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Toilet to tap: El Paso is about to embark on a whole new way to save its limited water supply

El Paso’s dry climate — it rains just 9 inches annually — is one of the reasons the city has taken water management so seriously.

Subscribe to The Y’all — a weekly dispatch about the people, places and policies defining Texas, produced by Texas Tribune journalists living in communities across the state. This article is part of Running Out, an occasional series about Texas’ water crisis. Read more stories about the threats facing Texas’ water supply here. EL PASO — It all starts with a flush of a toilet. Wastewater travels underground through this arid city’s pipes to a wastewater treatment facility where it goes through multiple treatment steps to filter out contaminants. The next step is purification. Membranes filter out contaminants at high pressure. Ultraviolet light and chlorine disinfect the water. A dash of minerals is added. The end result? Clean drinking water. Behind this effort is El Paso Water, the utility that serves 220,000 homes, businesses and government agencies in far West Texas. The Pure Water Center, which is expected to be fully operational in 2028, is the agency's latest attempt to use every drop of water and make it drinkable — a solution the city sees as essential for its future. El Paso has become a national leader in water innovation — pioneering brackish groundwater desalination, wastewater reuse, and aggressive conservation efforts, according to water experts. Now, it's taking another step forward. This advanced water purification system will deliver 10 million gallons daily in a city that used roughly 105 million gallons per day last year. Some say it will be the first direct potable reuse, or “toilet-to-tap” facility in the country. Inside a primary clarifier, resembling petri-dish tanks, heavy solids and grease sink to the bottom and machines skim off particles at the top at the Roberto Bustamante Wastewater Treatment Plant in El Paso. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune Left: Sewage sludge from the Roberto Bustamante Wastewater Treatment Plant is dewatered before being trucked to and disposed of in open fields. Right: Treated water leaves the plant to be reused for irrigation in El Paso. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune Other cities have reused wastewater for drinking, including Big Springs. However, they send it to a reservoir or river where it blends with surface water and then treat it again before it reaches taps. El Paso’s facility will be the first to send purified water straight into the distribution system — pipe to pipe. Gilbert Trejo, vice president of operations and technical services at El Paso Water, said the utility gained public support and eased the “ick factor” by educating residents on how the project maximizes the city’s existing water supply. Related Story March 13, 2025 “A lot of cities pay money to bring water to their community through reservoirs or investing in water importation. We owe it to our customers to develop our current water,” Trejo said. As Texas faces mounting water challenges, with lawmakers searching for solutions to an impending water crisis — including transporting water from water-rich areas to dry ones through pipelines — some water experts say El Paso's approach could serve as a blueprint for other cities, especially those in West Texas, where communities get little to no rain and have limited water resources to tap into. El Paso, a city of nearly 679,000 people, occupies a unique geographic and hydrological position. Nestled in the far western corner of Texas, it sits at the headwaters of the Rio Grande within the state, where the river first enters Texas after flowing through Colorado and New Mexico. Just across the U.S. border lies Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a city of about 1.5 million, and to the northwest the state of New Mexico. El Paso’s water challenges are deeply interconnected with its neighbors, making water management a complex balancing act between three governments and multiple agencies. Like much of the state, El Paso relies on two main water sources: groundwater from its aquifers and surface water. The city’s two underground aquifers, the Hueco Bolson and Mesilla Bolson supply about 55% of the city’s water supply. While the Rio Grande, fed by snowmelt from Colorado and stored in New Mexico’s Elephant Butte Reservoir before being released downstream to farmers and cities, supplies about 40% (in a year without drought). Both supplies are shrinking and becoming increasingly unreliable. Latest in the series: Running Out: Texas’ Water Crisis Loading content … Experts warn that this freshwater supply may only last a few more decades at current usage rates. Elephant Butte is at historic lows, sometimes holding just 6% of its capacity. The city’s surface water allotment, which last year was from March to October, is predicted to dwindle to about eight weeks this year. This has city leaders juggling as they determine how much water to suck out of its aquifers. While some border towns are just now beginning to face severe water constraints, El Paso has been grappling with that for decades. Unlike other parts of Texas, where massive reservoirs were built after the devastating drought of the 1950s to store rainwater for dry years, El Paso’s dry climate — where annual rainfall averages less than 9 inches — reservoirs have never been a viable option for El Paso. The Rio Grande supplies about 40% of El Paso’s water supply. Experts worry that freshwater supply will only last a few more decades at current usage rates. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune Shane Walker, director of the Water and the Environment Research Center at Texas Tech University said El Paso has become one of the most progressive water utilities in the country. “They're always thinking ahead. They're thinking 50 years or even 100 years down the road,” Walker said. “There are so many other water utilities that benefit from El Paso Water leadership because they're willing to to spend the extra work to figure things out the first time.” El Paso became a leader out of need Inside the utility’s water center, or TecH2O, there’s a timeline of the city’s water history. A black and white photo from 1892 shows the city’s first water supply plant — a small building and water pipe bursting with water flowing into a canal. In the early 1900s, the city relied almost entirely on groundwater from the Hueco and Mesilla Bolsons. As the population grew, city leaders recognized that groundwater alone wouldn’t be enough. In the 1920s, the Rio Grande Project was developed to manage and distribute river water each year for irrigation. Again, there was still not enough. El Paso’s pioneering efforts in water reuse began in the 1960s, when the city started using treated wastewater for irrigation. By the 1980s, the Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant was treating wastewater to drinking water standards using ozone disinfection — one of the earliest examples of advanced water reclamation in the country. That treated wastewater was used to replenish the aquifer. (Today it’s sold to El Paso Electric Company for cooling towers, and used to water a golf course, parks and a cemetery in the city.) In the 1990s, El Paso expanded its recycled water program with a purple pipe system that delivered treated wastewater for irrigation and industrial use. Within that same decade, the city also launched conservation rebate and incentive programs, including a toilet rebate program that offered a $50 rebate per toilet, up to two toilets per household, for customers who purchase water-efficient toilets that use 1.28 gallons per flush, as opposed to older toilets that use as much as six gallons per flush. “This time was a massive change in the way people thought about water and used water,” said Jennifer Barr, the utility's water conservation manager. As the city’s water challenges intensified, El Paso continued to diversify its water portfolio. In 2007, it opened the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant, a large inland desalination facility capable of producing at max capacity 27.5 million gallons of fresh water daily from brackish groundwater. The city has also embraced aquifer recharge, storing treated water underground for future use. It also reuses treated wastewater for irrigation or to replenish and maintain the Rio Bosque Wetlands, a 372-acre nature preserve located near the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande. Jennifer Barr, TecH20 Center’s water conservation manager, says the center hosts educational field trips for students where they learn about how to reduce their water consumption. