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Fiery 5,000 MPH Winds: Webb Maps Weather on Extreme Exoplanet WASP-43 b

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Thursday, May 2, 2024

This artist’s concept shows what the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b could look like. WASP-43 b is a Jupiter-sized planet circling a star roughly 280 light-years away, in the constellation Sextans. The planet orbits at a distance of about 1.3 million miles (0.014 astronomical units, or AU), completing one circuit in about 19.5 hours. Because it is so close to its star, WASP-43 b is probably tidally locked: its rotation rate and orbital period are the same, such that one side faces the star at all times. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)WASP-43 b is cloudy on the nightside and clear on the dayside, with equatorial winds howling around the planet at 5,000 miles per hour.Sometimes not finding something is just as exciting and useful as finding it. Take hot Jupiter WASP-43 b, for example. This tidally locked world has a searing-hot, permanent dayside and a somewhat cooler nightside. Astronomers using Webb to map the temperature and analyze the atmosphere around the planet expected to detect methane, a common carbon molecule, on the nightside. But there is clearly no sign of it. Why? The result suggests that supersonic winds of hot gas are blowing around from the dayside, thoroughly churning up the atmosphere, and preventing the chemical reactions that would otherwise produce methane on the nightside.This light curve shows the change in brightness of the WASP-43 system over time as the planet orbits the star. This type of light curve is known as a phase curve because it includes the entire orbit, or all phases of the planet.Because it is tidally locked, different sides of WASP-43 b rotate into view as it orbits. The system appears brightest when the hot dayside is facing the telescope, just before and after the secondary eclipse when the planet passes behind the star. The system grows dimmer as the planet continues its orbits and the nightside rotates into view. After the transit when the planet passes in front of the star, blocking some of the starlight, the system brightens again as the dayside rotates back into view.Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Taylor Bell (BAERI), Joanna Barstow (The Open University), Michael Roman (University of Leicester)Webb Space Telescope Maps Weather on Planet 280 Light-Years AwayAn international team of researchers has successfully used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b.Precise brightness measurements over a broad spectrum of mid-infrared light, combined with 3D climate models and previous observations from other telescopes, suggest the presence of thick, high clouds covering the nightside, clear skies on the dayside, and equatorial winds upwards of 5,000 miles per hour mixing atmospheric gases around the planet. The investigation is just the latest demonstration of the exoplanet science now possible with Webb’s extraordinary ability to measure temperature variations and detect atmospheric gases trillions of miles away.Tidally Locked “Hot Jupiter”WASP-43 b is a “hot Jupiter” type of exoplanet: similar in size to Jupiter, made primarily of hydrogen and helium, and much hotter than any of the giant planets in our own solar system. Although its star is smaller and cooler than the Sun, WASP-43 b orbits at a distance of just 1.3 million miles – less than 1/25th the distance between Mercury and the Sun.With such a tight orbit, the planet is tidally locked, with one side continuously illuminated and the other in permanent darkness. Although the nightside never receives any direct radiation from the star, strong eastward winds transport heat around from the dayside.Since its discovery in 2011, WASP-43 b has been observed with numerous telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and now-retired Spitzer space telescopes.“With Hubble, we could clearly see that there is water vapor on the dayside. Both Hubble and Spitzer suggested there might be clouds on the nightside,” explained Taylor Bell, researcher from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute and lead author of a study published on April 30 in Nature Astronomy. “But we needed more precise measurements from Webb to really begin mapping the temperature, cloud cover, winds, and more detailed atmospheric composition all the way around the planet.”This simplified diagram of an exoplanet phase curve shows the change in total brightness of a star–planet system as the planet orbits the star. The system looks brighter when more of the lit side of the planet is facing the telescope (full phase). It looks dimmer when more of the dark side is facing the telescope (new phase), when the planet is blocking some of the starlight (transit), and when light from the planet is blocked by the star (secondary eclipse).(Top) Diagram showing the change in a planet’s phase (the amount of the lit side facing the telescope) as it orbits its star.(Bottom) Three-dimensional graph showing the change in the total brightness of the star–planet system as the planet orbits its star. In this graph, known as a light curve, the horizontal plane is orbital location and the vertical axis is brightness.(Right) Scale bar. In both the orbital diagram and the light curve, color indicates the observed brightness of the star + planet: from dark purple (less amount of light detected) to white (more light detected).Researchers use phase curves to study variations in reflectivity and temperature of a planet with longitude (from one side to another), which can provide insight into the surface composition and atmospheric conditions of the planet.Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Dani Player (STScI), Andi James (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI)Mapping Temperature and Inferring WeatherAlthough WASP-43 b is too small, dim, and close to its star for a telescope to see directly, its short orbital period of just 19.5 hours makes it ideal for phase curve spectroscopy, a technique that involves measuring tiny changes in brightness of the star-planet system as the planet orbits the star.Since the amount of mid-infrared light given off by an object depends largely on how hot it is, the brightness data captured by Webb can then be used to calculate the planet’s temperature.The team used Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to measure light from the WASP-43 system every 10 seconds for more than 24 hours. “By observing over an entire orbit, we were able to calculate the temperature of different sides of the planet as they rotate into view,” explained Bell. “From that, we could construct a rough map of temperature across the planet.”The measurements show that the dayside has an average temperature of nearly 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit (1,250 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to forge iron. Meanwhile, the nightside is significantly cooler at 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius). The data also helps locate the hottest spot on the planet (the “hotspot”), which is shifted slightly eastward from the point that receives the most stellar radiation, where the star is highest in the planet’s sky. This shift occurs because of supersonic winds, which move heated air eastward.“The fact that we can map temperature in this way is a real testament to Webb’s sensitivity and stability,” said Michael Roman, a co-author from the University of Leicester in the U.K.To interpret the map, the team used complex 3D atmospheric models like those used to understand weather and climate on Earth. The analysis shows that the nightside is probably covered in a thick, high layer of clouds that prevent some of the infrared light from escaping to space. As a result, the nightside – while very hot – looks dimmer and cooler than it would if there were no clouds.This set of maps shows the temperature of the visible side of the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b, as the planet orbits its star. The temperatures were calculated based on more than 8,000 brightness measurements of 5- to 12-micron mid-infrared light detected from the star-planet system by MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. In general, the hotter an object is, the more mid-infrared light it gives off. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Taylor Bell (BAERI), Joanna Barstow (The Open University), Michael Roman (University of Leicester)Missing Methane and High WindsThe broad spectrum of mid-infrared light captured by Webb also made it possible to measure the amount of water vapor (H2O) and methane (CH4) around the planet. “Webb has given us an opportunity to figure out exactly which molecules we’re seeing and put some limits on the abundances,” said Joanna Barstow, a co-author from the Open University in the U.K.The spectra show clear signs of water vapor on the nightside as well as the dayside of the planet, providing additional information about how thick the clouds are and how high they extend in the atmosphere.Surprisingly, the data also shows a distinct lack of methane anywhere in the atmosphere. Although the dayside is too hot for methane to exist (most of the carbon should be in the form of carbon monoxide), methane should be stable and detectable on the cooler nightside.“The fact that we don’t see methane tells us that WASP-43 b must have wind speeds reaching something like 5,000 miles per hour,” explained Barstow. “If winds move gas around from the dayside to the nightside and back again fast enough, there isn’t enough time for the expected chemical reactions to produce detectable amounts of methane on the nightside.”The team thinks that because of this wind-driven mixing, the atmospheric chemistry is the same all the way around the planet, which wasn’t apparent from past work with Hubble and Spitzer.Reference: “Nightside clouds and disequilibrium chemistry on the hot Jupiter WASP-43b” by Taylor J. Bell, Nicolas Crouzet, Patricio E. Cubillos, Laura Kreidberg, Anjali A. A. Piette, Michael T. Roman, Joanna K. Barstow, Jasmina Blecic, Ludmila Carone, Louis-Philippe Coulombe, Elsa Ducrot, Mark Hammond, João M. Mendonça, Julianne I. Moses, Vivien Parmentier, Kevin B. Stevenson, Lucas Teinturier, Michael Zhang, Natalie M. Batalha, Jacob L. Bean, Björn Benneke, Benjamin Charnay, Katy L. Chubb, Brice-Olivier Demory, Peter Gao, Elspeth K. H. Lee, Mercedes López-Morales, Giuseppe Morello, Emily Rauscher, David K. Sing, Xianyu Tan, Olivia Venot, Hannah R. Wakeford, Keshav Aggarwal, Eva-Maria Ahrer, Munazza K. Alam, Robin Baeyens, David Barrado, Claudio Caceres, Aarynn L. Carter, Sarah L. Casewell, Ryan C. Challener, Ian J. M. Crossfield, Leen Decin, Jean-Michel Désert, Ian Dobbs-Dixon, Achrène Dyrek, Néstor Espinoza, Adina D. Feinstein, Neale P. Gibson, Joseph Harrington, Christiane Helling, Renyu Hu, Nicolas Iro, Eliza M.-R. Kempton, Sarah Kendrew, Thaddeus D. Komacek, Jessica Krick, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Jérémy Leconte, Monika Lendl, Neil T. Lewis, Joshua D. Lothringer, Isaac Malsky, Luigi Mancini, Megan Mansfield, Nathan J. Mayne, Thomas M. Evans-Soma, Karan Molaverdikhani, Nikolay K. Nikolov, Matthew C. Nixon, Enric Palle, Dominique J. M. Petit dit de la Roche, Caroline Piaulet, Diana Powell, Benjamin V. Rackham, Aaron D. Schneider, Maria E. Steinrueck, Jake Taylor, Luis Welbanks, Sergei N. Yurchenko, Xi Zhang and Sebastian Zieba, 30 April 2024, Nature Astronomy.DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02230-xThe MIRI observation of WASP-43 b was conducted as part of the Webb Early Release Science programs, which are providing researchers with a vast set of robust, open-access data for studying a wide array of cosmic phenomena.The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

