.Higley, the Oregon State professor, said the site’s long history of delays and scandals likely added to backlash from community members. “I understand [residents’] frustration that they want to see this place cleaned up so that they can safely use it,” Higley said. “And there’s been a lot of reasons for why this process takes so long. But, from a radiological perspective, the actual residual radioactivity at the site is pretty modest.”In November 2024, a Navy contractor was grinding asphalt on the site — a construction project that, while unrelated to the site’s historical contamination, triggered the Navy to monitor for any air quality issues. One of its air samplers, in Parcel C — collected 8.16 times 10‐15 picocuries per milliliter of Plutonium-239 — twice the established action level — according to a Navy spokesperson. Navy officials sent the sample to a lab for analysis, and the initial results came back in March 2025, showing high radiation levels. In April, they ordered the lab to reanalyze the sample. In the follow-up analysis, radiation levels of Plutonium-239 were below action levels.Between May and September, the Navy “further investigated the test results and conducted a methodical review of the laboratory’s procedures and practices to ensure they complied with standards,” according to the Navy spokesperson. “A third party also conducted an analysis of the lab’s performance.”Later that September, the Navy told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and several California state agencies about the elevated airborne radiation from Plutonium-239, in preparation for an upcoming community meeting. That information later trickled down to the San Francisco health department. At some point, the Navy published some air quality data for Parcel C gathered between October and December 2024 on a website where it curates several environmental monitoring reports. That report only showed the lower Plutonium-239 radiation levels from the reanalysis were below the action level.A Navy spokesperson told The Times that it was “mistakenly uploaded.”“As soon as the Navy realized an incomplete report was uploaded, it was removed from the website,” the spokesperson said, while the Navy worked to verify the results. All that has contributed to the confusion and concern among locals and advocates alike. Navy officials are expected to attend a Hunters Point Shipyard Citizens Advisory Committee Meeting on Nov. 17. When fieldwork is occurring at the shipyard, the Navy monitors for Plutonium-239 and several other radioactive elements that may have resulted from historic fallout from atomic weapons testing. Acquired by the Navy in 1940, Hunters Point was initially a base where ships were built, repaired and maintained during World War II. After the war ended, it became home to the Navy Radiological Defense Laboratory, a military research facility dedicated to investigating the effects of nuclear weapons and radiological safety.The Navy bombarded a fleet of U.S. warships with nuclear weapons as a part of atomic testing in the Marshall Islands. The irradiated vessels were towed to Hunters Point, and used as the material and hardware upon which scientists tested decontamination methods. In 1974, the shipyard was deactivated. Hazardous chemicals and low-level radiological contamination were identified, prompting the U.S. EPA to place the site on its Superfund list in 1989. The Navy has led cleanup efforts, excavating contaminated soil and demolishing buildings. A largely residential parcel of the base, Parcel A, was turned over to San Francisco and has been redeveloped with new town houses and condos. A collective of 300 artists live and work in former naval buildings. But dangers continue to emerge during ongoing remediation work. In recent years, the Navy has recovered radioactive objects, including dials and deck markers coated with paint containing Radium isotopes to provide a glow-in-the-dark effect. Sumchai, medical director of the biomonitoring foundation, said she has observed large stockpiles of contaminated soil held in areas without any protective fencing to prevent contaminants from spreading off site. “I view this as a local public health emergency,” Sumchai said. “I think that everything should be done to contain it and to remove people safely, if necessary, from documented areas of exposure.”But to the casual observer the site looks unremarkable.Hunters Point juts out into the San Francisco Bay just north of where Candlestick Park, the former home of the San Francisco 49ers, used to stand. Beyond the abandoned barracks and drydocks, the site is now mostly an empty expanse of grass and reeds, with an unobstructed view of the bay. The cleanup sites, including Parcel C, are still fenced off, and only those with authorized credentials are allowed onto the property.On a recent weekday afternoon, ravens flew and cawed over the long-vacant shipyard buildings, while construction crews and trucks ferried building equipment up and down Hill Drive — a steep road leading to brand new homes standing sentinel over the former shipyard.And beyond waiting for a new batch of Navy reports, there was no way of knowing what’s in the air.

