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GoGreenNation news

Going with the Flow: Exploring Loblolly Woods Nature Park

Alec Kissoondyal
News Feed
Monday, July 12, 2021

...more pollutants seep into the water as it travels further into the city, and Loblolly Park is a perfect example. Oil from cars, discarded trash, and animal waste from the roads, businesses, and apartments surrounding the park are swept up in the surface runoff. The runoff flows into the creek and contaminates the water.

The natural beauty of Loblolly Woods Nature Park provides a welcome reprieve from the city traffic. In the park, visitors can find a variety of wildlife, including woodpeckers, turtles, and even the occasional hawk among many others.

The park is located at the confluence of Possum Creek and Hogtown Creek. As the Gainesville Clean Water Partnership official website states, the meeting of these two creeks is significant since, "Possum Creek is the largest tributary to Hogtown Creek, which discharges to the Floridan Aquifer via Haile Sink."

The main trail, which stretches from one end of the park to the other, branches off into several smaller trails that allow visitors to explore the area and get closer to the combined waters of the two creeks which cut through the woods and continue to flow southwest.

The clear, fast-flowing creek may appear inviting (especially on a hot Florida afternoon), and many visitors may even be tempted to wade in its waters, but looks can be deceiving.

Laminated signs posted along the trail warn visitors not to enter the creek due to the high concentration of fecal bacteria in the water. The QR codes on the signs provide links to the Alachua County website. However, the page containing specific information about the levels of bacteria in the creek is nowhere to be found.

Regardless, more pollutants seep into the water as it travels further into the city, and Loblolly Park is a perfect example. Oil from cars, discarded trash, and animal waste from the roads, businesses, and apartments surrounding the park are swept up in the surface runoff. The runoff flows into the creek and contaminates the water.

The contrast between the poor water quality of the creek and Loblolly Park's natural beauty serves as a direct reminder of the potential negative impact that water pollution can have on the city if it is left unchecked. The wildlife that calls the park home would not be the only ones affected, however. The creek will continue to flow into the Floridan Aquifer, which Gainesville relies on for its drinking water, and it will bring the fecal bacteria and other contaminants along with it.

For more information about how to keep Gainesville's waterways clean, visit the Gainesville Clean Water Partnership website to find ways to get involved.

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Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of
Alec Kissoondyal
Alec Kissoondyal

Alec Kissoondyal is an intern at Cinema Verde and a student at the University of Florida currently pursuing a degree in English. He is also a writer for Narrow Magazine and an ambassador for the Florida Hemingway Society. His poetry and fiction have been published in Zephyr literary journal. In his spare time, Alec enjoys reading, creative writing, exploring nature parks, and listening to anything released by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.

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Related News

Cryptocurrency’s Thirst: A Single Bitcoin Transaction Consumes a Pool’s Worth of Water

Bitcoin mining’s extensive water use is worsening the global water crisis, especially in drought-prone regions, according to Alex de Vries. He suggests potential solutions, including...

