Cookies help us run our site more efficiently.

By clicking “Accept”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. View our Privacy Policy for more information or to customize your cookie preferences.

Accept Deny

GoGreenNation news

Group alleges Port of Morrow misled Kotek for permission to dump toxic water

News Feed
Wednesday, March 5, 2025

A group of 26 conservation nonprofits, grassroots organizations and community leaders have signed a letter sent to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek alleging the Port of Morrow, located along the Columbia River in northeastern Oregon, intentionally misled the governor about its wastewater storage capacity while seeking an emergency order earlier this year. The Feb. 21 letter, authored by advocacy group Oregon Rural Action and undersigned by a former Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) administrator and a former Morrow County commissioner, among others, requests that the governor rescind an executive order she made in January that allows the Port of Morrow to violate its wastewater permit. “We believe this decision was misguided and may have been based on incomplete, misleading, or inaccurate information,” the letter reads. “[The executive order] needlessly allows for increased pollution during the high-risk winter season when the risk to the public is highest, threatening to worsen an already severe crisis.”The letter also requests the governor declare a public health and environmental emergency in the Lower Umatilla Basin due to nitrate pollution in groundwater within the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area.A spokesperson for the Office of Governor Kotek told Columbia Insight in an email that her office had received the letter and is reviewing it. The Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, which spans 550 square miles across Morrow and Umatilla counties along the Columbia River, has been plagued with high levels of nitrates in groundwater since the 1990s.A report released by Oregon DEQ in January found that nitrate contamination, driven primarily by agricultural practices, has continued to worsen over the past decade.“The people who are affected by this pollution, the victims of pollution, are low-income, non-English speaking, disproportionately Latino and immigrants, working class,” Kaleb Lay, director of policy and research at Oregon Rural Action, told Columbia Insight. “They don’t have a lot of power on their own, but that’s why we’re supposed to have regulations and laws—so the polluters can’t get away with this sort of thing.” Chronic polluterThe Port of Morrow, Oregon’s largest industrial port east of Portland, accepts wastewater from industrial businesses such as food processing plants, data centers and a PG&E-owned power plant.The Port then moves that nitrogen-rich wastewater upgradient for land application on agricultural fields.Specific conditions must be met for the land application of wastewater. The Port is only allowed to dump a certain amount of wastewater at a time to agricultural land in order to ensure the nitrates don’t reach groundwater stores.Land application during the rainy season is especially tricky, because if the soil is already saturated with water (from, say, a run of rainy weather), the Port must wait until the soil dries before spreading wastewater.The wastewater is stored in lagoons until it can be disposed of. “The fundamental problem is the Port has chronically—for years, years and years—produced way more [wastewater] than the fields where they’re allowed to dispose of it can possibly handle, which creates this leaching problem, which leads to permit violations and contaminates the groundwater,” said Lay. A 2022 investigation by the Oregon Capital Chronicle found the Port had violated its wastewater permits for the previous 15 years. In the last two years, DEQ has fined the Port more than $3.1 million for permit violations. The Port is in the midst of building out more lagoons to store the wastewater, a move that it hopes will end future winter water dumps on the land. Those lagoons are expected to be completed by November 