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A surprising byproduct of wildfires: Contaminated drinking water

News Feed
Monday, July 29, 2024

Over the weekend, the Park Fire grew to more than 360,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders and warnings around Chico, California in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties. In the days ahead, Cal Fire will seek to contain the blaze to reduce harm to people, structures and the environment. However, months from now when the rains come and the fires are extinguished, a hidden threat could put communities at risk once again.When the mayor of Las Vegas, N.M., issued a warning in 2022 to its 13,000 residents, it wasn’t over a fire — they had recently lived through the state’s largest wildfire in its history: Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak. The dire warning was that the city had 30 days of clean water left. The 2022 monsoon rains covered the Gallinas watershed, where cleared trees from the Santa Fe National Forest and ash-covered grounds made for flash-flood conditions. The storms introduced massive amounts of carbon from burned trees and plant life into the streams and reservoirs. Water treatment couldn’t keep up, making their stores undrinkable.Many drinking water sources at risk from wildfiresAround 60 to 65 percent of the United States’ drinking water comes from forested areas. As fires burn in these areas, they increase the risk of cancer-causing and toxic substances entering water supplies. An estimated 53.3 million U.S. residents who live in areas with significant wildfire risk may face damaged drinking water infrastructure from those flames.Map of at-risk watersheds in the US Western StatesThe new megafire eraRandy Dahlgren, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Davis whose research focused on wildfires and watersheds in California, says that fires’ impact on clean water boils down to the size, intensity and severity of the fire.The 2022 Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak wildfire is among the largest in recorded history in the United States. The fire perimeter stretched across 340,000 acres, with high burn severity in most areas. Thousands were forced to evacuate during the course of the months-long blaze. These megafires — fires greater than 100,000 acres — of the 21st century are increasingly common due in large part to the persistently drier and hotter conditions of forested areas in a warming climate.“I would project that both the size and the severity of wildfires are going to increase,” says Dahlgren. Post-megafire fallout — because of their scale and intensity — is linked to poorer water quality during the following rainy seasons, Dahlgren adds.Megafires burn land at higher temperatures across wider areas than standard wildfires, putting watersheds across the United States at greater risk. Sheila Murphy, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey working on the effects of wildfires on water quality, says burned areas fundamentally alter a watershed’s hydrology. As wildfires burn hotter and consume more trees and structures, water quality will continue to worsen, research suggests.When watersheds burn, the threat starts in the forests, continues to water treatment plants, and can expand to communities and households. To meet these risks, it will take a coalition of informed community members, scientists and city officials to work toward solutions to protect clean water supplies.See how fires alter these systems and introduce contaminants.A table of contents for the next section of the story showing that the piece will cover how the fires impact healthy forests, communities and households.Diagram of a hillside with healthy vegitation and a normal water table level.Diagram of rain filtering through leaves, grass and dirt into the ground.Diagram of an intense wildfire on the previously green hillside.A normal watershed includes land with healthy vegetation and ground cover that help control and protect the water table and groundwater. Typical in the West, legacy mines were revegetated to keep harmful tailings from going downstream.When it rains, a ground cover of leaves, grass and dirt filters a large portion of the water before it soaks into the ground.In the wake of a wildfire, ash from burned vegetation replaces the ground cover.As a hydrophobic material, the ash inhibits the ground from absorbing rain water and replenishing the groundwater. Unable to soak into the ground, the water accumulates, increasing the likelihood of landslides and flash flooding.Legacy mining waste, previously covered and sealed by revegetation, can be exposed. It can flow with runoff into waterways, elevating levels of harmful chemicals and metals such as arsenic and lead.Valley communities near reservoirs, such as the town of Ledoux, N.M., are at risk of flooding after wildfires.After a heavy rainfall, the excessive runoff, combined with ash, debris and sediment, can cause a reservoir to overflow — flooding areas below it.Even if the reservoir doesn’t overflow, the buildup of dissolved organic matter (DOM) lowers the reservoir’s storage capacity and can lead to poorer water quality.Nutrients from DOM increase the likelihood of toxic algae blooms that remove oxygen from the water, triggering organism die-offs.Once oxygen is gone, it can cause heavy metals, like mercury from old mines, to convert to methylmercury. This compound is toxic to wildlife and may cause developmental problems in fetuses and children.Treatment of this water involves chlorination or expensive coagulants. Chlorination has a hard ceiling on removing DOM from water, as disinfectant byproducts like chloroform damage human chromosomes and living cells and increase the risk of cancer and birth defects.When fires burn too closely to communities, entire water systems, including their piping, can be compromised.This happens when high ambient heat unfurls plastic polymers in PVC water lines. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the damaged pipes mix with the water inside.As homes burn, firefighters tap into the water supply to put out flames. The draw on the system can create a vacuum which can pull VOCs into the city’s water mains, shared with other homes.After the fires are out and homes are rebuilt, it can be hard to locate the damaged pipe releasing VOCs into the system. If the contamination is between the city water main and the homes, there’s no way to know without testing every household.Scientists are only beginning to study the effects megafires pose on local ecology.Newsha Ajami, the chief strategic development officer for research in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, studies the multifaceted ways fires impact forest management, water utilities and communities. Ajami says on the state of the science, “We’re destabilizing [water] systems and we don’t even know in what way and how.”A first set of guidelinesIn 2019, a team of enterprising hydrologist-planners realized that there needs to be a handbook for this new reality of wildfire impacts on communities. That fall, volunteers from more than a dozen municipalities wrote the Post-Fire Recovery Playbook, a first-of-its-kind 12-page concise document for water municipalities, land and forest management, and governments to rebuild within 30 days of a fire.Ecologists and researchers working with post-fire effects on water juggle hyperlocal environmental needs with the needs of neighboring communities and the resources of their governments. The authors of the recovery playbook found that measures need to be in place for communities of any size to handle the aftermath of nearby fires. The guide highlights the “gap in guidance in terms of navigating the complexities surrounding post-fire rehabilitation.”Insuring right and rebuilding smarterAjami sees a critical role for insurance companies implementing smart, resilient practices for communities left to cinders. Similar to how health insurance is trying to focus on preventive care to reduce the cost of treating disease, Ajami hopes “at some point we will have a preventive insurance model that would invest in actions people can take from being impacted.”“That’s something we’re starting to touch on now in terms of research,” says Andrew Whelton, a professor at Purdue University working in civil, environmental and ecological engineering. Whelton says that “the insurance industry needs to understand water contamination, water safety, what the alternatives are and how much they cost.” The demands are in understanding costs so they can effectively get ahead of these disasters. “Simply put, insurance companies haven’t anticipated these costs and they haven’t anticipated the cost at the scale they are being hit at.”When the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire climbed the side of a mountain into a housing development in Boulder Creek, Calif., toxic contamination didn’t spread from the homes back into the water system. That was because the San Lorenzo Valley district utility made sure the valves in that network prevented backflow. Preventive steps like that, Whelton says, go a long way in improving fire resiliency and keeping community drinking water safe. He would know, too: Whelton has become the go-to expert flying out to nearly every megafire that’s burned down towns since 2017, working with communities and municipalities on testing water.Another prevention area is setting up proper lines of communication. Three days after the Maui fires and evacuations began in 2023, the Maui County Department of Water Supply issued an “Unsafe Water Advisory.” All Maui households surveyed in a recent study by Whelton and several other researchers “expressed concerns or confusion about drinking water safety” two weeks after the fire.Communication challenges, like rapidly getting information to water customers after a fire, are what led Whelton and his colleagues to co-author the Wildfire Response Guide for Environmental Public Health Professionals for the National Environmental Health Association. Guides that reduce friction between local and state governments and health professionals assist in risk-monitoring communities post-fire. For protecting water, the guide explicitly highlights where water can be compromised, offering damage-assessment guidance, community messaging on safety risks, and what kinds of testing to prioritize.Further downstream, researchers contend with how to build homes in fire-prone areas to make them more resilient and leach less hazardous waste in the event of a disaster.Erica Fischer, a civil engineer at Oregon State University who spent her PhD studying fire impacts on buildings, saw firsthand the devastation wrought by wildfires in communities like Paradise, Calif., and Louisville, Colo. She’s witnessed conversations move away from just forest management to home-hardening and resiliency-building. Legislation like Oregon’s Senate Bill 762 — which put $220 million into wildfire preparedness of buildings, landscapes and emergency response — Fischer notes, not only puts resources into mapping wildfire risk after the 2020 Oregon fires, but also provides financial assistance for the socially vulnerable in the rural communities at risk.Other legislation is also being advanced. The EMBER act, a bipartisan bill introduced in June by Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), aims to modernize national wildfire policies, including by updating recovery guidance on drinking water toxicity resulting from wildfires.With practices like this in place across wildfire risk areas, the likelihood of a watershed weathering subsequent high rains improves. Dahlgren hits on the adage: “Dilution is the solution to pollution.” If there are backups in place, diluting at least the DOM water can provide safe drinking water downstream.Planning for a future with wildfiresMeanwhile in Boulder, Colo., they are divining the future of fires. Kate Dunlap, a Post-Fire Recovery Playbook co-author and manager of Boulder’s Drinking Water Quality program, applies machine-learning algorithms to identify where to place resources for disaster preparedness. One model simulated 10,000 burns in the watershed according to local topography, vegetation and geology. The results allow Dunlap’s team to understand how much risk there is, where disasters can come from and how much it’ll cost to prevent or treat them.These forecasts help cities predict how much sediment could enter reservoirs. Knowing where hazardous debris might come from allows the government to prioritize stabilizing at-risk forested areas while keeping costs low.The science is trying to keep pace with an ever longer and more frequent fire season. Researchers consulted for this story are studying fires from 2021 and 2022, as well as conditions generated by these newer, larger fires that burn in regions geographically, vegetation-wise and community-wise different from where previous fires burned. Additional research is critical to understand how this global risk impacts communities at a local level.Dunlap sees a lot more urgency here in her field. In eight years on the job, it’s only since 2020 that she’s witnessed increased funding sources at the state and federal level for forest health projects. The general awareness shift she’s seen is that “wildfires are real and we’re not really experiencing these sort of natural fires anymore. They’re very severe.”The community of Las Vegas, N.M., is preparing for the next big fire by strengthening their water supplies along the Gallinas River, both upstream by the wildfire-prone regions and downstream at the household level. Johanna Blake, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher at the New Mexico Water Science Center, sent The Washington Post photos of the rocky barriers — gabions — that now stretch along the river bed. After the rainy season in 2022, she could smell the collected ash that got stopped before entering the river there.About the storyThe wildfire risk to watersheds were calculated from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest to Faucet data. A watershed was categorized as “Great risk” if 70% or more of its total acres had a “high or very high wildfire hazard potential.”The number of surface drinking water consumers for each watershed is based on late 2018/early 2019 population estimates.Only watersheds that were entirely contained within state boundaries were included in the calculation of residents at risk of wildfire water contamination in Washington and California. Watersheds that intersected with state lines were not included in the calculation to avoid double counting.Janice Kai Chen contributed to this report.