WASP-43 b is cloudy on the nightside and clear on the dayside, with equatorial winds howling around the planet at 5,000 miles per hour. Sometimes...

Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-43 b

This artist’s concept shows what the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b could look like. WASP-43 b is a Jupiter-sized planet circling a star roughly 280 light-years away, in the constellation Sextans. The planet orbits at a distance of about 1.3 million miles (0.014 astronomical units, or AU), completing one circuit in about 19.5 hours. Because it is so close to its star, WASP-43 b is probably tidally locked: its rotation rate and orbital period are the same, such that one side faces the star at all times. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

WASP-43 b is cloudy on the nightside and clear on the dayside, with equatorial winds howling around the planet at 5,000 miles per hour.

Sometimes not finding something is just as exciting and useful as finding it. Take hot Jupiter WASP-43 b, for example. This tidally locked world has a searing-hot, permanent dayside and a somewhat cooler nightside. Astronomers using Webb to map the temperature and analyze the atmosphere around the planet expected to detect methane, a common carbon molecule, on the nightside. But there is clearly no sign of it. Why? The result suggests that supersonic winds of hot gas are blowing around from the dayside, thoroughly churning up the atmosphere, and preventing the chemical reactions that would otherwise produce methane on the nightside.

Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-43 b (Webb MIRI Phase Curve)

This light curve shows the change in brightness of the WASP-43 system over time as the planet orbits the star. This type of light curve is known as a phase curve because it includes the entire orbit, or all phases of the planet.
Because it is tidally locked, different sides of WASP-43 b rotate into view as it orbits. The system appears brightest when the hot dayside is facing the telescope, just before and after the secondary eclipse when the planet passes behind the star. The system grows dimmer as the planet continues its orbits and the nightside rotates into view. After the transit when the planet passes in front of the star, blocking some of the starlight, the system brightens again as the dayside rotates back into view.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Taylor Bell (BAERI), Joanna Barstow (The Open University), Michael Roman (University of Leicester)

Webb Space Telescope Maps Weather on Planet 280 Light-Years Away

An international team of researchers has successfully used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b.

Precise brightness measurements over a broad spectrum of mid-infrared light, combined with 3D climate models and previous observations from other telescopes, suggest the presence of thick, high clouds covering the nightside, clear skies on the dayside, and equatorial winds upwards of 5,000 miles per hour mixing atmospheric gases around the planet.

The investigation is just the latest demonstration of the exoplanet science now possible with Webb’s extraordinary ability to measure temperature variations and detect atmospheric gases trillions of miles away.

Tidally Locked “Hot Jupiter”

WASP-43 b is a “hot Jupiter” type of exoplanet: similar in size to Jupiter, made primarily of hydrogen and helium, and much hotter than any of the giant planets in our own solar system. Although its star is smaller and cooler than the Sun, WASP-43 b orbits at a distance of just 1.3 million miles – less than 1/25th the distance between Mercury and the Sun.

With such a tight orbit, the planet is tidally locked, with one side continuously illuminated and the other in permanent darkness. Although the nightside never receives any direct radiation from the star, strong eastward winds transport heat around from the dayside.