2025. Executive order suspends rulesAmid a spell of unusually wet weather in December 2024, the Port of Morrow requested the governor sign an emergency order that would allow it to violate wastewater regulations, arguing that the predicted precipitation and freezing conditions would overwhelm its wastewater storage capacity, thus forcing the Port to exceed its land-application capacity.Without the order, the Port argued, it wouldn’t have any choice but to stop accepting wastewater, because it wouldn’t have any place to legally put it. That decision might have forced the industrial facilities generating wastewater to cease operations, which in turn could have led to “furloughs of potentially thousands of workers resulting in substantial economic harm to the region and the State of Oregon,” according to Gov. Kotek’s subsequent executive order (EO), issued Jan. 13.The EO granted the Port of Morrow’s request and declared a state of emergency “due to risk of economic shutdown” in Morrow and Umatilla counties.The EO allows the Port to apply wastewater only to fields that are down-gradient from domestic wells or those that are designated as low-risk for contamination. “I did not make this decision lightly,” Kotek said in a news release. “We must balance protecting thousands of jobs in the region, the national food supply, and domestic well users during this short period of time during an unusually wet winter.” Kotek’s order allows an exception to the Port of Morrow’s wastewater permit only from Jan. 15 through Feb. 28.The Port of Morrow officially invoked the EO’s use on Feb. 17, nearly a month after the EO was issued. Port of Morrow Executive Director Lisa Mittelsdorf told Columbia Insight in an emailed statement that the Port was able to delay invoking the order thanks to conservation efforts and management of its storage-lagoon capacity.“The order was invoked in accordance with its terms only when the Port determined that available storage capacity would be exhausted within seven days. As required by the order, the Port restricted land application to two farms with no down-gradient domestic users of alluvial groundwater,” the statement reads.Worrying precedentOregon Rural Action, however, doesn’t think the Port of Morrow was being honest in its emergency order request.In its letter to Gov. Kotek, the group compared statements and arguments used in the emergency request against the Port of Morrow’s own monthly reports to DEQ. “It’s a paper-thin argument that falls apart right away,” said Lay.He said the Port’s DEQ report states its storage capacity was only at 44% at the end of December, with roughly 335 million gallons of capacity available, despite the Port’s claim to the governor’s office that it was running out of storage space.“At the same time, they were expecting to produce less wastewater than they had in the previous two months,” said Lay. “So for the remainder of the winter [including January and February] they had more than half their wastewater storage available to them, and were expecting to make less [wastewater in January and February], which would lead one to believe that they could store all of what was left without much trouble at all.“It just doesn’t seem like that due diligence was done in the making of this decision to grant them this power.” The EO is set to expire at the end of this week, but “every day counts,” according to Lay.And concerns persist over the setting of a controversial precedent based on faulty information.“The permit conditions exist for a reason. They’re not perfect, but every violation that [occurs] is a violation because [the permit] is trying to prevent contamination of groundwater. Allowing them to violate without holding them accountable is just giving them a free pass to pollute,” said Lay. Kendra Chamberlain is a freelance journalist based in Eugene, Oregon, covering environment, energy and climate change. Her work has appeared in DeSmog Blog, High Country News, InvestigateWest and Ensia.##Columbia Insight, based in Hood River, Oregon, is a nonprofit news site focused on environmental issues of the Columbia River Basin and the Pacific Northwest.