Health
Chemicals
Science

Having children plays a complicated role in the rate we age

The effort of reproducing may divert energy away from repairing DNA or fighting illness, which could drive ageing, but a new study suggests that is only the case when environmental conditions are tough

Some say children keep you young, but it’s complicatedJavier Zayas/Getty Images For millennia, we have tried to understand why we age, with the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle proposing it occurs alongside the gradual drying up of the internal moisture necessary for life. In modern times, a leading idea known as the disposable soma hypothesis suggests that ageing is the price we pay for reproduction, with evolution prioritising the passing on of genes above all else. This creates a fundamental trade-off: the immense energy devoted to having and raising offspring comes at the cost of repairing DNA, fighting off illness and keeping organs in good shape. This may particularly apply to women, who invest more in reproduction than men via pregnancy and breastfeeding. However, when scientists have tested this hypothesis by checking if women with more children live shorter lives, the results have been mixed: some studies support the idea, while others have found no effect. “It is very difficult to disentangle what is just correlation [between having more children and a shorter life] and what is the underlying causation, unless you have a good, big dataset that covers several generations,” says Elisabeth Bolund at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, who wasn’t involved in the study. Euan Young at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and his colleagues hypothesised that the inconsistency between studies exists because the cost of reproduction isn’t fixed – it depends on a mother’s environment. “In good times, this trade-off isn’t really visible. The trade-off only becomes apparent when times are tough,” says Young. To investigate this idea, the researchers analysed the parish records of more than 4500 Finnish women, spanning 250 years. These included the period of the Great Finnish Famine from 1866 to 1868, providing a means to gauge how hard times affect reproduction and longevity, says Young. They found that among the women who lived before or after the famine or who didn’t have children during it, there was no significant association between the number of children they had and their lifespan. However, for the women who did have children during the famine, their life expectancy decreased by six months for every child they had. The study builds on research published last year that used a dataset from a pre-industrial population in Quebec, Canda, monitored over two centuries, which showed this trade-off in mothers who were probably in poor health or under great stress, but didn’t explore how this was affected by specific environmental conditions. In contrast, Young’s team points to a specific, catastrophic event as the driver that exposes the trade-off for mothers. “This very large dataset makes it feasible to account for confounding factors [such as genetics and lifestyle factors],” says Bolund. “The study gets us as close as we can to identifying causation without running a controlled experiment in the lab.” The study also confirms the energetic demands of pregnancy and breastfeeding, which require hundreds of extra calories per day. During a famine, women can’t get this energy from food, so their bodies pay the price, “lowering basal metabolism [the minimum number of calories your body needs to function at a basic level] and thus slowing or shutting down other important functions, resulting in a decline in health and shorter lifespans”, says Young. It also explains why previous studies sometimes found the trade-off only in lower socioeconomic groups, which were effectively always living in relatively resource-scarce environments, he says. According to Bolund, the fact that this trade-off seems to occur in particularly tough circumstances, and when women typically had many children, may partly explain why women generally live longer than men today, with girls born between 2021 and 2023 in the UK expected to live four years longer than their male counterparts. The costs of reproduction are now fairly low in Western societies, where the average number of children women give birth to has reduced considerably over the centuries, says Bolund. As a result, few women today will probably reach the threshold where the cost to their lifetime becomes obvious. Bolund and her colleagues’ research on a historical population in Utah, for instance, found this only appeared when women had more than five children – well below the 1.6 births that the average woman in the US is expected to have in her lifetime. Other environmental factors may therefore become more significant in explaining the lifespan gap between men and women. Men tend to be more likely to smoke than women and also drink more alcohol, which affect lifespan, says Bolund. The current longevity gap between men and women is probably a combination of the latter’s reduced reproductive costs compared with other times in history and lifestyle differences between the sexes. Research also suggests that sex chromosomal differences are involved. “Sexes differ in a multitude of ways, beyond reproductive costs, so we need to conduct more research into how different factors contribute to sex-specific ageing,” says Young.