Since its discovery in 2011, WASP-43 b has been observed with numerous telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and now-retired Spitzer space telescopes.

“With Hubble, we could clearly see that there is water vapor on the dayside. Both Hubble and Spitzer suggested there might be clouds on the nightside,” explained Taylor Bell, researcher from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute and lead author of a study published on April 30 in Nature Astronomy. “But we needed more precise measurements from Webb to really begin mapping the temperature, cloud cover, winds, and more detailed atmospheric composition all the way around the planet.”

Diagram Exoplanet Phase Curve

This simplified diagram of an exoplanet phase curve shows the change in total brightness of a star–planet system as the planet orbits the star. The system looks brighter when more of the lit side of the planet is facing the telescope (full phase). It looks dimmer when more of the dark side is facing the telescope (new phase), when the planet is blocking some of the starlight (transit), and when light from the planet is blocked by the star (secondary eclipse).
(Top) Diagram showing the change in a planet’s phase (the amount of the lit side facing the telescope) as it orbits its star.
(Bottom) Three-dimensional graph showing the change in the total brightness of the star–planet system as the planet orbits its star. In this graph, known as a light curve, the horizontal plane is orbital location and the vertical axis is brightness.
(Right) Scale bar. In both the orbital diagram and the light curve, color indicates the observed brightness of the star + planet: from dark purple (less amount of light detected) to white (more light detected).
Researchers use phase curves to study variations in reflectivity and temperature of a planet with longitude (from one side to another), which can provide insight into the surface composition and atmospheric conditions of the planet.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Dani Player (STScI), Andi James (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI)

Mapping Temperature and Inferring Weather

Although WASP-43 b is too small, dim, and close to its star for a telescope to see directly, its short orbital period of just 19.5 hours makes it ideal for phase curve spectroscopy, a technique that involves measuring tiny changes in brightness of the star-planet system as the planet orbits the star.

Since the amount of mid-infrared light given off by an object depends largely on how hot it is, the brightness data captured by Webb can then be used to calculate the planet’s temperature.

The team used Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to measure light from the WASP-43 system every 10 seconds for more than 24 hours. “By observing over an entire orbit, we were able to calculate the temperature of different sides of the planet as they rotate into view,” explained Bell. “From that, we could construct a rough map of temperature across the planet.”

The measurements show that the dayside has an average temperature of nearly 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit (1,250 degrees Celsius) – hot enough to forge iron. Meanwhile, the nightside is significantly cooler at 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius). The data also helps locate the hottest spot on the planet (the “hotspot”), which is shifted slightly eastward from the point that receives the most stellar radiation, where the star is highest in the planet’s sky. This shift occurs because of supersonic winds, which move heated air eastward.

“The fact that we can map temperature in this way is a real testament to Webb’s sensitivity and stability,” said Michael Roman, a co-author from the University of Leicester in the U.K.

To interpret the map, the team used complex 3D atmospheric models like those used to understand weather and climate on Earth. The analysis shows that the nightside is probably covered in a thick, high layer of clouds that prevent some of the infrared light from escaping to space. As a result, the nightside – while very hot – looks dimmer and cooler than it would if there were no clouds.

Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-43 b (Temperature Maps)

This set of maps shows the temperature of the visible side of the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b, as the planet orbits its star. The temperatures were calculated based on more than 8,000 brightness measurements of 5- to 12-micron mid-infrared light detected from the star-planet system by MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. In general, the hotter an object is, the more mid-infrared light it gives off. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Taylor Bell (BAERI), Joanna Barstow (The Open University), Michael Roman (University of Leicester)

Missing Methane and High Winds

The broad spectrum of mid-infrared light captured by Webb also made it possible to measure the amount of water vapor (H2O) and methane (CH4) around the planet. “Webb has given us an opportunity to figure out exactly which molecules we’re seeing and put some limits on the abundances,” said Joanna Barstow, a co-author from the Open University in the U.K.

The spectra show clear signs of water vapor on the nightside as well as the dayside of the planet, providing additional information about how thick the clouds are and how high they extend in the atmosphere.

Surprisingly, the data also shows a distinct lack of methane anywhere in the atmosphere. Although the dayside is too hot for methane to exist (most of the carbon should be in the form of carbon monoxide), methane should be stable and detectable on the cooler nightside.

“The fact that we don’t see methane tells us that WASP-43 b must have wind speeds reaching something like 5,000 miles per hour,” explained Barstow. “If winds move gas around from the dayside to the nightside and back again fast enough, there isn’t enough time for the expected chemical reactions to produce detectable amounts of methane on the nightside.”

The team thinks that because of this wind-driven mixing, the atmospheric chemistry is the same all the way around the planet, which wasn’t apparent from past work with Hubble and Spitzer.

Reference: “Nightside clouds and disequilibrium chemistry on the hot Jupiter WASP-43b” by Taylor J. Bell, Nicolas Crouzet, Patricio E. Cubillos, Laura Kreidberg, Anjali A. A. Piette, Michael T. Roman, Joanna K. Barstow, Jasmina Blecic, Ludmila Carone, Louis-Philippe Coulombe, Elsa Ducrot, Mark Hammond, João M. Mendonça, Julianne I. Moses, Vivien Parmentier, Kevin B. Stevenson, Lucas Teinturier, Michael Zhang, Natalie M. Batalha, Jacob L. Bean, Björn Benneke, Benjamin Charnay, Katy L. Chubb, Brice-Olivier Demory, Peter Gao, Elspeth K. H. Lee, Mercedes López-Morales, Giuseppe Morello, Emily Rauscher, David K. Sing, Xianyu Tan, Olivia Venot, Hannah R. Wakeford, Keshav Aggarwal, Eva-Maria Ahrer, Munazza K. Alam, Robin Baeyens, David Barrado, Claudio Caceres, Aarynn L. Carter, Sarah L. Casewell, Ryan C. Challener, Ian J. M. Crossfield, Leen Decin, Jean-Michel Désert, Ian Dobbs-Dixon, Achrène Dyrek, Néstor Espinoza, Adina D. Feinstein, Neale P. Gibson, Joseph Harrington, Christiane Helling, Renyu Hu, Nicolas Iro, Eliza M.-R. Kempton, Sarah Kendrew, Thaddeus D. Komacek, Jessica Krick, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Jérémy Leconte, Monika Lendl, Neil T. Lewis, Joshua D. Lothringer, Isaac Malsky, Luigi Mancini, Megan Mansfield, Nathan J. Mayne, Thomas M. Evans-Soma, Karan Molaverdikhani, Nikolay K. Nikolov, Matthew C. Nixon, Enric Palle, Dominique J. M. Petit dit de la Roche, Caroline Piaulet, Diana Powell, Benjamin V. Rackham, Aaron D. Schneider, Maria E. Steinrueck, Jake Taylor, Luis Welbanks, Sergei N. Yurchenko, Xi Zhang and Sebastian Zieba, 30 April 2024, Nature Astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02230-x

