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The Te Awa Tupua Act: An Inspiration for Communities to Take Responsibility for Their Ecosystems

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Wednesday, August 14, 2024

In 2017, after more than a century of legal struggles by the Māori people of the Whanganui River (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi), the 292-kilometer Whanganui River — also known as Te Awa Tupua — became the first river in the world to be recognized as a legal entity, granting it the same rights and powers as a legal person. The passage of the Te Awa Tupua Act has been a milestone for Aotearoa New Zealand — a name that reflects the country’s Māori identity and colonial history. It has also been read as an encouraging example for the granting of legal personhood to ecosystems in other parts of the world. While Whanganui personhood is a good news story, we must recognize that the path to Parliament’s passage of the Te Awa Tupua Act was entrenched in colonial dynamics. Māori Iwi of the Whanganui region have long had to advocate against an often conservative and Western-minded government structure. Their relentless advocacy efforts have shaped the narrative of Te Awa Tupua, a story rooted in the deep connection between culture, land, and water.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by @te_awa_tupua The clash between Te Awa Tupua and Western legal frameworks, alongside Indigenous law, serves as the backdrop for continuing political and cultural dynamics. More recently, with the inauguration of Aotearoa New Zealand’s new coalition government led by conservative Christopher Luxon, these challenges have become more conspicuous. We believe that the Te Awa Tupua Act should not only be read by law- and policymakers as a legal framework, but also as an inspiration for communities to embrace a leadership model entrenched in Tupua Te Kawa principles, the system of principles underpinning Te Awa Tupua. A History Steeped in Colonialism To understand the future of Te Awa Tupua, we must first understand its greater context. The historical background to the recognition of Te Awa Tupua as a legal entity is deeply intertwined with the colonization of Aotearoa New Zealand by the British and the subsequent conflicts and wars in the 19th century. Since 1873 Whanganui Iwi have sought recognition of their authority over the Whanganui River, including by pursuing one of New Zealand’s longest-running court cases, the Native Land Court application of 1938 contesting the ownership of the riverbed. The case was finally settled in favor of the Crown by the Court of Appeal in 1962. Given the colonial nature of Iwi-Crown (government) relationships, the Waitangi Tribunal was set up in 1975 as a standing commission of inquiry to make recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to legislation, policies, actions, or omissions of the Crown that are alleged to breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. Ultimately, however, the tribunal has limited powers, especially in preventing treaty violations from happening.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by @te_awa_tupua Ruruku Whakatupua, the Deed of Settlement for the Whanganui River (2014), is the culmination of more than a century of effort by Whanganui Iwi to protect and provide for the special relationship of Whanganui Iwi with the river. Ruruku Whakatupua settles the historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Whanganui Iwi in relation to the river. While the Whanganui River Iwi view the river as a living being, it is in the context of a more-than-human being rather than a human person. The framing of the Te Awa Tupua Act as legislation concerning legal personhood is more for the appeasement and convenience of European sentiments than for the Māori. The Te Awa Tupua Act Te Awa Tupua is one of numerous cases in which a history of injustice exists. Its recognition as a legal entity is therefore a decisive event not only in the history of Aotearoa’s environmental legislation, but also in coming to terms with its own colonial past. Te Awa Tupua is the longest navigable waterway in Aotearoa New Zealand. It has always been a source of sustenance, spiritual connectedness, and of course a main transport and trade route. There are numerous Māori tales that link the formation of the riverbed to a dispute between various North Island volcanoes. However, almost since the beginning of colonization, Te Awa Tupua has been abused. The destruction of eel weirs to make way for early riverboat service caused the loss of food sources for Whanganui Iwi. Furthermore, commercial forestry entities have planted all the way to the water line, and other irresponsible farming developments on marginal land have continually increased the sediment accumulation in the river and its tributaries. Since the 1970s a portion of the very upper reaches of the Whanganui River has been diverted and commercially developed to generate electricity. This has seriously affected the ability of the river to flush itself naturally. In 2014 Māori communities and the Crown signed a deed of settlement regarding Te Awa Tupua. In 2017 a corresponding Act was approved by Parliament in which the river — including its physical and metaphysical elements — is recognized as having the “rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person.” In the Act, Te Awa Tupua is assigned two legal representatives: one representing the Māori Iwi and another representing the government. They make up a committee given the name Te Pou Tupua — the human face of the river — and represents its interests. Te Pou Tupua is supported by an advisory group (Te Karewao) and a strategy group (Te Kōpuka). In addition, Te Kōpuka has been entrusted with the task of developing a strategy plan, called Te Heke Ngahuru, the final version of which has recently been passed. A Strategy for Implementing the Act Embedded within Te Awa Tupua, Te Heke Ngahuru holds as a collective effort to develop a comprehensive strategy addressing the environmental, social, cultural, and economic aspects of Te Awa Tupua’s wellbeing. Te Heke Ngahuru establishes Te Pā Auroa — a legal framework that grants the Whanganui River and its catchment the status of a legal entity. This framework, understood to be synonymous with the First Autumn Migration of Eels in Māori tradition, is guided by the four Tupua Te Kawa principles, which emphasize the interconnection of the river’s elements: Ko te Awa te mātāpuna o te ora: The River is the source of spiritual and physical sustenance. E rere kau mai i te Awa nui mai i te Kahui Maunga ki Tangaroa: The great River flows from the mountains to the sea. Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au: I am the River, and the River is me. Ngā manga iti, ngā manga nui e honohono kau ana, ka tupu hei Awa Tupua: The small and large streams that flow into one another and form one River. Te Heke Ngahuru imagines a future where Iwi assume full custodial rights of the awa (river) via efforts that protect the health and wellbeing of the Whanganui catchment. This requires a transition away from Western models of governance and toward a Te Awa Tupua-centric approach to decision-making, led by the Crown, local government, and Iwi. Through collaboration and strategic action, Te Heke Ngahuru offers a roadmap for innovation and opportunity, laying the groundwork for a sustainable and prosperous future for Te Awa Tupua and its people. Te Awa Tupua Between Rights of Nature and Indigenous Law Te Awa Tupua has been enthusiastically embraced by many Rights of Nature activists as a paradigm-shifting example. At the same time, however, it’s easy to overlook how the Te Awa Tupua Act deliberately moves away from litigation and places community decision-making at its center. Shifting this power to the local level has profound implications for rebuilding Iwi-Crown relationships in light of centering kawa principles within Whanganui leadership. There are two important reasons for this. The first is that the power shift strengthens Indigenous law and the Tupua Te Kawa principles. According to the third Kawa, the people and the river are intrinsically linked, so Te Awa Tupua isn’t merely the river but also includes the surrounding communities — which challenges Western notions of property and human-made law. The relationship between the Iwi and the river goes beyond mere geographical proximity and includes spiritual and affective care for each other. The second reason is that the shift results in less dependence on state jurisdiction and the strengthening of Indigenous self-determination. Māori Iwi have a generations-long experience of changing governments, from left-wing to right-wing and back again, which encourages them to strategize wisely and cautiously. It’s therefore crucial to see the Te Awa Tupua Act and Te Heke Ngahuru as a decisive strengthening of Indigenous law and Māori self-determination. New Challenges From a Right-Wing Government Unfortunately, the new coalition government — consisting of the three National, Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, and New Zealand First political parties and led by Prime Minister Luxon — has shown clear intent to decrease the cultural and social standing of Māori and, by extension, the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi. For example, this government has attempted to deconstruct the use of Te Reo, the Māori language, within government departments that use Te Reo in their branding, messaging, websites, and front-office greetings. That said, at this stage there’s little threat to Te Awa Tupua or its legitimacy. Of far greater concern is that future acts or legislation of parliament could overlap, dilute, or even supersede the 2017 Act. This has happened before. In 1903 the Coal-mines Act Amendment Act provided that the beds of all navigable rivers “shall remain and shall be deemed to have always been vested in the Crown.” This national law was passed directly in response to Whanganui River Māori claims at the time. Under current norms and sensibilities, such extremes are highly unlikely in Aotearoa New Zealand today. What will be of interest to Te Pou Tupua, Te Karewao, and Te Kōpuka, though, are any new laws coming into being that may affect and indeed overlap Te Awa Tupua in areas such as resource management or conservation. Inspiration From Te Awa Tupua Examining the Te Awa Tupua Act and Te Heke Ngahuru reveals that their focus isn’t limited to a legal framework and its implementation. Taking the Third Kawa and the corresponding interrelationship of ecosystems and surrounding communities seriously can motivate communities to defend and take care of the health and wellbeing of the ecosystems to which they relate. However, we don’t suggest that communities should copy or universalize the Te Awa Tupua Act. The signing of Te Awa Tupua constitutes a narrative that can be read in the context of the Rights of Nature, but it can also be read in the context of decolonial law and communal self-determination. It can inspire local communities around the globe — including the global South and the global North — to take responsibility for the rivers, mountains, lakes, and other ecosystems to which they belong, which becomes vital at a time when right-wing governments around the world are beginning to challenge the previously established consensus on environmental and climate policy. The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity, or their employees. Scroll down to find our “Republish” button The post The Te Awa Tupua Act: An Inspiration for Communities to Take Responsibility for Their Ecosystems appeared first on The Revelator.

The historic act, which recognized a river as a legal entity, deliberately moves away from litigation and places community decision-making at its center. The post The Te Awa Tupua Act: An Inspiration for Communities to Take Responsibility for Their Ecosystems appeared first on The Revelator.

In 2017, after more than a century of legal struggles by the Māori people of the Whanganui River (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi), the 292-kilometer Whanganui River — also known as Te Awa Tupua — became the first river in the world to be recognized as a legal entity, granting it the same rights and powers as a legal person.

The passage of the Te Awa Tupua Act has been a milestone for Aotearoa New Zealand — a name that reflects the country’s Māori identity and colonial history. It has also been read as an encouraging example for the granting of legal personhood to ecosystems in other parts of the world.

While Whanganui personhood is a good news story, we must recognize that the path to Parliament’s passage of the Te Awa Tupua Act was entrenched in colonial dynamics. Māori Iwi of the Whanganui region have long had to advocate against an often conservative and Western-minded government structure. Their relentless advocacy efforts have shaped the narrative of Te Awa Tupua, a story rooted in the deep connection between culture, land, and water.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by @te_awa_tupua

The clash between Te Awa Tupua and Western legal frameworks, alongside Indigenous law, serves as the backdrop for continuing political and cultural dynamics. More recently, with the inauguration of Aotearoa New Zealand’s new coalition government led by conservative Christopher Luxon, these challenges have become more conspicuous.

We believe that the Te Awa Tupua Act should not only be read by law- and policymakers as a legal framework, but also as an inspiration for communities to embrace a leadership model entrenched in Tupua Te Kawa principles, the system of principles underpinning Te Awa Tupua.

A History Steeped in Colonialism

To understand the future of Te Awa Tupua, we must first understand its greater context.

The historical background to the recognition of Te Awa Tupua as a legal entity is deeply intertwined with the colonization of Aotearoa New Zealand by the British and the subsequent conflicts and wars in the 19th century.

Since 1873 Whanganui Iwi have sought recognition of their authority over the Whanganui River, including by pursuing one of New Zealand’s longest-running court cases, the Native Land Court application of 1938 contesting the ownership of the riverbed. The case was finally settled in favor of the Crown by the Court of Appeal in 1962. Given the colonial nature of Iwi-Crown (government) relationships, the Waitangi Tribunal was set up in 1975 as a standing commission of inquiry to make recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to legislation, policies, actions, or omissions of the Crown that are alleged to breach the promises made in the Treaty of Waitangi. Ultimately, however, the tribunal has limited powers, especially in preventing treaty violations from happening.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by @te_awa_tupua

Ruruku Whakatupua, the Deed of Settlement for the Whanganui River (2014), is the culmination of more than a century of effort by Whanganui Iwi to protect and provide for the special relationship of Whanganui Iwi with the river. Ruruku Whakatupua settles the historical Treaty of Waitangi claims of Whanganui Iwi in relation to the river. While the Whanganui River Iwi view the river as a living being, it is in the context of a more-than-human being rather than a human person. The framing of the Te Awa Tupua Act as legislation concerning legal personhood is more for the appeasement and convenience of European sentiments than for the Māori.

The Te Awa Tupua Act

Te Awa Tupua is one of numerous cases in which a history of injustice exists. Its recognition as a legal entity is therefore a decisive event not only in the history of Aotearoa’s environmental legislation, but also in coming to terms with its own colonial past.

Te Awa Tupua is the longest navigable waterway in Aotearoa New Zealand. It has always been a source of sustenance, spiritual connectedness, and of course a main transport and trade route. There are numerous Māori tales that link the formation of the riverbed to a dispute between various North Island volcanoes. However, almost since the beginning of colonization, Te Awa Tupua has been abused. The destruction of eel weirs to make way for early riverboat service caused the loss of food sources for Whanganui Iwi. Furthermore, commercial forestry entities have planted all the way to the water line, and other irresponsible farming developments on marginal land have continually increased the sediment accumulation in the river and its tributaries. Since the 1970s a portion of the very upper reaches of the Whanganui River has been diverted and commercially developed to generate electricity. This has seriously affected the ability of the river to flush itself naturally.

In 2014 Māori communities and the Crown signed a deed of settlement regarding Te Awa Tupua. In 2017 a corresponding Act was approved by Parliament in which the river — including its physical and metaphysical elements — is recognized as having the “rights, powers, duties, and liabilities of a legal person.”

In the Act, Te Awa Tupua is assigned two legal representatives: one representing the Māori Iwi and another representing the government. They make up a committee given the name Te Pou Tupua — the human face of the river — and represents its interests. Te Pou Tupua is supported by an advisory group (Te Karewao) and a strategy group (Te Kōpuka). In addition, Te Kōpuka has been entrusted with the task of developing a strategy plan, called Te Heke Ngahuru, the final version of which has recently been passed.

A Strategy for Implementing the Act

Embedded within Te Awa Tupua, Te Heke Ngahuru holds as a collective effort to develop a comprehensive strategy addressing the environmental, social, cultural, and economic aspects of Te Awa Tupua’s wellbeing. Te Heke Ngahuru establishes Te Pā Auroa — a legal framework that grants the Whanganui River and its catchment the status of a legal entity. This framework, understood to be synonymous with the First Autumn Migration of Eels in Māori tradition, is guided by the four Tupua Te Kawa principles, which emphasize the interconnection of the river’s elements:

    1. Ko te Awa te mātāpuna o te ora: The River is the source of spiritual and physical sustenance.
    2. E rere kau mai i te Awa nui mai i te Kahui Maunga ki Tangaroa: The great River flows from the mountains to the sea.
    3. Ko au te Awa, ko te Awa ko au: I am the River, and the River is me.
    4. Ngā manga iti, ngā manga nui e honohono kau ana, ka tupu hei Awa Tupua: The small and large streams that flow into one another and form one River.

Te Heke Ngahuru imagines a future where Iwi assume full custodial rights of the awa (river) via efforts that protect the health and wellbeing of the Whanganui catchment. This requires a transition away from Western models of governance and toward a Te Awa Tupua-centric approach to decision-making, led by the Crown, local government, and Iwi. Through collaboration and strategic action, Te Heke Ngahuru offers a roadmap for innovation and opportunity, laying the groundwork for a sustainable and prosperous future for Te Awa Tupua and its people.

Te Awa Tupua Between Rights of Nature and Indigenous Law

Te Awa Tupua has been enthusiastically embraced by many Rights of Nature activists as a paradigm-shifting example.

At the same time, however, it’s easy to overlook how the Te Awa Tupua Act deliberately moves away from litigation and places community decision-making at its center. Shifting this power to the local level has profound implications for rebuilding Iwi-Crown relationships in light of centering kawa principles within Whanganui leadership.

There are two important reasons for this. The first is that the power shift strengthens Indigenous law and the Tupua Te Kawa principles. According to the third Kawa, the people and the river are intrinsically linked, so Te Awa Tupua isn’t merely the river but also includes the surrounding communities — which challenges Western notions of property and human-made law. The relationship between the Iwi and the river goes beyond mere geographical proximity and includes spiritual and affective care for each other.