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune Left: An exhibit depicting the water reclamation in El Paso at the TecH20 conference and learning center. Right: Painted Dunes Desert Golf Course receives water treated by the Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Plant. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune The city has also secured additional water rights from nearby Dell City. However, treating and transporting the water 90 miles to the city will be expensive. The water from the city would need to be desalinated. Since the 1990s, the utility has delivered more than 180,000 acre-feet of recycled water for irrigation and industrial use, helping to reduce the amount of groundwater pumped from aquifers. That’s enough to supply water to 1 million Texans for a year. Recycled water — 80,000 acre feet — has also been used to recharge the Hueco Bolson Aquifer. Meanwhile, the city's conservation programs have cut water use by 40% since the 1970s. Without these efforts, the utility estimates it would need to produce an additional 35,000 acre-feet of water each year to meet current demand. Although the city has a drought contingency plan in place to manage water shortages, it hasn’t implemented mandatory water restrictions since 2003 — when a severe river drought forced residents to limit outdoor watering to once a week. What can the state learn from these water leaders? Generations of El Pasoans have developed what Trejo, with the water utility, calls a “high water IQ,” shaped by constant drought and the unpredictable Rio Grande. Many grew up with the utility’s smiling mascot, Willie the Waterdrop, which some residents remember from when they were young. “The generation that grew up having to be very water conscious are now the adults in the room,” Trejo said, which he sees as an opportunity. This long-standing awareness helped El Paso gain public acceptance for its new toilet-to-tap project. More than a decade ago, El Paso Water launched an outreach campaign, training employees to deliver a clear, informative pitch. They put together a 30-minute presentation that walked residents through the city’s history of water reuse, explained why the next step was necessary, and broke down the advanced treatment process. Over the course of a year, the utility visited 30 community organizations, including neighborhood associations, rotary clubs, and news media outlets. The discussions weren’t one-on-one but held in group settings, where residents could ask questions and voice concerns. The timing helped. The region was just coming off the severe 2013 drought when El Paso had only six weeks of surface water left and had to ask residents to cut back. That fresh memory underscored the need to prepare for the future, according to the utility’s spokesperson. The Pure Water Center broke ground earlier this year and may be the nation's first direct potable use system or "toilet-to-tap" facility. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune The utility’s message was simple: “toilet-to-tap” was a logical next step. By the time the project moved forward, the groundwork had already been laid for community buy-in. An initial survey in 2013 showed 84% of residents approved the concept — proof, Trejo says, that years of public education paid off. While “toilet-to-tap” may sound unappealing, utility experts emphasize that advanced treatment removes pharmaceuticals, forever chemicals and other contaminants, with multiple safeguards built in. The water from the resident's sink, shower or toilet is so thoroughly purified that minerals are added back for taste. The state’s environmental regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, authorized El Paso Water to begin construction of the advanced purification facility in October 2024. The utility broke ground earlier this year. As water supplies dwindle nationwide, other cities are watching. Two Arizona cities are already exploring similar systems. “When you're the first one to do something novel and unique, it's a pain in the butt,” Robert Mace, executive director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, said. “But once that first entity goes through and figures it all out, it becomes easier for everyone else.” El Paso isn’t the first Texas city to attempt direct potable reuse. Big Spring in West Texas became the first in the U.S. to treat wastewater for drinking in 2013, blending the purified water with raw water before sending it to a treatment plant. Wichita Falls implemented a temporary system during a severe drought in 2014. Several other Texas cities, including San Marcos, Buda, and Marble Falls, are looking to implement direct reuse projects as part of their water supply planning for the future, according to Mace. Trejo says this approach offers a smarter alternative to expensive new reservoirs or water pipelines. Gilbert Trejo, vice president of operations and technical services at El Paso Water, stands in front of 72 RO membranes at the Kay Bailey Desalination Plant in El Paso. The membranes clean salty water and make it drinkable. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune Left: El Paso Water's mascot, Willie the Waterdrop, stands behind a stack of applications offering cash to residents who replace their toilets with high efficiency models. Right: Jessiel Acosta tests the water hardness of the raw water feeding into the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination Plant. Credit: Justin Hamel for The Texas Tribune “Everything is about recycling — except water? If we’re investing in desalination, why not reuse what we already have?” he said. At a state level, Trejo said he is disappointed that water recycling is not more part of the water strategy discussions at the Capitol. Lawmakers are expected to pledge billions of dollars to save the state’s water supply. Most of the conversation has been around what water experts call “new water supply.” That includes desalination or the process of removing salt from seawater or brackish groundwater to make the water drinkable. Another strategy: constructing pipelines to transport water from the water-rich regions of Texas to arid, drought-stricken areas. Some worry that other water strategies, like what El Paso is doing, will get left out of the funding. “Communities will need to have funding,” Trejo said. “If the state is not going to include water recycling in the discussion, it will affect us greatly.” The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation awarded El Paso $3.5 million in 2019 for the facility’s design. It later committed an additional $20 million in 2022 to support construction. The total project cost is currently estimated at $295 million. The utility says it continues to pursue additional state and federal funding. According to recommendations in the state water plan, Texas could rely on direct potable reuse for 62,000 acre-feet per year by 2070 — enough to supply 372,000 people annually. The money is important. But it won’t solve every crisis. El Paso has approached water management with preparation rather than panic. That steady, forward-looking mindset has helped build the trust with the public needed to take bold steps driven by vision, not desperation. Trejo’s advice to other utilities: Start preparing now. Disclosure: El Paso Electric Company and Texas Tech University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. Tickets are on sale now for the 15th annual Texas Tribune Festival, Texas’ breakout ideas and politics event happening Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Get tickets before May 1 and save big! TribFest 2025 is presented by JPMorganChase.