The MIRI observation of WASP-43 b was conducted as part of the Webb Early Release Science programs, which are providing researchers with a vast set of robust, open-access data for studying a wide array of cosmic phenomena.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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The Trump Team Wants to Boost Birth Rates While Poisoning Children

“I want a baby boom,” Trump has said. His administration is indeed exploring a range of approaches to boost the birth rate, including baby bonuses and classes on natural fertility. Yet his focus is entirely on the production of babies. When it comes to keeping these babies alive, this administration is leaving parents on their own, facing some horrifying and unprecedented challenges. It’s common for right-wing American governments, whether at the state or federal level, to be only half-heartedly natalist: restricting abortion, birth control, and sex education, while also failing to embrace any policy that makes it easier to raise a family, like universal childcare, robust public education, school lunch, cash supports for parents, or paid family leave. But the Trump-Vance government has taken this paradox to a new level, with natalist rhetoric far surpassing that of other recent administrations, while real live children are treated with more depraved, life-threatening indifference than in any American government in at least a century. Due to brutal cuts at the Food and Drug Administration, where 20,000 employees have been fired, the administration has suspended one of its quality-control programs for milk, Reuters reported this week. Milk is iconically associated with child health, and this is not a mere storybook whimsy: Most pediatricians regard it as critical for young children’s developing brains and bones. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends two cups a day for babies between 1 and 2 years old. While some experts—and of course the administration—are downplaying the change, emphasizing that milk will still be regulated, a bird flu epidemic hardly seems like the right time to be cutting corners. A government so focused on making more babies shouldn’t be so indifferent to risks to our nation’s toddlers.This reckless approach to child safety is not limited to food. Also this week, The New York Times reported that the Environmental Protection Agency was canceling tens of millions of dollars in grants for research on environmental hazards to children in rural America. These hazards include pesticides, wildfire smoke, and forever chemicals, and the grants supported research toward solutions to such problems. Many focused on improving child health in red states like Oklahoma. Children are much more vulnerable than adults to the health problems that can stem from exposure to toxins. That makes Trump’s policies, for all his baby-friendly chatter, seem pathologically misopedic; he is reversing bans on so-called “forever chemicals” and repealing limits set by the Biden administration on lead exposure, all of which will have devastating effects on children’s mental and physical development.And of course there’s RFK Jr.’s crazy campaign against vaccines. This week, the health secretary said he was considering removing the Covid-19 vaccine from the list of vaccines the government recommends for children, even though to win Senate confirmation, he had agreed not to alter the childhood vaccine schedule. Even worse, RFK Jr. has used his office to promote disinformation about extensively debunked links between vaccines and autism, while praising unproven “treatments” for measles as an outbreak that has afflicted more than 600 people and killed at least three continues to spread. Trump’s public health cuts are meanwhile imperiling a program that gives free vaccines to children. So far, I haven’t even mentioned children outside the United States. Trump has not only continued Biden’s policy of mass infanticide in Gaza—at least 100 children there have been killed or injured every week by Israeli forces since the dissolution of the ceasefire in March—he has vastly surpassed that shameful record by dismantling USAID. (The Supreme Court demanded that the government restore some of the funding to the already-contracted programs, but it’s unclear what the results of that ruling will be.) Children across the globe will starve to death due to this policy. The cuts to nutrition funding alone, researchers estimate, will kill some 369,000 children who could otherwise have lived. That’s not even counting all the other children’s lives imperiled by USAID funding cuts to vaccines, health services, and maternal care, or the children who will go unprotected now that Trump has cut 69 programs dedicated to tracking child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.Natalist or exterminationist? Pro-child or rabidly infanticidal? It’s tempting to dismiss such extreme contradictions within the Trump administration as merely chaotic and incoherent. But the situation is worse than that. Trying to boost births while actively making the world less safe for children is creepy—but not in a new way. The contradiction is baked into the eugenicist tradition that Vance and Trump openly embrace. Vance said at an anti-abortion rally in January that he wanted “more babies in the United States of America.” Vance also said he wanted “more beautiful young men and women” to have children. Notice he doesn’t just say “more babies”: the qualifiers are significant. Vance was implying that he wanted the right people to have babies: American, white, able-bodied, “beautiful” people with robust genetics. Children dying because of USAID cuts aren’t part of this vision, presumably, because those children are not American or white. As for infected milk, environmental toxins, or measles—here too, it’s hard not to hear social Darwinist overtones: In a far-right eugenicist worldview, children killed by those things likely aren’t fit for survival. In a more chaotic and dangerous environment, this extremely outdated logic goes, natural selection will ensure that the strongest survive. It’s also worth noting that this way of thinking originates in—and many of these Trump administration policies aim to return us to—an earlier era, when people of all ages, but especially children, were simply poisoned by industrial pollution, unvaccinated for diseases, and unprotected from industrial accidents. In such an unsafe world for children, people had many more of them; the world was such a dangerous place to raise kids that families expected to lose a few. That all-too-recent period is the unspoken context for natalist and eugenicist visions. That’s the world Trump and Vance seem to be nostalgic for, one in which women were constantly pregnant and in labor, and children were constantly dying horrible deaths. Doesn’t that sound pleasant for everyone?