The second reason is that the shift results in less dependence on state jurisdiction and the strengthening of Indigenous self-determination. Māori Iwi have a generations-long experience of changing governments, from left-wing to right-wing and back again, which encourages them to strategize wisely and cautiously. It’s therefore crucial to see the Te Awa Tupua Act and Te Heke Ngahuru as a decisive strengthening of Indigenous law and Māori self-determination.

New Challenges From a Right-Wing Government

Unfortunately, the new coalition government — consisting of the three National, Association of Consumers and Taxpayers, and New Zealand First political parties and led by Prime Minister Luxon — has shown clear intent to decrease the cultural and social standing of Māori and, by extension, the importance of the Treaty of Waitangi. For example, this government has attempted to deconstruct the use of Te Reo, the Māori language, within government departments that use Te Reo in their branding, messaging, websites, and front-office greetings.

That said, at this stage there’s little threat to Te Awa Tupua or its legitimacy. Of far greater concern is that future acts or legislation of parliament could overlap, dilute, or even supersede the 2017 Act.

This has happened before. In 1903 the Coal-mines Act Amendment Act provided that the beds of all navigable rivers “shall remain and shall be deemed to have always been vested in the Crown.” This national law was passed directly in response to Whanganui River Māori claims at the time.

Under current norms and sensibilities, such extremes are highly unlikely in Aotearoa New Zealand today. What will be of interest to Te Pou Tupua, Te Karewao, and Te Kōpuka, though, are any new laws coming into being that may affect and indeed overlap Te Awa Tupua in areas such as resource management or conservation.

Inspiration From Te Awa Tupua

Examining the Te Awa Tupua Act and Te Heke Ngahuru reveals that their focus isn’t limited to a legal framework and its implementation. Taking the Third Kawa and the corresponding interrelationship of ecosystems and surrounding communities seriously can motivate communities to defend and take care of the health and wellbeing of the ecosystems to which they relate. However, we don’t suggest that communities should copy or universalize the Te Awa Tupua Act.

The signing of Te Awa Tupua constitutes a narrative that can be read in the context of the Rights of Nature, but it can also be read in the context of decolonial law and communal self-determination. It can inspire local communities around the globe — including the global South and the global North — to take responsibility for the rivers, mountains, lakes, and other ecosystems to which they belong, which becomes vital at a time when right-wing governments around the world are beginning to challenge the previously established consensus on environmental and climate policy.

The opinions expressed above are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity, or their employees.

Scroll down to find our “Republish” button

The post The Te Awa Tupua Act: An Inspiration for Communities to Take Responsibility for Their Ecosystems appeared first on The Revelator.

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Cancel drilling of North Sea oilfield, activists urge Scottish court

Greenpeace and Uplift say Rosebank and Jackdaw licences were granted unlawfully by former Tory governmentClimate campaigners have urged a Scottish court to cancel the licence to drill the UK’s largest untapped oilfield, arguing it will cause “sizeable” and unjustified damage to the planet.Greenpeace and Uplift accuse the former Conservative government of having unlawfully given the Norwegian oil giant Equinor a licence to exploit the Rosebank oilfield, which sits 80 miles (130km) north-west of Shetland and holds nearly 500m barrels of oil and gas. Continue reading...

Climate campaigners have urged a Scottish court to cancel the licence to drill the UK’s largest untapped oilfield, arguing it will cause “sizeable” and unjustified damage to the planet.Greenpeace and Uplift accuse the former Conservative government of having unlawfully given the Norwegian oil giant Equinor a licence to exploit the Rosebank oilfield, which sits 80 miles (130km) north-west of Shetland and holds nearly 500m barrels of oil and gas.Lawyers for both groups told a judge in Edinburgh on Tuesday the government and the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) formerly known as the Oil and Gas Authority, had wrongly failed to take into account the tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 that would be burned when the oil was used, and the impact that would have on the climate.Ruth Crawford KC, the lawyer for Greenpeace, told Lord Ericht that Equinor and its Israeli-owned co-investor Ithaca knew it was unlawful to ignore the climate costs of the project.“There can be no doubt this project will produce substantial amounts of oil and gas [with] a substantial impact on the climate and a substantial impact on environmental and human health,” she said.Their judicial review, being heard in the court of session, Scotland’s top civil court, began as world leaders convened in Azerbaijan for a new round of climate talks, where Keir Starmer confirmed the UK had set a much tougher new target, to cut its carbon emissions by 81% compared with 1990 levels by 2035.Uplift and Greenpeace are asking the court to cancel the drilling licence for Rosebank and also a licence granted to a Shell subsidiary, BG International (BGI) to drill for gas in the Jackdaw field in the North Sea, which they also allege ministers granted unlawfully.They estimate the Rosebank oilfield will release more CO2 than the annual emissions of the world’s 28 poorest countries combined, including Uganda and Mozambique.They believe their challenges were given significant legal weight after the UK supreme court ruled in June that ministers had to take account of the climate impacts from burning the oil and gas extracted by drilling in the UK before issuing licences.Even so, this case could prove to be a significant test of the new Labour government’s pledges to dramatically reduce the UK’s reliance on oil and gas by blocking new drilling licences. After Labour’s general election victory, Ed Miliband, the net zero secretary, decided the UK government would no longer defend the case brought by Greenpeace and Uplift but he still faces a political challenge if they win.If Lord Ericht cancels their drilling licences, Equinor and BGI are likely to reapply for fresh licences to drill both fields, despite the supreme court decision, which followed a legal challenge by the climate campaigner Sarah Finch.BGI is already extracting gas from the Jackdaw field. The companies argue both fields are essential to the UK economy, support thousands of jobs and provide significant tax revenues – arguments that critics of Labour’s climate policy are likely to endorse.Crawford told the court that those political arguments were irrelevant in this case; this case was solely about whether the law was followed.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy 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 promotionShe said ministers and the NSTA made the same “substantial error of law” identified by the supreme court in June when they licensed the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields without assessing the climate impacts of the oil and gas they produced.She said Equinor, Ithaca and BGI had spent about £1bn on developing Rosebank and Jackdaw but had miscalculated. They knew it was unlawful to ignore the climate costs of the project, she said, adding: “They lost the bet.”On Tuesday, before the case began, about 160 climate protesters gathered outside the court calling for the licences to be cancelled, chanting “I believe we can win,” while stretching a long red scarf across the entrance to the court.Lauren MacDonald, a coordinator for the Stop Rosebank campaign, told activists on Monday night that winning this case would be crucial for the climate movement.“As truly devastating as many things are in the world right now, in this little corner of the world, we are on the precipice of a massive, massive victory for the climate, and that is precisely because people have stood in the way,” she said.“Every single fossil fuel project that we can stop, every single fraction is a degree of warming that we can stop. It’s countless lives saved, which will always, always be worth it.”

The Woman Who Defined the Great Depression

Sanora Babb spent her life dealing with all the multifarious daily perils that prevent writers from writing. She was raised in poverty by a mother who was only 16 when she gave birth to her and an abusive father who spent his days playing semi-pro baseball and gambling. From the age she could walk, she was running errands for her parents’ bakery and, later, helping them raise crops until drought put their mortgaged farm out of business. She rarely had time for school (or even enjoyed easy access to one) and learned to read from pages of The Denver Post that were pasted to the crude walls of their dugout home in East Colorado. (Her father described the place as looking “like a grave.”)Babb’s observations of rural poverty, particularly during the Depression and the Dust Bowl, would filter through the imaginations of millions of Americans in years to come—though indirectly and often without credit. Babb knew intimately of what she wrote. Even when her parents started making better money, and she worked hard enough to earn a rare scholarship to the University of Kansas, her first teaching job depressed her so deeply that she couldn’t keep it for long. She was often required to do janitorial work as well as run classes, and couldn’t bear to see children come to school as poorly clothed and fed as she had been at their age. By the time she moved to Los Angeles and found work as a radio and print journalist and screenwriter in the late 1920s, the Depression hit and she spent several months sleeping rough in Lafayette Park with other out-of-work writers.The first few decades of her life were an endless round of desperate exigencies. When she finally started making a decent living, her passion for political causes took up even more of her time. She joined the John Reed Club, traveled throughout Europe and postrevolutionary Russia, and attended one of the first League of American Writers Congresses in New York City in the mid-1930s, driving there cross-country with Tillie Olsen and driving back again with Nelson Algren. In her twenties, she became the primary carer for her younger sister, who suffered from mental illness; and in later years, from 1971 to ’76, she cared for her husband, the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, after he suffered a major stroke. Whatever the decade, and whatever the year, it was rare for Babb to scrape up more than a few hours here and there to focus on the great stories, novels, and poems she had in her.And yet she managed to wrestle several hard-won achievements into the world: She wrote probably the greatest novel ever written about the Dust Bowl, Whose Names Are Unknown, only published many decades after she sold the first chapters and outline in 1938; she excelled in several different literary forms—from journalism (she co-edited a radical newspaper with Claud Cockburn in London in the 1930s) and field notes from California migrant camps to memoir, lyric poetry, short stories, and even screenwriting; and despite her tendency to be more openly supportive of other writers than they ever seemed to be of her, her life was so rich with good work that almost all of it eventually achieved publication. The most profound obstacle Babb faced in her strenuous life was a case of bad writerly luck of now-legendary proportions. Although she took the cautious upward route of many self-taught young writers, she never caught the decisive break she needed.The most profound obstacle Babb faced in her strenuous life was a case of bad writerly luck of now-legendary proportions.Just when her carefully composed early short stories and essays began attracting the attention of New York editors, she signed a contract for a novel about the Dust Bowl, based on her youthful experience in Red Rock, Oklahoma; and in order to further research the westward migration of her fellow Oklahomans, she took a volunteer job with the Farm Security Administration in Southern California, helping to move refugees into state-funded, self-governing resettlement camps. Initially, Babb only intended to gather information; but as in everything she did, she soon developed a passionate concern for the people she met and the stories she heard, hurling herself into the project with the fierce intensity of a woman who always seemed to be working twice as hard as everyone around her.Her supervisor, Tom Collins, summed up her achievement in a letter he wrote to Babb at the conclusion of her work:1. You visited tents, shacks, cabins and hovels. 472 families or 2175 men, women, and children.2. You interviewed and signed up 309 families or 1465 men, women and children.3. Total families you met and know 781.4. Total individuals you met and know 3640.5. You, therefore, spread happiness and hope to all these—and we thank you with all our hearts.Her work for the FSA yielded hundreds of pages of notes and photographs, many of which were posthumously gathered in On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps (2007). These laboriously accumulated pages would testify to two overriding aspects of Babb’s character: that she wasn’t afraid of work and that she possessed an almost bottomless compassion for everybody she met who led a tougher life than she had.           When a friend of her supervisor arrived at the camps to research his own novel, Collins convinced Babb to turn over a copy of her extensive field notes. The writer’s name was John Steinbeck; he had plenty of talent and compassion of his own; and he knew how to make quick use of good material when he saw it. Much of Babb’s work went straight into Steinbeck’s next draft—especially the portions set in a California refugee camp. And after The Grapes of Wrath became a bestseller, Babb turned in the final draft of her own Dust Bowl novel to Bennet Cerf, only to be told that the bookstores weren’t big enough for two novels on the subject. And so Babb’s novel, titled Whose Names Are Unknown, lay unpublished—despite continuous revisions and submissions to alternate publishers—for nearly half a century.Which is not to say that Steinbeck didn’t acknowledge how much he was aided by Babb’s field notes. In fact, he dedicated Grapes to the individual who he felt had most helped him secure those valuable pages: Sanora Babb’s supervisor, Tom Collins.Even if Names had been allowed to compete with Grapes of Wrath in the literary marketplace, it would almost certainly have failed to outsell or outshine it. Babb’s work was largely antithetical to that of Steinbeck, and its “message” was a lot more complicated. While Steinbeck focused on the road trip carrying the Joads away from their already collapsed farmland, the entire first half of Babb’s novel describes several years of the travails of the Dunne family, who struggle to grow broomcorn and wheat while their land grows increasingly parched, dust-storm-ridden and uninhabitable. In the second half of Babb’s novel, the Dunnes don’t simply submit to the California farm growers, or lose their temper, like Tom Joad, and flee, but bear down and become increasingly involved with labor organizers and strike actions.Steinbeck dedicated The Grapes of Wrath to the individual who he felt had most helped him: Sanora Babb’s supervisor.Steinbeck’s prose infused the landscape with almost heavenly ambience, seeming to argue that the world was bountiful enough for everybody, if wealthy landowners could be forced to stop hoarding its riches. Babb’s prose, however, doesn’t exude the same effulgence; and while Steinbeck’s characters never really surpass their essential nature (whether they’re the drunken, well-meaning paisanos of Tortilla Flat or the always-striving Joad family who can never outstrive an exhausting world), Babb expects more from her principal characters than to die, lose hope, relapse into natural weaknesses, or wither away. Her characters are never beaten down so hard they don’t find a way to climb up out of their failures and give life another chance.The conclusions of Grapes of Wrath and Names couldn’t make this distinction more clear. Steinbeck’s Joads are ultimately beaten down to little more than their barely pulsing biologies—huddling together for warmth while the bereaved mother, Rose of Sharon, breastfeeds a starving man. Babb’s characters struggle to their last narrative breath to envision a future that will have them. In the concluding paragraph of Names, confronted by corporate forces that own “guns and clubs and tear gas and vomit gas and them vigilantes paid to fire the guns,” Babb’s Julia Dunne sees one thing “as clear and perfect as a drop of rain. They would rise and fall and, in their falling, rise again.”It’s hard to recall a writer who writes more vividly and affectionately about American landscape than Babb; her characters journey across its vastness with an almost invulnerable affection for what surrounds them, whatever cataclysms erupt. Early in the novel, when Julia and her daughters are pushed out of a neighbor’s home into an oncoming dust storm, the true violence isn’t that of nature but of the neighbors, who have ejected them from their home so they can take care of themselves. And nature is always beautiful, even when it’s at its most threatening:They were almost a mile way, walking in the hollow, when the rain began in large slow drops, and the far horizon quivered with sheet lightning. Fork lightning snapped suddenly, splitting the moving clouds, flashing close to the wires. The whole flat world under an angry churning sky was miraculously lighted for a moment. A strange liquid clarity extended to the ends of the earth. Julia saw the trees along the creek and animals grazing far away. The bleak farmyards with their stern buildings, scattered sparsely on the plains, stood out in naked lonely desolation. A sly delicate wind was rising. Their dresses moved ever so little. Thunder clapped and boomed. They were afraid of the electricity that speared into the ground with a terrifying crash after. Julia stopped for a moment to get her breath and look at the approaching storm. Then she took Lonnie from the bumping cart and pulled her along by the hand, while Myra pulled the cart and clung to the pail of milk. They moved off the road away from the wires, going through the open hollow.There is no Steinbeckian pantheistic force in Babb’s landscapes that joins human beings into a continuous environmental oneness; there is only nature’s vast beautiful indifference across which people live, love, struggle, and yearn. When her daughter asks if a cyclone might be forming, Julia consoles her: “It’s only an electric storm.… Rain won’t hurt us. It’s just scary.” Nature is neither malign nor consolatory; it’s implicitly nothing more or less than itself. And fear doesn’t arise from the world; it arises from individuals when they are bereft of one another.The failure of Names wasn’t the only event in Babb’s long event-filled life that was difficult to distinguish from legend. Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s compassionate and respectful biography, Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (largely based on stories recounted by Babb and her family, as well as passages from Babb’s work), is filled with tales of a life that was lived to almost tall-tale proportions. At the age of 5, Babb earned the nickname “Cheyenne—Riding like the Wind” from an Otoe chief after the pony he gave her went galloping wildly out of town while unyielding young Babb held on tightly, bareback. And though she was unable to start school full time until age 10, she worked hard enough to be named class valedictorian—only to have her graduation speech cut at the last minute when the school authorities decided not to honor the daughter of a notorious local gambler.As a young woman in Los Angeles, she went out to MGM looking for screenwriting work, where she caught the always-roving eye of Irving Thalberg, who invited her back to his office to sign up for a different career entirely—one that probably required spending at least some time on the casting couch. She turned down both offers and, when later asked if she was an actress, replied, “No. I’ve just had a narrow escape.” At one point, when she was out on a date with her eventual husband, James Wong Howe, a “finely dressed” woman drove up behind them in her car and, angered by the sight of a white woman with an Asian man, shouted abuse. In reply, Babb engaged in a street altercation that, by the end, left the woman shouting “My hat! My $100 hat!” This absorbing biography, written with both affection and admiration, shows Babb as one of the most indefatigable characters in American literary history. Like Edna St. Vincent Millay, the poet who most inspired her, Babb “wasn’t someone who believed in monogamy,” and she happily shared her passions with many notable men—such as William Saroyan and Ralph Ellison. (In fact, her second novel, The Lost Traveler, is one of the few naturalistic novels in which the sexually adventurous young woman isn’t punished for moral failure, as Theodore Dreiser’s antiheroine is in Sister Carrie or Kate Chopin’s Edna Pontellier is in The Awakening.) She traveled extensively, often hitchhiking alone across country and through Mexico; she wrote the lyrics for a popular song, which were then “swiped” by someone who published them under their own name; and she organized a walnut growers’ strike in Modesto, California, which caused her to spend at least one night in jail.  It was only when Babb began suffering bouts of ill health—partly the result of an impoverished childhood diet and partly from a nervous breakdown set off by learning that her former lover Ralph Ellison had remarried—that she finally settled down exclusively with Howe. But even then, she always seemed to be doing the work of three or four women. She helped him buy and manage a Chinatown restaurant and took charge of long visits from his family while he was working on movie sets. They surreptitiously bought a house together in the Hollywood Hills, and after California’s ban on interracial marriage was found unconstitutional, they married in 1949. But even then, it wasn’t easy to find a judge who would perform the service. She was clearly as passionate in her political activism as she was in her personal relationships. After many challenging years of marriage, when her relationship with Howe had not been entirely monogamous, she eventually settled down, and the two would often write “small sweet love notes” and leave them around the house for each other to find. One of her best short stories, “Reconciliation”—about a married couple coming together again after a separation to tend their neglected garden—reads like an homage to their long, often difficult, and just as often devoted, relationship. While Babb endured more than her share of bad luck in publishing, she developed many devoted friends and fans who saw her through decades of darkness into a late middle-aged period that approached modest fame. Her short stories were regularly published in various significant journals and reprinted in “best of the year” volumes; she found an agent, and eventually sold and published her second novel, The Lost Traveler, based on childhood memories of growing up with a sometimes brutal, errant father. Her 1970 memoir, An Owl on Every Post, earned a brief time on bestseller lists, adorned with quotes from her longtime friends and admirers Ralph Ellison and Ray Bradbury.Dunkle’s biography likewise relies on the work of Babb’s friends, scholars, and especially her late-life agent, Joanna Dearcrop, who helped Babb finally get Whose Names Are Unknown published after a half-century delay in 2004, while Babb was lying in bed with an exhausted body that couldn’t carry her much further. And eventually, her remarkable field notes, cited by Ken Burns in his Dust Bowl documentary on PBS, led to new editions of her poetry and prose.The major question about Babb’s remarkable work is not “Why did she write so little?” but rather: “How did she find the time to write anything at all?”While she is best known for a novel that wasn’t published until she was almost dead, her gifts are beautifully displayed in numerous short stories and poems that carry readers through regions of memory, landscape, and experience. On one journey through Mexico and South America, Babb gathered material for “The Larger Cage,” about an orphan who finds a home (of sorts) with a family that sells wild local birds to tourists; they teach him to “train” the birds by filling their bellies with buckshot, which inevitably kills them. But human cruelty is never the subject of Babb’s fiction—rather it’s the human ability to bring kindness into the world, and the protagonist of “The Larger Cage” learns that there are better ways to train beautiful birds than by tormenting them. It is perhaps the most remarkable (and unsatisfactory) fact of Babb’s life that while she failed to produce big novels at times that were acceptable to the publishing industry, she spent her life succeeding in far less commercial forms—such as the short story, the lyric, and the memoir. Many writers are recalled for the great things they achieved in life apart from their living of it; but Babb’s greatest genius may have been her ability to produce lasting work without leaving anyone in her life behind. 