While a wildfire might directly impact a few hundred residents, its secondary impacts to the clean water supply could affect thousands.

Over the weekend, the Park Fire grew to more than 360,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders and warnings around Chico, California in Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties. In the days ahead, Cal Fire will seek to contain the blaze to reduce harm to people, structures and the environment. However, months from now when the rains come and the fires are extinguished, a hidden threat could put communities at risk once again.

When the mayor of Las Vegas, N.M., issued a warning in 2022 to its 13,000 residents, it wasn’t over a fire — they had recently lived through the state’s largest wildfire in its history: Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak. The dire warning was that the city had 30 days of clean water left. The 2022 monsoon rains covered the Gallinas watershed, where cleared trees from the Santa Fe National Forest and ash-covered grounds made for flash-flood conditions. The storms introduced massive amounts of carbon from burned trees and plant life into the streams and reservoirs. Water treatment couldn’t keep up, making their stores undrinkable.

Many drinking water sources at risk from wildfires

Around 60 to 65 percent of the United States’ drinking water comes from forested areas. As fires burn in these areas, they increase the risk of cancer-causing and toxic substances entering water supplies. An estimated 53.3 million U.S. residents who live in areas with significant wildfire risk may face damaged drinking water infrastructure from those flames.

Map of at-risk watersheds in the US Western States

The new megafire era

Randy Dahlgren, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Davis whose research focused on wildfires and watersheds in California, says that fires’ impact on clean water boils down to the size, intensity and severity of the fire.

The 2022 Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak wildfire is among the largest in recorded history in the United States. The fire perimeter stretched across 340,000 acres, with high burn severity in most areas. Thousands were forced to evacuate during the course of the months-long blaze. These megafires — fires greater than 100,000 acres — of the 21st century are increasingly common due in large part to the persistently drier and hotter conditions of forested areas in a warming climate.

“I would project that both the size and the severity of wildfires are going to increase,” says Dahlgren. Post-megafire fallout — because of their scale and intensity — is linked to poorer water quality during the following rainy seasons, Dahlgren adds.

Megafires burn land at higher temperatures across wider areas than standard wildfires, putting watersheds across the United States at greater risk. Sheila Murphy, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey working on the effects of wildfires on water quality, says burned areas fundamentally alter a watershed’s hydrology. As wildfires burn hotter and consume more trees and structures, water quality will continue to worsen, research suggests.

When watersheds burn, the threat starts in the forests, continues to water treatment plants, and can expand to communities and households. To meet these risks, it will take a coalition of informed community members, scientists and city officials to work toward solutions to protect clean water supplies.

See how fires alter these systems and introduce contaminants.

A table of contents for the next section of the story showing that the piece will cover how the fires impact healthy forests, communities and households.

Diagram of a hillside with healthy vegitation and a normal water table level.

Diagram of rain filtering through leaves, grass and dirt into the ground.

Diagram of an intense wildfire on the previously green hillside.

A normal watershed includes land with healthy vegetation and ground cover that help control and protect the water table and groundwater. Typical in the West, legacy mines were revegetated to keep harmful tailings from going downstream.

When it rains, a ground cover of leaves, grass and dirt filters a large portion of the water before it soaks into the ground.

In the wake of a wildfire, ash from burned vegetation replaces the ground cover.

As a hydrophobic material, the ash inhibits the ground from absorbing rain water and replenishing the groundwater. Unable to soak into the ground, the water accumulates, increasing the likelihood of landslides and flash flooding.

Legacy mining waste, previously covered and sealed by revegetation, can be exposed. It can flow with runoff into waterways, elevating levels of harmful chemicals and metals such as arsenic and lead.

Valley communities near reservoirs, such as the town of Ledoux, N.M., are at risk of flooding after wildfires.

After a heavy rainfall, the excessive runoff, combined with ash, debris and sediment, can cause a reservoir to overflow — flooding areas below it.

Even if the reservoir doesn’t overflow, the buildup of dissolved organic matter (DOM) lowers the reservoir’s storage capacity and can lead to poorer water quality.

Nutrients from DOM increase the likelihood of toxic algae blooms that remove oxygen from the water, triggering organism die-offs.

Once oxygen is gone, it can cause heavy metals, like mercury from old mines, to convert to methylmercury. This compound is toxic to wildlife and may cause developmental problems in fetuses and children.

Treatment of this water involves chlorination or expensive coagulants. Chlorination has a hard ceiling on removing DOM from water, as disinfectant byproducts like chloroform damage human chromosomes and living cells and increase the risk of cancer and birth defects.

When fires burn too closely to communities, entire water systems, including their piping, can be compromised.

This happens when high ambient heat unfurls plastic polymers in PVC water lines. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the damaged pipes mix with the water inside.

As homes burn, firefighters tap into the water supply to put out flames. The draw on the system can create a vacuum which can pull VOCs into the city’s water mains, shared with other homes.

After the fires are out and homes are rebuilt, it can be hard to locate the damaged pipe releasing VOCs into the system. If the contamination is between the city water main and the homes, there’s no way to know without testing every household.

Scientists are only beginning to study the effects megafires pose on local ecology.

Newsha Ajami, the chief strategic development officer for research in the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, studies the multifaceted ways fires impact forest management, water utilities and communities. Ajami says on the state of the science, “We’re destabilizing [water] systems and we don’t even know in what way and how.”

A first set of guidelines

In 2019, a team of enterprising hydrologist-planners realized that there needs to be a handbook for this new reality of wildfire impacts on communities. That fall, volunteers from more than a dozen municipalities wrote the Post-Fire Recovery Playbook, a first-of-its-kind 12-page concise document for water municipalities, land and forest management, and governments to rebuild within 30 days of a fire.

Ecologists and researchers working with post-fire effects on water juggle hyperlocal environmental needs with the needs of neighboring communities and the resources of their governments. The authors of the recovery playbook found that measures need to be in place for communities of any size to handle the aftermath of nearby fires. The guide highlights the “gap in guidance in terms of navigating the complexities surrounding post-fire rehabilitation.”

Insuring right and rebuilding smarter

Ajami sees a critical role for insurance companies implementing smart, resilient practices for communities left to cinders. Similar to how health insurance is trying to focus on preventive care to reduce the cost of treating disease, Ajami hopes “at some point we will have a preventive insurance model that would invest in actions people can take from being impacted.”

“That’s something we’re starting to touch on now in terms of research,” says Andrew Whelton, a professor at Purdue University working in civil, environmental and ecological engineering. Whelton says that “the insurance industry needs to understand water contamination, water safety, what the alternatives are and how much they cost.” The demands are in understanding costs so they can effectively get ahead of these disasters. “Simply put, insurance companies haven’t anticipated these costs and they haven’t anticipated the cost at the scale they are being hit at.”

When the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fire climbed the side of a mountain into a housing development in Boulder Creek, Calif., toxic contamination didn’t spread from the homes back into the water system. That was because the San Lorenzo Valley district utility made sure the valves in that network prevented backflow. Preventive steps like that, Whelton says, go a long way in improving fire resiliency and keeping community drinking water safe. He would know, too: Whelton has become the go-to expert flying out to nearly every megafire that’s burned down towns since 2017, working with communities and municipalities on testing water.