“I want a baby boom,” Trump has said. His administration is indeed exploring a range of approaches to boost the birth rate, including baby bonuses and classes on natural fertility. Yet his focus is entirely on the production of babies. When it comes to keeping these babies alive, this administration is leaving parents on their own, facing some horrifying and unprecedented challenges. It’s common for right-wing American governments, whether at the state or federal level, to be only half-heartedly natalist: restricting abortion, birth control, and sex education, while also failing to embrace any policy that makes it easier to raise a family, like universal childcare, robust public education, school lunch, cash supports for parents, or paid family leave. But the Trump-Vance government has taken this paradox to a new level, with natalist rhetoric far surpassing that of other recent administrations, while real live children are treated with more depraved, life-threatening indifference than in any American government in at least a century. Due to brutal cuts at the Food and Drug Administration, where 20,000 employees have been fired, the administration has suspended one of its quality-control programs for milk, Reuters reported this week. Milk is iconically associated with child health, and this is not a mere storybook whimsy: Most pediatricians regard it as critical for young children’s developing brains and bones. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends two cups a day for babies between 1 and 2 years old. While some experts—and of course the administration—are downplaying the change, emphasizing that milk will still be regulated, a bird flu epidemic hardly seems like the right time to be cutting corners. A government so focused on making more babies shouldn’t be so indifferent to risks to our nation’s toddlers.This reckless approach to child safety is not limited to food. Also this week, The New York Times reported that the Environmental Protection Agency was canceling tens of millions of dollars in grants for research on environmental hazards to children in rural America. These hazards include pesticides, wildfire smoke, and forever chemicals, and the grants supported research toward solutions to such problems. Many focused on improving child health in red states like Oklahoma. Children are much more vulnerable than adults to the health problems that can stem from exposure to toxins. That makes Trump’s policies, for all his baby-friendly chatter, seem pathologically misopedic; he is reversing bans on so-called “forever chemicals” and repealing limits set by the Biden administration on lead exposure, all of which will have devastating effects on children’s mental and physical development.And of course there’s RFK Jr.’s crazy campaign against vaccines. This week, the health secretary said he was considering removing the Covid-19 vaccine from the list of vaccines the government recommends for children, even though to win Senate confirmation, he had agreed not to alter the childhood vaccine schedule. Even worse, RFK Jr. has used his office to promote disinformation about extensively debunked links between vaccines and autism, while praising unproven “treatments” for measles as an outbreak that has afflicted more than 600 people and killed at least three continues to spread. Trump’s public health cuts are meanwhile imperiling a program that gives free vaccines to children. So far, I haven’t even mentioned children outside the United States. Trump has not only continued Biden’s policy of mass infanticide in Gaza—at least 100 children there have been killed or injured every week by Israeli forces since the dissolution of the ceasefire in March—he has vastly surpassed that shameful record by dismantling USAID. (The Supreme Court demanded that the government restore some of the funding to the already-contracted programs, but it’s unclear what the results of that ruling will be.) Children across the globe will starve to death due to this policy. The cuts to nutrition funding alone, researchers estimate, will kill some 369,000 children who could otherwise have lived. That’s not even counting all the other children’s lives imperiled by USAID funding cuts to vaccines, health services, and maternal care, or the children who will go unprotected now that Trump has cut 69 programs dedicated to tracking child labor, forced labor, and human trafficking.Natalist or exterminationist? Pro-child or rabidly infanticidal? It’s tempting to dismiss such extreme contradictions within the Trump administration as merely chaotic and incoherent. But the situation is worse than that. Trying to boost births while actively making the world less safe for children is creepy—but not in a new way. The contradiction is baked into the eugenicist tradition that Vance and Trump openly embrace. Vance said at an anti-abortion rally in January that he wanted “more babies in the United States of America.” Vance also said he wanted “more beautiful young men and women” to have children. Notice he doesn’t just say “more babies”: the qualifiers are significant. Vance was implying that he wanted the right people to have babies: American, white, able-bodied, “beautiful” people with robust genetics. Children dying because of USAID cuts aren’t part of this vision, presumably, because those children are not American or white. As for infected milk, environmental toxins, or measles—here too, it’s hard not to hear social Darwinist overtones: In a far-right eugenicist worldview, children killed by those things likely aren’t fit for survival. In a more chaotic and dangerous environment, this extremely outdated logic goes, natural selection will ensure that the strongest survive. It’s also worth noting that this way of thinking originates in—and many of these Trump administration policies aim to return us to—an earlier era, when people of all ages, but especially children, were simply poisoned by industrial pollution, unvaccinated for diseases, and unprotected from industrial accidents. In such an unsafe world for children, people had many more of them; the world was such a dangerous place to raise kids that families expected to lose a few. That all-too-recent period is the unspoken context for natalist and eugenicist visions. That’s the world Trump and Vance seem to be nostalgic for, one in which women were constantly pregnant and in labor, and children were constantly dying horrible deaths. Doesn’t that sound pleasant for everyone?

Chemicals
Education
Food

The greater Pittsburgh region is among the 25 worst metro areas in the country for air quality: Report

PITTSBURGH — The greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area is among the 25 regions in the country with the worst air pollution, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.The nonprofit public health organization’s annual “State of the Air” report uses a report card-style grading system to compare air quality in regions across the U.S. This year’s report found that 46% of Americans — 156.1 million people — are living in places that get failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particulate pollution. Overall, air pollution measured by the report was worse than in previous years, with more Americans living in places with unhealthy air than in the previous 10 years the report has been published.The 13-county region spanning Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania; Weirton, West Virginia; and Steubenville, Ohio received “fail” grades for both daily and annual average particulate matter exposure for the years 2021–2023.The region ranked 16th worst for 24-hour particle pollution out of 225 metropolitan areas and 12th worst for annual particle pollution out of 208 metropolitan areas. Particulate matter pollution, which comes from things like industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and wood burning, causes higher rates of asthma, decreased lung function in children, and increased hospital admissions and premature death due to heart attacks and respiratory illness. Long-term exposure to particulate matter pollution also raises the risk of lung cancer, and research suggests that in the Pittsburgh region, air pollution linked to particulate matter and other harmful substances contributes significantly to cancer rates. According to the report, the Pittsburgh metro area is home to around 50,022 children with pediatric asthma, 227,806 adults with asthma, 173,588 people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), 250,600 people with cardiovascular disease, 1,468 people with lung cancer, and around 25,746 pregnant people, all of whom are especially vulnerable to the harmful impacts of particulate matter pollution exposure."The findings help community members understand the ongoing risks to the health of people in our region," said Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project and the Breathe Collaborative, a coalition of more than 30 groups in southwestern Pennsylvania that advocate for cleaner air. "These findings emphasize the need to transition away from fossil fuels — in industry, transportation and residential uses — if we are to improve our health and address climate change." Allegheny County has received a failing grade for particulate matter pollution from the American Lung Association every year since the "State of the Air" report was first issued in 2004. The region is home to numerous polluting industries, with an estimated 80% of toxic air pollutants in Allegheny County (which encompasses Pittsburgh) coming from ten industrial sites, according to an analysis by the nonprofit environmental advocacy group PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center. The Ohio River near Pittsburgh Credit: Kristina Marusic for EHN In the 2024 State of the Air report, which looked at 2020-2022, Pittsburgh was for the first time ever not among the 25 cities most polluted by particulate matte, and showed some improvements in air quality, some of which may have resulted from pollution reductions spurred by the COVID-19 shut-down in 2020.The region earned a grade D for ozone smog this year, but its ranking improved from last year — it went from the 50th worst metro area for ozone smog in 2024’s report to the 90th worst in this year’s. Ozone pollution also comes from sources like vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, and occurs when certain chemicals mix with sunlight. Exposure to ozone pollution is linked to respiratory issues, worsened asthma symptoms, and long-term lung damage.Each year the State of the Air Report makes recommendations for improving air quality. This year those recommendations include defending funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), because sweeping staff cuts and reduction of federal funding under the Trump administration are impairing the agency’s ability to enforce clean air regulations. For example, the report notes that EPA recently lowered annual limits for fine particulate matter pollution from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9 micrograms per cubic meter, and that states, including Pennsylvania, have submitted their recommendations for which areas should be cleaned up. Next, the agency must review those recommendations and add its own analyses to make final decisions by February 6, 2026 about which areas need additional pollution controls. If it fails to do so due to lack of funding or staffing, the report suggests, air quality might suffer.“The bottom line is this,” the report states. “EPA staff, working in communities across the country, are doing crucial work to keep your air clean. Staff cuts are already impacting people’s health across the country. Further cuts mean more dirty air.”