Sanora Babb spent her life dealing with all the multifarious daily perils that prevent writers from writing. She was raised in poverty by a mother who was only 16 when she gave birth to her and an abusive father who spent his days playing semi-pro baseball and gambling. From the age she could walk, she was running errands for her parents’ bakery and, later, helping them raise crops until drought put their mortgaged farm out of business. She rarely had time for school (or even enjoyed easy access to one) and learned to read from pages of The Denver Post that were pasted to the crude walls of their dugout home in East Colorado. (Her father described the place as looking “like a grave.”)Babb’s observations of rural poverty, particularly during the Depression and the Dust Bowl, would filter through the imaginations of millions of Americans in years to come—though indirectly and often without credit. Babb knew intimately of what she wrote. Even when her parents started making better money, and she worked hard enough to earn a rare scholarship to the University of Kansas, her first teaching job depressed her so deeply that she couldn’t keep it for long. She was often required to do janitorial work as well as run classes, and couldn’t bear to see children come to school as poorly clothed and fed as she had been at their age. By the time she moved to Los Angeles and found work as a radio and print journalist and screenwriter in the late 1920s, the Depression hit and she spent several months sleeping rough in Lafayette Park with other out-of-work writers.The first few decades of her life were an endless round of desperate exigencies. When she finally started making a decent living, her passion for political causes took up even more of her time. She joined the John Reed Club, traveled throughout Europe and postrevolutionary Russia, and attended one of the first League of American Writers Congresses in New York City in the mid-1930s, driving there cross-country with Tillie Olsen and driving back again with Nelson Algren. In her twenties, she became the primary carer for her younger sister, who suffered from mental illness; and in later years, from 1971 to ’76, she cared for her husband, the great cinematographer James Wong Howe, after he suffered a major stroke. Whatever the decade, and whatever the year, it was rare for Babb to scrape up more than a few hours here and there to focus on the great stories, novels, and poems she had in her.And yet she managed to wrestle several hard-won achievements into the world: She wrote probably the greatest novel ever written about the Dust Bowl, Whose Names Are Unknown, only published many decades after she sold the first chapters and outline in 1938; she excelled in several different literary forms—from journalism (she co-edited a radical newspaper with Claud Cockburn in London in the 1930s) and field notes from California migrant camps to memoir, lyric poetry, short stories, and even screenwriting; and despite her tendency to be more openly supportive of other writers than they ever seemed to be of her, her life was so rich with good work that almost all of it eventually achieved publication. The most profound obstacle Babb faced in her strenuous life was a case of bad writerly luck of now-legendary proportions. Although she took the cautious upward route of many self-taught young writers, she never caught the decisive break she needed.The most profound obstacle Babb faced in her strenuous life was a case of bad writerly luck of now-legendary proportions.Just when her carefully composed early short stories and essays began attracting the attention of New York editors, she signed a contract for a novel about the Dust Bowl, based on her youthful experience in Red Rock, Oklahoma; and in order to further research the westward migration of her fellow Oklahomans, she took a volunteer job with the Farm Security Administration in Southern California, helping to move refugees into state-funded, self-governing resettlement camps. Initially, Babb only intended to gather information; but as in everything she did, she soon developed a passionate concern for the people she met and the stories she heard, hurling herself into the project with the fierce intensity of a woman who always seemed to be working twice as hard as everyone around her.Her supervisor, Tom Collins, summed up her achievement in a letter he wrote to Babb at the conclusion of her work:1. You visited tents, shacks, cabins and hovels. 472 families or 2175 men, women, and children.2. You interviewed and signed up 309 families or 1465 men, women and children.3. Total families you met and know 781.4. Total individuals you met and know 3640.5. You, therefore, spread happiness and hope to all these—and we thank you with all our hearts.Her work for the FSA yielded hundreds of pages of notes and photographs, many of which were posthumously gathered in On the Dirty Plate Trail: Remembering the Dust Bowl Refugee Camps (2007). These laboriously accumulated pages would testify to two overriding aspects of Babb’s character: that she wasn’t afraid of work and that she possessed an almost bottomless compassion for everybody she met who led a tougher life than she had.           When a friend of her supervisor arrived at the camps to research his own novel, Collins convinced Babb to turn over a copy of her extensive field notes. The writer’s name was John Steinbeck; he had plenty of talent and compassion of his own; and he knew how to make quick use of good material when he saw it. Much of Babb’s work went straight into Steinbeck’s next draft—especially the portions set in a California refugee camp. And after The Grapes of Wrath became a bestseller, Babb turned in the final draft of her own Dust Bowl novel to Bennet Cerf, only to be told that the bookstores weren’t big enough for two novels on the subject. And so Babb’s novel, titled Whose Names Are Unknown, lay unpublished—despite continuous revisions and submissions to alternate publishers—for nearly half a century.Which is not to say that Steinbeck didn’t acknowledge how much he was aided by Babb’s field notes. In fact, he dedicated Grapes to the individual who he felt had most helped him secure those valuable pages: Sanora Babb’s supervisor, Tom Collins.Even if Names had been allowed to compete with Grapes of Wrath in the literary marketplace, it would almost certainly have failed to outsell or outshine it. Babb’s work was largely antithetical to that of Steinbeck, and its “message” was a lot more complicated. While Steinbeck focused on the road trip carrying the Joads away from their already collapsed farmland, the entire first half of Babb’s novel describes several years of the travails of the Dunne family, who struggle to grow broomcorn and wheat while their land grows increasingly parched, dust-storm-ridden and uninhabitable. In the second half of Babb’s novel, the Dunnes don’t simply submit to the California farm growers, or lose their temper, like Tom Joad, and flee, but bear down and become increasingly involved with labor organizers and strike actions.Steinbeck dedicated The Grapes of Wrath to the individual who he felt had most helped him: Sanora Babb’s supervisor.Steinbeck’s prose infused the landscape with almost heavenly ambience, seeming to argue that the world was bountiful enough for everybody, if wealthy landowners could be forced to stop hoarding its riches. Babb’s prose, however, doesn’t exude the same effulgence; and while Steinbeck’s characters never really surpass their essential nature (whether they’re the drunken, well-meaning paisanos of Tortilla Flat or the always-striving Joad family who can never outstrive an exhausting world), Babb expects more from her principal characters than to die, lose hope, relapse into natural weaknesses, or wither away. Her characters are never beaten down so hard they don’t find a way to climb up out of their failures and give life another chance.The conclusions of Grapes of Wrath and Names couldn’t make this distinction more clear. Steinbeck’s Joads are ultimately beaten down to little more than their barely pulsing biologies—huddling together for warmth while the bereaved mother, Rose of Sharon, breastfeeds a starving man. Babb’s characters struggle to their last narrative breath to envision a future that will have them. In the concluding paragraph of Names, confronted by corporate forces that own “guns and clubs and tear gas and vomit gas and them vigilantes paid to fire the guns,” Babb’s Julia Dunne sees one thing “as clear and perfect as a drop of rain. They would rise and fall and, in their falling, rise again.”It’s hard to recall a writer who writes more vividly and affectionately about American landscape than Babb; her characters journey across its vastness with an almost invulnerable affection for what surrounds them, whatever cataclysms erupt. Early in the novel, when Julia and her daughters are pushed out of a neighbor’s home into an oncoming dust storm, the true violence isn’t that of nature but of the neighbors, who have ejected them from their home so they can take care of themselves. And nature is always beautiful, even when it’s at its most threatening:They were almost a mile way, walking in the hollow, when the rain began in large slow drops, and the far horizon quivered with sheet lightning. Fork lightning snapped suddenly, splitting the moving clouds, flashing close to the wires. The whole flat world under an angry churning sky was miraculously lighted for a moment. A strange liquid clarity extended to the ends of the earth. Julia saw the trees along the creek and animals grazing far away. The bleak farmyards with their stern buildings, scattered sparsely on the plains, stood out in naked lonely desolation. A sly delicate wind was rising. Their dresses moved ever so little. Thunder clapped and boomed. They were afraid of the electricity that speared into the ground with a terrifying crash after. Julia stopped for a moment to get her breath and look at the approaching storm. Then she took Lonnie from the bumping cart and pulled her along by the hand, while Myra pulled the cart and clung to the pail of milk. They moved off the road away from the wires, going through the open hollow.There is no Steinbeckian pantheistic force in Babb’s landscapes that joins human beings into a continuous environmental oneness; there is only nature’s vast beautiful indifference across which people live, love, struggle, and yearn. When her daughter asks if a cyclone might be forming, Julia consoles her: “It’s only an electric storm.… Rain won’t hurt us. It’s just scary.” Nature is neither malign nor consolatory; it’s implicitly nothing more or less than itself. And fear doesn’t arise from the world; it arises from individuals when they are bereft of one another.The failure of Names wasn’t the only event in Babb’s long event-filled life that was difficult to distinguish from legend. Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s compassionate and respectful biography, Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb (largely based on stories recounted by Babb and her family, as well as passages from Babb’s work), is filled with tales of a life that was lived to almost tall-tale proportions. At the age of 5, Babb earned the nickname “Cheyenne—Riding like the Wind” from an Otoe chief after the pony he gave her went galloping wildly out of town while unyielding young Babb held on tightly, bareback. And though she was unable to start school full time until age 10, she worked hard enough to be named class valedictorian—only to have her graduation speech cut at the last minute when the school authorities decided not to honor the daughter of a notorious local gambler.As a young woman in Los Angeles, she went out to MGM looking for screenwriting work, where she caught the always-roving eye of Irving Thalberg, who invited her back to his office to sign up for a different career entirely—one that probably required spending at least some time on the casting couch. She turned down both offers and, when later asked if she was an actress, replied, “No. I’ve just had a narrow escape.” At one point, when she was out on a date with her eventual husband, James Wong Howe, a “finely dressed” woman drove up behind them in her car and, angered by the sight of a white woman with an Asian man, shouted abuse. In reply, Babb engaged in a street altercation that, by the end, left the woman shouting “My hat! My $100 hat!” This absorbing biography, written with both affection and admiration, shows Babb as one of the most indefatigable characters in American literary history. Like Edna St. Vincent Millay, the poet who most inspired her, Babb “wasn’t someone who believed in monogamy,” and she happily shared her passions with many notable men—such as William Saroyan and Ralph Ellison. (In fact, her second novel, The Lost Traveler, is one of the few naturalistic novels in which the sexually adventurous young woman isn’t punished for moral failure, as Theodore Dreiser’s antiheroine is in Sister Carrie or Kate Chopin’s Edna Pontellier is in The Awakening.) She traveled extensively, often hitchhiking alone across country and through Mexico; she wrote the lyrics for a popular song, which were then “swiped” by someone who published them under their own name; and she organized a walnut growers’ strike in Modesto, California, which caused her to spend at least one night in jail.  It was only when Babb began suffering bouts of ill health—partly the result of an impoverished childhood diet and partly from a nervous breakdown set off by learning that her former lover Ralph Ellison had remarried—that she finally settled down exclusively with Howe. But even then, she always seemed to be doing the work of three or four women. She helped him buy and manage a Chinatown restaurant and took charge of long visits from his family while he was working on movie sets. They surreptitiously bought a house together in the Hollywood Hills, and after California’s ban on interracial marriage was found unconstitutional, they married in 1949. But even then, it wasn’t easy to find a judge who would perform the service. She was clearly as passionate in her political activism as she was in her personal relationships. After many challenging years of marriage, when her relationship with Howe had not been entirely monogamous, she eventually settled down, and the two would often write “small sweet love notes” and leave them around the house for each other to find. One of her best short stories, “Reconciliation”—about a married couple coming together again after a separation to tend their neglected garden—reads like an homage to their long, often difficult, and just as often devoted, relationship. While Babb endured more than her share of bad luck in publishing, she developed many devoted friends and fans who saw her through decades of darkness into a late middle-aged period that approached modest fame. Her short stories were regularly published in various significant journals and reprinted in “best of the year” volumes; she found an agent, and eventually sold and published her second novel, The Lost Traveler, based on childhood memories of growing up with a sometimes brutal, errant father. Her 1970 memoir, An Owl on Every Post, earned a brief time on bestseller lists, adorned with quotes from her longtime friends and admirers Ralph Ellison and Ray Bradbury.Dunkle’s biography likewise relies on the work of Babb’s friends, scholars, and especially her late-life agent, Joanna Dearcrop, who helped Babb finally get Whose Names Are Unknown published after a half-century delay in 2004, while Babb was lying in bed with an exhausted body that couldn’t carry her much further. And eventually, her remarkable field notes, cited by Ken Burns in his Dust Bowl documentary on PBS, led to new editions of her poetry and prose.The major question about Babb’s remarkable work is not “Why did she write so little?” but rather: “How did she find the time to write anything at all?”While she is best known for a novel that wasn’t published until she was almost dead, her gifts are beautifully displayed in numerous short stories and poems that carry readers through regions of memory, landscape, and experience. On one journey through Mexico and South America, Babb gathered material for “The Larger Cage,” about an orphan who finds a home (of sorts) with a family that sells wild local birds to tourists; they teach him to “train” the birds by filling their bellies with buckshot, which inevitably kills them. But human cruelty is never the subject of Babb’s fiction—rather it’s the human ability to bring kindness into the world, and the protagonist of “The Larger Cage” learns that there are better ways to train beautiful birds than by tormenting them. It is perhaps the most remarkable (and unsatisfactory) fact of Babb’s life that while she failed to produce big novels at times that were acceptable to the publishing industry, she spent her life succeeding in far less commercial forms—such as the short story, the lyric, and the memoir. Many writers are recalled for the great things they achieved in life apart from their living of it; but Babb’s greatest genius may have been her ability to produce lasting work without leaving anyone in her life behind. 