Another prevention area is setting up proper lines of communication. Three days after the Maui fires and evacuations began in 2023, the Maui County Department of Water Supply issued an “Unsafe Water Advisory.” All Maui households surveyed in a recent study by Whelton and several other researchers “expressed concerns or confusion about drinking water safety” two weeks after the fire.

Communication challenges, like rapidly getting information to water customers after a fire, are what led Whelton and his colleagues to co-author the Wildfire Response Guide for Environmental Public Health Professionals for the National Environmental Health Association. Guides that reduce friction between local and state governments and health professionals assist in risk-monitoring communities post-fire. For protecting water, the guide explicitly highlights where water can be compromised, offering damage-assessment guidance, community messaging on safety risks, and what kinds of testing to prioritize.

Further downstream, researchers contend with how to build homes in fire-prone areas to make them more resilient and leach less hazardous waste in the event of a disaster.

Erica Fischer, a civil engineer at Oregon State University who spent her PhD studying fire impacts on buildings, saw firsthand the devastation wrought by wildfires in communities like Paradise, Calif., and Louisville, Colo. She’s witnessed conversations move away from just forest management to home-hardening and resiliency-building. Legislation like Oregon’s Senate Bill 762 — which put $220 million into wildfire preparedness of buildings, landscapes and emergency response Fischer notes, not only puts resources into mapping wildfire risk after the 2020 Oregon fires, but also provides financial assistance for the socially vulnerable in the rural communities at risk.

Other legislation is also being advanced. The EMBER act, a bipartisan bill introduced in June by Sens. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), aims to modernize national wildfire policies, including by updating recovery guidance on drinking water toxicity resulting from wildfires.

With practices like this in place across wildfire risk areas, the likelihood of a watershed weathering subsequent high rains improves. Dahlgren hits on the adage: “Dilution is the solution to pollution.” If there are backups in place, diluting at least the DOM water can provide safe drinking water downstream.

Planning for a future with wildfires

Meanwhile in Boulder, Colo., they are divining the future of fires. Kate Dunlap, a Post-Fire Recovery Playbook co-author and manager of Boulder’s Drinking Water Quality program, applies machine-learning algorithms to identify where to place resources for disaster preparedness. One model simulated 10,000 burns in the watershed according to local topography, vegetation and geology. The results allow Dunlap’s team to understand how much risk there is, where disasters can come from and how much it’ll cost to prevent or treat them.

These forecasts help cities predict how much sediment could enter reservoirs. Knowing where hazardous debris might come from allows the government to prioritize stabilizing at-risk forested areas while keeping costs low.

The science is trying to keep pace with an ever longer and more frequent fire season. Researchers consulted for this story are studying fires from 2021 and 2022, as well as conditions generated by these newer, larger fires that burn in regions geographically, vegetation-wise and community-wise different from where previous fires burned. Additional research is critical to understand how this global risk impacts communities at a local level.

Dunlap sees a lot more urgency here in her field. In eight years on the job, it’s only since 2020 that she’s witnessed increased funding sources at the state and federal level for forest health projects. The general awareness shift she’s seen is that “wildfires are real and we’re not really experiencing these sort of natural fires anymore. They’re very severe.”

The community of Las Vegas, N.M., is preparing for the next big fire by strengthening their water supplies along the Gallinas River, both upstream by the wildfire-prone regions and downstream at the household level. Johanna Blake, a U.S. Geological Survey researcher at the New Mexico Water Science Center, sent The Washington Post photos of the rocky barriers — gabions — that now stretch along the river bed. After the rainy season in 2022, she could smell the collected ash that got stopped before entering the river there.

About the story

The wildfire risk to watersheds were calculated from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest to Faucet data. A watershed was categorized as “Great risk” if 70% or more of its total acres had a “high or very high wildfire hazard potential.”

The number of surface drinking water consumers for each watershed is based on late 2018/early 2019 population estimates.

Only watersheds that were entirely contained within state boundaries were included in the calculation of residents at risk of wildfire water contamination in Washington and California. Watersheds that intersected with state lines were not included in the calculation to avoid double counting.

Janice Kai Chen contributed to this report.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

I won't swim in water polluted with antibiotics'

Visitors to a Derbyshire waterway say they are horrified at drug pollution levels.