The Port successfully petitioned the state for an executive order to suspend environmental regulations in order to save jobs.

A group of 26 conservation nonprofits, grassroots organizations and community leaders have signed a letter sent to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek alleging the Port of Morrow, located along the Columbia River in northeastern Oregon, intentionally misled the governor about its wastewater storage capacity while seeking an emergency order earlier this year.

The Feb. 21 letter, authored by advocacy group Oregon Rural Action and undersigned by a former Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) administrator and a former Morrow County commissioner, among others, requests that the governor rescind an executive order she made in January that allows the Port of Morrow to violate its wastewater permit.

“We believe this decision was misguided and may have been based on incomplete, misleading, or inaccurate information,” the letter reads. “[The executive order] needlessly allows for increased pollution during the high-risk winter season when the risk to the public is highest, threatening to worsen an already severe crisis.”

The letter also requests the governor declare a public health and environmental emergency in the Lower Umatilla Basin due to nitrate pollution in groundwater within the Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area.

A spokesperson for the Office of Governor Kotek told Columbia Insight in an email that her office had received the letter and is reviewing it.

The Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area, which spans 550 square miles across Morrow and Umatilla counties along the Columbia River, has been plagued with high levels of nitrates in groundwater since the 1990s.

A report released by Oregon DEQ in January found that nitrate contamination, driven primarily by agricultural practices, has continued to worsen over the past decade.

“The people who are affected by this pollution, the victims of pollution, are low-income, non-English speaking, disproportionately Latino and immigrants, working class,” Kaleb Lay, director of policy and research at Oregon Rural Action, told Columbia Insight. “They don’t have a lot of power on their own, but that’s why we’re supposed to have regulations and laws—so the polluters can’t get away with this sort of thing.”

Chronic polluter

The Port of Morrow, Oregon’s largest industrial port east of Portland, accepts wastewater from industrial businesses such as food processing plants, data centers and a PG&E-owned power plant.

The Port then moves that nitrogen-rich wastewater upgradient for land application on agricultural fields.