Hydrogen hubs test new federal environmental justice rules

This is part 1 of a 2-part series. Read part 2: What’s hampering federal environmental justice efforts in the hydrogen hub build-out?On a rainy day in September, Veronica Coptis and her two children stood on the shore of the Monongahela River in a park near their home, watching a pair of barges laden with mountainous heaps of coal disappear around the riverbend.“I’m worried they’re not taking into account how much industrial traffic this river already sees, and how much the hydrogen hub is going to add to it,” Coptis told EHN. To read a version of this story in Spanish click here. Haz clic aquí para leer este reportaje en español.Coptis lives with her husband and their children in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania, a former coal town near the West Virginia border with a population of around 434. The local water authority uses the Monongahela as source water. Contaminants associated with industrial activity and linked to cancer, including bromodichloromethane, chloroform and dibromochloromethane, have been detected in the community’s drinking water.Coptis grew up among coal miners, but became an activist focused on coal and fracking after witnessing environmental harms the fossil fuel industry caused. Now, she sees a new fight on the horizon: The Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub, a vast network of infrastructure that will use primarily natural gas to create hydrogen for energy. Part of the new Appalachian hydrogen hub is expected to be built in La Belle, which is about a 30 minute drive north along the Monongahela River from her home.“I have a lot of concerns about how large that facility might be and what emissions could be like, and whether it’ll cause increased traffic on the river and the roads,” said Coptis, who works as a senior advisor at the climate advocacy nonprofit Taproot Earth. “I’m also worried that because this will be blue hydrogen it will increase demand for fracking, and I already live surrounded by fracking wells.”The Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub is one of seven proposed, federally funded networks of this type of infrastructure announced a year ago — an initiative born from the Biden administration’s 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The hydrogen created by the hubs using both renewable and fossil fuel energy will be used by industries that are difficult to electrify like steelmaking, construction and petrochemical production.The hubs support the administration's objective of reaching net-zero carbon emissions nationwide by 2050 and achieving a 100% “clean” electrical grid by 2035. All seven hydrogen hubs, which are in various stages of development, but mostly in the planning and site selection phases, are considered clean energy projects by the Biden administration, including those that also use fossil fuels in production.In March and May, Coptis attended listening sessions hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which is overseeing the hubs’ development and distributing $7 billion in federal funding for them, alongside representatives from industrial partners for the project. She hoped the sessions would provide answers — like exactly where the proposed facilities would be and what would happen at them — but she left with even more questions.The initial applications from industrial partners to DOE, which included timelines, estimated costs, proposed location details and estimates of environmental and health impacts, were kept private by the agency despite frequent requests from community members to share those details.“The Department of Energy and the companies involved have not been transparent,” Coptis said. “It’s not possible for communities to give meaningful input on projects when we literally don’t know anything about them.”In 2023, the Biden administration passed historic federal policies directing 80 agencies to prioritize environmental justice in decision-making. The DOE pledged to lead by example with the seven new hydrogen hubs — but so far that isn’t happening, according to more than 30 community members and advocates EHN spoke to. They said details remain hazy, public input is being planned only after industry partners have already received millions of dollars in public funding, and communities don’t have agency in the decision-making.“The promises DOE has made are just not being met, according to their own definitions of what environmental justice looks like,” Batoul Al-Sadi, a senior associate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national environmental advocacy group that’s been pushing for increased transparency for the hydrogen hubs, told EHN.Our investigation also found:In initial listening sessions for the hubs, 95 of 113 public comments submitted voiced some opposition to the projects.49 of 113 comments submitted during the listening sessions expressed concern about a lack of transparency or meaningful community engagement.More than 100 regional and national advocacy groups have sent letters to the DOE requesting increased transparency and improvements to community engagement processes.Communities do not have the right to refuse the hydrogen hub projects if the burdens prove greater than the benefits.The DOE is failing to adhere to its own plans for community engagement, according to experts and advocates.“Right now the [federal environmental justice] regulations are in the best place they’ve ever been,” Stephen Schima, an expert on federal environmental regulations and senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice, told EHN. “Agencies have an opportunity to get this right…it’s just a matter of implementation, which is proving challenging so far.”In response to questions about transparency and community engagement, the DOE told EHN, “DOE is focused on getting these projects selected for award negotiation officially ... Once awarded, DOE will release further details on the projects.”Residents of the seven hydrogen hub communities fear that once millions of dollars in federal funding have already been distributed for these projects, their input will no longer be relevant.“The Department of Energy and the companies involved have not been transparent.” - Veronica Coptis, Taproot Earth The Appalachian and California hubs both received $30 million and the Pacific Northwest hub received $27.5 million in initial funding from the federal government in July. Funding for the other four hubs is still being processed. In total, the seven planned hydrogen hub projects are slated to receive $7 billion in federal funding.Jalonne White-Newsome, the federal chief environmental justice officer at The White House Council on Environmental Quality, said she’s aware that communities are frustrated about the hydrogen hubs.“I spend a lot of my time working with our partners at the Department of Energy [and other federal agencies], making sure we support the safe deployment of these different technologies,” White-Newsome told EHN. “I continue to hear in many different forms the concerns that communities have — that there is not transparency, there’s not enough information, there’s fear of the technology.”“I understand all of those concerns,” White-Newsome said, adding that The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council had established a work group of environmental justice leaders across the country to address carbon capture technologies and hydrogen, and was working with an internal team, including federal agency partners at the DOE, “on how to address all of the issues that have been raised by this body.”Advocates fear these measures won’t do enough.“Even if this was the best, non-polluting, most renewable green energy project to come to Appalachia, this process does not align with environmental justice principles,” Coptis said.Environmental justice and pollution concernsThe hydrogen hubs were pitched as a boon to environmental justice communities that would bring jobs and economic development, cleaner air from reduced fossil fuel use and the promise of being central to America’s clean energy transition.But more than 140 environmental justice organizations have signed public letters highlighting the ways hydrogen energy could prolong the use of fossil fuels, create safety hazards and worsen local air pollution, according to a report by the EFI Foundation.The Mid-Atlantic and Midwest hubs plan to use renewables and nuclear energy in addition to fossil fuels, while the California, Pacific Northwest and Heartland hubs plan to use combinations of renewables, biomass and nuclear energy. The Appalachian and Gulf Coast hubs plan to use primarily fossil fuels.Hydrogen hubs are dense networks of infrastructure that will span large regions. Many hydrogen hub components are being planned in communities that have historically been overburdened by pollution, particularly from fossil fuel extraction, so they can take advantage of that existing infrastructure. For example, Houston’s Ship Channel region, California’s Inland Empire, and northwest Indiana all include environmental justice communities that are tentatively expecting hydrogen hub infrastructure, and all three regions routinely rank among the worst places in the country for air pollution.“I spend a lot of my time working with our partners at the Department of Energy [and other federal agencies], making sure we support the safe deployment of these different technologies.” - Jalonne White-Newsome, the federal chief environmental justice officer at The White House Council on Environmental QualityDOE has said projects will only be awarded if they demonstrate plans to minimize negative impacts and provide benefits for environmental justice communities, but so far communities expecting hydrogen hubs say they haven’t seen information about how project partners plan to do this, though some information has been provided in the California hub's community benefits plan.Communities are worried the hubs will add new industrial pollution sources to already-polluted communities, while data on the cumulative impacts from existing and expanded networks of energy infrastructure remains scarce. Concerns about health risks are especially acute around the Appalachian and Gulf Coast hubs because of their planned reliance on fossil fuels. EHN heard concerns about new emissions from truck and barge traffic, the potential use of eminent domain to seize private property for pipelines, the risk of pipelines exploding or leaking and increased nitrogen oxide emissions from the eventual combustion of hydrogen fuel, which contributes to higher levels of particulate matter pollution and ozone. Exposure to these pollutants are linked to health effects including increased cancer risk, respiratory and heart disease, premature birth and low birth weight.There are also concerns about these hubs’ reliance on carbon capture and storage technology, which is required in order to convert fossil fuels into hydrogen but won’t be required for hubs using non-fossil fuel feedstocks.Carbon capture technology is controversial, as many experts and advocates consider it a way to prolong the use of fossil fuels, and have expressed how the technology could actually worsen climate change due to high energy consumption and leaks. Because captured CO2 contains toxic substances, like volatile organic compounds and mercury, the technique can pose risks to groundwater, soil and air through leaks. Just last month, officials reported that the first commercial carbon sequestration plant in Illinois sprung two leaks this year under Lake Decatur, a drinking water source for Decatur, Illinois. The company that owns the plant, ADM, didn’t tell authorities about the leaks for months. “These are communities with deep roots in extractive processes like coal mining and natural gas, so developers coming in and proposing something is nothing new for them, but when they learn that developers are interested in not extracting but depositing, injecting, their eyes widen,” Ethan Story, advocacy director and attorney at the Center for Coalfield Justice, a community health advocacy group in western Pennsylvania, told EHN. Fossil fuel partners Each hydrogen hub has a corporate, nonprofit or public-private partnership organization that oversees the project. The partnership organization is in charge of putting together the proposal, selecting projects, facilitating engagement, receiving and distributing federal funding and acting as a liaison between the DOE and industrial partners. In addition to the $7 billion federal investment, funding for the hydrogen hubs will include substantial private investments, incentivized by the Inflation Reduction Act.Some of the prime contractors existed prior to the hydrogen hubs launching, like Battelle, which is overseeing the Appalachian hub, and the Energy & Environmental Research Center, which is overseeing the Heartland hub. Others were formed specifically to oversee the hydrogen hub projects, like the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES), which is overseeing the California hub, and HyVelocity, Inc., which is overseeing the Gulf Coast hub. “These are communities with deep roots in extractive processes like coal mining and natural gas, so developers coming in and proposing something is nothing new for them, but when they learn that developers are interested in not extracting but depositing, injecting, their eyes widen." - Ethan Story, Center for Coalfield JusticeIn addition to these contractors, the hubs have individual project partners that include fossil fuel companies. In the Gulf Coast hub, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell are among the fossil fuel companies listed as project partners. The Appalachia hub’s partners include CNX Resources, Enbridge, Empire Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation; and the California hub lists Chevron among its partners. This is creating distrust in some communities.For example, in a DOE document released in August, the agency reported that EQT Corporation, the second-largest natural gas producer in the country, would host community listening sessions and work toward establishing a community advisory committee for its projects in the Appalachian hydrogen hub. EQT has racked up environmental violations at its fracking wells that caused multiple families in West Virginia to move out of their homes. The company has also promoted misinformation about the natural gas industry’s role in worsening climate change. “Choosing EQT to run this part of the project shows the lack of real community engagement, the lack of community trust, the lack of community transparency that surrounds the [Appalachian hydrogen hub] community benefits process,” Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, a coalition of clean air advocacy nonprofits in western Pennsylvania, told EHN. “This choice of manager illustrates the lack of interest in establishing any sort of trust with impacted communities.”Karen Feridun, a cofounder of the Better Path Coalition, a Pennsylvania climate advocacy group, said “If EQT creates a [community advisory committee], it'll be to find out what color ARCH2 [Appalachian hydrogen hub] baseball caps they prefer.”EQT Corporation and Battelle did not respond to multiple requests for interviews, nor to specific questions about the community engagement process and the alleged lack of transparency. The DOE also outsourced community engagement in the Gulf Coast to a local organization — the Houston Advanced Research Center, or HARC. The organization was founded in 1982 by George Mitchell, known as the “father of fracking,” who was credited for the shale boom in Texas. In 2001, HARC updated its mission on its website to reference mitigating climate risk and advancing clean energy, and in 2023 the organization included hydrogen energy in its strategic planning and company vision. “Choosing EQT to run this part of the project shows the lack of real community engagement, the lack of community trust, the lack of community transparency that surrounds the [Appalachian hydrogen hub] community benefits process.” - Matt Mehalik, Breathe ProjectCommunity engagement representative and HARC deputy director of climate equity and resilience, Margaret Cook, told EHN the organization had reached out to a few local advocacy groups to discuss its role in the hub’s community engagement. Cook said they plan to include a community advisory board that will interact with the companies involved and advise on how DOE dollars are spent at the community and regional levels. Additionally, the group will be tasked with organizing community benefits. “We need to understand what their concerns are so that we can address them,” said Cook. “And we need to understand what they would perceive as a benefit that is actually going to help them, so that the project can do that.”Shiv Srivastava, research and policy researcher for Fenceline Watch, a Houston-based environmental justice organization, told EHN, “I think that this is a fundamental problem … you have organizations that are chosen to basically be the community connector, the proxy for the hub with the community. This is something the Department of Energy should be doing directly.”A lack of transparency and meaningful engagementSome describe Houston’s East End as a checkerboard, where the borders of their homes, schools and greenspaces are marked by industrial plants, parking lots, entry docks, smokestacks and refineries.The East End community is in the 99th percentile for exposure to air toxics and home to the state’s largest sources of chemical pollution. Residents of these neighborhoods, like Srivastava and Yvette Arellano, executive director of Fenceline Watch, worry that this enormous industrial presence will only increase with the introduction of hydrogen.“When it comes to things like carbon capture, sequestration, direct air capture, these are almost like supporting tenets for hydrogen,” Srivastava said. “We see hydrogen rapidly being posited as the new feedstock for petrochemical production, to displace fossil fuels, which, for our community, doesn't work, because they're just still continuing to produce these toxics [with hydrogen production].” Arellano told EHN that Fenceline Watch educates the public about industrial projects, but for hydrogen that’s been complicated by “the lack of a formalized community engagement process across all seven hubs.”The DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) held nine initial listening sessions for the hubs and summarized the feedback received during those meetings on its website. The DOE did not make recordings of these meetings publicly available, but an EHN analysis of the DOE’s transcripts shows that a majority of commenters voiced concerns about issues like employee safety, pipeline siting, carbon capture efficacy, emissions impacts, who will regulate these projects, permitting, site locations, language barriers and environmental injustice. For the Gulf Coast Hub, the community asked for formalized sessions where they could write in questions and get written responses using simple language. “What we have heard is that this is not how this process goes,” Arellano said.” We have heard dead silence.” Of the 113 comments the DOE transcribed from the listening sessions, 95 voiced some opposition to the projects, and calls for greater transparency and better community engagement were issued at least 49 times. EHN also heard calls for transparency beyond the listening sessions, particularly concerning environmental justice and community engagement, for all hubs except the Heartland hub, which would span across North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota (the hub lost its key project partners Marathon Petroleum and TC Energy, so it’s unclear if or how that project will move forward). In response to complaints about engagement for the hubs, the DOE published a summary outlining key themes it heard during the listening sessions and how that feedback has been incorporated into the planning process for the hubs. An agency spokesperson said this type of community engagement is new for the DOE and the projects are all in early stages, so the agency is still learning and is working to ensure that community concerns are adequately addressed. They added that the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) has held more than 70 meetings with community members and groups, local elected officials, first responders, labor and other community groups, and has provided informational briefings to more than 4,000 people in the hydrogen hub regions. “I have questions and concerns,” Democratic North Dakota state senator Tim Mathern said. “Thus far I support it as it is presented as a cleaner fuel than fossil fuels and better for our environment. Very little information is provided about the environmental impacts, and I would like to know more.” EHN reached out to other policymakers in the 16 states with proposed hydrogen projects and received five responses, with four coming from states in proposed Pacific Northwest hydrogen hub regions. Most responses from policymakers noted a need for more information, similar to their constituents. “There has been involvement with local officials in my area as well as some state officials,” Republican Montana state representative Denley Loge told EHN. “Most (people) do not fully understand but do not dig deeper on their own. On the local level, when meetings have been held, few attend but rumors go rampant without good information.” Democratic Texas state representative Penny Morales Shaw expressed support for the Gulf Coast hub. “As a state representative, I receive feedback from my constituents every day about poor air quality and environmental conditions impacting their health and quality of life,” Morales Shaw told EHN. “Hydrogen hubs can help bring us to net-zero carbon emissions, and we all want to make sure it’s done in an effective, collaborative way.” “Hydrogen hubs can help bring us to net-zero carbon emissions, and we all want to make sure it’s done in an effective, collaborative way.” - Democratic Texas state representative Penny Morales Shaw The listening sessions are just one way communities have requested improvements to the DOE’s engagement process. EHN also tracked the written requests made to DOE regarding transparency around the hydrogen hubs outside of the listening sessions. We found that: A group of leaders from numerous national advocacy groups, including Clean Air Task Force, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, also formally asked the DOE for increased transparency and engagement around the hydrogen hubs 54 Appalachian organizations and community groups signed a letter to the DOE calling for the suspension of the Appalachian hub, citing a lack of transparency and engagement 32 groups from the Mid-Atlantic hub region signed a letter to the DOE stating that the first public meeting on the hub was inaccessible to many residents and requesting increased transparency and engagement. 15 advocacy groups sent the DOE a letter expressing frustration over the lack of transparency and engagement for the Midwest hydrogen hub Nine environmental and justice advocacy groups in California made similar requests related to transparency and engagement A coalition of groups from Texas, California, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Indiana requested improved transparency and engagement around hydrogen energy in a published report In the absence of meaningful engagement on the projects, a coalition of advocacy groups also recently published their own “Guide to Community Benefits in Southwestern Pennsylvania” with the hopes that the Appalachian hydrogen hub project, and others like it, will use it as a reference. A DOE spokesperson said the agency has responded directly to more than 50 letters, but most of those responses have not been made public. Community advocates who received responses to these letters told EHN they were dissatisfied. The agency declined to answer EHN’s questions about whether it was working to meet the specific requests in these letters. In initial presentations about the hubs, the DOE discussed “go/no-go” stages for the projects, which require community engagement before the projects can move forward. This led many community members to believe this meant the projects could be stopped if communities decided the costs outweigh the benefits. That turned out not to be the case. “Communities will not have a direct right of refusal,” DOE said in an emailed response to questions from community groups about the Mid-Atlantic hub in July. “This is not a requirement of the H2Hubs program.” Some people, including Feridun of the Better Path Coalition in Pennsylvania, felt misled. “We've been fed a line over and over about these go/no-go decisions and how we'll be engaged when each one is being made, but that's simply not what's happening.” Advocates question the ethics of the federal government citing new pollution sources in environmental justice communities whether or not they consent to it. There’s also a widespread perception that the hubs’ industrial partners are forging ahead with planning in closed-door meetings with agency officials, without community input. “Communities will not have a direct right of refusal. This is not a requirement of the H2Hubs program.” - Department of Energy “The DOE appeared on the very first listening session as a co-host of the call with [the industrial partners],” Chris Chyung, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Indiana Conservation Voters, speaking about the Midwest Hydrogen hub. “It creates an ethical dilemma since DOE is supposed to be a mediator, providing oversight of this money and advocating on behalf of the taxpayers who are funding it.” On the East Coast, the prime contractor leading the Mid-Atlantic hub set up monthly networking meetings for corporate partners that cost $25-$50 to join and were not open to the public. It also established a tiered membership program that cost between $2,500 and $10,000 and gave members free access to educational webinars, free registrations for an “annual MACH2 Hydrogen Conference,” and access to members-only events and a members-only online portal with additional information about the projects. In an email to local advocates who asked why these opportunities weren’t open to the public, a DOE spokesperson said the networking meetings were “for businesses, startups and other parties engaged in the clean energy economy” and “are not intended to be a substitute for community events.” “Our biggest concern is that many projects that are already set as key components to [the Mid-Atlantic hydrogen hub] are being advanced with no community outreach,” Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, told EHN. The nonprofit Carluccio heads filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to gain access to these applications and other materials related to the Mid-Atlantic hydrogen hub in November 2023. When they received responses in August 2024, they learned that numerous projects were further along in the planning process than they’d realized.Similarly, near the California, communities have heard promises that hydrogen production will only come from renewables, according to Kayla Karimi, a staff attorney for the California-based nonprofit Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. Her organization has not seen any contracts or documents supporting those promises beyond the initial announcements made prior to funding. “Our biggest concern is that many projects that are already set as key components to [the Mid-Atlantic hydrogen hub] are being advanced with no community outreach.” - Tracy Carluccio, Delaware Riverkeeper NetworkKarimi said that her organization was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to obtain information about the California hub beyond what’s on its website. She found the NDA “very punitive” and said those who signed it could face legal ramifications for speaking negatively about the California hub. Karimi’s organization did not sign the NDA, and advocated against community members doing so.EHN also spoke to Steven Lehat, managing director of the investment banking company Colton Alexander, who agreed to sign NDAs to gain access to three otherwise-private planning committees for the California hub. While the NDA provided more information, that information legally could not be shared with community members. Barriers like these raised the question of how equitable the community engagement process is, even for the hubs that are slated to use mainly renewable energy sources.“The community's comments thus far have been really limited because we don't know what we're commenting on,” Karimi told EHN, “but also we wouldn't know if they're being incorporated whatsoever, because we haven't been told anything [and] have not been communicated with.”When asked about the NDAs, a spokesperson for ARCHES, the organization managing California’s hydrogen hub, told EHN that NDAs were not required in order to join workgroups related to community engagement or benefits.“ARCHES stands by our principle of being stakeholder and community engaged and will continue to work to ensure that all stakeholders can participate in our community meetings,” the spokesperson said in an email. “However, NDAs are necessary for becoming an ARCHES member, as member companies must feel confident sharing sensitive or proprietary information.”The Pacific Northwest hub was distinct in having public information available compared to the other six hubs. Keith Curl Dove, an organizer with Washington Conservation Action, told EHN his organization was able to access proposed project locations and tribal outreach history, and said that the Washington Chamber of Commerce attempted to respond to all questions and concerns that his organization had.Policymakers in Washington mirrored Dove’s perspective.“I will say, I feel like there has been a pretty broad stakeholder engagement process, which is different than a community engagement process, early on to figure out which businesses, which industries, etc., were going to be ready to make the investments to match Washington state's and the federal investment in our [Pacific] Northwest hydrogen hub,” Democratic Washington state representative Alex Ramel told EHN.“Two of the state's five refineries are in my district, and two more are in the next district, north of me,” Ramel said. “So about 90% of the state's refining capacity is right next door, and the refineries are going to be a major place where hydrogen is deployed in Washington State, and I think they're an important early customer… because they're already using dirty hydrogen, and this is a chance to replace it with green hydrogen.”In U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents, the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council shared concerns about hydrogen hubs and other carbon management technologies, stating, “This investment in ‘experimentation’ of technology that lacks sufficient research of both its safety and efficacy further creates barriers of distrust between impacted communities, particularly those who have been historically and currently disenfranchised, and the respective government agencies.”The Council added that “a humane approach to carbon management would be to prioritize sound research (not influenced by polluters) that includes a robust focus on potential public health and environmental risks.”These concerns mirror those of individuals working on the ground.“Can we really rely on another potential polluter?” asked Arellano of Fenceline Watch.Read Part 2: What’s hampering federal environmental justice efforts in the hydrogen hub build-out?Video production and editing: Jimmy Evans