'Drug pollution in stream has left me horrified'Amy JohnstonEast Midlands Investigations TeamBBCLyn Crowe says the brook is "precious" for wildlife and humansThousands of people will march on London on Sunday at a family-friendly rally to highlight the importance of clean water in their lives. The BBC speaks to residents near one rural waterway, which scientists found had the second highest levels of active pharmaceutical pollution in the UK."You'd think as a country we would be able to look after our most pristine landscapes," says cold water swimmer Jo Broughton.Jo Broughton has not dipped even a toe in Tideswell Brook, in the heart of the Peak District National Park, since August.One of the reasons lies in the findings of a study that discovered the brook had the second highest levels of active pharmaceutical pollution in the UK, with drugs such as antidepressants and antibiotics detected in the water.The research study, published in August by Prof Alistair Boxall at the University of York and the Rivers Trust, found concentrations of pharmaceuticals recorded at Tideswell Brook were at levels of concern for both human and ecological health.One possible cause, according to Prof Boxall, was a higher average age, with the older population using and flushing more medications. Jo BroughtonJo Broughton used to enjoy wild swimming before she read the findings of a study by the University of YorkMs Broughton, 44, has not been swimming there since finding out, concerned about developing antibiotic resistance and the risk to her health."Going in the water is exposing me to antibiotics, antidepressants and other medication I haven't opted to take," she added.Tideswell and district environment group held an open meeting for locals to express both concern and anger at the pollution in their local brook. "It horrifies me to think that this stream is more badly polluted now than when we first came here 27 years ago", says Lyn Crowe, chairwoman of the environment group. Jill Turner hopes to set up a local rivers groupJill Turner, a local resident and open water swimmer, said: “When we found out about the antidepressants, we laughed about it at first because you do feel really chilled out when you go cold water swimming!"But what the hell is it doing in our rivers?” The brook is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, meaning it is recognised as important for key species to breed and the larger wildlife ecosystem.The study found 31 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) were found across 52 of the 54 sampling locations, which were taken in the winter and summer of 2022, across England's 10 protected national parks.APIs are drugs that are biologically active and can end up in our rivers when humans flush medication down the toilet, or when our bodies excrete them after use.The brook flows into the River Wye and is a Site of Special Scientific InterestProf Boxall said: "We found the highest concentrations of pollutants in areas we’re trying to protect ecologically. That, to me, is a bit daft."Tideswell Brook tested for concentrations of active pharmaceutical ingredients higher than those previously recorded in large cities, including London.Prof Boxall says this may be down to several reasons:The march in London on Sunday, organised by the campaign charity River Action, will urge authorities to take action against the people and companies polluting rivers, lakes and seas.What is being done?An Environment Agency spokesperson said it was working closely with other regulators and the water industry to better understand how pharmaceutical compounds enter the water environment.“We have developed an early warning system to identify contaminants of emerging concern to ensure any potential risks to surface waters, groundwater and soils are considered,” they said.“We are also collaborating with the pharmaceuticals and veterinary medicines industry via a UK cross-government platform for exchanging knowledge on pharmaceuticals in the environment.”"There's obviously something wrong with the capacity of the sewage works", says Mrs CroweSevern Trent Water said no sewage treatment site in England was currently specifically designed to treat for pharmaceuticals. It said its Tideswell sewage works "carries out secondary treatment, along with tertiary phosphate removal, and the process used is not materially different from what you would see at much bigger sites."A spokesperson for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “We have already announced a rapid review of the environmental improvement plan, which will include how best to manage chemicals.”Steve Reed, the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, said: “I share the public’s anger on this issue, and I am taking immediate steps to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas.“That’s why we are placing water companies under special measures through the Water Bill, which will strengthen regulation, including new powers to ban the payment of bonuses for polluting water bosses and bring criminal charges against persistent law breakers.“Just last week, I launched the largest review of the water sector since privatisation to address long-term failings in the sector, attract investment to drive environmental improvements, and put our water sector on a sustainable footing.”

A West Texas pecan farm fights to save its water supply as neighbors sell it to growing cities

A yearslong dispute over exporting water to growing Texas cities offers a hint at the battles to come as the state’s population booms and water supply dwindles.