Water
Climate
Chemicals

Oops, we accidentally drugged the world’s fish

For those of us with anxiety (hello!), the class of prescription drugs known as benzodiazepines, or benzos, can be a boon in times of crisis. Though they are addictive, they’re pretty good at chilling us out.  But it turns out that by drugging ourselves with these pills, we are inadvertently drugging wild animals as well. […]

Michelangeli, a study coauthor, releases young salmon into the river as part of the experiment. | Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images For those of us with anxiety (hello!), the class of prescription drugs known as benzodiazepines, or benzos, can be a boon in times of crisis. Though they are addictive, they’re pretty good at chilling us out.  But it turns out that by drugging ourselves with these pills, we are inadvertently drugging wild animals as well. Especially the ones that live in water.  Our bodies don’t absorb 100 percent of the drugs we ingest, so traces of them end up in the toilet. And because sewage treatment plants usually can’t filter them all out, those compounds ultimately end up where treated sewage is released — in rivers, lakes, and coastal habitats.  This means that fish and other aquatic critters that live in these environments are, for better or worse, exposed to our meds. Basically fish are on drugs — our drugs. What, exactly, does that mean for wildlife? That’s what a relatively new field of research is trying to figure out. And a study just published in the journal Science offers some compelling clues.  The authors gave young Atlantic salmon in Sweden a dose of clobazam — a benzo used to treat seizures and anxiety that’s often found in wastewater — equal to what some fish might naturally be exposed to in streams. Then they monitored what the drug did to the fish as they migrated, as young salmon do, from a river out to the Baltic Sea.  Remarkably, the study found that more of the salmon on benzos made it out to sea than those that were drug-free, perhaps because they were more likely to survive the journey. The clobazam fish also passed through obstacles along the way — two hydropower dams — at a faster clip.  These results highlight a strange irony: Humans have made the world more stressful for all kinds of animals by, for example, destroying their habitat and damming up rivers. At the same time, we’re flooding the environment with mood-changing meds. Is that somehow helping them cope?  Our meds are their meds Pretty much everywhere scientists look for drugs in the water, they find them. Caffeine. Metformin. Antidepressants. Antibiotics. Birth control. Tylenol. Basically, if we use a lot of them, they’re part of aquatic habitats.  Thankfully, they appear in low enough doses that if you, say, chug a glass of river water those chemicals are not likely to affect you (again, for better or worse). Most fish, however, are much smaller. And previous research shows that these micro-doses can influence them in serious ways. A seminal 2007 study, for example, showed that small amounts of synthetic estrogen — a common ingredient in birth control that often makes its way into the environment — can “feminize” male minnows. This means they can produce early-stage eggs in their testes, essentially becoming intersex. That ultimately impairs their ability to mate and can, as the study showed, cause fish populations to collapse.  Researchers have also shown that male fish exposed to estrogen struggle to build nests and put on courtship displays for females. Trace levels of antidepressants, like fluoxetine (Prozac) and sertraline (Zoloft) affect fish behavior, too — sometimes in bizarre ways. I came across one study linking fluoxetine exposure to larger “gonopodium” size. That’s basically a fish penis. The drug can also “increase male coercive mating behavior,” the authors wrote.  A study on sertraline, meanwhile, suggests the drug can make fish less anxious and more likely to take risks and explore. Some research on the benzo oxazepam has similarly been shown to make fish bolder.   Oh, and I also found some interesting experiments with metformin, which is used to treat Type 2 diabetes and thus one of the most widespread drugs in wastewater. A 2018 paper suggests that when Siamese fighting fish — like the betta fish you can buy at pet stores — are exposed to levels of metformin that have been found in the environment, they become less aggressive. Fighting fish, fighting less! “Subjects exhibited less aggression toward a male dummy stimulus,” the authors wrote.  Over the last two decades scientists have turned up plenty of evidence that drugs in our wastewater alter the lives and behavior of fish (and some other animals). The problem is that most of these studies are done in labs, in fish tanks, and not in the wild. So they don’t tell us much about what this means for animals in the real world, many of which are threatened with extinction, including some populations of Atlantic salmon.   That’s what makes this new study so useful — and frankly, impressive.  More drugged salmon make it out to sea Atlantic salmon, if I may say, live remarkable lives. They’re born in freshwater streams and then, as young, go through a number of physical transformations before migrating to the salty ocean in a process that can cover thousands of miles. After living their lives at sea for a year or more, they’ll swim back up river — typically in the same river they were born in, relying on some magical-sounding navigation skills — to have babies and produce the next salmon generation.  Even in historic times, this life was probably stressful. All that travel. Swimming through rivers full of predators. Yikes! Humans have only made it harder. We’ve installed dams that fish have to navigate; there are more than 7,600 dams in Sweden alone. We’ve heated up the ocean and streams, which can deprive salmon of oxygen. We fish the hell out of them. And of course, we’ve polluted their habitat.  Key, here, is that some of that pollution consists of drugs specifically designed to make humans less anxious. Authors of the new study wanted to figure out whether they might have a related effect on fish — and, importantly, what that means for their arduous journey.  The researchers’ methods were somewhat bizarre: They collected dozens of young wild salmon from a hatchery along the Dalälven, a river in Sweden, and inserted medical implants into their flesh. Some of those implants slowly released drugs — including the benzo clobazam — at a level akin to what they might be exposed to in the wild. (The researchers didn’t detect clobazam in this particular river.) Other implants were essentially placebos, meaning they didn’t release anything.  The team also performed surgeries on the fish to insert miniature devices that emit sound; those sounds can be picked up by underwater microphones that were placed along the river to track each individual fish. (How do you do surgery on a fish? You sedate it and run water over their gills while you’re operating.) Then they released the fish back into the river — which has two hydropower dams downstream — and tracked their journey to sea.  As they discovered, the fish drugged with clobazam were more likely to make it to sea compared to those that were drug-free. It’s likely that more of the undrugged salmon died on their journey or were otherwise slowed down, said Jack Brand, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.  This might be because the benzos made the fish less social — less likely to school in the face of predators — and more likely to take risks, he said. Those traits can be helpful for navigating downstream. Solitary fish tend to move faster, Brand told me. And with benzos in their system, they may be less afraid to swim through a dam.  “These drugs can be used in humans as anti-stress drugs,” Brand said. “You can imagine passing through a hydropower dam — these are big dams with big turbines — is a fairly stressful event for a small fish. And usually what you find is that lots of predators hang around these areas. Maybe it’s helping the fish recover from stress faster.” Outside experts I talked to mostly agree with his interpretation — that the clobazam likely made the fish less risk-averse. “It probably was because they were more bold than the other fish, which were kind of shy and hanging together,” said James Meador, an affiliate professor at the University of Washington who has spent years studying how pollutants affect fish. He was not involved with the research. “Even in the presence of predators, I guess they really weren’t too concerned.”  This is pretty wild to think about. When these fish encounter stressful situations, trace levels of human anti-anxiety medications — which are, to be clear, pollution — may be sort of chilling them out. So, drugs: good?  Are drugged salmon better off?  At face value, it seems like a little dose of clobazam can help these fish out with their stressful lives, not unlike it may do for some of us. But, as I was told, that is very clearly the wrong takeaway.  “We think that any changes to natural behavior are likely to have potential negative consequences,” Brand said. Such as?  Fish on clobazam are less likely to school, or group together, which is an anti-predator response. So even though they appear better at navigating the river — and less likely to be eaten during their seaward migration — it’s possible that they may be more prone to getting killed at sea. We just don’t know. (Some past research shows that young salmon exposed to a much higher dose of a different benzo — oxazepam — were more likely to be eaten by predators during their downstream migration.) “The definition of pollution is that it causes harm,” said Karen Kidd, an ecotoxicologist at McMaster University in Canada who was not involved in the new Science study. “There are still many unknowns, such as whether it influences their survival in the ocean or their ability to return to spawn in the river as adults.” In other words, while it’s not clear exactly how clobazam is shaping salmon populations, it is influencing the complex behavior of a species — and its relationships in a food web balanced by millennia. That alone is cause for concern: It’s another way we’re messing with nature. And clobazam is just one of the thousands of prescription drugs worldwide.  That leads me to the last point: We’re pumping out more and more chemicals every year and scientists still don’t understand how most of them — there are tens if not hundreds of thousands — affect the natural world.  “If society values clean water, then we need to understand the consequences of chemicals that we put in the natural world,” said Bryan Brooks, an environmental scientist at Baylor University, who was not involved with the new research. The bottom line, he added, is that “if we put stuff in the environment, we need to understand what happens to it.” Today roughly a quarter of freshwater wildlife is in decline and at risk of extinction. Most of the threats they face are visible — dams, the destruction of habitat, invasive species. Our drugs are almost certainly another serious threat, though it’s one we can’t see and poorly understood. “Pharmaceutical pollution, or chemical pollution in general, is really this invisible agent of global change,” Brand said. “It’s probably posing a greater risk than at least what the public acknowledges. This is a potentially significant threat to our aquatic wildlife.”