Energy
Food
Science

Michigan OKs Landmark Regulations That Push Up-Front Costs to Data Centers

Michigan regulators have adopted landmark standards for the booming data center industry with a plan they say tries to protect residents from subsidizing the industry’s hefty energy use

Michigan regulators on Thursday adopted landmark standards for the booming data center industry with a plan they say tries to protect residents from subsidizing the industry’s hefty energy use.In a 3-0 vote, the Michigan Public Service Commission adopted a rate structure that requires data centers and other energy-intensive industries in Consumers Energy’s territory to sign long-term power contracts with steep penalties for exiting early.The order also requires Consumers to show that data centers will shoulder all costs to build transmission lines, substations and other infrastructure before adding them to the grid.Commission Chair Dan Scripps called it a “balanced approach” that shows Michigan is “open for business from data centers and other large load customers, while also leveraging those potential benefits of the growth … in a way that’s good for all customers.”The deal disappointed some environmentalists, who had pushed for explicit requirements that data center power come from renewable sources. Michigan utilities are legally required to achieve 100% clean energy by 2040. They must detail how they plan to meet that requirement in filings next year.“While the order includes important consumer protection terms, the commission missed an opportunity to emphasize the importance of the state’s climate goals,” said Daniel Abrams, an attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center. The rate structure applies to customers whose energy use exceeds 100 megawatts. Data centers are among very few industries that demand that much power. Often, they demand an order of magnitude more.Consumers serves 1.9 million customers across much of the Lower Peninsula. Company spokesperson Matt Johnson said officials are still reviewing Thursday’s order and “its impact on all stakeholders.“Consumers Energy intends to work hard to continue to attract new businesses, including data centers, to Michigan, in a way that benefits everyone and fuels the state’s economic development,” he added.The deal comes amid an uncertain time for the data industry, which is growing fast because of artificial intelligence. Much more energy is needed to power the transformation, but many industry analysts fear rising AI stocks are a bubble and demand for the technology won’t materialize, leaving utilities and ratepayers to pick up the infrastructure tab for failed projects.Hoping to avoid such an outcome, Consumers in February proposed special regulations that would lock data centers into 15-year contracts that guarantee consistent electricity use and require payments even if a facility ceases or downsizes operations mid-contract.The commission’s decision Thursday approves much of that request, with some significant modifications. DTE takes a different approach The other big utility in Michigan, DTE Energy, is taking a different approach.Rather than establishing a blanket rate structure like Consumers, DTE wants to negotiate its first data center contract individually while aiming to avoid public vetting of the deal.Michigan law allows such expedited reviews in cases that would bring no added costs to utility consumers. DTE officials argue adding the Stargate data center to its system will help keep rates down for everyone by spreading fixed costs among more paying customers. “Given the sizable affordability benefits for our customers, as well as the economic impact the project will have, we think moving forward in this fashion makes the most sense,” spokesperson Jill Wilmot said.But DTE officials also stated in its filing that the company expects to spend some $500 million upgrading its transmission system and building a substation to serve the data center. Critics argue the utility is so intentionally vague it is impossible to vet DTE’s claims about affordability.“It’s just highly concerning that they are trying to keep this somewhat private, because there’s so much at stake,” said Bryan Smigielski, a Michigan organizer with the Sierra Club.Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel also opposes DTE’s quest for expedited review, and has requested a thorough vetting of the proposed contract.Members of the Public Service Commission have not decided whether to grant DTE’s request for quick approval, Scripps said.Michigan’s data center electricity rate deliberations come amid a surge of interest from developers looking to take advantage of new tax breaks that could save the industry tens of millions of dollars. Lawmakers last year voted to exempt large data centers from Michigan’s 6% sales and use tax in an effort to lure the industry to Michigan.Beyond the Stargate campus, DTE is in late-stage negotiations for another 3 gigawatts’ worth of data center capacity, while Consumers Energy is nearing deals for three large data centers amounting to a collective 2 gigawatts of power.Developers are also scoping out rural land throughout the southern Lower Peninsula, from the Grand Rapids area to the outskirts of Monroe.The wave of interest could have big implications for water and land use in Michigan. Hyperscale data centers occupy hundreds of acres apiece. Those that use water vapor to cool the servers inside the facilities — the industry’s most common cooling technique — also use large amounts of water.This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan 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 – Oct. 2025