This is part 1 of a 2-part series. Read part 2: What’s hampering federal environmental justice efforts in the hydrogen hub build-out?On a rainy day in September, Veronica Coptis and her two children stood on the shore of the Monongahela River in a park near their home, watching a pair of barges laden with mountainous heaps of coal disappear around the riverbend.“I’m worried they’re not taking into account how much industrial traffic this river already sees, and how much the hydrogen hub is going to add to it,” Coptis told EHN. To read a version of this story in Spanish click here. Haz clic aquí para leer este reportaje en español.Coptis lives with her husband and their children in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania, a former coal town near the West Virginia border with a population of around 434. The local water authority uses the Monongahela as source water. Contaminants associated with industrial activity and linked to cancer, including bromodichloromethane, chloroform and dibromochloromethane, have been detected in the community’s drinking water.Coptis grew up among coal miners, but became an activist focused on coal and fracking after witnessing environmental harms the fossil fuel industry caused. Now, she sees a new fight on the horizon: The Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub, a vast network of infrastructure that will use primarily natural gas to create hydrogen for energy. Part of the new Appalachian hydrogen hub is expected to be built in La Belle, which is about a 30 minute drive north along the Monongahela River from her home.“I have a lot of concerns about how large that facility might be and what emissions could be like, and whether it’ll cause increased traffic on the river and the roads,” said Coptis, who works as a senior advisor at the climate advocacy nonprofit Taproot Earth. “I’m also worried that because this will be blue hydrogen it will increase demand for fracking, and I already live surrounded by fracking wells.”The Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub is one of seven proposed, federally funded networks of this type of infrastructure announced a year ago — an initiative born from the Biden administration’s 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The hydrogen created by the hubs using both renewable and fossil fuel energy will be used by industries that are difficult to electrify like steelmaking, construction and petrochemical production.The hubs support the administration's objective of reaching net-zero carbon emissions nationwide by 2050 and achieving a 100% “clean” electrical grid by 2035. All seven hydrogen hubs, which are in various stages of development, but mostly in the planning and site selection phases, are considered clean energy projects by the Biden administration, including those that also use fossil fuels in production.In March and May, Coptis attended listening sessions hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which is overseeing the hubs’ development and distributing $7 billion in federal funding for them, alongside representatives from industrial partners for the project. She hoped the sessions would provide answers — like exactly where the proposed facilities would be and what would happen at them — but she left with even more questions.The initial applications from industrial partners to DOE, which included timelines, estimated costs, proposed location details and estimates of environmental and health impacts, were kept private by the agency despite frequent requests from community members to share those details.“The Department of Energy and the companies involved have not been transparent,” Coptis said. “It’s not possible for communities to give meaningful input on projects when we literally don’t know anything about them.”In 2023, the Biden administration passed historic federal policies directing 80 agencies to prioritize environmental justice in decision-making. The DOE pledged to lead by example with the seven new hydrogen hubs — but so far that isn’t happening, according to more than 30 community members and advocates EHN spoke to. They said details remain hazy, public input is being planned only after industry partners have already received millions of dollars in public funding, and communities don’t have agency in the decision-making.“The promises DOE has made are just not being met, according to their own definitions of what environmental justice looks like,” Batoul Al-Sadi, a senior associate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national environmental advocacy group that’s been pushing for increased transparency for the hydrogen hubs, told EHN.Our investigation also found:In initial listening sessions for the hubs, 95 of 113 public comments submitted voiced some opposition to the projects.49 of 113 comments submitted during the listening sessions expressed concern about a lack of transparency or meaningful community engagement.More than 100 regional and national advocacy groups have sent letters to the DOE requesting increased transparency and improvements to community engagement processes.Communities do not have the right to refuse the hydrogen hub projects if the burdens prove greater than the benefits.The DOE is failing to adhere to its own plans for community engagement, according to experts and advocates.“Right now the [federal environmental justice] regulations are in the best place they’ve ever been,” Stephen Schima, an expert on federal environmental regulations and senior legislative counsel at Earthjustice, told EHN. “Agencies have an opportunity to get this right…it’s just a matter of implementation, which is proving challenging so far.”In response to questions about transparency and community engagement, the DOE told EHN, “DOE is focused on getting these projects selected for award negotiation officially ... Once awarded, DOE will release further details on the projects.”Residents of the seven hydrogen hub communities fear that once millions of dollars in federal funding have already been distributed for these projects, their input will no longer be relevant.“The Department of Energy and the companies involved have not been transparent.” - Veronica Coptis, Taproot Earth The Appalachian and California hubs both received $30 million and the Pacific Northwest hub received $27.5 million in initial funding from the federal government in July. Funding for the other four hubs is still being processed. In total, the seven planned hydrogen hub projects are slated to receive $7 billion in federal funding.Jalonne White-Newsome, the federal chief environmental justice officer at The White House Council on Environmental Quality, said she’s aware that communities are frustrated about the hydrogen hubs.“I spend a lot of my time working with our partners at the Department of Energy [and other federal agencies], making sure we support the safe deployment of these different technologies,” White-Newsome told EHN. “I continue to hear in many different forms the concerns that communities have — that there is not transparency, there’s not enough information, there’s fear of the technology.”“I understand all of those concerns,” White-Newsome said, adding that The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council had established a work group of environmental justice leaders across the country to address carbon capture technologies and hydrogen, and was working with an internal team, including federal agency partners at the DOE, “on how to address all of the issues that have been raised by this body.”Advocates fear these measures won’t do enough.“Even if this was the best, non-polluting, most renewable green energy project to come to Appalachia, this process does not align with environmental justice principles,” Coptis said.Environmental justice and pollution concernsThe hydrogen hubs were pitched as a boon to environmental justice communities that would bring jobs and economic development, cleaner air from reduced fossil fuel use and the promise of being central to America’s clean energy transition.But more than 140 environmental justice organizations have signed public letters highlighting the ways hydrogen energy could prolong the use of fossil fuels, create safety hazards and worsen local air pollution, according to a report by the EFI Foundation.The Mid-Atlantic and Midwest hubs plan to use renewables and nuclear energy in addition to fossil fuels, while the California, Pacific Northwest and Heartland hubs plan to use combinations of renewables, biomass and nuclear energy. The Appalachian and Gulf Coast hubs plan to use primarily fossil fuels.Hydrogen hubs are dense networks of infrastructure that will span large regions. Many hydrogen hub components are being planned in communities that have historically been overburdened by pollution, particularly from fossil fuel extraction, so they can take advantage of that existing infrastructure. For example, Houston’s Ship Channel region, California’s Inland Empire, and northwest Indiana all include environmental justice communities that are tentatively expecting hydrogen hub infrastructure, and all three regions routinely rank among the worst places in the country for air pollution.“I spend a lot of my time working with our partners at the Department of Energy [and other federal agencies], making sure we support the safe deployment of these different technologies.” - Jalonne White-Newsome, the federal chief environmental justice officer at The White House Council on Environmental QualityDOE has said projects will only be awarded if they demonstrate plans to minimize negative impacts and provide benefits for environmental justice communities, but so far communities expecting hydrogen hubs say they haven’t seen information about how project partners plan to do this, though some information has been provided in the California hub's community benefits plan.Communities are worried the hubs will add new industrial pollution sources to already-polluted communities, while data on the cumulative impacts from existing and expanded networks of energy infrastructure remains scarce. Concerns about health risks are especially acute around the Appalachian and Gulf Coast hubs because of their planned reliance on fossil fuels. EHN heard concerns about new emissions from truck and barge traffic, the potential use of eminent domain to seize private property for pipelines, the risk of pipelines exploding or leaking and increased nitrogen oxide emissions from the eventual combustion of hydrogen fuel, which contributes to higher levels of particulate matter pollution and ozone. Exposure to these pollutants are linked to health effects including increased cancer risk, respiratory and heart disease, premature birth and low birth weight.There are also concerns about these hubs’ reliance on carbon capture and storage technology, which is required in order to convert fossil fuels into hydrogen but won’t be required for hubs using non-fossil fuel feedstocks.Carbon capture technology is controversial, as many experts and advocates consider it a way to prolong the use of fossil fuels, and have expressed how the technology could actually worsen climate change due to high energy consumption and leaks. Because captured CO2 contains toxic substances, like volatile organic compounds and mercury, the technique can pose risks to groundwater, soil and air through leaks. Just last month, officials reported that the first commercial carbon sequestration plant in Illinois sprung two leaks this year under Lake Decatur, a drinking water source for Decatur, Illinois. The company that owns the plant, ADM, didn’t tell authorities about the leaks for months. “These are communities with deep roots in extractive processes like coal mining and natural gas, so developers coming in and proposing something is nothing new for them, but when they learn that developers are interested in not extracting but depositing, injecting, their eyes widen,” Ethan Story, advocacy director and attorney at the Center for Coalfield Justice, a community health advocacy group in western Pennsylvania, told EHN. Fossil fuel partners Each hydrogen hub has a corporate, nonprofit or public-private partnership organization that oversees the project. The partnership organization is in charge of putting together the proposal, selecting projects, facilitating engagement, receiving and distributing federal funding and acting as a liaison between the DOE and industrial partners. In addition to the $7 billion federal investment, funding for the hydrogen hubs will include substantial private investments, incentivized by the Inflation Reduction Act.Some of the prime contractors existed prior to the hydrogen hubs launching, like Battelle, which is overseeing the Appalachian hub, and the Energy & Environmental Research Center, which is overseeing the Heartland hub. Others were formed specifically to oversee the hydrogen hub projects, like the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES), which is overseeing the California hub, and HyVelocity, Inc., which is overseeing the Gulf Coast hub. “These are communities with deep roots in extractive processes like coal mining and natural gas, so developers coming in and proposing something is nothing new for them, but when they learn that developers are interested in not extracting but depositing, injecting, their eyes widen." - Ethan Story, Center for Coalfield JusticeIn addition to these contractors, the hubs have individual project partners that include fossil fuel companies. In the Gulf Coast hub, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell are among the fossil fuel companies listed as project partners. The Appalachia hub’s partners include CNX Resources, Enbridge, Empire Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation; and the California hub lists Chevron among its partners. This is creating distrust in some communities.For example, in a DOE document released in August, the agency reported that EQT Corporation, the second-largest natural gas producer in the country, would host community listening sessions and work toward establishing a community advisory committee for its projects in the Appalachian hydrogen hub. EQT has racked up environmental violations at its fracking wells that caused multiple families in West Virginia to move out of their homes. The company has also promoted misinformation about the natural gas industry’s role in worsening climate change. “Choosing EQT to run this part of the project shows the lack of real community engagement, the lack of community trust, the lack of community transparency that surrounds the [Appalachian hydrogen hub] community benefits process,” Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Breathe Project, a coalition of clean air advocacy nonprofits in western Pennsylvania, told EHN. “This choice of manager illustrates the lack of interest in establishing any sort of trust with impacted communities.”Karen Feridun, a cofounder of the Better Path Coalition, a Pennsylvania climate advocacy group, said “If EQT creates a [community advisory committee], it'll be to find out what color ARCH2 [Appalachian hydrogen hub] baseball caps they prefer.”EQT Corporation and Battelle did not respond to multiple requests for interviews, nor to specific questions about the community engagement process and the alleged lack of transparency. The DOE also outsourced community engagement in the Gulf Coast to a local organization — the Houston Advanced Research Center, or HARC. The organization was founded in 1982 by George Mitchell, known as the “father of fracking,” who was credited for the shale boom in Texas. In 2001, HARC updated its mission on its website to reference mitigating climate risk and advancing clean energy, and in 2023 the organization included hydrogen energy in its strategic planning and company vision. “Choosing EQT to run this part of the project shows the lack of real community engagement, the lack of community trust, the lack of community transparency that surrounds the [Appalachian hydrogen hub] community benefits process.” - Matt Mehalik, Breathe ProjectCommunity engagement representative and HARC deputy director of climate equity and resilience, Margaret Cook, told EHN the organization had reached out to a few local advocacy groups to discuss its role in the hub’s community engagement. Cook said they plan to include a community advisory board that will interact with the companies involved and advise on how DOE dollars are spent at the community and regional levels. Additionally, the group will be tasked with organizing community benefits. “We need to understand what their concerns are so that we can address them,” said Cook. “And we need to understand what they would perceive as a benefit that is actually going to help them, so that the project can do that.”Shiv Srivastava, research and policy researcher for Fenceline Watch, a Houston-based environmental justice organization, told EHN, “I think that this is a fundamental problem … you have organizations that are chosen to basically be the community connector, the proxy for the hub with the community. This is something the Department of Energy should be doing directly.”A lack of transparency and meaningful engagementSome describe Houston’s East End as a checkerboard, where the borders of their homes, schools and greenspaces are marked by industrial plants, parking lots, entry docks, smokestacks and refineries.The East End community is in the 99th percentile for exposure to air toxics and home to the state’s largest sources of chemical pollution. Residents of these neighborhoods, like Srivastava and Yvette Arellano, executive director of Fenceline Watch, worry that this enormous industrial presence will only increase with the introduction of hydrogen.“When it comes to things like carbon capture, sequestration, direct air capture, these are almost like supporting tenets for hydrogen,” Srivastava said. “We see hydrogen rapidly being posited as the new feedstock for petrochemical production, to displace fossil fuels, which, for our community, doesn't work, because they're just still continuing to produce these toxics [with hydrogen production].” Arellano told EHN that Fenceline Watch educates the public about industrial projects, but for hydrogen that’s been complicated by “the lack of a formalized community engagement process across all seven hubs.”The DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) held nine initial listening sessions for the hubs and summarized the feedback received during those meetings on its website. The DOE did not make recordings of these meetings publicly available, but an EHN analysis of the DOE’s transcripts shows that a majority of commenters voiced concerns about issues like employee safety, pipeline siting, carbon capture efficacy, emissions impacts, who will regulate these projects, permitting, site locations, language barriers and environmental injustice. For the Gulf Coast Hub, the community asked for formalized sessions where they could write in questions and get written responses using simple language. “What we have heard is that this is not how this process goes,” Arellano said.” We have heard dead silence.” Of the 113 comments the DOE transcribed from the listening sessions, 95 voiced some opposition to the projects, and calls for greater transparency and better community engagement were issued at least 49 times. EHN also heard calls for transparency beyond the listening sessions, particularly concerning environmental justice and community engagement, for all hubs except the Heartland hub, which would span across North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota (the hub lost its key project partners Marathon Petroleum and TC Energy, so it’s unclear if or how that project will move forward). In response to complaints about engagement for the hubs, the DOE published a summary outlining key themes it heard during the listening sessions and how that feedback has been incorporated into the planning process for the hubs. An agency spokesperson said this type of community engagement is new for the DOE and the projects are all in early stages, so the agency is still learning and is working to ensure that community concerns are adequately addressed. They added that the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) has held more than 70 meetings with community members and groups, local elected officials, first responders, labor and other community groups, and has provided informational briefings to more than 4,000 people in the hydrogen hub regions. “I have questions and concerns,” Democratic North Dakota state senator Tim Mathern said. “Thus far I support it as it is presented as a cleaner fuel than fossil fuels and better for our environment. Very little information is provided about the environmental impacts, and I would like to know more.” EHN reached out to other policymakers in the 16 states with proposed hydrogen projects and received five responses, with four coming from states in proposed Pacific Northwest hydrogen hub regions. Most responses from policymakers noted a need for more information, similar to their constituents. “There has been involvement with local officials in my area as well as some state officials,” Republican Montana state representative Denley Loge told EHN. “Most (people) do not fully understand but do not dig deeper on their own. On the local level, when meetings have been held, few attend but rumors go rampant without good information.” Democratic Texas state representative Penny Morales Shaw expressed support for the Gulf Coast hub. “As a state representative, I receive feedback from my constituents every day about poor air quality and environmental conditions impacting their health and quality of life,” Morales Shaw told EHN. “Hydrogen hubs can help bring us to net-zero carbon emissions, and we all want to make sure it’s done in an effective, collaborative way.” “Hydrogen hubs can help bring us to net-zero carbon emissions, and we all want to make sure it’s done in an effective, collaborative way.” - Democratic Texas state representative Penny Morales Shaw The listening sessions are just one way communities have requested improvements to the DOE’s engagement process. EHN also tracked the written requests made to DOE regarding transparency around the hydrogen hubs outside of the listening sessions. We found that: A group of leaders from numerous national advocacy groups, including Clean Air Task Force, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, also formally asked the DOE for increased transparency and engagement around the hydrogen hubs 54 Appalachian organizations and community groups signed a letter to the DOE calling for the suspension of the Appalachian hub, citing a lack of transparency and engagement 32 groups from the Mid-Atlantic hub region signed a letter to the DOE stating that the first public meeting on the hub was inaccessible to many residents and requesting increased transparency and engagement. 15 advocacy groups sent the DOE a letter expressing frustration over the lack of transparency and engagement for the Midwest hydrogen hub Nine environmental and justice advocacy groups in California made similar requests related to transparency and engagement A coalition of groups from Texas, California, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Indiana requested improved transparency and engagement around hydrogen energy in a published report In the absence of meaningful engagement on the projects, a coalition of advocacy groups also recently published their own “Guide to Community Benefits in Southwestern Pennsylvania” with the hopes that the Appalachian hydrogen hub project, and others like it, will use it as a reference. A DOE spokesperson said the agency has responded directly to more than 50 letters, but most of those responses have not been made public. Community advocates who received responses to these letters told EHN they were dissatisfied. The agency declined to answer EHN’s questions about whether it was working to meet the specific requests in these letters. In initial presentations about the hubs, the DOE discussed “go/no-go” stages for the projects, which require community engagement before the projects can move forward. This led many community members to believe this meant the projects could be stopped if communities decided the costs outweigh the benefits. That turned out not to be the case. “Communities will not have a direct right of refusal,” DOE said in an emailed response to questions from community groups about the Mid-Atlantic hub in July. “This is not a requirement of the H2Hubs program.” Some people, including Feridun of the Better Path Coalition in Pennsylvania, felt misled. “We've been fed a line over and over about these go/no-go decisions and how we'll be engaged when each one is being made, but that's simply not what's happening.” Advocates question the ethics of the federal government citing new pollution sources in environmental justice communities whether or not they consent to it. There’s also a widespread perception that the hubs’ industrial partners are forging ahead with planning in closed-door meetings with agency officials, without community input. “Communities will not have a direct right of refusal. This is not a requirement of the H2Hubs program.” - Department of Energy “The DOE appeared on the very first listening session as a co-host of the call with [the industrial partners],” Chris Chyung, executive director of the environmental advocacy group Indiana Conservation Voters, speaking about the Midwest Hydrogen hub. “It creates an ethical dilemma since DOE is supposed to be a mediator, providing oversight of this money and advocating on behalf of the taxpayers who are funding it.” On the East Coast, the prime contractor leading the Mid-Atlantic hub set up monthly networking meetings for corporate partners that cost $25-$50 to join and were not open to the public. It also established a tiered membership program that cost between $2,500 and $10,000 and gave members free access to educational webinars, free registrations for an “annual MACH2 Hydrogen Conference,” and access to members-only events and a members-only online portal with additional information about the projects. In an email to local advocates who asked why these opportunities weren’t open to the public, a DOE spokesperson said the networking meetings were “for businesses, startups and other parties engaged in the clean energy economy” and “are not intended to be a substitute for community events.” “Our biggest concern is that many projects that are already set as key components to [the Mid-Atlantic hydrogen hub] are being advanced with no community outreach,” Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, told EHN. The nonprofit Carluccio heads filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to gain access to these applications and other materials related to the Mid-Atlantic hydrogen hub in November 2023. When they received responses in August 2024, they learned that numerous projects were further along in the planning process than they’d realized.Similarly, near the California, communities have heard promises that hydrogen production will only come from renewables, according to Kayla Karimi, a staff attorney for the California-based nonprofit Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. Her organization has not seen any contracts or documents supporting those promises beyond the initial announcements made prior to funding. “Our biggest concern is that many projects that are already set as key components to [the Mid-Atlantic hydrogen hub] are being advanced with no community outreach.” - Tracy Carluccio, Delaware Riverkeeper NetworkKarimi said that her organization was asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to obtain information about the California hub beyond what’s on its website. She found the NDA “very punitive” and said those who signed it could face legal ramifications for speaking negatively about the California hub. Karimi’s organization did not sign the NDA, and advocated against community members doing so.EHN also spoke to Steven Lehat, managing director of the investment banking company Colton Alexander, who agreed to sign NDAs to gain access to three otherwise-private planning committees for the California hub. While the NDA provided more information, that information legally could not be shared with community members. Barriers like these raised the question of how equitable the community engagement process is, even for the hubs that are slated to use mainly renewable energy sources.“The community's comments thus far have been really limited because we don't know what we're commenting on,” Karimi told EHN, “but also we wouldn't know if they're being incorporated whatsoever, because we haven't been told anything [and] have not been communicated with.”When asked about the NDAs, a spokesperson for ARCHES, the organization managing California’s hydrogen hub, told EHN that NDAs were not required in order to join workgroups related to community engagement or benefits.“ARCHES stands by our principle of being stakeholder and community engaged and will continue to work to ensure that all stakeholders can participate in our community meetings,” the spokesperson said in an email. “However, NDAs are necessary for becoming an ARCHES member, as member companies must feel confident sharing sensitive or proprietary information.”The Pacific Northwest hub was distinct in having public information available compared to the other six hubs. Keith Curl Dove, an organizer with Washington Conservation Action, told EHN his organization was able to access proposed project locations and tribal outreach history, and said that the Washington Chamber of Commerce attempted to respond to all questions and concerns that his organization had.Policymakers in Washington mirrored Dove’s perspective.“I will say, I feel like there has been a pretty broad stakeholder engagement process, which is different than a community engagement process, early on to figure out which businesses, which industries, etc., were going to be ready to make the investments to match Washington state's and the federal investment in our [Pacific] Northwest hydrogen hub,” Democratic Washington state representative Alex Ramel told EHN.“Two of the state's five refineries are in my district, and two more are in the next district, north of me,” Ramel said. “So about 90% of the state's refining capacity is right next door, and the refineries are going to be a major place where hydrogen is deployed in Washington State, and I think they're an important early customer… because they're already using dirty hydrogen, and this is a chance to replace it with green hydrogen.”In U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents, the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council shared concerns about hydrogen hubs and other carbon management technologies, stating, “This investment in ‘experimentation’ of technology that lacks sufficient research of both its safety and efficacy further creates barriers of distrust between impacted communities, particularly those who have been historically and currently disenfranchised, and the respective government agencies.”The Council added that “a humane approach to carbon management would be to prioritize sound research (not influenced by polluters) that includes a robust focus on potential public health and environmental risks.”These concerns mirror those of individuals working on the ground.“Can we really rely on another potential polluter?” asked Arellano of Fenceline Watch.Read Part 2: What’s hampering federal environmental justice efforts in the hydrogen hub build-out?Video production and editing: Jimmy Evans