Animals
Crisis
Extinction

Greenpeace Activists Arrested in London After Red Dye Poured Into US Embassy Pond

Six people have been arrested in London after environmental activists from Greenpeace poured 300 liters (79 gallons) of blood-red dye into the U.S. embassy’s pond in protest against arms sales to Israel

LONDON (AP) — Police in London arrested six people on Thursday after environmental activists from Greenpeace poured 300 liters (79 gallons) of blood-red dye into a pond in front of the U.S. Embassy in a protest against arms sales to Israel.The Metropolitan Police said the six people had been arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and conspiracy to cause criminal damage. It added that there was “no breach or attempted breach of the secure perimeter” of the embassy building, as the pond was accessible via a public footpath.Greenpeace U.K. said 12 of its activists tipped “non-toxic, biodegradable dye from containers emblazoned with the words Stop Arming Israel” into the pond.In a statement, the independent global campaigning network said its U.K. co-executive director, Will McCallum, was among those arrested after the protest, which was aimed at highlighting "the death and devastation caused in Gaza as a direct result of the U.S.’s continued sale of weapons to Israel.”It said the containers of dye were delivered to the embassy on bicycles with trailers disguised as delivery bikes.The embassy said the protest had “damaged a 1.5 million gallon (4.5 million liters) water supply on the property, wasting a local environmental resource."Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Activism
Water

Company Says Thousands of Gallons of Oil Have Been Recovered From a Pipeline Spill in North Dakota

Workers have recovered thousands of gallons of crude oil from an underground pipeline spill on North Dakota farmland

South Bow is still investigating the cause of the spill Tuesday along its pipeline near Fort Ransom, North Dakota, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Fargo, the company said.The spill released an estimated 3,500 barrels, or 147,000 gallons of oil, onto farmland. The company said 700 barrels, or 29,400 gallons, have been recovered so far. More than 200 workers are on-site as part of the cleanup and investigation. South Bow has not set a timeline for restarting the 2,689-mile (4,327 kilometers) pipeline, which stretches from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas. The company said it “will only resume service with regulator approvals.”South Bow is working with the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the state Department of Environmental Quality.Continuous monitoring of air quality hasn't indicated any adverse health or public concerns, South Bow said.The site remains busy, said Myron Hammer, a nearby landowner who farms the land affected by the spill. Workers have been bringing in mats to the field so equipment can access the site, and lots of equipment is being assembled, he said.The area has traffic checkpoints, and workers have been hauling gravel to maintain the roads, Hammer said.There is a cluster of homes in the area, and residents include retirees and people who work in nearby towns, he said. But the spill site is not in a heavily populated area, Hammer said.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Health

Maryland’s sweeping new energy legislation is a mixed bag for climate

Maryland just passed a raft of energy legislation designed to curb rising utility bills and boost in-state power generation. The reaction from climate advocates was mixed. On the one hand, advocates lauded steps to limit gas infrastructure investments, streamline the community solar build-out, install more battery…

Maryland just passed a raft of energy legislation designed to curb rising utility bills and boost in-state power generation. The reaction from climate advocates was mixed. On the one hand, advocates lauded steps to limit gas infrastructure investments, streamline the community solar build-out, install more battery storage, and remove renewable-energy subsidies for trash incinerators. But they’re also wary of recently passed legislation that expedites new gas and nuclear power plants. Environmental groups had pushed back on those measures, arguing the energy sources could raise costs for consumers and run counter to the state’s ambitious climate goals. The policies accomplished ​“some really good things for lowering bills and protecting ratepayers, but we’re going to have to watch the implementation very closely to ensure that this keeps us in line with climate goals,” said Brittany Baker, Maryland director at the nonprofit Chesapeake Climate Action Network. The three energy bills passed Monday are now headed to Democratic Gov. Wes Moore’s desk for signing. The largest is the Next Generation Energy Act, which cobbled together provisions from various bills introduced throughout the legislative session — many of which take steps to reduce carbon emissions and lower residential energy bills, clean energy advocates said. For one, the bill sets up a process for the state to install up to 1.75 gigawatts of battery storage and disqualifies waste-to-energy plants from receiving subsidies through the state’s renewable portfolio standard. A separate bill will accelerate community solar development and limit the ability of local governments to block certain solar projects. Lawmakers also took historic action to rein in utility rate hikes and protect ratepayers. Last year, a report by the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel found that growing gas and electric bills were largely driven by multiyear rate hikes and a 2013 state law that allows gas utilities to recoup pipeline-replacement costs up front through a monthly surcharge on bills. That law ​“created a financial incentive to replace gas lines,” said Susan Stevens Miller, senior attorney at the nonprofit Earthjustice. ​“Sadly, it created too much of an incentive,” causing utilities to replace pipelines unnecessarily to earn the guaranteed return on their investment. The Next Generation Energy Act takes aim at both issues by requiring gas companies to demonstrate ​“customer benefits” and cost-effectiveness when spending on pipelines under the 2013 law, and setting stricter standards for utility regulators to approve multiyear rate plans. The legislation also prohibits utilities from charging customers for membership dues to trade associations that engage in lobbying, like the American Gas Association and Edison Electric Institute, and for private jets. Maryland joins a growing wave of states that have introduced laws to prevent utilities from recovering lobbying costs and luxury expenses from customers. Overall, these protections ​“will save Marylanders hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Emily Scarr, senior advisor at the Maryland Public Interest Research Group, in a statement.