Specific conditions must be met for the land application of wastewater. The Port is only allowed to dump a certain amount of wastewater at a time to agricultural land in order to ensure the nitrates don’t reach groundwater stores.

Land application during the rainy season is especially tricky, because if the soil is already saturated with water (from, say, a run of rainy weather), the Port must wait until the soil dries before spreading wastewater.

The wastewater is stored in lagoons until it can be disposed of.

“The fundamental problem is the Port has chronically—for years, years and years—produced way more [wastewater] than the fields where they’re allowed to dispose of it can possibly handle, which creates this leaching problem, which leads to permit violations and contaminates the groundwater,” said Lay.

A 2022 investigation by the Oregon Capital Chronicle found the Port had violated its wastewater permits for the previous 15 years. In the last two years, DEQ has fined the Port more than $3.1 million for permit violations.

The Port is in the midst of building out more lagoons to store the wastewater, a move that it hopes will end future winter water dumps on the land. Those lagoons are expected to be completed by November 2025.

Executive order suspends rules

Amid a spell of unusually wet weather in December 2024, the Port of Morrow requested the governor sign an emergency order that would allow it to violate wastewater regulations, arguing that the predicted precipitation and freezing conditions would overwhelm its wastewater storage capacity, thus forcing the Port to exceed its land-application capacity.

Without the order, the Port argued, it wouldn’t have any choice but to stop accepting wastewater, because it wouldn’t have any place to legally put it. That decision might have forced the industrial facilities generating wastewater to cease operations, which in turn could have led to “furloughs of potentially thousands of workers resulting in substantial economic harm to the region and the State of Oregon,” according to Gov. Kotek’s subsequent executive order (EO), issued Jan. 13.

The EO granted the Port of Morrow’s request and declared a state of emergency “due to risk of economic shutdown” in Morrow and Umatilla counties.

The EO allows the Port to apply wastewater only to fields that are down-gradient from domestic wells or those that are designated as low-risk for contamination.

“I did not make this decision lightly,” Kotek said in a news release. “We must balance protecting thousands of jobs in the region, the national food supply, and domestic well users during this short period of time during an unusually wet winter.”

Kotek’s order allows an exception to the Port of Morrow’s wastewater permit only from Jan. 15 through Feb. 28.

The Port of Morrow officially invoked the EO’s use on Feb. 17, nearly a month after the EO was issued.

Port of Morrow Executive Director Lisa Mittelsdorf told Columbia Insight in an emailed statement that the Port was able to delay invoking the order thanks to conservation efforts and management of its storage-lagoon capacity.

“The order was invoked in accordance with its terms only when the Port determined that available storage capacity would be exhausted within seven days. As required by the order, the Port restricted land application to two farms with no down-gradient domestic users of alluvial groundwater,” the statement reads.

Worrying precedent

Oregon Rural Action, however, doesn’t think the Port of Morrow was being honest in its emergency order request.

In its letter to Gov. Kotek, the group compared statements and arguments used in the emergency request against the Port of Morrow’s own monthly reports to DEQ.

“It’s a paper-thin argument that falls apart right away,” said Lay.

He said the Port’s DEQ report states its storage capacity was only at 44% at the end of December, with roughly 335 million gallons of capacity available, despite the Port’s claim to the governor’s office that it was running out of storage space.

“At the same time, they were expecting to produce less wastewater than they had in the previous two months,” said Lay. “So for the remainder of the winter [including January and February] they had more than half their wastewater storage available to them, and were expecting to make less [wastewater in January and February], which would lead one to believe that they could store all of what was left without much trouble at all.

“It just doesn’t seem like that due diligence was done in the making of this decision to grant them this power.”

The EO is set to expire at the end of this week, but “every day counts,” according to Lay.

And concerns persist over the setting of a controversial precedent based on faulty information.

“The permit conditions exist for a reason. They’re not perfect, but every violation that [occurs] is a violation because [the permit] is trying to prevent contamination of groundwater. Allowing them to violate without holding them accountable is just giving them a free pass to pollute,” said Lay.

Kendra Chamberlain is a freelance journalist based in Eugene, Oregon, covering environment, energy and climate change. Her work has appeared in DeSmog Blog, High Country News, InvestigateWest and Ensia.