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. FORT STOCKTON — Zachary Swick plucked a pecan from one of the 78,000 trees at a sprawling West Texas farm — a rare sight in the desert known for oil rigs and pump jacks. He peeled away the pecan’s layers, leaving a stain on his hands that would be difficult to wash off. One day, Swick said, there might not be any pecans left to peel. Swick is the farm manager at Belding Farms, which has been owned for decades by the Cockrell family. Each year, the farm produces 5 million pounds of the iconic Texas nut. The farm sits atop a reservoir of underground water used to produce the pecans since the 1960s. The farm shares the water with its neighbors. Under Texas law, all property owners have the right to use the water underneath their boots. One of those neighbors is Fort Stockton Holdings, a company established by oil baron and one-time gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams. Fort Stockton Holdings, for years, has sought to sell its share of the water to West Texas’ growing cities. The 50-year deal between the company and the cities of Midland, Abilene and San Angelo would exchange water from the aquifers for $261 million. Midland is the capital of the Permian Basin, a 61-county region that holds the state’s vast oil reserves. Over the last decade, Midland has added 10,000 people. About 138,000 people call it home. And more are expected as the oil industry shows no signs of slowing. “Our goal was to secure a long-term, sustainable water supply that requires minimal treatment and can meet the city's future needs,” Midland Mayor Lori Blong said in a statement. Fort Stockton Holdings did not return requests for comment. The most important Texas news,sent weekday mornings. Belding Farms has asked the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District, the local governing body tasked with managing water rights, to protect the water to ensure it isn’t swallowed up by the deal. Fort Stockton Holdings will sell 28,400 acre-feet of water per year as part of the contract, more than twice as much as the farm uses on an annual basis. Earlier this month, the groundwater district rejected Belding Farms’ request to put more rules and fees around the exports. However, the decision is only one factor in a yearslong feud between the two powerful families. The conflict is a harbinger of the water wars the state will face as the population continues to swell. By 2060, Texas is expected to add up to 14 million more people, according to a study by Texas 2036 — and there is not enough water for everyone, let alone agriculture and industry, experts say. Already, the state has lost its sugar industry to a dearth of water in the Rio Grande Valley. Swick does not want pecans to be next. “We're mining a resource that is, in essence, being depleted, and that's our biggest concern,” Swick said. “Will that water be as consistent as it has been in the past?” General Manager Zachary Swick shows freshly picked pecans. Credit: Julian Mancha for The Texas Tribune Pecans are a Texas staple. It is the only nut indigenous to the state. The tree dates back to prehistoric times, according to the Texas State Historical Association. The Texas Legislature in 1919 declared pecans the official state tree. The Cockrell family began planting pecan trees in the 1960s. Today, about 40 employees work year-round to tend to the farm, from the orchard manager and foremen to mechanics. The season begins each year in March. Workers stimulate cross-pollination throughout the year. The pecans mature during the summer and fall. And in the winter, the farm shucks the trees. Farming the 2,200 acres requires water — and a lot of it. The farm uses between 11,000 acre-feet and 12,100 acre-feet of water annually. The farm employs different irrigation mechanisms to keep the farm hydrated efficiently, including a technique called land leveling, in which excess water pools on a terrace between the trees to prevent run-off. The farm also has cement canals along the property that hold the water and stop it from seeping into the soil. Over the years, the farm has bolstered its efforts to conserve water. In 2022, it spent about $455,000 to install a sprinkler system that covers 96 acres. Instead of a mist, the sprinklers shoot out a stream of water to prevent evaporation. Also scattered across the farm are soil moisture probes that monitor whether the ground needs to be watered. Swick said that he and the farm try to be proactive in conserving water because a dry spell could result in a crisis for the farm and the surrounding community. A particular concern is the wells, Swick said, which are not able to pump water if the aquifers are below a certain threshold. “If we are not proactive, the ramifications of that could be huge,” he said.” We could lose large sections of our farm if not all of it.” Belding Farms sits atop a reservoir of underground water used to produce the pecans since the 1960s. Credit: Julian Mancha for The Texas Tribune Texas has a long history of private property rights, which includes water. As the state’s population has grown, larger cities have turned to rural landowners to buy their water. Groundwater districts, like Middle Pecos, can act as an arbiter. The 98 groundwater conservation districts, which are mostly in rural or sparsely populated communities, manage the water supply. Groundwater districts are the state’s “preferred method of groundwater management in order to protect property rights,” an update to an old mandate known as the rule of capture that allowed landowners to pump water as they wished. The conflict between Belding Farms and Fort Stockton Holdings began in 2009 when the latter first attempted to sell roughly 50,000 acre-feet annually. One acre-foot of water is about 325,851 gallons of water. The groundwater district initially rejected the request, in part because the exports needed more protections attached to it. At the time, then-mayor of Fort Stockton, Ruben Falcon, said the residents felt “that the future water supply is threatened by having a large amount of water transferred out of the aquifer.” In 2017, Fort Stockton Holdings and the groundwater district reached an agreement to allow the holding company to pump and sell 28,400 acre-feet of water. That’s when Belding Farms sued the groundwater district, which controls the permits for export agreements like the one between Fort Stockton Holding and the other cities. In total, the farm has sued five times and petitioned the groundwater district to establish controls around the exports, including defining so-called unreasonable impacts. Unreasonable impacts would define the points at which the aquifer is too low. The farm also asked the district to impose a 20-cent export fee for every 1,000 gallons. These collections would provide financial compensation to landowners affected by unreasonable impacts, such as having to deepen their wells. The groundwater district rejected both in its October session. Two of the cases reached the Supreme Court of Texas. The first is the settlement agreement between Fort Stockton Holdings and the groundwater district, which allowed the company to