Los centros de hidrógeno ponen a prueba las nuevas normas federales de justicia ambiental

Esta es la primera parte de una serie de dos entregas. Lea la segunda parte, Los obstáculos para garantizar la justicia ambiental en los centros de hidrógeno federalesEn un día lluvioso de septiembre, Veronica Coptis y sus dos hijos se pararon a orillas del río Monongahela, en un parque cerca a su hogar, observando cómo un par de barcazas cargadas con montones de carbón desaparecían por la ribera.Haz clic aquí para leer este reportaje en inglés. To read and watch a version of this story in English click here.“Me preocupa que no están teniendo en cuenta la cantidad de tráfico industrial que este río ya carga y cuánto más va a agregar el centro de hidrógeno”, le dijo Coptis a EHN.Coptis vive con su esposo y sus hijos en Carmichaels, en Pensilvania, un pueblo otrora dedicado al carbón cercano a la frontera con Virginia Occidental, con unos 434 habitantes. La autoridad hídrica local usa al río Monongahela como fuente de agua. Contaminantes asociados a la actividad industrial y potencialmente cancerígenos, como el bromodiclorometano, cloroformo y dibromoclorometano, se han detectado en el agua potable de la comunidad.Coptis creció rodeada de mineros del carbón, pero se convirtió en una activista contra este mineral y el fracking después de ser testigo de los daños ambientales causados por la industria de combustibles fósiles. Ahora, ve una nueva batalla en el horizonte: el Centro Regional de Hidrógeno de los Apalaches, una extensa red de infraestructura que usará principalmente gas natural para crear hidrógeno, que luego será usado como combustible. Se espera que parte del nuevo centro de hidrógeno sea construido en La Belle, que está a unos 30 minutos en auto hacia el norte del río Monongahela desde su casa.“Me preocupa mucho qué tan grande va a ser este complejo industrial y cómo serán sus emisiones, y si va a aumentar el tráfico en el río y las carreteras”, dijo Coptis, quien trabaja como consejera senior en la oenegé climática Taproot Earth. “También me preocupa que, debido a que esto va a ser hidrógeno azul, aumente la demanda de fracking, y yo ya vivo rodeada de pozos de fracking”.El Centro Regional de Hidrógeno de los Apalaches es una de las siete redes de este tipo de infraestructuras propuestas hace un año y financiadas con fondos federales. Son una iniciativa que nació de la Ley Bipartidista de Infraestructura que la administración de Biden logró pasar en 2021. El hidrógeno creado en los centros, que provendrá tanto de fuentes renovables como de combustibles fósiles, será usado por industrias que son difíciles de electrificar, como la siderurgia, la construcción y la producción de petroquímicos.Los centros apoyan el objetivo de la administración de Biden de alcanzar cero emisiones netas de carbono en todo el país para 2050 y lograr una red eléctrica 100% “limpia” para 2035. Los siete centros de hidrógeno, que están en diversas etapas de desarrollo pero en su mayoría están en la planeación y la selección de sitios, fueron considerados como proyectos de energías limpias bajo la administración de Biden, incluyendo aquellos que usarán combustibles fósiles para la producción.En marzo y mayo, Coptis asistió a unas sesiones de escucha organizadas por los socios industriales del proyecto y por el Departamento de Energía de los Estados Unidos (DOE, por sus siglas en inglés), que es la entidad encargada del desarrollo de los centros y de repartir los $7 mil millones en fondos federales para ellos. Esperaba que las sesiones le dieran respuestas, como por ejemplo exactamente donde se ubicaran las instalaciones y qué pasaría en ellas. Sin embargo, salió con aún más preguntas. Las aplicaciones iniciales que los socios industriales presentaron ante el DOE, que incluyeron cronogramas, costos estimados, detalles de las posibles ubicaciones y estimaciones de los impactos en el medio ambiente y la salud, fueron mantenidas en secreto por la agencia a pesar de las frecuentes peticiones de los miembros de la comunidad para que se compartieran esos detalles.“El Departamento de Energía y las compañías involucradas no han sido transparentes”, dijo Coptis. “No es posible que las comunidades demos aportes significativos sobre los proyectos cuando literalmente no sabemos nada sobre ellos”. En 2023, la administración de Biden logró aprobar una serie de políticas federales históricas que le ordenaron a 80 agencias nacionales priorizar la justicia medioambiental en todas sus decisiones. El DOE prometió ser un ejemplo a través de los centros de hidrógeno, pero, hasta ahora, esto no ha sucedido, de acuerdo con más de 30 miembros de las comunidades potencialmente afectadas y activistas con los cuales EHN habló. Afirman que los detalles siguen siendo confusos, que las consultas públicas sólo se planifican después de que los socios de la industria ya han recibido millones de dólares en fondos públicos y que las comunidades no intervienen en la toma de decisiones.“Las promesas que el DOE ha hecho no han sido cumplidas, de acuerdo con la definición de justicia ambiental de la misma entidad”, dijo a EHN Batoul Al-Sadi, un asociado senior en Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), un grupo ambientalista nacional que ha estado presionando para que haya una mayor transparencia en los centros de hidrógeno. Nuestra investigación también encontró que:En las sesiones iniciales de escucha sobre los centros, 95 de los 113 comentarios públicos que fueron presentados expresaron oposición a los proyectos.49 de los 113 comentarios expresaron preocupación sobre la falta de transparencia y participación significativa de las comunidades.Más de 100 grupos ambientalistas regionales y nacionales le han enviado cartas al DOE pidiéndole mayor transparencia y mejoras en sus procesos de diálogo con las comunidades.Las comunidades no tienen el derecho de rehusarse a la llegada de los centros de hidrógeno si se prueba que los daños serán mayores que los beneficios.El DOE no se está adhiriendo a sus propios planes de participación comunitaria, de acuerdo con expertos y activistas.“Hoy, las regulaciones [federales de justicia ambiental] están mejor que nunca”, dijo a EHN Stephen Schima, un experto en regulaciones ambientales y consejero legislativo senior en Earthjustice. “Las agencias tienen la oportunidad de hacer esto de forma correcta… solo es una cuestión de implementación, que ha probado ser un gran reto hasta ahora”.Ante nuestras preguntas sobre la transparencia y la participación comunitaria en estos procesos, el DOE respondió a EHN que la agencia “está enfocada en conseguir que estos proyectos sean seleccionados para negociar su adjudicación oficialmente ... Una vez adjudicados, el DOE dará a conocer más detalles sobre los mismos”.Los residentes de las siete comunidades de los centros de hidrógeno temen que, una vez se hayan distribuido millones de dólares en financiación federal para estos proyectos, sus aportes serán irrelevantes.En julio, los centros de los Apalaches y de California ya habían recibido cada uno $30 millones de dólares y el centro del Pacífico Noroeste ya había recibido $27,5 millones en fondos federales. La financiación para el resto de centros sigue en trámite. En total, se prevé que los siete centros planeados recibirán unos $7 mil millones de dólares en fondos públicos federales.Jalonne White-Newsome, la jefa de justicia ambiental del Consejo de la Casa Blanca para la Calidad Ambiental, dijo que es consciente de que las comunidades están frustradas por los centros de hidrógeno. “Paso mucho tiempo trabajando con nuestros colegas del Departamento de Energía [y otras agencias federales] asegurándonos de que estamos apoyando la llegada segura de estas tecnologías”, White-Newsome le dijo a EHN. “Sigo escuchando de muchas formas distintas las preocupaciones de las comunidades: que no hay transparencia, que no hay suficiente información, que hay miedo a la tecnología”.“Entiendo todas esas preocupaciones”, dijo White-Newsome, quien añadió que el Consejo Asesor de Justicia Medioambiental de la Casa Blanca creó un grupo de trabajo de líderes de justicia medioambiental de todo el país para abordar las tecnologías de captura de carbono y el hidrógeno, y está trabajando con un equipo interno, incluidos los socios de la agencia federal en el DOE, “sobre cómo abordar todas las cuestiones que ha planteado este organismo”.Los activistas temen que estas medidas sean insuficientes.“Incluso si éste fuera el mejor proyecto de energía verde, no contaminante y más renovable que llegara a los Apalaches, este proceso no se está ajustando a los principios de justicia ambiental”, señaló Coptis.Justicia ambiental y preocupaciones por la contaminación Los centros de hidrógeno fueron presentados como una bendición para las comunidades afectadas por la injusticia medioambiental que les traería empleos y desarrollo económico, una reducción en la contaminación aérea producto de un menor uso de combustibles fósiles y la promesa de convertirse en protagonistas de la transición energética en Estados Unidos.Pero más de 140 organizaciones por la justicia ambiental han firmado cartas públicas resaltando las formas en las que la energía del hidrógeno podría prolongar el uso de combustibles fósiles, crear riesgos y empeorar la contaminación del aire local, de acuerdo con un reporte publicado por la EFI Foundation.Los centros del Atlántico Medio y del Medio Oeste prevén utilizar energías renovables y energía nuclear además de combustibles fósiles, mientras que los centros de California, el Noroeste del Pacífico y Heartland prevén utilizar combinaciones de energías renovables, biomasa y energía nuclear. Los centros de los Apalaches y la Costa del Golfo prevén utilizar principalmente combustibles fósiles.Los centros de hidrógeno serán una densa red de infraestructuras que se extenderán a lo largo de vastas regiones geográficas. Muchos de sus componentes están siendo planeados para aterrizar en comunidades que han sido desproporcionadamente afectadas por la contaminación (principalmente producto de la extracción de combustibles fósiles), para aprovechar la infraestructura ya existente. Por ejemplo, la región del Canal de Houston, el Inland Empire en California y el noroeste de Indiana incluyen comunidades afectadas por la injusticia ambiental y todas están esperando la llegada tentativa de infraestructuras de los centros de hidrógeno. Las tres regiones figuran entre los peores lugares del país en cuanto a contaminación atmosférica. El DOE ha dicho que los proyectos solo serán premiados si demuestran que tienen planes para minimizar los impactos negativos y para proveer beneficios para estas comunidades, pero hasta ahora las poblaciones que están esperando la llegada de los centros de hidrógeno dicen que no han visto ningún tipo de información sobre cómo los socios de los proyectos planean hacer esto (alguna información ha sido compartido en el plan de beneficios comunitarios en el de California). La gente está preocupada de que los centros añadan nuevas fuentes de contaminación industrial a las comunidades ya contaminadas, mientras que los datos sobre los impactos acumulativos de las redes existentes y ampliadas de infraestructuras energéticas siguen siendo escasos. Las preocupaciones sobre los riesgos de salud son especialmente pronunciados alrededor de los centros de los Apalaches y la Costa del Golfo debido a su gran dependencia de los combustibles fósiles. EHN escuchó voces preocupadas por las nuevas emisiones procedentes del tráfico de camiones y barcazas, el posible uso del dominio eminente para confiscar propiedades privadas para construir oleoductos, el riesgo de que los oleoductos exploten o tengan fugas y el aumento de las emisiones de óxido de nitrógeno procedentes de la combustión final del combustible de hidrógeno, que contribuiría a aumentar los niveles de contaminación por partículas y ozono. La exposición a este tipo de contaminantes se ha relacionado con múltiples efectos negativos, incluyendo un aumento en el riesgo de cáncer, enfermedades respiratorias y del corazón, nacimientos prematuros y bajos pesos al nacer.También hay preocupaciones por la dependencia de estos centros de las tecnologías de captura y almacenamiento de carbono, las cuales son necesarias para transformar combustibles fósiles en hidrógeno, pero no serán necesarias en aquellos centros que no usen combustibles fósiles para su producción.La tecnología de captura del carbono es controversial, pues muchos expertos y activistas la consideran una forma de prolongar el uso de combustibles fósiles y han expresado que esta tecnología podría empeorar el cambio climático debido al enorme consumo energético que requiere su implementación. Adicionalmente, debido a que el CO2 capturado contiene sustancias tóxicas, como compuestos orgánicos volátiles y mercurio, la técnica puede plantear riesgos para las aguas subterráneas, el suelo y el aire a través de fugas. El mes pasado, las autoridades informaron de que la primera planta comercial de secuestro de carbono del país, en Illinois, había tenido dos fugas este año bajo el lago Decatur, una fuente de agua potable para el poblado de Decatur. La empresa propietaria de la planta, ADM, no informó a las autoridades de las fugas durante meses. “Se trata de comunidades muy arraigadas a procesos extractivos como la minería del carbón y el gas natural, por lo que la llegada de constructores que les proponen algo no es nada nuevo para ellos. Pero cuando se enteran de que los constructores no están interesados en extraer, sino en depositar, en inyectar, se les abren los ojos”, dijo a EHN Ethan Story, director de defensa y abogado del Center for Coalfield Justice, un grupo de defensa de la salud comunitaria del oeste de Pensilvania.Asociados con el sector de los combustibles fósilesCada centro de hidrógeno cuenta con una empresa, una organización sin ánimo de lucro o una asociación público-privada que supervisa el proyecto. Esta organización está a cargo de crear la propuesta, seleccionar los proyectos, facilitar la participación, recibir y distribuir los fondos federales y actuar como un puente entre el DOE y los socios industriales. Además de la inversión de $7 mil millones de dólares, la financiación para los centros de hidrógeno incluirá inversiones privadas significativas, incentivadas por la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación. Algunos de los principales contratistas existían antes de que se lanzaran los centros, como Battelle, que está a cargo del centro en los Apalaches, o como el Energy & Environmental Research Center, encargado del centro Heartland. Otros se formaron específicamente para supervisar los proyectos de hidrógeno, como la Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES), que está a cargo del centro en California y HyVelocity, Inc, del centro de la Costa del Golfo.Además de estos contratistas, los centros tienen socios individuales para los proyectos que incluyen a compañías de combustibles fósiles. En el centro de la Costa del Golfo, Chevron, ExxonMobil y Shell son solo algunas de las compañías de combustibles fósiles incluidas en la lista de socios proyectados. Los socios del proyecto en los Apalaches incluyen a CNX Resources, Enbridge, Empire Diversified Energy y EQT Corporation; y el centro de California lista a Chevron como uno de sus socios. Esto está sembrando la desconfianza en algunas comunidades.Por ejemplo, en un documento del DOE publicado en agosto, la agencia informó que EQT Corporation, el segundo mayor productor de gas natural del país, organizaría sesiones de escucha comunitaria y trabajaría para establecer un comité asesor comunitario para sus proyectos en el centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches. EQT ha acumulado infracciones medioambientales en sus pozos de fracking que culminaron en el desalojo de varias familias de Virginia Occidental. La empresa también ha promovido la desinformación sobre el papel de la industria del gas natural en el empeoramiento del cambio climático. “Elegir a EQT para hacerse cargo de esta parte del proceso muestra la falta de involucramiento real con la comunidad, la falta de confianza, la falta de transparencia que ha rodeado el proceso de beneficios colectivos [del centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches]”, dijo a EHN Matt Mehalik, director ejecutivo del Breathe Project, una coalición de oenegés en el occidente de Pensilvania. “La elección de este administrador ilustra la falta de interés por establecer algún tipo de confianza con las comunidades afectadas”, añadió.Karen Feridun, co-fundadora del grupo activista por el clima de Pensilvania Better Path Coalition, dijo que “si EQT crea un CAC [comité asesor comunitario] será para averiguar qué color de las gorras del ARCH2 [centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches] prefiere la gente”.EQT Corporation y Battelle no respondieron a múltiples solicitudes de entrevista, ni a las preguntas específicas que les enviamos sobre el proceso de participación y la supuesta falta de transparencia.El DOE también tercerizó la gestión de la participación ciudadana en la Costa del Golfo a una organización local – el Houston Advanced Research Center, o HARC, por sus siglas en inglés. La organización fue fundada en 1982 por George Mitchell, también conocido como “el padre del fracking”, a quien se le atribuyó el auge del petróleo proveniente de esquisto en Texas. En 2001, HARC actualizó su misión en su página web, e incluyó una referencia a la mitigación del riesgo climático y el fomento de las energías limpias. En 2023, la organización incluyó la energía del hidrógeno en su planificación estratégica y en su visión empresarial. Margaret Cook, quien dirige la oficina de equidad climática de HARC y es una representante de sus esfuerzos de participación comunitaria, le dijo a