##

Columbia Insight, based in Hood River, Oregon, is a nonprofit news site focused on environmental issues of the Columbia River Basin and the Pacific Northwest.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Related News

‘Mad fishing’: the super-size fleet of squid catchers plundering the high seas

Every year a Chinese-dominated flotilla big enough to be seen from space pillages the rich marine life on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned part of the South Atlantic off ArgentinaIn a monitoring room in Buenos Aires, a dozen members of the Argentinian coast guard watch giant industrial-fishing ships moving in real time across a set of screens. “Every year, for five or six months, the foreign fleet comes from across the Indian Ocean, from Asian countries, and from the North Atlantic,” says Cdr Mauricio López, of the monitoring department. “It’s creating a serious environmental problem.”Just beyond Argentina’s maritime frontier, hundreds of foreign vessels – known as the distant-water fishing fleet – are descending on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned strip of the high seas in the South Atlantic, to plunder its rich marine life. The fleet regularly becomes so big it can be seen from space, looking like a city floating on the sea. Continue reading...

In a monitoring room in Buenos Aires, a dozen members of the Argentinian coast guard watch giant industrial-fishing ships moving in real time across a set of screens. “Every year, for five or six months, the foreign fleet comes from across the Indian Ocean, from Asian countries, and from the North Atlantic,” says Cdr Mauricio López, of the monitoring department. “It’s creating a serious environmental problem.”Just beyond Argentina’s maritime frontier, hundreds of foreign vessels – known as the distant-water fishing fleet – are descending on Mile 201, a largely ungoverned strip of the high seas in the South Atlantic, to plunder its rich marine life. The fleet regularly becomes so big it can be seen from space, looking like a city floating on the sea.The distant-water fishing fleet, seen from space, off the coast of Argentina. Photograph: AlamyThe charity Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has described it as one of the largest unregulated squid fisheries in the world, warning that the scale of activities could destabilise an entire ecosystem.“With so many ships constantly fishing without any form of oversight, the squid’s short, one-year life cycle simply is not being respected,” says Lt Magalí Bobinac, a marine biologist with the Argentinian coast guard.There are no internationally agreed catch limits in the region covering squid, and distant-water fleets take advantage of this regulatory vacuum.Steve Trent, founder of the EJF, describes the fishery as a “free for all” and says squid could eventually disappear from the area as a result of “this mad fishing effort”.The consequences extend far beyond squid. Whales, dolphins, seals, sea birds and commercially important fish species such as hake and tuna depend on the cephalopod. A collapse in the squid population could trigger a cascade of ecological disruption, with profound social and economic costs for coastal communities and key markets such as Spain, experts warn.“If this species is affected, the whole ecosystem is affected,” Bobinac says. “It is the food for other species. It has a huge impact on the ecosystem and biodiversity.”She says the “vulnerable marine ecosystems” beneath the fleet, such as deep-sea corals, are also at risk of physical damage and pollution.An Argentinian coast guard ship on patrol. ‘Outside our exclusive economic zone, we cannot do anything – we cannot board them, we cannot survey, nor inspect,’ says an officer. Photograph: EJFThree-quarters of squid jigging vessels (which jerk barbless lures up and down to imitate prey) that are operating on the high seas are from China, according to the EJF, with fleets from Taiwan and South Korea also accounting for a significant share.Activity on Mile 201 has surged over recent years, with total fishing hours increasing by 65% between 2019 and 2024 – a jump driven almost entirely by the Chinese fleet, which increased its activities by 85% in the same period, according to an investigation by the charity.The lack of oversight in Mile 201 has enabled something darker too. Interviews conducted by the EJF suggest widespread cruelty towards marine wildlife in the area. Crew reported the deliberate capture and killing of seals – sometimes in their hundreds – on more than 40% of Chinese squid vessels and a fifth of Taiwanese vessels.Other testimonies detailed the hunting of marine megafauna for body parts, including seal teeth. The EJF shared photos and videos with the Guardian of seals hanging on hooks and penguins trapped on decks.One of the huge squid-jigging ships. They also hunt seals, the EJF found. Photograph: EJFLt Luciana De Santis, a lawyer for the coast guard, says: “Outside our exclusive economic zone [EEZ], we cannot do anything – we cannot board them, we cannot survey, nor inspect.”An EEZ is a maritime area extending up to 200 nautical miles from a nation’s coast, with the rules that govern it set by that nation. The Argentinian coast guard says it has “total control” of this space, unlike the area just beyond this limit: Mile 201.But López says “a significant percentage of ships turn their identification systems off” when fishing in the area beyond this, otherwise known as “going dark” to evade detection.Crews working on the squid fleet are also extremely vulnerable. The EJF’s investigation uncovered serious human rights and labour abuses in Mile 201. Workers on the ships described physical violence, including hitting or strangulation, wage deductions, intimidation and debt bondage – a system that in effect traps them at sea. Many reported working excessive hours with little rest.Much of the squid caught under these conditions still enters major global markets in the European Union, UK and North America, the EJF warns – meaning consumers may be unknowingly buying seafood linked to animal cruelty, environmental destruction and human rights abuse.The charity is calling for a ban on imports linked to illegal or abusive fishing practices and a global transparency regime that makes it possible to see who is fishing where, when and how, by mandating an international charter to govern fishing beyond national waters.Cdr Mauricio López says many of the industrial fishing ships the Argentinian coastguard monitors turn off their tracking systems when they are in the area. Photograph: Harriet Barber“The Chinese distant-water fleet is the big beast in this,” says Trent. “Beijing must know this is happening, so why are they not acting? Without urgent action, we are heading for disaster.”The Chinese embassies in Britain and Argentina did not respond to requests for comment.