Climate
Energy
Waste

Hawaii Lawmakers Wrangle HECO Rescue Bills as Session Deadline Looms

Hawaiian Electric Co. is making a final legislative push this month, asking lawmakers to help shore up its financial foundation, which crumbled after the 2023 Maui wildfire that killed 102 people and destroyed much of Lahaina

Hawaiian Electric Co. is making a final legislative push this month, asking lawmakers to help shore up its financial foundation, which crumbled after the 2023 Maui wildfire that killed 102 people and destroyed much of Lahaina.HECO and its parent company, which were found to have started the Lahaina fire, have made enormous progress since the August 2023 catastrophe. Most notably HECO settled lawsuits brought by more than 2,000 fire victims as part of a global settlement brokered by Gov. Josh Green and blessed by the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court in February.HECO says it still needs the Legislature’s help, chiefly in the form of protection from future wildfire lawsuits, in the hopes such a measure can help boost the company’s credit rating. The provision limiting the utility’s liability is now the most important piece of a wildfire mitigation bill that has gone through various iterations this session, said Jim Kelly, HECO’s vice president for government and community relations and corporate communications.Bond rating agencies slashed the credit rating of HECO’s parent, Hawaiian Electric Industries, after the fires, meaning the company must pay high interest rates to borrow money. What Hawaiʻi lawmakers do, Kelly said, will send a message to credit markets, which have seen 14 other western states limit wildfire liability for utilities, including Utah, Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Arizona and New Mexico.“It sends a really strong signal to credit markets that are watching this closely,” Kelly said.If the utility’s bill can’t muster the needed votes, he said, “that raises questions about how much support there is for the local hometown utility.”The Senate has formally disagreed with House amendments to the wildfire mitigation bill, meaning lawmakers must work out differences during conference committee hearings.Meanwhile, Senate committees amended a House bill to establish a fund to pay the state’s portion of a $4 billion global settlement. If the House disagrees with the amendments, those differences also will have to be worked out in a conference committee including members of both chambers before the session ends May 2. Bill Gains Unlikely Advocate The wildfire bill originally called for setting up a wildfire recovery fund, a sort of self-insurance fund HECO could use to pay future wildfire claims. The $1 billion fund was to be financed with a new fee imposed on customers that could be used to secure loans. The bill also contained a limitation on liability.But lawmakers changed much of that over the course of the session.The latest version of the bill would also create a fund; however, it would be used not for insurance but rather to pay for utility infrastructure investments to mitigate wildfire risks. That fund also would be financed with a new fee on customers. The bill would also limit liability the utility could face up to $1 billion.The idea of imposing a new fee on utility customers has generated some opposition, most notably from the Hawaiʻi Regional Council of Carpenters. But even long-time antagonists of the utility company say the current bill creates a good deal for customers. Among the unlikely supporters is Henry Curtis, vice president of the activist group Life of the Land, who frequently faces off against HECO in cases before the Hawaiʻi Public Utilities Commission. A loan secured by a fee on customers carries a much lower interest rate than other types of loans, which would be passed on to customers through utility rates anyway, Curtis said.The PUC would help ensure that any such loan carried the lowest possible interest rate, said Curtis, who has testified in favor of the bill. Other supporters include the Chamber of Commerce Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau, Ulupono Initiative and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 1260. The only groups opposing the bill in its current form are the carpenters union and the Hawaiʻi Association for Justice, a trial lawyers association.Rep. Nicole Lowen has also at times faced off against HECO as chair of the House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee. But Lowen agrees that the securitized fee on utility customers might be the best option.“The work to implement the wildfire mitigation plan must be done, and the cost of financing that work gets passed on to ratepayers regardless,” she said. “By authorizing securitization for this purpose specifically, we would be saving ratepayers millions of dollars a year.” Still, HECO’s Kelly acknowledged the company expects challenges during the session’s waning days.“Nobody hates everything about (Senate Bill) 897, but nobody loves everything about it, either,” he said. “We’re just glad it’s still moving.”Among those expected to vet utility bills during the legislative end game is state Sen. Glenn Wakai. He previously held hearings on the utility’s proposed bills as chairman of the Senate Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee.Wakai’s philosophy is to put what he calls “hooks” in Senate Bill 897 and other utility measures, to hold HECO accountable to the public and ratepayers in exchange for the laws to help the utility. For example, he said, utility executives should be prohibited from receiving bonuses above their base salaries if customers are paying an additional fee.In March, Civil Beat reported Hawaiian Electric Industries’ president and chief executive, Scott Seu, got a one-year compensation increase of $1.7 million, lifting his take-home pay to $3.2 million in 2024. Shelee Kimura, president and chief executive of HEI’s utility subsidiary, Hawaiian Electric Co., had a pay jump from $859,000 in 2023 to $1.5 million. The increases came despite HEI reporting a $1.4 billion net loss in 2024.Seu and Kimura subsequently repaid the incentive compensation they received for 2024, although they still got increases in their base salaries. Seu’s base went to $995,000 from $958,000; Kimura’s went to $650,000 from $575,000. Seu’s 2024 incentive was approximately $1.7 million and Kimura’s $606,000.Wakai said he also wants to see a plan from HECO to reduce rates over the long term.“There has to be some kind of give on their part,” he said. Utility Isn’t Sure It Can Raise Money To Pay Settlement Wakai is one of few legislators to take a hard look at another bill that would set up a fund to pay the state’s portion of the $4 billion wildfire settlement. Taxpayers are on the hook for $807.5 million.During a hearing in March, Wakai hauled Seu before the committee and grilled the company CEO on where HECO’s portion of the settlement money would come from. The holding company has raised about half of the $1.99 billion it has committed to the settlement. But it has acknowledged it might not be able to raise the rest without dire steps.“There is no assurance that future financing will be available in sufficient amounts, on a timely basis or on reasonable terms acceptable to us, if at all,” Hawaiian Electric Industries warned its shareholders in late February. In that case, the company said, the best alternative might be bankruptcy.Wakai had added a provision to the state settlement bill to make sure HECO pays its share first before the state steps in. He said it was fair since HECO is the party found to have started the fire. Although that provision was removed based on testimony by Hawaiʻi Attorney General Anne Lopez, Wakai may have the chance to add more of his hooks to the settlement funding measure during the conference committee process.“They have expectations that everyone else is going to save them when they have no idea how they’re going to save themselves,” he said of HECO. “That, I find, is quite concerning.”Perhaps the biggest question is whether these legislative measures will be enough to shore up the utility’s credit rating. HECO’s Kelly cautioned that nothing will happen instantly because much depends on the rating agencies.But Life of the Land’s Curtis said if the securitization bill passes, “There’s a reasonable chance that HECO will get a better credit rating.”“We’ll just keep on keeping on,” Kelly said. “The No. 1 thing is to make sure we don’t have another wildfire.”This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat 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 - Feb. 2025

Activism
Energy
Government

The Labor party has a legacy of action for the natural world. Now is the time for us to do better | Felicity Wade

Addressing the Australian extinction crisis and the decline of our environment will be possible when political leaders embrace it Explore the series – Last chance: the extinction crisis being ignored this electionGet Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an emailI’ve been wondering if I remember all my surprise encounters with animals in the wild.I remember sitting totally still on a riverbank watching a platypus going about its business as the dusk descended, by a logging road on the boundary of Tasmania’s world heritage area. And a moose in the Yukon, blundering out of the scrub at full speed right in front of us, as terrified and surprised as we were. A huge thing, my vision filled with moose. It turned and kept bolting. And summer evenings camping on the Thredbo River where wombats make for strange silent sentinels, munching grass as humans rustle plastic and wrangle gas stoves, the fuss of cooking al fresco. Continue reading...