Alex de Vries’ research highlights the substantial water consumption of Bitcoin mining, exacerbating the global water crisis. This issue is particularly severe in water-scarce regions and countries like the U.S. and Central Asia. De Vries proposes solutions like software changes and renewable energy but raises concerns about their practicality. Bitcoin mining’s extensive water use is worsening the global water crisis, especially in drought-prone regions, according to Alex de Vries. He suggests potential solutions, including renewable energy, but notes the challenges in their implementation. Cryptocurrency mining uses a significant amount of water amid the global water crisis, and its water demand may grow further. In a commentary published November 29 in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability, financial economist Alex de Vries provides the first comprehensive estimate of Bitcoin’s water use. He warns that its sheer scale could impact drinking water if it continues to operate without constraints, especially in countries that are already battling water scarcity, including the U.S. “Many parts of the world are experiencing droughts, and freshwater is becoming an increasing scarce resource,” says de Vries, a PhD student at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. “If we continue to use this valuable resource for making useless computations, I think that reality is really painful.” Bitcoin Mining’s Intensive Resource Use Previous research on crypto’s resource use has primarily focused on electricity consumption. When mining Bitcoins, the most popular cryptocurrency, miners around the world are essentially racing to solve mathematical equations on the internet, and the winners get a share of Bitcoin’s value. In the Bitcoin network, miners make about 350 quintillion—that is, 350 followed by 18 zeros—guesses every second of the day, an activity that consumes a tremendous amount of computing power. “The right answer emerges every 10 minutes, and the rest of the data, quintillions of them, are computations that serve no further purpose and are therefore immediately discarded,” de Vries says. During the same process, a large amount of water is used to cool the computers at large data centers. Based on data from previous research, de Vries calculates that Bitcoin mining consumes about 8.6 to 35.1 gigaliters (GL) of water per year in the U.S. In addition to cooling computers, coal- and gas-fired power plants that provide electricity to run the computers also use water to lower the temperature. This cooling water is evaporated and not available to be reused. Water evaporated from hydropower plants also adds to the water footprint of Bitcoin’s power demand. Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, invented in 2008 by an unknown person or group of people using the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It was released as open-source software in 2009. Operating without a central authority or single administrator, Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer network that allows users to send and receive bitcoins, the units of currency, by broadcasting digitally signed messages to the network. Transactions are recorded in a public ledger called a blockchain. Alarming Global Water Consumption In total, de Vries estimates that in 2021, Bitcoin mining consumed over 1,600 GL of water worldwide. Each transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain uses 16,000 liters of water on average, about 6.2 million times more than a credit card swipe, or enough to fill a backyard swimming pool. Bitcoin’s water consumption is expected to increase to 2,300 GL in 2023, de Vries says, In the U.S., Bitcoin mining consumes about 93 GL to 120 GL of water every year, equivalent to the average water consumption of 300,000 U.S. households or a city like Washington, D.C. Environmental Impact and Price Correlation “The price of Bitcoin just increased recently and reached its highest point of the year, despite the recent collapse of several cryptocurrency platforms. This will have serious consequences, because the higher the price, the higher the environmental impact,” de Vries says. “The most painful thing about cryptocurrency mining is that it uses so much computational power and so much resources, but these resources are not going into creating some kind of model, like artificial intelligence, that you can then use for something else. It’s just making useless computations.” At a value of more than $37,000 per coin, Bitcoin continues to expand across the world. In countries in Central Asia, where the dry climate is already putting pressure on freshwater supply, increased Bitcoin mining activities will worsen the problem. In Kazakhstan, a global cryptocurrency mining hub, Bitcoin transactions consumed 997.9 GL of water in 2021. The Central Asia country is already grappling with a water crisis, and Bitcoin mining’s growing water footprint could exacerbate the shortage. Potential Solutions and Dilemmas De Vries suggests that approaches such as modifying Bitcoin mining’s software could cut down on the power and water needed for this process. Incorporating renewable energy sources that don’t involve water, including wind and solar, can also reduce water consumption. “But do you really want to spend wind and solar power for crypto? In many countries including the U.S., the amount of renewable energy is limited. Sure you can move some of these renewable energy sources to crypto, but that means something else will be powered with fossil fuels. I’m not sure how much you gain,” he says. Reference: “Bitcoin’s growing water footprint” by Alex de Vries, 29 November 2023, Cell Reports Sustainability.DOI: 10.1016/j.crsus.2023.100004

Water
Crisis
Energy

DOJ asked to investigate water utility hack

Three members of Pennsylvania's congressional delegation have asked the Department of Justice to investigate how foreign hackers breached a water authority near Pittsburgh which prompted warnings to other water treatment facilities. In a letter released Thursday, Democratic Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D), said Americans must know their drinking water...

Three members of Pennsylvania's congressional delegation have asked the Department of Justice to investigate how foreign hackers breached a water authority near Pittsburgh which prompted warnings to other water treatment facilities. In a letter released Thursday, Democratic Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey and Rep. Chris Deluzio (D), said Americans must know their drinking water is safe from “nation-state adversaries and terrorist organizations,” The Associated Press reported. The Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania was apparently targeted and compromised on Nov. 24 because the equipment in the control system was made in Israel. An image of the device screen shows a message from hackers that reads “Every equipment ‘made in Israel’ is Cyber Av3ngers legal target.” A group used that same language claimed to have hacked 10 water treatment stations in Israel, but it’s not confirmed if they were able to shut down any equipment, the AP reported. “Any attack on our nation’s critical infrastructure is unacceptable,” the lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland. “If a hack like this can happen here in western Pennsylvania, it can happen anywhere else in the United States.” CBS News in Pittsburgh obtained a copy of the letter that said there is a history in Western Pennsylvania of the U.S. Attorney's Office "prosecuting cybercrimes involving foreign adversaries." Deluzio joined the news station to discuss the letter, calling the attack "a serious thing." "A municipal water authority in Aliquippa is the target here, and that controls something we all rely on: access to water," Deluzio told CBS. "So that's where the vulnerabilities are. We've got to shore up defenses and help local government, help private vendors where they're involved, lift up their cybersecurity." “We’ve been told that we are not the only authority that’s been affected in the country, but we are believed to be the first,” the Aliquippa water authority chairman Matthew Mottes told the AP. Cyber Av3ngers have been aligned with Iran’s government, leading cybersecurity companies Check Point Research and Google’s Mandiant said. The group has been targeting Israeli infrastructure since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, a Check Point spokesperson said. According to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the device in Pennsylvania — which regulates processes like pressure, temperature and fluid flow — was made by Unitronics, a company based in Israel, which is used in industries ranging from water and sewage facilities, to electric companies and oil and gas producers, per AP. The Pennsylvania water authority temporarily halted pumping on Saturday after the hack. Crews took over with manual operation. The cybersecurity attack came after a federal appeals court ruling prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to rescind a rule that would have required U.S. public water systems to include cybersecurity testing in their regular audits. The agency announced in March that many systems have not taken the basic steps to ensure cybersecurity despite more attacks. The EPA rescinded the memorandum in October, despite believing attacks "occur frequently and are a significant threat" to water and wastewater system operations. The agency said it will be using the Biden administration's National Cybersecurity Strategy, released in March, to guide future work and lower the risk of attacks. The Hill has reached out to the offices of the three lawmakers who wrote to the DOJ for more information about their letter and request.