Water
Animals
Pollution

EPA Says It Will Propose Drinking Water Limit for Perchlorate, but Only Because Court Ordered It

The Environmental Protection Agency says it will propose a drinking water limit for perchlorate, a chemical in certain explosives

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday said it would propose a drinking water limit for perchlorate, a harmful chemical in rockets and other explosives, but also said doing so wouldn't significantly benefit public health and that it was acting only because a court ordered it.The agency said it will seek input on how strict the limit should be for perchlorate, which is particularly dangerous for infants, and require utilities to test. The agency’s move is the latest in a more than decade-long battle over whether to regulate perchlorate. The EPA said that the public benefit of the regulation did not justify its expected cost.“Due to infrequent perchlorate levels of health concern, the vast majority of the approximately 66,000 water systems that would be subject to the rule will incur substantial administrative and monitoring costs with limited or no corresponding public health benefits as a whole,” the agency wrote in its proposal.Perchlorate is used to make rockets, fireworks and other explosives, although it can also occur naturally. At some defense, aerospace and manufacturing sites, it seeped into nearby groundwater where it could spread, a problem that has been concentrated in the Southwest and along sections of the East Coast.Perchlorate is a concern because it affects the function of the thyroid, which can be particularly detrimental for the development of young children, lowering IQ scores and increasing rates of behavioral problems.Based on estimates that perchlorate could be in the drinking water of roughly 16 million people, the EPA determined in 2011 that it was a sufficient threat to public health that it needed to be regulated. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, this determination required the EPA to propose and then finalize regulations by strict deadlines, with a proposal due in two years.It didn’t happen. First, the agency updated the science to better estimate perchlorate’s risks, but that took time. By 2016, the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council sued to force action.During the first Trump administration, the EPA proposed a never-implemented standard that the NRDC said was less restrictive than any state limit and would lead to IQ point loss in children. It reversed itself in 2020, saying no standard was necessary because a new analysis had found the chemical was less dangerous and its appearance in drinking water less common than previously thought. That's still the agency's position. It said Monday that its data shows perchlorate is not widespread in drinking water.“We anticipate that fewer than one‑tenth of 1% of regulated water systems are likely to find perchlorate above the proposed limits,” the agency said. A limit will help the small number of places with a problem, but burden the vast majority with costs they don't need, officials said.The NRDC challenged that reversal and a federal appeals court said the EPA must propose a regulation for perchlorate, arguing that it still is a significant and widespread public health threat. The agency will solicit public comment on limits of 20, 40 and 80 parts per billion, as well as other elements of the proposal.“Members of the public deserve to know whether there’s rocket fuel in their tap water. We’re pleased to see that, however reluctantly, EPA is moving one step closer to providing the public with that information,” said Sarah Fort, a senior attorney with NRDC.EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has sought massive rollbacks of environmental rules and promoted oil and gas development. But on drinking water, the agency’s actions have been more moderate. The agency said it would keep the Biden administration's strict limits on two of the most common types of harmful “forever chemicals” in drinking water, while giving utilities more time to comply, and would scrap limits on other types of PFAS.The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