I’ve been wondering if I remember all my surprise encounters with animals in the wild.I remember sitting totally still on a riverbank watching a platypus going about its business as the dusk descended, by a logging road on the boundary of Tasmania’s world heritage area. And a moose in the Yukon, blundering out of the scrub at full speed right in front of us, as terrified and surprised as we were. A huge thing, my vision filled with moose. It turned and kept bolting. And summer evenings camping on the Thredbo River where wombats make for strange silent sentinels, munching grass as humans rustle plastic and wrangle gas stoves, the fuss of cooking al fresco.I remember them because they are moments of such stark joy. They are usually times of quiet in the soft evening light. Australian animals are generally both silent and reserved. And these moments are rare.In the way of oil and water, my love of nature gets expressed by being deep in the political process, with all its banality and disregard. I sit in the heart of a major political party, the Labor party, trying to build the bridge from where we are to where we need to be. This may seem quixotic, but I prefer it to melancholy resignation.Maybe politics can’t solve it. But it’s the best we’ve got.Labor has a deep legacy of action for the natural world. The Whitlam government brought environment into the heart of governing. In 1983, one of the first acts of the Bob Hawke government was to protect the Franklin River from a hydroelectric dam. Hawke ended rainforest logging, expanded Kakadu national park, led the international campaign to ban mining in Antarctica and began work on limiting greenhouse gases, appearing with his granddaughter in a 1988 documentary on climate change.An ALP brochure from Australia’s 1990 federal election with a message from Bob HawkeBut the legacy is a 20th century one.The past two decades have been dominated by responding to climate change. In the economy of politics, climate has taken all the space allotted to the environment. Finding the pathway to a safer climate hasn’t been easy, with the conservatives and vested interests weaponising it at every step, but Labor has stepped up in this term and a transition is under way. The gradual but certain collapse of the biosphere is threatening us just as comprehensively as a warming planet. And the political and policy response has been inadequate.If re-elected, now is the time for Labor to do better. Governments can only do a certain number of things at once and we muffed the environmental law reform process this term. The power and ferocity of vested interests made clear how hard it is to shift the balance between commerce and the wild.But in the last week, the prime minister has recommitted to the reform and the creation of an Environmental Protection Authority. Rewritten environment laws are the foundation on which we can turn it around. The central innovation is the creation of national standards, rules by which decisions are made about the environment. With proper application by an independent EPA there is a chance that we can begin to address our appalling record of stewardship.But it will take more than laws. And more than money. It will only happen with strong and clear leadership. There’s a complex set of community capabilities and attitudes that need to underpin working out how to live well on our continent. And a tangled mess of overlapping responsibilities at different levels of government to address. We’ll also need incentives to make business consider its impacts on the uncosted natural capital it mines.All this is politically possible because Australia is defined by its strange and magnificent environment. It shapes our culture, it sustains our leisure time, it marks who we are. As social researcher Rebecca Huntley says, “Twenty years of researching what Australians think is unique to our country, it’s not ‘mateship’ or a ‘love of sport’ but our unique natural places and iconic animals. We know they are the envy of the world, and what sets us apart.”This fact is a potent political asset to be capitalised on. Addressing the Australian extinction crisis and the decline of our environment won’t become possible because the community decides it’s their number one concern, it will be because political leaders embrace it and argue the case, grounded in our national pride in our place.

Animals
Business
Crisis

Just 9.5% of plastic made in 2022 used recycled material, study shows

Global research reveals most of 400m tonnes produced using fossil fuels, predominantly coal or oilLess than 10% of the plastic produced around the world is made from recycled material, according to the first detailed global analysis of its life cycle.The research reveals that most plastic is made from fossil fuels, predominantly coal and oil, despite rhetoric by producers, supermarkets and drinks companies about plastic being recycled. Continue reading...

Less than 10% of the plastic produced around the world is made from recycled material, according to the first detailed global analysis of its life cycle.The research reveals that most plastic is made from fossil fuels, predominantly coal and oil, despite rhetoric by producers, supermarkets and drinks companies about plastic being recycled.The research analysed the 400m tonnes of plastic produced in 2022 in order to support attempts to reduce pollution and promote sustainable plastic management.Plastic production has risen markedly since the 2m tonnes manufactured in 1950, and is projected to reach 800m tonnes a year by 2050. “As a result plastic pollution is a pressing and growing global issue, posing major challenges for the environment, economy, and public health,” the authors said.Quanyin Tan and colleagues analysed key trends in the global plastic supply chain. Of the 400m tonnes of plastic produced over the course of 2022, just under 38m tonnes (9.5%) was produced from recycled plastic, 98% of the remaining 362m tonnes was produced from fossil fuels, predominantly coal and oil.The research, published in Communications Earth & Environment, shows a significant increase in the amount of plastic being disposed of by incineration rather than recycling, with just 27.9% of plastic waste disposed of in 2022 actually being recycled.While China is the biggest producer and consumer of plastic, Americans consume the most plastic per head, the equivalent of 216kg per person a year. The US produces 40.1 megatonnes (Mt) of plastic waste – most of it from plastic packaging.The 28 countries of the EU and Japan also register high per capita plastic consumption, at 86.6kg and 129kg respectively.Globally, landfill remains the main destination of plastic waste, accounting for 103.37 Mt or 40%.Attempts continue to agree a global plastic waste treaty to tackle the environmental and public health scourge of plastic waste.Talks in Busan, South Korea, ended in failure last December after fossil fuel producing nations, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, resisted attempts to include production caps in the treaty.More than 100 countries supported a draft text that included legally binding global reductions in plastic production and the phasing out of certain chemicals and single-use plastic products.Talks are due to resume in Geneva in August.

Chemicals
Health
Pollution

‘Every year matters’: Queensland’s critically endangered ‘bum-breathing’ turtle battles the odds

Guardian Australia is highlighting the plight of our endangered native species during an election campaign that is ignoring broken environment laws and rapidly declining ecosystemsExplore the series – Last chance: the extinction crisis being ignored this electionGet Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an emailA rare “bum-breathing” turtle found in a single river system in Queensland has suffered one of its worst breeding seasons on record due to flooding last December. It has prompted volunteers to question how many more “bad years” the species can survive.A freshwater species that breathes by absorbing oxygen through gill-like structures in its tail, the Mary River turtle is endemic to south-east Queensland. Its population has fallen by more than 80% since the 1960s and its conservation status was upgraded from endangered to critically endangered last year.Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as an email Continue reading...