sell the water. The second case concerns a renewal permit for Fort Stockton Holdings, which will need to continue to sell the water. Groundwater District board members say they must grant companies and individuals the ability to use the groundwater as they see fit, adding it has been caught in the crosshairs of a generational dispute. In 2012, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in an unrelated case that groundwater districts could not severely limit landowners from pumping water. At the time, the attorney for the Edwards Aquifer Authority said the ruling would “make life much more complicated for groundwater districts.” “When you’re giving big chunks of the pie, it's like you have to keep giving big chunks of that pie out because if you start telling people no, you’re going to get sued,” said Robert Mace, executive director at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. “That’s a case the district’s probably going to lose.” Still, landowners who drill a water well that is within the jurisdiction of a groundwater conservation district must register it. Groundwater conservation districts issue permits for commercial wells or wells that pump large volumes of water from the aquifer. They also issue spacing, drilling and production requirements. Groundwater districts determine their supply by monitoring the water underground. Every five years, they submit a report to the Texas Water Development Board that calculates the available water for the next 50 years. The groundwater district uses that information for regional planning and how much water can be permitted for pumping. Justin Thompson, a research assistant professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, said the goal was to maximize the use of the available water while balancing that against protecting the supply. “They have an unenviable task,” he said. A watering runoff system runs down the orchard rows at Belding Farms. It acts as an irrigation mechanism to prevent run-off. Credit: Julian Mancha for The Texas Tribune Left: In 2022, Belding Famrs spent about $455,000 to install a sprinkler system that covers 96 acres. Right: Newly grown pecans at Belding Farms. Credit: Julian Mancha for The Texas Tribune Ty Edwards, the general manager of the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District, said he sees his role less as a regulator and more as a relationship manager. The groundwater conservation district must represent and protect the interests of groundwater users. If a landowner disagrees with the groundwater district’s decision, they can approach the board members and request changes. Edwards said that is the point of a local governing agency. Three pools of water flow underneath the soil in Fort Stockton, a geographically unique makeup that isn’t common in Texas. The Edwards Trinity aquifer is closest to the surface. The Rustler aquifer is below it. The Capitan Reef Complex aquifer is the deepest one. The farm and holding company are not the only water rights owners in Pecos County. In the County, 4,000 wells tap into the aquifer. Almost 3,000 of those belong to landowners who registered their wells. Nearly 1,000 are permitted. One hundred wells make up the majority of the water use, including Fort Stockton Holdings, Belding Farms, the city of Fort Stockton, another pecan farm and a detention facility. Last year, a combined 42,205 acre-feet of water was pumped from the Edwards-Trinity aquifer. That’s more than Midland and Ector counties, which pumped a combined 25,000 acre-feet of groundwater in 2021, according to the regional water plan submitted by 32 counties to the Water Development Board. Fort Stockton Holdings’ deal with the cities will add 24,800 acre-feet more pumping annually. Edwards said that the groundwater district evaluated pumping levels over the years and determined that the impact on the aquifer would not be a risk. He said the monitoring mechanisms are protective of the aquifer. Since the deal was first proposed, Fort Stockton Holdings and the Cockrell family armed themselves with lawyers, scientists and consultants who have sparred for years, disputing the data they present to each other. Edwards said the data Belding Farms provided helped them arrive at their decision. Although it is not opposed to exports outright, the Cockrell family argues this amount could drain the aquifer faster than it can recharge. They said the groundwater conservation district's monitoring ability is not robust enough and can only provide estimates of the water levels. Experts also pointed to excessive agricultural pumping in the 1950s, which caused the local springs, called Comanche Springs, to dry up. Edwards, who volunteered at Belding Farms in his youth, said the water supply was not in danger. He said the historical data going back decades portrays a healthy aquifer capable of withstanding the added demand. “We’re not going to let their wells go dry,” Edwards said. General Manager Zachary Swick at the pecan assortment plant. The state has lost its sugar industry to a dearth of water in the Rio Grande Valley. Swick does not want pecans to be next. Credit: Julian Mancha for The Texas Tribune At the groundwater district’s October meeting, tensions were high. The 11 board members sat around a conference table beneath a wide-screen TV where scientists, lawyers and consultants gathered and waited their turn to speak. Opposite the TV, the Cockrell family’s attorney, Ryan Reed, sat in a folding chair. Behind him sat Carlos Rubenstein, a former commissioner for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, erstwhile chair and board member of the Texas Water Development Board, now a consultant for the family and farm. Reed once again asked the groundwater district to consider setting stricter rules and defining unreasonable impacts. What he is asking is not included in the law. It would be up to the groundwater district to establish. Fort Stockton Holding’s attorney spoke next, calling the request a fearmongering tactic. He said their studies show the aquifer can sustain the added pumping. Board members said they would convene the residents and discuss adding export fees at their discretion, not the 20-cent amount the Cockrell family recommended. After the meeting, Edwards sat in his office with a plate of barbecue in front of him. A groundwater field technician cooked the meal. He said Texas law compels them to treat groundwater users equally and that the Legislature does not give them enough teeth to take on every battle. In the meantime, he said he trusts the science. “Nobody likes the fact that water is going to leave Pecos County,” Edwards said. “None of the board members like it. You're not going to find anybody in the community that supports them moving water out of the county, but we didn't write the laws.” Shortly after the meeting, Reed said the groundwater district’s decision was shortsighted in refusing to agree to the farm’s terms. Reed did not say what the farm would do next, only that the fight was far from over. Disclosure: Edwards Aquifer Authority, Texas 2036 and Texas State Historical Association 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.