Energy
Business
Land Use

Iguanas Are Native, Not Invasive, on This Mexican Island, DNA Study Suggests, Rewriting Conservation Ideas

The spiny-tailed iguanas of Clarion Island predate human presence in the Americas by tens of thousands of years, researchers say

Iguanas Are Native, Not Invasive, on This Mexican Island, DNA Study Suggests, Rewriting Conservation Ideas The spiny-tailed iguanas of Clarion Island predate human presence in the Americas by tens of thousands of years, researchers say Sara Hashemi - Daily Correspondent November 7, 2025 1:39 p.m. A spiny-tailed iguana on Clarion Island Daniel Mulcahy The spiny-tailed iguanas on Mexico’s Clarion Island were long thought to have been introduced by humans. But a study published this October in the journal Ecology and Evolution turns that idea on its head. It suggests the lizards predate humans in the Americas—and that they are an endemic, not invasive, species. Clarion Island, the oldest on the remote Revillagigedo Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, was once covered in prickly-pear cactuses that made it almost impenetrable without a machete, per a statement. That all changed in the 1970s, when the Mexican military set up a base on the island and introduced sheep, pigs and rabbits that ate most of the vegetation. Biologists also assumed the iguanas were introduced by military personnel, because previous surveys of the island had not recorded them. “It was all speculative that they were introduced—no one ever tested it,” Daniel Mulcahy, an evolutionary biologist at the Museum of Natural History in Berlin and the study’s first author, tells the New York Times. Fun fact: Clarion’s unique wildlife Iguanas aren’t the only animals endemic to Clarion Island: It’s home to unique birds, snakes and lizards. It also was once the habitat of the Townsend’s shearwater (Puffinus auricularis), a rare seabird that had its nesting sites decimated by the island’s invasive mammals. The bird is now considered “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with just 250 to 999 thought to still live in the wild worldwide, according to a 2018 assessment. Mulcahy tells the outlet that he collected DNA from the iguanas while on a Smithsonian Institution research trip to study snakes more than a decade ago. The DNA materials from the island iguanas didn’t seem to match those of iguanas from the mainland. But he didn’t think to publish those results until a colleague told him the Mexican government planned to exterminate the lizards under the belief that they’re invasive and harming the local ecosystem, he tells the Times. The result was his new study, which compared the mitochondrial DNA of island and mainland iguanas and found that they are genetically distinct from each other. The researchers’ evolutionary analysis found that the two populations likely diverged some 425,000 years ago. Humans, on the other hand, only crossed the Bering Land Bridge to the Americas roughly 15,000 to 25,000 years ago. As such, the island’s iguanas “substantially predate not only the establishment of the navy base on Clarion Island but also human colonization of the Americas,” the researchers write in the paper. This finding, they add, suggests the iguanas dispersed naturally over water—likely on a mat of floating vegetation—to make their way to the island. But that raises another question: How did the Clarion iguanas go unnoticed for so long? The study authors suggest the reptiles probably remained hidden because of the dense vegetation that once covered the island, allowing the skittish animals to hide. The iguanas tend to run away from humans, hiding in rock crevices or burrows. “We posit that the iguanas on Clarion Island were historically elusive and that recent alterations to the vegetation have made them more conspicuous,” they write in the study. Though pigs and sheep have now been eradicated from the island, they write, rabbits remain. So does the environmental destruction wrought by the invasive species, which “significantly altered” the island’s native plants. “This type of work is fundamental to conserving some of the world’s most unique and imperiled diversity,” Rayna Bell, an evolutionary biologist at the California Academy of Sciences who was not involved with the study, tells the New York Times. The study could have important implications for future conservation plans on the island, now that iguanas can be considered native wildlife. The researchers hope their findings bring an end to Clarion Island’s ongoing iguana eradication efforts. “This research fundamentally changes how we view Clarion’s ecology,” the team says to Rob Hutchins at Oceanographic magazine. “The spiny-tailed iguana is not an invader—it’s a survivor.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Conservation
Animals
Nature

Birding’s Tragic Blind Spot

Humans love to watch birds in nature. So why do we ignore the lives of the birds destined for our plates? The post Birding’s Tragic Blind Spot appeared first on The Revelator.