EHN que la organización había contactado a algunos grupos activistas locales para discutir su rol en el proceso de involucramiento ciudadano del centro. Cook dijo que planean incluir una junta asesora conformada por la comunidad que interactuará con las compañías involucradas, y que esta junta aconsejará en cómo deben gastarse los dólares del DOE a nivel regional y comunitario. Adicionalmente, el grupo estará a cargo de organizar los beneficios comunitarios. “Necesitamos entender sus preocupaciones para poder atenderlas”, dijo Cook. “Y necesitamos entender qué perciben ellos como beneficios que realmente les vaya a ayudar, para que así el proyecto pueda dárselo”. Shiv Srivastava, investigadora de política pública para Fenceline Watch, una organización de justicia ambiental de Houston, le dijo a EHN: “Pienso que estamos ante un problema de raíz…tienes organizaciones que son elegidas para ser básicamente el conector con la comunidad, el representante del centro ante la gente. Esto es algo que el Departamento de Energía debería hacer directamente”.Una falta de transparencia y de participación significativaAlgunos describen al East End de Houston como un tablero de ajedrez, donde los límites de sus casas, escuelas y zonas verdes están flanqueados por plantas industriales, aparcamientos, muelles de entrada, chimeneas y refinerías. La comunidad del East End está en el percentil 99 de exposición a tóxicos en el aire (es decir, que están más expuestos que el 99% de la población en Estados Unidos) y es el hogar de una de las fuentes más grandes de contaminación química del estado de Texas. Los residentes de estos barrios, como Srivastava e Yvette Arellano, directorx ejecutivx de Fenceline Watch, temen que esta enorme presencia industrial sólo aumentará con la introducción del hidrógeno. “En lo que respecta a la captura de carbono, al secuestro y la captura directa en el aire, son casi principios básicos de [la producción de] hidrógeno”, afirma Srivastava. “Vemos que el hidrógeno se postula rápidamente como la nueva materia prima para la producción petroquímica, y que desplazará a los combustibles fósiles, lo que, para nuestra comunidad, no funciona, porque igual siguen produciendo estos tóxicos contaminantes”. Arellano le dijo a EHN que Fenceline Watch educa al público sobre proyectos industriales, pero que esta labor ha sido complicada respecto al centro de hidrógeno pues “no hay un proceso de participación ciudadana formal en los siete centro de producción”. La oficina de demostraciones de energías limpias (OCED, por sus siglas en inglés) del DOE auspició nueve sesiones de escucha iniciales para los centros y resumió los comentarios recibidos durante esas reuniones en su página web. El DOE no dejó las grabaciones disponibles para el público general, pero un análisis de EHN de las transcripciones muestran que la mayoría de comentarios expresaron preocupación sobre temas como la seguridad de los empleados, la localización de los oleoductos, la eficacia de la captura de carbono, el impacto de las emisiones, quién regulará estos proyectos, los permisos, la ubicación de los complejos, barreras lingüísticas y la injusticia medioambiental.En la sesión sobre el centro de la Costa del Golfo, la comunidad pidió hacer sesiones formales en las que pudieran presentar sus preguntas por escrito y recibir respuestas escritas en el mismo lenguaje sencillo. “Lo que hemos oído es que esa no es la forma en la que se hace este proceso”, dijo Arellano. “Lo que hemos oído es un silencio sepulcral”. De los 113 comentarios que el DOE transcribió de las sesiones de escucha, 95 expresaron algún tipo de oposición a los proyectos y hubo por lo menos 49 reclamos exigiendo una mayo transparencia y mejor participación ciudadana. EHN también escuchó reclamos más allá de las sesiones de escucha, particularmente relacionadas con la justicia ambiental y la participación ciudadana respecto a todos los centros menos sobre Heartland, que se expandirá a lo largo de Dakota del Norte y del Sur, así como Minnesota (el centro perdió a sus socios clave Marathon Petroleum y TC Energy, así que no es del todo claro si se realizará).En respuesta a las quejas, el DOE publicó un resumen de los puntos clave que escuchó durante las reuniones y cómo esos comentarios estaban siendo incorporados en el proceso de planeación de los centros de producción. Un vocero de la agencia dijo que este tipo de trabajo con las comunidades es nuevo para el DOE y que los proyectos aún están en las primeras etapas, por lo que la agencia todavía está aprendiendo y trabajando para asegurarse de que las preocupaciones de la gente sean atendidas de forma adecuada. Añadieron que la oficina de demostraciones de energías limpias (OCED) ha llevado a cabo más de 70 reuniones con la gente de la comunidad y grupos organizados, funcionarios locales, personal de primeros auxilios, sindicatos y otros grupos comunitarios, y que ha ofrecido sesiones informativas a más de 4.000 personas en las regiones de los centros de hidrógeno.“Tengo preguntas y preocupaciones”, dijo el senador demócrata por el estado de Dakota del Norte, Tim Mathern. “Hasta ahora, he apoyado al proyecto, pues se presenta como una alternativa de combustible más limpia que los fósiles y mejor para nuestro planeta. Pero se ha dado muy poca información sobre los impactos ambientales y me gustaría saber más”.EHN buscó a otros políticos en los 16 estados en donde se realizarán estos proyectos y recibió cinco respuestas, cuatro de ellas provenientes de las regiones en donde se construirá el centro del Pacífico Noroeste. La mayoría de estas respuestas señalaron la necesidad de contar con más información, tal y como lo han expresado sus votantes.“Ha habido relacionamiento con funcionarios locales y algunos funcionarios estatales”, le dijo el representante repúblicano de Montana, Denley Loge, a EHN. “La mayoría [de personas] no entienden bien pero tampoco buscan información por su parte. A nivel local, cuando se han hecho reuniones, muy poquita gente va, pero los rumores desinformados se expanden fácilmente”.La representante demócrata texana Penny Morales Shaw expresó su apoyo al centro de la Costa del Golfo.“Como representante estatal, recibo mucha información de mis constituyentes todos los días sobre la mala calidad del aire y la forma cómo las condiciones ambientales impactan su salud y calidad de vida”, Morales Shaw le dijo a EHN. “Los centros de hidrógeno pueden ayudarnos a alcanzar las emisiones netas de carbono cero y todos queremos asegurarnos de que se logre de forma eficaz y colaborativa”.Las sesiones de escucha del DOE son solo una de las formas en las que las comunidades han pedido mejoras en el proceso de participación. EHN también hizo seguimiento a las solicitudes escritas en relación con la transparencia fuera de estos espacios. Encontramos que:Un grupo de líderes de distintas organizaciones activistas a nivel nacional, incluyendo al Clean Air Task Force, el Environmental Defense Fund y el Natural Resources Defense Counsel, también le pidieron formalmente al DOE mayor transparencia y participación. 54 organizaciones de los Apalaches y grupos de base firmaron una carta dirigida al DOE en la que pedían suspender el proyecto, citando una falta de transparencia y participación.32 grupos de la región del Atlántico Medio firmaron una carta para el DOE diciendo que la primera reunión sobre el proyecto fue inaccesible para muchos residentes y, una vez más, pidiendo mayor transparencia y participación.15 organizaciones de base enviaron una carta al DOE expresando sus frustraciones sobre el mismo tema en el centro del Medio Oeste.Nueve grupos activistas por la justicia y el ambiente en California hicieron un llamado similar relacionado con los mismos problemas.Una coalición de grupos de Texas, California, Washington, Pensilvania, Nuevo México e Indiana pidieron mejorar la transparencia y participación en un reporte.A falta de una participación significativa en los proyectos, una coalición de grupos activistas también ha publicado recientemente su propia “Guía de beneficios comunitarios en el suroeste de Pensilvania” con la esperanza de que el proyecto del centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches, y otros similares, la utilicen como referencia.Un vocero del DOE dijo que la agencia ha respondido de forma directa a más de 50 cartas pero la mayoría de esas respuestas no están disponibles para el público. Los activistas que recibieron estas respuestas le dijeron a este medio que no se encuentran satisfechos. La agencia se negó a responder nuestras preguntas sobre si estaba trabajando para responder a los reclamos específicos contenidos en dichas misivas. En una presentación inicial sobre los centros, el DOE discutió las etapas de “autorizado / no autorizado” de los proyectos, que requieren que haya participación ciudadana antes de continuar. Esto le hizo creer a muchas comunidades que los proyectos podrían no hacerse si decidían que los costos eran mayores que los beneficios. Resultó ser una apreciación equivocada. “Las comunidades no tienen el derecho a negarse”, dijo el DOE en julio, en un correo electrónico respondiendo a preguntas que les enviaron organizaciones sobre el centro del Atlántico Medio. “Este no es un requisito del programa H2Hubs”.Algunas personas, incluyendo a Feridun de la Better Path Coalition en Pensilvania, se sintieron engañadas. “Nos han repetido una y otra vez lo de estas decisiones de ‘autorizado / no autorizado’ y de cómo participaremos en cada una de ellas, pero eso simplemente no es lo que está ocurriendo”.Los activistas cuestionan qué tan ético es que el gobierno federal pueda autorizar nuevas fuentes de contaminación en comunidades impactadas por la injusticia ambiental, sin que necesiten el consentimiento de las mismas. También hay una percepción generalizada de que los socios industriales de los centros están prosiguiendo con la planeación de reuniones a puerta cerrada con funcionarios de la agencia federal, sin contar con la participación de los ciudadanos.“El DOE apareció en la primera sesión de escucha como un co-anfitrión de la llamada [ junto a los socios industriales]”, dijo Chris Chyung, el director ejecutivo del grupo de activismo ambiental Indiana Conservation Voters, sobre la experiencia en las reuniones sobre el centro de hidrógeno del Medio Oeste. “Esto crea un dilema ético, pues se supone que el DOE debe ser un mediador que supervisa el uso de este dinero y defiende los intereses de los contribuyentes que lo pagan”. En la costa este, el principal contratista del centro del Atlántico Medio organizó reuniones de networking mensuales para los socios corporativos con un costo de participación de entre $25 y $50 dólares y que no están abiertas al público. También estableció un programa de membresías que cuesta entre $2,500 y $10,000 dólares y que le da a sus miembros acceso gratuito a webinars educativos, inscripciones gratuitas para la “Conferencia Anual de Hidrógeno MACH2” y acceso a eventos exclusivos para miembros y a un sitio web con información adicionales sobre los proyectos. En un correo electrónico dirigido a activistas locales que preguntaron porqué estas oportunidades no estaban disponibles para el público general, un vocero del DOE dijo que las reuniones de networking eran para “negocios, startups y otras partes interesadas en la economía de la energía limpia” y que “no están diseñadas para reemplazar los eventos con la comunidad”. “Nuestra preocupación más grande es que muchos de estos proyectos que se están configurando como fundamentales [para el desarrollo del centro del Atlántico Medio] están avanzando sin nuestro involucramiento” le dijo a este medio Tracy Carluccio, quien es la directora adjunta del Delaware Riverkeeper Network. En noviembre de 2023, la oenegé que lidera Carluccio presentó una solicitud FOIA para acceder a estas aplicaciones y a otros contenidos relacionados con el centro en esa región. Cuando recibieron las respuestas en agosto de 2024, se dieron cuenta de que varios proyectos iban mucho más adelante de lo que pensaban. Del mismo modo, cerca de los centros de California, las comunidades han oído promesas de que la producción de hidrógeno sólo provendrá de energías renovables, según Kayla Karimi, abogada de la organización sin ánimo de lucro Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, con sede en California. Su organización no ha visto ningún contrato o documento que respalde esas promesas más allá de los anuncios iniciales realizados antes de la financiación. Karimi dijo que para obtener información sobre el centro de California más allá de la que aparece en su sitio web, le pidieron a su organización firmar un acuerdo de confidencialidad (NDA, por sus siglas en inglés). El acuerdo le pareció “muy punitivo” y dijo que quienes lo firmaran podrían enfrentarse a consecuencias legales por hablar negativamente del centro de California. La organización de Karimi no firmó el acuerdo y abogó por que los miembros de la comunidad no lo hicieran. EHN también habló con Steven Lehat, director ejecutivo de la compañía de inversiones bancarias Colton Alexander, la cual firmó NDAs para acceder a tres comités privados de planeación del centro en California. Si bien los NDA permiten acceder a más información, sería ilegal compartirla con los miembros de la comunidad. Barreras como esta plantean dudas sobre qué tan equitativo es el proceso de participación comunitaria, inclusive en aquellos casos en los que se usarán fuentes de energías renovables. “Los comentarios de la comunidad han sido muy limitados hasta ahora porque no sabemos sobre qué estamos comentando”, Karimi le dijo a EHN. “Pero aún así tampoco sabríamos si están siendo incorporados, porque no nos han dicho nada [y] no se han comunicado con nosotros”. Cuando le preguntamos sobre los NDA, una vocera para ARCHES, la organización supervisando el centro de producción de California, le dijo a EHN que los acuerdos no eran obligatorios para poder participar en los grupos de trabajo relacionados con el trabajo comunitario o los beneficios. “ARCHES mantiene su principio de participación de las partes interesadas y de la comunidad y seguirá trabajando para garantizar que todas las partes interesadas puedan formar parte de nuestras reuniones comunitarias”, dijo la portavoz en un correo electrónico. “Sin embargo, los acuerdos de confidencialidad son necesarios para convertirse en miembro de ARCHES, ya que las empresas miembro deben sentirse seguras compartiendo información sensible o de propiedad intelectual”.El centro del Pacífico Noroeste se diferenció del resto al tener información pública disponible. Keith Curl Dove, un organizador de la Washington Conservation Action, le dijo a EHN que su organización pudo acceder a la ubicación proyectada para muchos de los proyectos y al historial de trabajo con comunidades indígenas, y dijo que la Cámara de Comercio de Washington intentó responder a todas las preguntas y preocupaciones que su organización presentó.Los políticos del estado expresaron una perspectiva similar. “Tengo que decir que, desde el principio, creo que ha habido un amplio proceso de participación de las partes interesadas, que es diferente de un proceso de participación de la comunidad, para averiguar qué empresas, qué industrias, etc., iban a estar dispuestas a hacer las inversiones para complementar la inversión federal y del estado de Washington en nuestro centro de hidrógeno del noroeste [del Pacífico]”, dijo a EHN Alex Ramel, representante demócrata del estado de Washington. “Dos de las cinco refinerías del estado están en mi distrito y hay otras dos en el distrito de al lado, al norte”, dijo. “Esto quiere decir que el 90% de la capacidad de refinado del estado está justo al lado, y las refinerías van a ser uno de los principales lugares de implantación del hidrógeno en el Estado de Washington, y creo que son un primer cliente importante... porque ya utilizan hidrógeno sucio, y esta es una oportunidad para sustituirlo por hidrógeno verde”.En documentos de la Agencia de Protección Ambiental de los Estados Unidos, el Consejo Asesor sobre Justicia Medioambiental de la Casa Blanca compartió sus preocupaciones sobre los centros de hidrógeno y otras tecnologías de manejo del carbono. “Esta inversión en la “experimentación” de una tecnología que carece de suficiente investigación sobre su seguridad y eficacia crea aún más barreras de desconfianza entre las comunidades afectadas, en particular las que han sido histórica y actualmente son privadas de sus derechos, y los respectivos organismos gubernamentales”, dice el documento.El Consejo añadió que “un planteamiento humano de la gestión del carbono consistiría en dar prioridad a una investigación sólida (no influida por los contaminadores) que incluya un análisis robusto de los posibles riesgos para la salud pública y el medio ambiente”.Estas preocupaciones reflejan las de los individuos en los territorios. “¿De verdad podemos confiar en otro contaminador?” cuestionó Arellano, de Fenceline Watch.Lea la segunda parte, Los obstáculos para garantizar la justicia ambiental en los centros de hidrógeno federalesEste artículo fue traducido por María Paula Rubiano A.Producción y edición de video: Jimmy EvansSobre las autoras: Kristina Marusic cubre temas de salud ambiental y justicia en Pittsburgh y el occidente de Pennsylvania para Environmental Health News. Su nuevo libro, "A New War On Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention", revela la existencia de un naciente movimiento a nivel nacional que busca prevenir el cáncer reduciendo la exposición a sustancias químicas cancerígenas en nuestra vida cotidiana. Cami Ferrell es una reportera de vídeo bilingüe para Environmental Health News, radicada en Houston (Texas). Ferrell informa principalmente sobre el desarrollo de la industria petroquímica en la costa del Golfo de Texas.