Boil Water Advisories Can Be Confusing. Here Are Some Safety Tips From Experts

The city of Asheville has restored running water to most of its users nearly a month after Hurricane Helene damaged infrastructure and killed more than 200 people around the region

As a mother of two, Robin Funsten knows it’s impossible to bathe her 2-year-old without getting water in the toddler's mouth. But she's never had to worry about that until recently. A month after deadly Hurricane Helene devastated the U.S. Southeast, Funsten and more than 100,000 residents on city water in western North Carolina remain on an indefinite boil water notice as workers clear sediment from reservoirs and run water quality tests. Residents have described water that reeks of chlorine and is brown or yellow.As much of the U.S.'s water infrastructure ages and climate change fuels disasters, experts say water advisories will become more common.“We are in the midst of an uncertain time, not just in Asheville, but as we think about climate change writ large in some of these major unexpected storms,” said David Dyjack, executive director of the National Environmental Health Association. Boil water notices are given when microbes in tap water could be dangerous if ingested. They're different than do-not-drink water advisories — issued when chemicals or toxins in tap water could cause sickness if swallowed or inhaled – and do-not-use notices for water that could be dangerous to even touch. “Do not drink” means only bottled water should be consumed. “Do not touch” means bottled water should be used for all purposes.As Funsten noted, water safety guidelines can be confusing, and the discolored water isn't reassuring. “Because it still feels so unclear to me, I’d rather be safe than sick,” she said about choosing to shower at a facility using a different source than tap water. Experts emphasize residents should follow safety guidelines from local authorities, as every situation is unique and safety measures may vary by personal risk. Amid these guidelines are personal decisions people can take for their own comfort, much like Funsten did. Ultimately, the most important thing is to avoid drinking water straight from the tap, said Natalie Exum, environmental health scientist at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “What we need to be primarily concerned about is water ... that should be boiled before it goes into your body, because there could be a lot of microbial contamination there.”Here are some tips from experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when under a boil water advisory. The CDC says to bring water to a full rolling boil for one minute. At elevations above 6,500 feet (1,981 meters), boil for three minutes. To prevent burns, allow water to cool before drinking it or giving it to pets. Bottled water is also a safe alternative. If on a private well that experienced flooding or damage, contact your local health officials for testing guidance before using the water, even if you boil it.Boil water or use bottled water for drinking, to make ice and to prepare or cook food. If making pasta, for example, boil the water for a full minute first before adding. Wash and rinse fruits and vegetables with boiled, then cooled, water.In many cases, it is OK to use tap water and soap to wash your hands during a boil water advisory, according to the CDC, but it’s important to follow advice from local officials.Dyjack recommends using at least a 60% alcohol disinfectant after washing your hands with tap water.Exum stressed that washing your hands is “critically important” during water advisories. If you have an open wound or rash, keep it clean and covered to prevent infection from exposure to contaminated water.Use boiled water if hand-washing dishes. Alternatively, wash dishes with detergent and hot water as you normally would, then soak them for at least one minute in a separate bin with bleach – one tablespoon of unscented bleach per gallon of water. Air dry them completely before use.The CDC says dishwashers are generally safe if they have a sanitize cycle or if the hot wash reaches at least 150°F (66°C), but local guidelines can vary, including Asheville's, which recommends 170°F (77°C). Check the manual or contact the manufacturer to find out how high your dishwater temperature reaches.Under a boil water advisory, it can be safe to bathe or shower if you avoid swallowing water. Avoid shaving nicks.If you have an open wound, Jasen Kunz, with the CDC's waterborne disease prevention branch, advised not to bathe. “You would need to provide an alternative source for that water or consider boiling it and letting it cool before using it.”Use boiled then cooled or bottled water to brush your teeth.Unless you received a “Do not use” water notice, it is safe to do laundry. But note that sediment in the water may discolor clothing. Ensure clothes are dry before wearing. What if someone is pregnant, elderly, an infant or immunocompromised? If you or a family member fall into any of these groups, experts suggest extra safety measures.They recommend giving babies and young children sponge baths to reduce chances of swallowing water.Dyjack said it's best not to shower or bathe someone from these groups using tap water. Breastfeeding is the best option for feeding an infant when there's a boil water notice, according to the CDC. If you feed your child formula, provide ready-to-use formula if possible. If you must make formula, use water that has been boiled and cooled, or use bottled water.While a generally healthy person may be OK if they accidentally sip contaminated water, Exum said vulnerable people are more likely to get sick, dehydrate faster or feel other symptoms. “So you really are just trying to avoid these hospital visits that can be very scary and very draining on the hospital resources.” How can water utilities improve communication around this? Dyjack, from the National Environmental Health Association, encouraged local governments to address residents’ uncertainty and questions through public meetings, podcasts, websites, listservs or by setting up a 24/7 water hotline. “It’s important to put a face on it and allow people to express themselves," he said. “When a community and local government collaborate to solve an issue, there’s nothing that they can’t accomplish.”Funsten, the Asheville resident, said having to boil water for most uses adds chores, time and “big changes to our routine."Others, like Katherine Hyde Hensley, a perinatal psychologist in the area, described feeling “fried” by the mental toll of living with non-potable water on top of helping other mothers navigate their own anxieties about it. Although water might not be restored as quickly as electricity after a disaster, Exum said, “It will come back. You will be OK... Just try and get through each day." The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