PITTSBURGH — The greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area is among the 25 regions in the country with the worst air pollution, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.The nonprofit public health organization’s annual “State of the Air” report uses a report card-style grading system to compare air quality in regions across the U.S. This year’s report found that 46% of Americans — 156.1 million people — are living in places that get failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particulate pollution. Overall, air pollution measured by the report was worse than in previous years, with more Americans living in places with unhealthy air than in the previous 10 years the report has been published.The 13-county region spanning Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania; Weirton, West Virginia; and Steubenville, Ohio received “fail” grades for both daily and annual average particulate matter exposure for the years 2021–2023.The region ranked 16th worst for 24-hour particle pollution out of 225 metropolitan areas and 12th worst for annual particle pollution out of 208 metropolitan areas. Particulate matter pollution, which comes from things like industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, wildfires, and wood burning, causes higher rates of asthma, decreased lung function in children, and increased hospital admissions and premature death due to heart attacks and respiratory illness. Long-term exposure to particulate matter pollution also raises the risk of lung cancer, and research suggests that in the Pittsburgh region, air pollution linked to particulate matter and other harmful substances contributes significantly to cancer rates. According to the report, the Pittsburgh metro area is home to around 50,022 children with pediatric asthma, 227,806 adults with asthma, 173,588 people with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), 250,600 people with cardiovascular disease, 1,468 people with lung cancer, and around 25,746 pregnant people, all of whom are especially vulnerable to the harmful impacts of particulate matter pollution exposure."The findings help community members understand the ongoing risks to the health of people in our region," said Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project and the Breathe Collaborative, a coalition of more than 30 groups in southwestern Pennsylvania that advocate for cleaner air. "These findings emphasize the need to transition away from fossil fuels — in industry, transportation and residential uses — if we are to improve our health and address climate change." Allegheny County has received a failing grade for particulate matter pollution from the American Lung Association every year since the "State of the Air" report was first issued in 2004. The region is home to numerous polluting industries, with an estimated 80% of toxic air pollutants in Allegheny County (which encompasses Pittsburgh) coming from ten industrial sites, according to an analysis by the nonprofit environmental advocacy group PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center. The Ohio River near Pittsburgh Credit: Kristina Marusic for EHN In the 2024 State of the Air report, which looked at 2020-2022, Pittsburgh was for the first time ever not among the 25 cities most polluted by particulate matte, and showed some improvements in air quality, some of which may have resulted from pollution reductions spurred by the COVID-19 shut-down in 2020.The region earned a grade D for ozone smog this year, but its ranking improved from last year — it went from the 50th worst metro area for ozone smog in 2024’s report to the 90th worst in this year’s. Ozone pollution also comes from sources like vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, and occurs when certain chemicals mix with sunlight. Exposure to ozone pollution is linked to respiratory issues, worsened asthma symptoms, and long-term lung damage.Each year the State of the Air Report makes recommendations for improving air quality. This year those recommendations include defending funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), because sweeping staff cuts and reduction of federal funding under the Trump administration are impairing the agency’s ability to enforce clean air regulations. For example, the report notes that EPA recently lowered annual limits for fine particulate matter pollution from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9 micrograms per cubic meter, and that states, including Pennsylvania, have submitted their recommendations for which areas should be cleaned up. Next, the agency must review those recommendations and add its own analyses to make final decisions by February 6, 2026 about which areas need additional pollution controls. If it fails to do so due to lack of funding or staffing, the report suggests, air quality might suffer.“The bottom line is this,” the report states. “EPA staff, working in communities across the country, are doing crucial work to keep your air clean. Staff cuts are already impacting people’s health across the country. Further cuts mean more dirty air.”

Chemicals
Climate
Health

New, 'Living' Building Material Made From Fungi and Bacteria Could Pave the Way to Self-Healing Structures

Researchers are developing the biomaterial as a more environmentally friendly alternative to concrete, but any wide-scale use is still far away