Water
Government
Waste

How problematic is mineral mining for electric cars?

In part two of our series exploring myths surrounding EVs, we weigh up the issues of resource extractionIn the deserts of Chile, the Australian outback and the plains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the earth is being peeled back and the water sucked up and dried out to find the minerals needed to feed the world’s need for electric cars.The scars left on the earth by the search for battery minerals are regularly trotted out by opponents of the transition away from fossil fuels. But in our EV mythbusters series, we are taking a closer look at some of the most common criticisms of electric cars, highlighting the myths, the realities, and the grey areas. Continue reading...

In the deserts of Chile, the Australian outback and the plains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the earth is being peeled back and the water sucked up and dried out to find the minerals needed to feed the world’s need for electric cars.The scars left on the earth by the search for battery minerals are regularly trotted out by opponents of the transition away from fossil fuels. But in our EV mythbusters series, we are taking a closer look at some of the most common criticisms of electric cars, highlighting the myths, the realities, and the grey areas.The first in our series asked whether we should be more concerned about fires in electric cars. This article asks: do electric cars have a mining problem?The claimThe extraction of battery materials is due to expand on a grand scale. That will leave a trail of mining – often with local environmental degradation – in its wake. The rightwing politician turned pundit Nigel Farage last month wrote of electric vehicles’ “nasty secret” and the “strain” on the environment from mining for minerals used in electric cars.Beyond the environmental impact, there is also the issue of child labour and exploitation of artisanal miners, which is rife in some parts of the DRC at cobalt mines, according to reports by the human rights group Amnesty International and others.A child walks past a truck carrying rocks extracted from a cobalt mine at a copper quarry and cobalt pit in Lubumbashi, DRC. Photograph: Junior Kannah/AFP/GettyA recent headline in the Daily Telegraph newspaper claimed: “Electric cars are made of pollution and human misery.” A Washington Post headline claimed the electric vehicle transition was driven by “blood batteries”.The scienceMineral demand for heavy batteries will grow rapidly. The International Energy Agency estimated that electric cars use 173kg more minerals such as lithium, nickel and copper than petrol cars (when ignoring steel and aluminium). The data company Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecasts global demand for lithium, the key battery metal, will quadruple to 3m tonnes in 2030, outstripping supply.Yet overall, the mineral use for electric cars is much, much lower than petrol and diesel as soon as oil enters the equation. Transport & Environment (T&E), a Brussels-based thinktank, found that a petrol car will burn an average of 17,000 litres of oil in its lifetime – about 12.5 tonnes.And most criticisms of electric cars’ mineral use miss a hugely important point: the majority of battery materials used in cars are likely to be recycled. That will drastically cut down the amount of wasted material compared with fossil fuels which disappear invisibly but harmfully to heat the planet.David Bott, the head of innovation at the Society of Chemical Industry, said: “The real thing people forget is once it has been mined, you will end up being able to reuse 80-90% of the metals. You don’t have to go back to the planet to steal more minerals.”T&E’s data suggests that after recycling, battery material waste over an electric car’s life will be about the size of a football, or 30kg, by 2030. That figure does not include any fossil fuels burned to generate electricity, meaning the true real-life mineral toll will be higher than 30kg until countries have decarbonised their electrical grids completely.Data suggests that after recycling, battery material waste over an electric car’s life will be about 30kg by 2030. Photograph: John Walton/PAJulia Poliscanova, T&E’s senior director for vehicles and e-mobility, said: “By 2030 we will need around 30m tonnes of critical minerals [for batteries]. It’s very, very substantial, but if we put this in comparison, we used in one year 15bn tonnes of fossil fuels.”Auke Hoekstra, an energy transition researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology, said that about 0.1% of the Earth’s habitable land is used in mining, but less than 0.01% was used for battery minerals. That still includes vast amounts of material, including 130,000 tonnes of lithium, according to the US Geological Survey. But that is dwarfed by other materials: there were 2.6bn tonnes of iron ore mined for steel in 2022 and 4.4bn tonnes of oil.For fossil fuels “the sheer amount of material we need to get out of the ground is bigger and everlasting,” Hoekstra said. “At least with batteries you have a chance of making it circular.”Any caveats?There can be no doubt that many of the world’s resource supply chains hide shocking human rights abuses. Mobile phone brands such as Apple and carmakers like BMW are cutting down cobalt, mapping supply chains and setting up “battery passports” to show consumers what is in their batteries.Mark Dummett, the head of business and human rights at Amnesty International, co-wrote one of the first reports exposing child labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet he argues that there is no special problem with the battery industry; he has also seen first-hand alleged human rights abuses associated with the extraction of oil in the Niger Delta.“These problems have always existed in mining,” Dummett said. “I strongly believe that this problem has been exaggerated hugely by opponents of the energy transition, the fossil fuel lobby.”And the alternative will not mean less mining. Caspar Rawles, the chief data officer at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said: “It always makes me laugh. OK, the mining of EV [materials] is harmful. Where do you think your car now comes from?”The verdictThe data we have leaves little doubt that resource extraction will be significantly lower for electric cars compared with their petrol or diesel equivalents as recycling increases.And neither do the green credentials of electric cars absolve the buyers of battery minerals of responsibility for abuses in the supply chain. Dummett said he hopes the mining industy will “use this moment to reform itself”.