‘We were trapped like rats’: Spain’s floods bring devastation and despair

Residents describe impact of floods and downpours – with some places hit with a year’s worth of rain in just eight hoursSpanish flash floods – live updatesThe gratitude that greeted Tuesday’s dawn downpours was short-lived in Utiel. When the longed-for rains finally reached the town in the drought-stricken eastern Spanish region of Valencia, they were merciless in their abundance.“People were very happy at first because they’d been praying for rain as their lands needed water,” said Remedios, who owns a bar in Utiel. “But by 12 o’clock, this storm had really hit and we were all pretty terrified.” Continue reading...

The gratitude that greeted Tuesday’s dawn downpours was short-lived in Utiel. When the longed-for rains finally reached the town in the drought-stricken eastern Spanish region of Valencia, they were merciless in their abundance.“People were very happy at first because they’d been praying for rain as their lands needed water,” said Remedios, who owns a bar in Utiel. “But by 12 o’clock, this storm had really hit and we were all pretty terrified.”Trapped in the bar, she and a handful of her customers could only sit and watch as Spain’s worst flooding in almost 30 years caused the Magro River to overflow its banks, trapping some residents in their homes and sending cars and rubbish bins surging through the streets on muddy flood waters.Damaged cars lie amid debris along damaged rail lines in the flood-hit city of Valencia. Photograph: Manuel Bruque/EPA“The rising waters brought mud and stones with them and they were so strong that they broke the surface of the road,” said Remedios, who gave only her first name.“The tunnel that leads into the town was half-full of mud, trees were down and there were cars and rubbish containers rolling down the streets. My outside terrace has been destroyed – the chairs and shades were all swept away. It’s just a disaster.”By Wednesday afternoon, the death toll in Valencia and the neighbouring region of Castilla-La Mancha stood at 72. Utiel’s mayor, Ricardo Gabaldón, told Las Provincias newspaper that some of the town’s residents had not survived the floods, but was unable to provide an exact number.Hours earlier, Gabaldón had told Spain’s national broadcaster, RTVE, that Tuesday had been the worst day of his life. “We were trapped like rats,” he said. “Cars and rubbish containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to 3 metres.”People in the town fear some of the dead may have been older people who were unable to escape the flood waters.“Anyone who could get to higher ground did, but there were some old people who couldn’t even open their front doors and they were trapped there inside their own houses,” said Remedios.Residents of La Torre on the outskirts of Valencia city were confronted by similar scenes on Wednesday morning.“The neighbourhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it’s literally smashed up,” Christian Viena, a bar-owner in the area, told the Associated Press by phone.A man carries a dog in Letur, Albacete province, after flash floods hit the region. Photograph: Mateo Villalba Sanchez/Getty Images“Everything’s a total wreck, everything is ready to be thrown away. The mud is almost 30cm deep.”Spain’s meteorological office, Aemet, said that more than 300 litres of rain per square metre (30cm) had fallen in the area between Utiel and the town of Chiva, 20 miles (50km) away, on Tuesday. In Chiva, it noted, almost an entire year’s worth of rain had fallen in just eight hours.The ferocious rains have come as Spain continues to experience a punishing drought. Last year, the government approved an unprecedented €2.2bn (£1.9bn) plan to help farmers and consumers cope with the enduring lack of rain amid warnings that the climate would only get worse, and more unpredictable, in the future.“Spain is a country that is used to periods of drought but there’s no doubt that, as a consequence of the climate change we’re experiencing, we’re seeing far more frequent and intense events and phenomena,” said the environment minister, Teresa Ribera.As Wednesday wore on, a distressing picture of the human and economic damage began to emerge. Spain declared three days of national mourning.Spain's prime minister warns people affected by floods to 'stay on guard' – videoThe prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the entire country felt the pain of those who had lost their loved ones, and urged people to take every possible precaution as the torrential rains moved to the north-east of the country.The defence minister, Margarita Robles, said 1,000 members of the military emergencies unit had been deployed to help regional emergency services. In a sign that more bodies could also remain trapped in the mud and in houses, she also offered mobile morgues.One man used a phone call to RTVE to plead for any news of his son, Leonardo Enrique Rivera, who had gone missing in his Fiat van after going to work as a delivery driver in the Valencian town of Riba-roja on Tuesday.A man walks among debris in Letur. Photograph: Susana Vera/Reuters“I haven’t heard from him since 6.55 yesterday,” said Leonardo Enrique. “It was raining heavily and then I got a message saying the van was flooding and that he’d been hit by another vehicle. That was the last I heard.”Esther Gómez, a town councillor in Riba-roja, said workers had been stuck overnight in an industrial estate “without a chance of rescuing them” as streams overflowed.“It had been a long time since this happened and we’re scared,” she told Agence France-Presse.As the search for the dead continued, experts warned that the torrential rains and subsequent floods were further proof of the realities of the climate emergency.“No doubt about it, these explosive downpours were intensified by climate change,” said Dr Friederike Otto, lead of World Weather Attribution at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London.“With every fraction of a degree of fossil fuel warming, the atmosphere can hold more moisture, leading to heavier bursts of rainfall. These deadly floods are yet another reminder of how dangerous climate change has already become at just 1.3C of warming. But last week the UN warned that we are on track to experience up to 3.1C of warming by the end of the century.”There were similar, if differently expressed, sentiments in Utiel on Wednesday.“There was one guy here with me yesterday, who’s 73, and he said he’d never seen anything like this in all his years,” said Remedios. “Never.”

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