New, ‘Living’ Building Material Made From Fungi and Bacteria Could Pave the Way to Self-Healing Structures Researchers are developing the biomaterial as a more environmentally friendly alternative to concrete, but any wide-scale use is still far away Microscopic images of the bacteria and mycelium scaffolds. The circles indicate the likely presence of S. pasteurii bacteria. Viles, Ethan et al., Cell Reports Physical Science 2025 Concrete is a crucial construction material. Unfortunately, however, producing it requires large amounts of energy—often powered by fossil fuels—and includes chemical reactions that release carbon dioxide. This intensive process is responsible for up to 8 percent of humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions. As such, finding more sustainable building materials is vital to lessening our global carbon footprint. And to help achieve this goal, scientists are studying methods that might replace concrete with biologically derived materials, or biomaterials for short. Now, researchers have developed a building material made of mycelium—the tubular, branching filaments found in most fungi—and bacteria cells. As detailed in a study published last week in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, the living bacteria survived in the structure for an extended amount of time, laying the groundwork for more environmentally friendly and self-healing construction material down the line. The researchers grew mycelium from the fungus Neurospora crassa, commonly known as red bread mold, into a dense, scaffold-like structure. Then, they added Sporosarcina pasteurii bacteria. “We like these organisms for several reasons,” Chelsea Heveran, a co-author of the study and an expert in engineered living materials at Montana State University, tells the Debrief’s Ryan Whalen. “First, they do not pose very much threat to human health. S. pasteurii is a common soil microorganism and has been used for years in biomineralization research, including in field-scale commercial applications. N. crassa is a model organism in fungal research.” They also liked that both organisms are capable of biomineralization—the process that forms bones and coral by creating hardened calcium carbonate. To set off biomineralization, the team placed the scaffold in a growing medium with urea and calcium. The bacteria formed calcium carbonate quickly and effectively, making the material stronger. Importantly, the bacteria S. pasteurii was alive, or viable, for at least a month. Live organisms in building material could offer unique properties—such as the ability to self-repair or self-clean—but only as long as they’re alive. This study didn’t test those traits specifically, according to a statement, but the longer lifetime of this material “lays the groundwork for these functionalities.” “We are excited about our results,” Heveran tells New Scientist’s James Woodford. “When viability is sufficiently high, we could start really imparting lasting biological characteristics to the material that we care about, such as self-healing, sensing or environmental remediation.” This month-long lifespan marks a significant improvement over previous structures. In fact, a major challenge in the development of living biomaterials is their short viability—other similar materials made with living organisms have remained viable for just days or weeks. Plus, they don’t usually form the complex internal structures necessary in construction projects, according to the statement. In the new study, however, “we learned that fungal scaffolds are quite useful for controlling the internal architecture of the material,” Heveran explains in the statement. “We created internal geometries that looked like cortical bone, but moving forward, we could potentially construct other geometries, too.” Ultimately, the researchers developed a tough structure that could provide the basis for future sustainable building alternatives. As reported by New Atlas’ Abhimanyu Ghoshal, however, scientists still have other challenges to tackle on the path to replacing concrete—for instance, scaling the material’s production, making it usable for different types of construction projects and overcoming the higher costs associated with living biomaterials. These materials, so far, “do not have high enough strength to replace concrete in all applications,” Heveran says in the statement. “But we and others are working to improve their properties so they can see greater usage.” To that end, Aysu Kuru, a building engineer at the University of Sydney in Australia who did not participate in the study, tells New Scientist that “proposing mycelium as a scaffolding medium for living materials is a simple but powerful strategy.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Chemicals
CO2
Energy

New electronic “skin” could enable lightweight night-vision glasses

MIT engineers developed ultrathin electronic films that sense heat and other signals, and could reduce the bulk of conventional goggles and scopes.

MIT engineers have developed a technique to grow and peel ultrathin “skins” of electronic material. The method could pave the way for new classes of electronic devices, such as ultrathin wearable sensors, flexible transistors and computing elements, and highly sensitive and compact imaging devices. As a demonstration, the team fabricated a thin membrane of pyroelectric material — a class of heat-sensing material that produces an electric current in response to changes in temperature. The thinner the pyroelectric material, the better it is at sensing subtle thermal variations.With their new method, the team fabricated the thinnest pyroelectric membrane yet, measuring 10 nanometers thick, and demonstrated that the film is highly sensitive to heat and radiation across the far-infrared spectrum.The newly developed film could enable lighter, more portable, and highly accurate far-infrared (IR) sensing devices, with potential applications for night-vision eyewear and autonomous driving in foggy conditions. Current state-of-the-art far-IR sensors require bulky cooling elements. In contrast, the new pyroelectric thin film requires no cooling and is sensitive to much smaller changes in temperature. The researchers are exploring ways to incorporate the film into lighter, higher-precision night-vision glasses.“This film considerably reduces weight and cost, making it lightweight, portable, and easier to integrate,” Xinyuan Zhang, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE). “For example, it could be directly worn on glasses.”The heat-sensing film could also have applications in environmental and biological sensing, as well as imaging of astrophysical phenomena that emit far-infrared radiation.What’s more, the new lift-off technique is generalizable beyond pyroelectric materials. The researchers plan to apply the method to make other ultrathin, high-performance semiconducting films.Their results are reported today in a paper appearing in the journal Nature. The study’s MIT co-authors are first author Xinyuan Zhang, Sangho Lee, Min-Kyu Song, Haihui Lan, Jun Min Suh, Jung-El Ryu, Yanjie Shao, Xudong Zheng, Ne Myo Han, and Jeehwan Kim, associate professor of mechanical engineering and of materials science and engineering, along with researchers at the University Wisconsin at Madison led by Professor Chang-Beom Eom and authors from multiple other institutions.Chemical peelKim’s group at MIT is finding new ways to make smaller, thinner, and more flexible electronics. They envision that such ultrathin computing “skins” can be incorporated into everything from smart contact lenses and wearable sensing fabrics to stretchy solar cells and bendable displays. To realize such devices, Kim and his colleagues have been experimenting with methods to grow, peel, and stack semiconducting elements, to fabricate ultrathin, multifunctional electronic thin-film membranes.One method that Kim has pioneered is “remote epitaxy” — a technique where semiconducting materials are grown on a single-crystalline substrate, with an ultrathin layer of graphene in between. The substrate’s crystal structure serves as a scaffold along which the new material can grow. The graphene acts as a nonstick layer, similar to Teflon, making it easy for researchers to peel off the new film and transfer it onto flexible and stacked electronic devices. After peeling off the new film, the underlying substrate can be reused to make additional thin films.Kim has applied remote epitaxy to fabricate thin films with various characteristics. In trying different combinations of semiconducting elements, the researchers happened to notice that a certain pyroelectric material, called PMN-PT, did not require an intermediate layer assist in order to separate from its substrate. Just by growing PMN-PT directly on a single-crystalline substrate, the researchers could then remove the grown film, with no rips or tears to its delicate lattice.“It worked surprisingly well,” Zhang says. “We found the peeled film is atomically smooth.”Lattice lift-offIn their new study, the MIT and UW Madison researchers took a closer look at the process and discovered that the key to the material’s easy-peel property was lead. As part of its chemical structure, the team, along with colleagues at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, discovered that the pyroelectric film contains an orderly arrangement of lead atoms that have a large “electron affinity,” meaning that lead attracts electrons and prevents the charge carriers from traveling and connecting to another materials such as an underlying substrate. The lead acts as tiny nonstick units, allowing the material as a whole to peel away, perfectly intact.The team ran with the realization and fabricated multiple ultrathin films of PMN-PT, each about 10 nanometers thin. They peeled off pyroelectric films and transfered them onto a small chip to form an array of 100 ultrathin heat-sensing pixels, each about 60 square microns (about .006 square centimeters). They exposed the films to ever-slighter changes in temperature and found the pixels were highly sensitive to small changes across the far-infrared spectrum.The sensitivity of the pyroelectric array is comparable to that of state-of-the-art night-vision devices. These devices are currently based on photodetector materials, in which a change in temperature induces the material’s electrons to jump in energy and briefly cross an energy “band gap,” before settling back into their ground state. This electron jump serves as an electrical signal of the temperature change. However, this signal can be affected by noise in the environment, and to prevent such effects, photodetectors have to also include cooling devices that bring the instruments down to liquid nitrogen temperatures.Current night-vision goggles and scopes are heavy and bulky. With the group’s new pyroelectric-based approach, NVDs could have the same sensitivity without the cooling weight.The researchers also found that the films were sensitive beyond the range of current night-vision devices and could respond to wavelengths across the entire infrared spectrum. This suggests that the films could be incorporated into small, lightweight, and portable devices for various applications that require different infrared regions. For instance, when integrated into autonomous vehicle platforms, the films could enable cars to “see” pedestrians and vehicles in complete darkness or in foggy and rainy conditions. The film could also be used in gas sensors for real-time and on-site environmental monitoring, helping detect pollutants. In electronics, they could monitor heat changes in semiconductor chips to catch early signs of malfunctioning elements.The team says the new lift-off method can be generalized to materials that may not themselves contain lead. In those cases, the researchers suspect that they can infuse Teflon-like lead atoms into the underlying substrate to induce a similar peel-off effect. For now, the team is actively working toward incorporating the pyroelectric films into a functional night-vision system.“We envision that our ultrathin films could be made into high-performance night-vision goggles, considering its broad-spectrum infrared sensitivity at room-temperature, which allows for a lightweight design without a cooling system,” Zhang says. “To turn this into a night-vision system, a functional device array should be integrated with readout circuitry. Furthermore, testing in varied environmental conditions is essential for practical applications.”This work was supported by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Chemicals
Energy
Nature