Water
Business
Energy

Congressmen Ask DOJ to Investigate Water Utility Hack, Warning It Could Happen Anywhere

Three members of Congress are asking the U.S. Justice Department to investigate how hackers breached a water utility system near Pittsburgh

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Three members of Congress have asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate how foreign hackers breached a water authority near Pittsburgh, prompting the nation's top cyberdefense agency to warn other water and sewage-treatment utilities that they may be vulnerable.In a letter released Thursday, U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Bob Casey and U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio said Americans must know their drinking water and other basic infrastructure is safe from “nation-state adversaries and terrorist organizations.”“Any attack on our nation’s critical infrastructure is unacceptable,” Fetterman, Casey and Deluzio wrote in their letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland. “If a hack like this can happen here in western Pennsylvania, it can happen anywhere else in the United States.”The compromised industrial control system was made in Israel, and a photo from the Municipal Water Authority of Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, suggests the “hackivists” deliberately targeted that facility because of the equipment's link to Israel. The image of the device screen shows a message from the hackers that said: “Every equipment ‘made in Israel’ is Cyber Av3ngers legal target.”A group using that name used identical language on X, formerly Twitter, and Telegram on Sunday. The group claimed in an Oct. 30 social media post to have hacked 10 water treatment stations in Israel, though it is not clear if they shut down any equipment. Casey's office said it was told by U.S. officials that they believe Cyber Av3ngers is indeed behind the attack. The Aliquippa water authority's chairman, Matthew Mottes, said federal officials told him that hackers also breached four other utilities and an aquarium.“We’ve been told that we are not the only authority that’s been affected in the country, but we are believed to be the first,” Mottes said in an interview.Leading cybersecurity companies Check Point Research and Google’s Mandiant have identified Cyber Av3ngers as hacktivists aligned with Iran's government. Since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, the group has expanded and accelerated targeting Israeli critical infrastructure, said Check Point's Sergey Shykevich. Iran and Israel were engaged in low-level cyberconflict prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and cybersecurity experts have said they expected a rise in hacktivism in response to Israel’s attacks in Gaza.The device breached in Pennsylvania was made by Israel-based Unitronics, according to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Known as a programmable logic controller, it is used across a wide spectrum of industries including water and sewage-treatment utilities, electric companies and oil and gas producers. It regulates processes including pressure, temperature and fluid flow, according to the manufacturer.Unitronics has not responded to queries about what other facilities with its equipment may have been hacked or could be vulnerable.Experts say many water utilities have paid insufficient attention to cybersecurity.In Pennsylvania, the hack prompted the water authority to temporarily halt pumping Saturday in a remote station that regulates water pressure for customers in two nearby towns. Crews took the system offline and switched to manual operation, officials said. The attack came less than a month after a federal appeals court decision prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to rescind a rule that would have obliged U.S public water systems to include cybersecurity testing in their regular federally mandated audits. The rollback was triggered by a federal appeals court decision in a case brought by Missouri, Arkansas and Iowa, and joined by a water utility trade group.The Biden administration has been trying to shore up cybersecurity of critical infrastructure — more than 80% of which is privately owned — and has imposed regulations on sectors including electric utilities, gas pipelines and nuclear facilities. But many experts complain that too many vital industries are permitted to self-regulate. In its warning Tuesday, the U.S. cybersecurity agency said attackers likely breached the Unitronics device “by exploiting cybersecurity weaknesses, including poor password security and exposure to the internet.”Mottes said he doesn't know how the device in Aliquippa was hacked, but that he trusted the federal agency's judgment. Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Water
Government
Waste