A rare “bum-breathing” turtle found in a single river system in Queensland has suffered one of its worst breeding seasons on record due to flooding last December. It has prompted volunteers to question how many more “bad years” the species can survive.A freshwater species that breathes by absorbing oxygen through gill-like structures in its tail, the Mary River turtle is endemic to south-east Queensland. Its population has fallen by more than 80% since the 1960s and its conservation status was upgraded from endangered to critically endangered last year.Volunteers have worked for more than two decades at Tiaro, about 200km north of Brisbane, to save the species. The Mary River typically flows low at the start of summer – about two metres depth. But when Guardian Australia visited in December it had surged above 10 metres after unusually heavy rain.Scientists consider the turtle one rung away from extinction. Illustration: Meeri AnneliThe result was the number of nests on the riverbanks – and the number of hatchlings that survived – was one of the lowest in the conservation program’s 24-year history. Seventeen nests, known as clutches, were laid during the season. Usually 30 to 40 are expected during the turtle’s breeding months of October, November and December.Eggs in nine clutches hatched successfully but eight were lost to flood waters. The head of the conservation effort and Tiaro Landcare project leader, Marilyn Connell, said the Mary River turtle already had “lots of things going against it, making it difficult to recover”.“You sort of can’t believe it,” she said. “We felt despondent.”‘How many of these bad years can a species that has already declined this much deal with?’ Photograph: Chris Van Wyk/ZSL/PAThe volunteers made the difficult decision to intervene and move two nests higher up the riverbanks. One of these survived the flood waters.The river eventually peaked at 11.5 metres at Tiaro in December, one of only six times it has been recorded at that height at that time of year in the past 100 years, according to Connell.The Mary River turtle’s formal listing of critically endangered means scientists consider it one rung away from extinction. The remaining wild population is estimated to be about 10,000. They face threats from foxes and other nest predators, invasive species and developments that disturb the flow of the river, including dams and weirs.“Every year matters, that’s how we feel,” Connell said. “You just have to ask: how many of these bad years can a species that has already declined this much deal with?”Community volunteers protect nests and hatchlings on the riverbanks from predators but even after successful breeding seasons the population has not recovered. The turtle is a long-lived species and can bounce back from a poor breeding season. But too few turtles are reaching maturity, which occurs after about 25 to 30 years.The volunteers are now working with researchers from Charles Darwin University to investigate why many juvenile turtles are not surviving to adulthood and what can be done to address this. Results are expected later this year.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Clear Air AustraliaAdam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisisPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionDr Mariana Campbell, a researcher at the university, said “obviously there is something else happening in the river”, and little would be being done to help the turtle were it not for the Tiaro community.Mary River turtle hatchlings. Photograph: Caitlin JonesConnell said volunteers were concerned that the climate crisis was compounding the threats facing the species. She said sea temperatures off the southern Queensland coast had been at record levels before the floods. Scientists say this leads to more intense rain as the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere increases. “You think to yourself, is more of this what we’ve got to look forward to?” Connell said.She said despite the turtle’s critically endangered status, volunteers have had to rely on fundraising drives, selling chocolate turtles and chasing financial support from overseas to continue their conservation work.She was shocked in 2010 when the Landcare group received a conservation grant from the United Arab Emirates. The same fund gave them further grants in 2011 and 2018.After a 2022 flood in Queensland and New South Wales, volunteers also received a $300,000 grant through a state government disaster fund. Connell said this was typical of her experience – that “you have to have a disaster, or the species has to be on its last legs, to get funds”.“It is ironic but that’s the way conservation works in Australia,” she said.She said while community projects like hers could “chip away” at environmental work they ultimately needed serious government and philanthropic support. “We can’t be doing it all off our own backs,” she said.

Conservation
Crisis
Extinction

Some States Are Banning Forever Chemicals. Now Industry Is Fighting Back.

This story was originally published by WIRED and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In 2021, James Kenney and his husband were at a big box store buying a piece of furniture when the sales associate asked if they’d like to add fabric protectant. Kenney, the cabinet secretary of New Mexico’s Environment Department, asked to see […]