Water
Chemicals
Health

Scientists Warn of an Invisible “Brain-Eating” Threat Lurking in Water Systems Worldwide

Scientists are raising concerns about free-living amoebae, resilient microbes that can survive in water systems and enable the spread of deadly infections. Scientists specializing in environmental and public health are drawing attention to a group of pathogens that has received little public notice but is becoming increasingly dangerous: free living amoebae. In a recent perspective [...]

Scientists are raising concerns about free-living amoebae, resilient microbes that can survive in water systems and enable the spread of deadly infections. Scientists specializing in environmental and public health are drawing attention to a group of pathogens that has received little public notice but is becoming increasingly dangerous: free living amoebae. In a recent perspective [...]

Water
Health

New Navy Report Gauges Training Disruption of Hawaii's Marine Mammals

Over the next seven years, the U.S. Navy estimates its ships will injure or kill just two whales in collisions as it tests and trains in Hawaiian waters

Over the next seven years, the U.S. Navy estimates its ships will injure or kill just two whales in collisions as it tests and trains in Hawaiian waters, and it concluded those exercises won’t significantly harm local marine mammal populations, many of which are endangered.However, the Navy also estimates the readiness exercises, which include sonar testing and underwater explosions, will cause more than 3 million instances of disrupted behavior, hearing loss or injury to whale and dolphin species plus monk seals in Hawaii alone.That has local conservation groups worried that the Navy’s California-Training-and-Testing-EIS-OEIS/Final-EIS-OEIS/">detailed report on its latest multi-year training plan is downplaying the true impacts on vulnerable marine mammals that already face growing extinction threats in Pacific training areas off of Hawaii and California.“If whales are getting hammered by sonar and it’s during an important breeding or feeding season, it could ultimately affect their ability to have enough energy to feed their young or find food,” said Kylie Wager Cruz, a senior attorney with the environmental legal advocacy nonprofit Earthjustice. “There’s a major lack of consideration,” she added,” of how those types of behavioral impacts could ultimately have a greater impact beyond just vessel strikes.”The Navy, Cruz said, didn’t consider how its training exercises add to the harm caused by other factors, most notably collisions with major shipping vessels that kill dozens of endangered whales in the eastern Pacific each year. Environmental law requires the Navy to do that, she said, but “they’re only looking at their own take,” or harm.The Navy, in a statement earlier this month, said it “committed to the maximum level of mitigation measures” that it practically could to curb environmental damage while maintaining its military readiness in the years ahead. The plan also covers some Coast Guard operations.Federal fishery officials recently approved the plan, granting the Navy the necessary exemptions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act to proceed despite the harms. It’s at least the third time that the Navy has had to complete an environmental impact report and seek those exemptions to test and train off Hawaii and California.In a statement Monday, a U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesperson said the Navy and fishery officials did consider “reasonably foreseeable cumulative effects” — the Navy’s exercises plus unrelated harmful impacts — to the extent it was required to do so under federal environmental law.Fishery officials didn’t weigh those unrelated impacts, the statement said, in determining that the Navy’s activities would have a negligible impact on marine mammals and other animals.The report covers the impacts to some 39 marine mammal species, including eight that are endangered, plus a host of other birds, turtles and other species that inhabit those waters.The Navy says it will limit use of some of its most intense sonar equipment in designated “mitigation areas” around Hawaii island and Maui Nui to better protect humpback whales and other species from exposure. Specifically, it says it won’t use its more intense ship-mounted sonar in those areas during the whales’ Nov. 15 to April 15 breeding season, and it won’t use those systems there for more than 300 hours a year.However, outside of those mitigation zones the Navy report lists 11 additional areas that are biologically important to other marine mammals species, including spinner and bottle-nosed dolphins, false killer whales, short-finned pilot whales and dwarf sperm whales.Those biologically important areas encompass all the waters around the main Hawaiian islands, and based on the Navy’s report they won’t benefit from the same sonar limits. For the Hawaii bottle-nosed dolphins, the Navy estimates its acoustic and explosives exercises will disrupt that species’ feeding, breeding and other behaviors more than 310,000 times, plus muffle their hearing nearly 39,000 times and cause as many as three deaths. The report says the other species will see similar disruptions.In its statement Monday, U.S. Pacific Fleet said the Navy considered the extent to which marine mammals would be affected while still allowing crews to train effectively in setting those mitigation zones.Exactly how the Navy’s numbers compare to previous cycles are difficult to say, Wager Cruz and others said, because the ocean area and total years covered by each report have changed.Nonetheless, the instances in which its Pacific training might harm or kill a marine mammal appear to be climbing.In 2018, for instance, a press release from the nonprofit Center For Biological Diversity stated that the Navy’s Pacific training in Hawaii and Southern California would harm marine mammals an estimated 12.5 million times over a five-year period.This month, the center put out a similar release stating that the Navy’s training would harm marine mammals across Hawaii plus Northern and Southern California an estimated 35 million times over a seven-year period.“There’s large swaths of area that don’t get any mitigation,” Wager Cruz said. “I don’t think we’re asking for, like, everywhere is a prohibited area by any means, but I think that the military should take a harder look and see if they can do more.”The Navy should also consider slowing its vessels to 10 knots during training exercises to help avoid the collisions that often kill endangered whales off the California Coast, Cruz said. In its response, U.S. Pacific Fleet said the Navy “seriously considered” whether it could slow its ships down but concluded those suggestions were impracticable, largely due to the impacts on its mission.Hawaii-based Matson two years ago joined the other major companies who’ve pledged to slow their vessels to those speeds during whale season in the shipping lanes where dozens of endangered blue, fin and humpback whales are estimated to be killed each year.Those numbers have to be significantly reduced, researchers say, if the species are to make a comeback.“There are ways to minimize harm,” Center for Biological Diversity Hawaii and Pacific Islands Director Maxx Phillips added in a statement, “and protect our natural heritage and national security at the same time.”This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