Birding is having a moment.  According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there are more than 90 million birders in this country, making birding one of the most popular recreational activities, second only to walking. Bookstores have embraced this, with recently bestselling bird memoirs by authors Amy Tan and Margaret Renkl, as well as actor Lili Taylor. I too am a birder, though one troubled by a blind spot I see in too many of my fellow enthusiasts. Perhaps this blind spot is a side effect of looking at the world through binoculars. We spend so much time focused on distant birds that we don’t always see the birds closest to us. Like the birds on our plates. Consider the chicken. Globally, more than 80 billion chickens are killed each year, a number so big it borders on the unimaginable. I’ll break it down this way: By the time you finish reading this essay, nearly 18 million birds will have perished. Most chickens never see the sky, never set foot on planet Earth. They are born under artificial lights and die under artificial lights six horrific weeks later. Cage-free chickens may experience a bit more room and possibly a bit of sunshine, but the end result is equally dismal. A few chickens survive. Some are rescued (or stolen, depending on your perspective) from animal warehouses. (And yes, warehouse is a more appropriate term than farm.) In case you’re doubting how these birds differ from the ones we seek and celebrate, you might want to meet a few of them. Odds are, you’ll find an animal sanctuary near you — check the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries website for a list.  Perhaps you’re near the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary in High Falls, New York, where you can meet Peppermint, rescued from a live kill market, or The Iowa Survivors, 10 of the more than 1,400 chickens collectively saved when an egg facility in Iowa was preparing to kill 140,000 chickens during the darkest days of COVID. On my side of the country, at Tikkun Olam Sanctuary in Southern Oregon, you can meet Scissors, a bird born with a crossed beak, a genetic condition that makes it nearly impossible for her to eat like the other birds — a death sentence nearly anywhere but at a sanctuary. And if you hold Scissors in your arms as I have (she loves to be held), you might wonder how such a beautiful bird can be viewed by so many as disposable. If she hadn’t found her home at the sanctuary, she wouldn’t be alive today, deemed too much trouble to feed in reward for her eggs. As for turkeys, the United States has a national holiday to blame for the more than 200 million turkey deaths each year. And even ducks, for whom we happily make way in Boston, died to the tune of 28 million in 2024. How do we remove these birding blind spots? The first step is to acknowledge that all birds have equal value, including those we eat and those we may consider pests (such as starlings and pigeons). A bird’s relative scarcity on this planet need not be a prerequisite of its perceived value. Similarly, just because a bird species is in no danger of extinction does not make it any less valuable. Second, I encourage birders to reconsider the food on their plates. This may seem a tall ask; I too once devoured chicken wings and nuggets. But I can state now that the plant-based alternatives are just as good and carry none of that guilty aftertaste. There are also many environmental benefits to giving up chicken: chicken manure’s nitrous oxide emissions are a major contributor to global warming, and the nitrogen itself ends up in waterways, resulting in dead zones and countless numbers of dead fish. And then there’s this: If every birder in the United States gave up eating chicken, more than 2 billion chickens would be spared this year alone. In a world where we often feel powerless against the wanton destruction of environmental protections, we still have immense power at our disposal simply by changing the way we eat. Third, I urge birding, bird conservation, and bird-science organizations to explicitly support the protection of all birds. For instance, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has never officially opposed the eating of chicken, turkeys, or duck, nor has The Audubon Society. They understandably don’t want to make their members uncomfortable, yet it seems curious to bemoan the loss of so many bird species, as they do, when the number of chickens slaughtered each year outnumbers all of the wild birds on this planet. Birders are precisely the humans birds need as advocates: those who care about them and care about this planet.  A chicken, a duck, a turkey: Each is as much a bird as Flaco the owl. And no less deserving of protection. So the next time you think about going birding, consider a detour to a local sanctuary. The chickens would love to have a word. And you can leave your binoculars at home. Previously in The Revelator: Bird Bias? New Research Reveals ‘Drab’ Species Get…Less Research The post Birding’s Tragic Blind Spot appeared first on The Revelator.

Animals
Conservation
Extinction

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