This story was originally published by WIRED and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In 2021, James Kenney and his husband were at a big box store buying a piece of furniture when the sales associate asked if they’d like to add fabric protectant. Kenney, the cabinet secretary of New Mexico’s Environment Department, asked to see the product data sheet. Both he and his husband were shocked to see forever chemicals listed as ingredients in the protectant. “I think about your normal, everyday New Mexican who is trying to get by, make their furniture last a little longer, and they think, ‘Oh, it’s safe, great!’ It’s not safe,” he says. “It just so happens that they tried to sell it to the environment secretary.” Last week, the New Mexico legislature passed a pair of bills that Kenney hopes will help protect consumers in his state. If signed by the governor, the legislation would eventually ban consumer products that have added PFAS—per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, known colloquially as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment—from being sold in New Mexico. As health and environmental concerns about forever chemicals mount nationally, New Mexico joins a small but growing number of states that are moving to limit—and, in some cases, ban—PFAS in consumer products. New Mexico is now the third state to pass a PFAS ban through the legislature. Ten other states have bans or limits on added PFAS in certain consumer products, including cookware, carpet, apparel, and cosmetics. This year, at least 29 states—a record number—have PFAS-related bills before state legislatures, according to an analysis of bills by Safer States, a network of state-based advocacy organizations working on issues around potentially unsafe chemicals. The chemical and consumer products industries have taken notice of this new wave of regulations and are mounting a counterattack, lobbying state legislatures to advocate for the safety of their products—and, in one case, suing to prevent the laws from taking effect. Some of the key exemptions made in New Mexico highlight some of the big fights that industries are hoping they’ll win in statehouses across the country: fights they are already taking to a newly industry-friendly US Environmental Protection Agency. PFAS is not just one chemical but a class of thousands. The first PFAS were developed in the 1930s; thanks to their nonstick properties and unique durability, their popularity grew in industrial and consumer uses in the postwar era. The chemicals were soon omnipresent in American lives, coating cookware, preventing furniture and carpets from staining, and acting as a surfactant in firefighting foam. “Fluoropolymers are PFAS. PFAS plastics are PFAS. They are dangerous at every stage of their life.” In 1999, a man in West Virginia filed a lawsuit against US chemical giant DuPont alleging that pollution from its factory was killing his cattle. The lawsuit revealed that DuPont had concealed evidence of PFAS’s negative health effects on workers from the government for decades. In the years since, the chemical industry has paid out billions in settlement fees around PFAS lawsuits: In 2024, the American multinational 3M agreed to pay between $10 billion and $12.5 billion to US public water systems that had detected PFAS in their water supplies to pay for remediation and future testing, though the company did not admit liability. (DuPont and its separate chemical company Chemours continue to deny any wrongdoing in lawsuits involving them, including the original West Virginia suit.) As the moniker “forever chemicals” suggests, mounting research has shown that PFAS accumulate in the environment and in our bodies and can be responsible for a number of health problems, from high cholesterol to reproductive issues and cancer. EPA figures released earlier this year show that almost half of the US population is currently exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. Nearly all Americans, meanwhile, have at least one type of PFAS in their blood. For a class of chemicals with such terrifying properties, there’s been surprisingly little regulation of PFAS at the federal level. One of the most-studied PFAS chemicals, PFOA, began to be phased out in the US in the early 2000s, with major companies eliminating the chemical and related compounds under EPA guidance by 2015. The chemical industry and manufacturers say that the replacements they have found for the most dangerous chemicals are safe. But the federal government, as a whole, has lagged behind the science when it comes to regulations: The EPA only set official drinking water limits for six types of PFAS in 2024. In lieu of federal guidance, states have started taking action. In 2021, Maine, which identified an epidemic of PFAS pollution on its farms in 2016, passed the first-ever law banning the sale of consumer products with PFAS. Minnesota followed suit in 2023. “The cookware industry has historically not really engaged in advocacy, whether it’s advocacy or regulatory,” says Steve Burns, a lobbyist who represents the industry. But laws against PFAS in consumer products—particularly a bill in California, which required cookware manufacturers to disclose to consumers if they use any PFAS chemicals in their products—were a “wakeup call” for the industry. Burns is president of the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, a 501(c)(6) formed in 2024 by two major companies in the cookware industry. He and his colleagues have had a busy year, testifying in 10 statehouses across the country against PFAS restrictions or bans (and, in some cases, in favor of new laws that would exempt their products from existing bans). In February, the CSA was one of more than 40 industry groups and manufacturers to sign a letter to New Mexico lawmakers opposing its PFAS ban when it was first introduced. The CSA also filed a suit against the state of Minnesota in January, alleging that its PFAS ban is unconstitutional. Its work has paid off. Unlike the Maine or Minnesota laws, the New Mexico bill specifically exempts fluoropolymers, a key ingredient in nonstick cookware and a type of PFAS chemical, from the coming bans. The industry has also seen success overseas: France excluded kitchenware from its recent PFAS ban following a lobbying push by Cookware Sustainability Alliance member Groupe SEB. (The CSA operates only in the US and was not involved in that effort.) A redefinition of PFAS by the federal government could “have a chilling effect on state legislation.” “As an industry, we do believe that if we’re able to make our case, we’re able to have a conversation, present the science and all the independent studies we have, most times people will say well, you make a good point,” Burns says. “This is a different chemistry.” It’s not just the cookware industry making this argument. Erich Shea, the director of product communications at the American Chemistry Council, told WIRED in an email that the group supports New Mexico’s fluoropolymer exclusion and that it will “allow New Mexico to avoid the headaches experienced by decisionmakers in other states.” The FDA has authorized nonstick cookware for human use since the 1960s. Some research—including one peer-reviewed study conducted by the American Chemistry Council’s Performance Fluoropolymer Partnership, whose members include 3M and Chemours, has found that fluoropolymers are safe to consume and less harmful than other types of PFAS. Separate research has called their safety into question. However, the production of fluoropolymers for use in nonstick cookware and other products has historically released harmful PFAS into the environment. And while major US manufacturers have phased out PFOA in their production chain, other factories overseas still use the chemical in making fluoropolymers. The debate over fluoropolymers’ inclusion in state bans is part of a larger argument made by industry and business groups: that states are defining PFAS chemicals too broadly, opening the door to overregulation of safe products. A position paper from the Cookware Sustainability Alliance provided to WIRED lambasts the “indiscriminate definition of PFAS” in many states with recent bans or restrictions. “Our argument is that fluoropolymers are very different from PFAS chemicals of concern,” Burns says. Some advocates disagree. The exemption of fluoropolymers from New Mexico’s ban, along with a host of other industry-specific exemptions in the bill, means that the legislation “is not going to meet the stated intentions of what the bill’s sponsors want it to do,” says Gretchen Salter, the policy director at Safer States. Advocates like Salter have concerns around the use of forever chemicals in the production of fluoropolymers as well as their durability throughout their life cycles. “Fluoropolymers are PFAS. PFAS plastics are PFAS. They are dangerous at every stage of their life, from production to use to disposal,” she claims. Kenney acknowledges that the fluoropolymer exemption has garnered a “little bit of criticism.” But he says that this bill is meant to be a starting point. “We’re not trying to demonize PFAS—it’s in a lot of things that we rightfully still use—but we are trying to gauge the risk,” he says. “We don’t expect this to be a one and done. We expect science to grow and the exemptions to change.” With a newly industry-friendly set of regulators in DC, industry groups are looking for wins at the federal level too. In February, an organization of chemical manufacturers and business groups, including the American Chemistry Council and the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, sent a letter to the EPA outlining suggested “principles and policy recommendations” around PFAS. The group emphasized the need to “recognize that PFAS are a broad class of chemistries with very diverse and necessary properties” and recommended the agency adopt a government-wide definition of PFAS based on West Virginia and Delaware’s definitions. Both of those states have a much more conservative definition of what defines PFAS than dozens of other states, including Maine, New Mexico, and Minnesota. A federal definition like this could “have a chilling effect on state legislation going forward,” said Melanie Benesh, the vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, an environmental activist organization. “There would be this federal position that the chemical industry could point to, which might be convincing to some state legislators to say, well, this is what the federal government has said is a definition of PFAS. As you start excluding PFAS from the class, you really limit what PFAS are covered by consumer product bans.” Shea, of the American Chemistry Council, told WIRED that the group believes “that the federal regulatory approach is preferable to a patchwork of different and potentially conflicting state approaches.” States with bans face a monumental task in truly getting PFAS out of consumers’ lives. Vendors in Minnesota have been left with expensive inventory that they can no longer sell; Maine’s law, one of the most aggressive, makes exemptions for “currently unavoidable use” of PFAS, including in semiconductors, lab equipment, and medical devices. PFAS are used in so many of the products in our lives that it’s almost unfathomable to think of phasing them out altogether, as soon as possible. For advocates like Salter, it’s a change worth making. “There might be essential uses for PFAS right now,” she says. “But we want to spur the search for safer alternatives, because we don’t want to give a pass to chemicals that are harming human health. By exempting them altogether, you are completely removing that incentive.”

Chemicals
Climate
Business

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