Water
Animals
Energy

Hungary's 'Water Guardian' Farmers Fight Back Against Desertification

Southern Hungary landowner Oszkár Nagyapáti has been battling severe drought on his land

KISKUNMAJSA, Hungary (AP) — Oszkár Nagyapáti climbed to the bottom of a sandy pit on his land on the Great Hungarian Plain and dug into the soil with his hand, looking for a sign of groundwater that in recent years has been in accelerating retreat. “It’s much worse, and it’s getting worse year after year,” he said as cloudy liquid slowly seeped into the hole. ”Where did so much water go? It’s unbelievable.”Nagyapáti has watched with distress as the region in southern Hungary, once an important site for agriculture, has become increasingly parched and dry. Where a variety of crops and grasses once filled the fields, today there are wide cracks in the soil and growing sand dunes more reminiscent of the Sahara Desert than Central Europe. The region, known as the Homokhátság, has been described by some studies as semiarid — a distinction more common in parts of Africa, the American Southwest or Australian Outback — and is characterized by very little rain, dried-out wells and a water table plunging ever deeper underground. In a 2017 paper in European Countryside, a scientific journal, researchers cited “the combined effect of climatic changes, improper land use and inappropriate environmental management” as causes for the Homokhátság's aridification, a phenomenon the paper called unique in this part of the continent.Fields that in previous centuries would be regularly flooded by the Danube and Tisza Rivers have, through a combination of climate change-related droughts and poor water retention practices, become nearly unsuitable for crops and wildlife. Now a group of farmers and other volunteers, led by Nagyapáti, are trying to save the region and their lands from total desiccation using a resource for which Hungary is famous: thermal water. “I was thinking about what could be done, how could we bring the water back or somehow create water in the landscape," Nagyapáti told The Associated Press. "There was a point when I felt that enough is enough. We really have to put an end to this. And that's where we started our project to flood some areas to keep the water in the plain.”Along with the group of volunteer “water guardians,” Nagyapáti began negotiating with authorities and a local thermal spa last year, hoping to redirect the spa's overflow water — which would usually pour unused into a canal — onto their lands. The thermal water is drawn from very deep underground. Mimicking natural flooding According to the water guardians' plan, the water, cooled and purified, would be used to flood a 2½-hectare (6-acre) low-lying field — a way of mimicking the natural cycle of flooding that channelizing the rivers had ended.“When the flooding is complete and the water recedes, there will be 2½ hectares of water surface in this area," Nagyapáti said. "This will be quite a shocking sight in our dry region.”A 2024 study by Hungary’s Eötvös Loránd University showed that unusually dry layers of surface-level air in the region had prevented any arriving storm fronts from producing precipitation. Instead, the fronts would pass through without rain, and result in high winds that dried out the topsoil even further. Creation of a microclimate The water guardians hoped that by artificially flooding certain areas, they wouldn't only raise the groundwater level but also create a microclimate through surface evaporation that could increase humidity, reduce temperatures and dust and have a positive impact on nearby vegetation. Tamás Tóth, a meteorologist in Hungary, said that because of the potential impact such wetlands can have on the surrounding climate, water retention “is simply the key issue in the coming years and for generations to come, because climate change does not seem to stop.”"The atmosphere continues to warm up, and with it the distribution of precipitation, both seasonal and annual, has become very hectic, and is expected to become even more hectic in the future,” he said. Following another hot, dry summer this year, the water guardians blocked a series of sluices along a canal, and the repurposed water from the spa began slowly gathering in the low-lying field. After a couple of months, the field had nearly been filled. Standing beside the area in early December, Nagyapáti said that the shallow marsh that had formed "may seem very small to look at it, but it brings us immense happiness here in the desert.”He said the added water will have a “huge impact” within a roughly 4-kilometer (2½-mile) radius, "not only on the vegetation, but also on the water balance of the soil. We hope that the groundwater level will also rise.”Persistent droughts in the Great Hungarian Plain have threatened desertification, a process where vegetation recedes because of high heat and low rainfall. Weather-damaged crops have dealt significant blows to the country’s overall gross domestic product, prompting Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to announce this year the creation of a “drought task force” to deal with the problem.After the water guardians' first attempt to mitigate the growing problem in their area, they said they experienced noticeable improvements in the groundwater level, as well as an increase of flora and fauna near the flood site. The group, which has grown to more than 30 volunteers, would like to expand the project to include another flooded field, and hopes their efforts could inspire similar action by others to conserve the most precious resource. “This initiative can serve as an example for everyone, we need more and more efforts like this," Nagyapáti said. "We retained water from the spa, but retaining any kind of water, whether in a village or a town, is a tremendous opportunity for water replenishment.”The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

Water
Agriculture
Land Use

Suggested Viewing

Wastewater: A Tale of Two Cities

The other tale of two cities - both plagued by decades of lack of investment and racial discrimination in their wastewater infrastructure and facing further challenges amidst climate change - told by community members, advocates, utility operators, and elected officials. As the nation grapples with how to fund long overdue infrastructure needs, this film brings to light the need for urgency and equity in these decisions.

Social Justice
Waste
Water

Sustainable Living with Patrick Lang

A day in the life of Patrick Lang living a sustainable life in Malibu… filmed before his home and community were consumed by fire in the fall of 2018.

Sustainable
Land Use
Solutions

Cracked

A little girl lives in a village with her mother where water sources are dwindling by day. Drought effects her imagination, even her doodles and drawings. Not only people but the nature struggles with the unrelenting aridness. This little girl though, never loses hope. She tries to do as best she can, sacrificing from herself for her beloved nature.

Water
Youth
Family

Destitute Living

Two friends live in the Qubaibah village Northwest of Al-Quds (Jerusalem).Those young men are forced to leave their daily life concerns after the water was cut off from their area two weeks ago by the Israeli occupation closing the feeding line.Those two characters go on a dangerous journey to an area close to their village to try to reach the water spring captured by the Israeli military occupation as they took over the land, sky, and air in Palestine. On their journey, some things happen that change the course of events with an unexpected end.

Culture
Water
Fiction

Crisis

The state of water in the world is critical, but the relationship between a man and a fish that are in story is more critical.

Animation
Water
Conservation

Join us to forge
a sustainable future

Our team is always growing.
Become a partner, volunteer, sponsor, or intern today.
Let us know how you would like to get involved!

CONTACT US

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Subscribers receive a free day pass for streaming Cinema Verde.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.