Proposed EPA rules require US cities to replace lead water pipes within 10 years

Strongest overhaul of rules in over three decades will cost billions as Biden administration moves to prevent public health crisesMost US cities would have to replace lead water pipes within 10 years under strict new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency as the Biden administration moves to reduce lead in drinking water and prevent public health crises like the ones in Flint, Michigan, and, earlier, in Washington DC.Millions of people consume drinking water from lead pipes and the agency said tighter standards would improve IQ scores in children and reduce high blood pressure and heart disease in adults. It is the strongest overhaul of lead rules in more than three decades, and will cost billions of dollars. Pulling it off will require overcoming enormous practical and financial obstacles. Continue reading...

Most US cities would have to replace lead water pipes within 10 years under strict new rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency as the Biden administration moves to reduce lead in drinking water and prevent public health crises like the ones in Flint, Michigan, and, earlier, in Washington DC.Millions of people consume drinking water from lead pipes and the agency said tighter standards would improve IQ scores in children and reduce high blood pressure and heart disease in adults. It is the strongest overhaul of lead rules in more than three decades, and will cost billions of dollars. Pulling it off will require overcoming enormous practical and financial obstacles.“These improvements ensure that in a not too distant future, there will never be another city and another child poisoned by their pipes,” said Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician and clean water advocate who became an activist in Flint.The Biden administration has previously said it wants all of the nation’s roughly 9m lead pipes to be removed, and rapidly. Lead pipes connect water mains in the street to homes and are typically the biggest source of lead in drinking water. They are most common in older, industrial parts of the country.Lead crises have hit poorer, majority-Black cities like Flint especially hard, propelling the risks of lead in drinking water into the national consciousness. Their impact reaches beyond public health. After the crises, tap water use declined nationally, especially among Black and Hispanic people. The Biden administration says investment is vital to fix this injustice and ensure everyone has safe, lead-free drinking water.“We’re trying to right a longstanding wrong here,” said Radhika Fox, head of the EPA office of water. “We’re bending the arc towards equity and justice on this legacy issue.”The proposal, called the lead and copper rule improvements, would for the first time require utilities to replace lead pipes even if their lead levels aren’t too high. Most cities have not been forced to replace their lead pipes and many don’t even know where they are. Some cities with a lot of lead pipes might be given longer deadlines, the agency said.The push to reduce lead in tap water is part of a broader federal effort to combat lead exposure that includes proposed stricter limits on dust from lead-based paint in older homes and child-care facilities and a goal to eliminate lead in aviation fuel.The EPA enacted the first comprehensive lead in drinking water regulations in 1991. Those have significantly helped reduce lead levels, but experts have said they left loopholes that keep lead levels too high and lax enforcement allows cities to ignore the problem.“We now know that having literally tens of millions of people being exposed to low levels of lead from things like their drinking water has a big impact on the population” and the current lead rules don’t fix it, said Erik Olson, an expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council who challenged the original regulations back in the early 1990s. “We’re hoping this new rule will have a big impact.”Unlike other contaminants, lead seeps into drinking water that’s already left the treatment plant. The main remedy is to add chemicals to keep it from leaching out of pipes and plumbing fixtures. It’s hard. A home with dangerous lead levels can be next to a house with no lead exposure at all.skip past newsletter promotionOur US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionIt will ultimately be up to utilities to decide whether to pay the full cost of replacing lead pipes, which is too expensive for many people to afford.“We strongly, strongly encourage water utilities to pay for it,” Fox said.The Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, which represents large public water utilities, said it can be difficult to secure homeowner permission to do the work and handle rising costs.A few communities have replaced pipes quickly. After crises in Benton Harbor, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey, officials paid for and efficiently replaced lead pipes, adopting novel rules that required homeowners to let construction crews onto their property to do the work.

Water
Health
Chemicals

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