President of Eugene wood treatment plant gets 90-day prison term for lying to DEQ inspectors

"There has to be some accountability," U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane said.

A federal judge Tuesday sentenced the president of Eugene’s J.H. Baxter & Co. wood treatment plant to 90 days in prison for lying about the company’s illegal handling of hazardous waste at the site.U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane called Georgia Baxter-Krause, 62, an “absent president” who took little responsibility for what occurred.“The fact that you lied when confronted suggests you knew the practice was not ‘above board,’” McShane said. “There has to be some accountability.”He also ordered Baxter-Krause and the company to pay $1.5 million in criminal fines. The plant is now a potential cleanup site under the federal Superfund program.J.H. Baxter & Co. Inc. pleaded guilty to illegally treating hazardous waste and Baxter-Krause pleaded guilty to two counts of making false statements in violation of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act governing hazardous waste management.The company so far has paid $850,000 of its $1 million share of the fine, and Baxter-Krause has paid $250,000 of her $500,000 share, their attorney David Angeli said.Much of the debate at the sentencing focused on whether Baxter-Krause should go to prison for lying to investigators.According to court documents, J.H. Baxter used hazardous chemicals to treat and preserve wood. Water from the process was considered hazardous waste. The company operated a legal wastewater treatment unit, but for years when there was “too much water on site,” the company essentially would “boil” off the wastewater, allowing discharge into the air through open vents, according to court records.Photograph sent to Georgia Baxter-Krause on July 8, 2019, depicting the inside of a J.H. Baxter container after weeks of boiling hazardous waste, according to federal prosecutors.U.S. Attorney's OfficeAngeli argued that the violations at the Eugene plant were “less egregious” than other criminal environmental damage cases and that “everyone” on the premises thought the hazardous waste handling was OK. He sought probation for Baxter-Krause.“Every person said she never directed or managed this activity,” Angeli said. “She was rarely even in Eugene.”But Assistant U.S. Attorney William McLaren said Baxter-Krause blatantly lied when inspectors from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality requested information about the company’s practice of boiling off the wastewater.Baxter-Krause provided false information when questioned about the extent of the illegal activity and failed to disclose that the company kept detailed logs that tracked it, according to prosecutors.The plant illegally boiled about 600,000 gallons of wastewater on 136 days from January to October 2019, McLaren said.The government didn’t seek the maximum fine for the environmental violations, which would have been $7 million for each day a violation was found, he said. A separate civil class-action suit is pending against the company filed by people living near the West Eugene plant. They allege gross negligence that allowed “carcinogenic and poisonous chemicals’’ to be regularly released into the air and groundwater. Baxter-Krause told an investigator that the company didn’t keep records on the boiling dates and claimed it occurred only occasionally during the rainy season, records said.“Those were not minimal or immaterial slip-ups,” McLaren said. What the company was doing was “known for years on end” and it was occurring every month, he said.“Despite alerts about equipment failure and the need for capital upgrades, the evidence reflects those warnings went unheeded by J.H. Baxter’s leadership for years,” McLaren said. “And by early 2019, this illegal boiling became the company’s sole method for treating their hazardous wastewater.”Baxter-Krause, who took over the company in 2001 after her father’s death, apologized to the community around the plant and to her friends and family. She now lives in Bend but had lived in California throughout her tenure as company president and visited the Eugene facility about three times a year, according to her lawyers.“I should have been honest,” she said. “To the West Eugene community who was impacted by my careless actions, I apologize. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel remorse. I am ashamed of what I have done. I feel I have truly let you down.”She acknowledged that as president, “the buck stops with me. I should have been more proactive in fully understanding the facility’s permits, the day-to-day operations and ensuring full compliance with environmental laws.”J.H. Baxter treated wood products at the plant from 1943 to 2022. Chemicals used to treat wood, such as creosote and pentachlorophenol, also known as “penta” or PCP, have contaminated the soil and groundwater and are an ongoing concern for surrounding neighborhoods, according to the government.The chemicals remain in tanks at the site and the environmental contamination has not been addressed, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.The company has spent more than $2 million since the plant’s closure to secure the facility and work on complying with environmental regulations, but it has been unable to sell the property because of the historical contamination, according to court records.The judge said it will be up to the Federal Bureau of Prisons where to send Baxter-Krause to serve the sentence. The defense said it would request that she be placed in a community corrections setting.Baxter-Krause was ordered to surrender on July 17. She wondered aloud in the courtroom after her sentencing how she would maintain the compliance reports.Her lawyers explained that the Environmental Protection Agency is on site daily working to fully shut the property down.The EPA is still working to determine how to handle and remove chemicals from the site. It collected soil, sediment, and water samples in May 2023 from both the facility and the surrounding areas. These samples will determine the environmental and potential public health impacts of chemicals that have migrated from the site and from air pollution from its operations.-- Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X @maxoregonian, on Bluesky @maxbernstein.bsky.social or on LinkedIn.

Chemicals
Conservation
Government

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Chemicals
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