Esta es la primera parte de una serie de dos entregas. Lea la segunda parte, Los obstáculos para garantizar la justicia ambiental en los centros de hidrógeno federalesEn un día lluvioso de septiembre, Veronica Coptis y sus dos hijos se pararon a orillas del río Monongahela, en un parque cerca a su hogar, observando cómo un par de barcazas cargadas con montones de carbón desaparecían por la ribera.Haz clic aquí para leer este reportaje en inglés. To read and watch a version of this story in English click here.“Me preocupa que no están teniendo en cuenta la cantidad de tráfico industrial que este río ya carga y cuánto más va a agregar el centro de hidrógeno”, le dijo Coptis a EHN.Coptis vive con su esposo y sus hijos en Carmichaels, en Pensilvania, un pueblo otrora dedicado al carbón cercano a la frontera con Virginia Occidental, con unos 434 habitantes. La autoridad hídrica local usa al río Monongahela como fuente de agua. Contaminantes asociados a la actividad industrial y potencialmente cancerígenos, como el bromodiclorometano, cloroformo y dibromoclorometano, se han detectado en el agua potable de la comunidad.Coptis creció rodeada de mineros del carbón, pero se convirtió en una activista contra este mineral y el fracking después de ser testigo de los daños ambientales causados por la industria de combustibles fósiles. Ahora, ve una nueva batalla en el horizonte: el Centro Regional de Hidrógeno de los Apalaches, una extensa red de infraestructura que usará principalmente gas natural para crear hidrógeno, que luego será usado como combustible. Se espera que parte del nuevo centro de hidrógeno sea construido en La Belle, que está a unos 30 minutos en auto hacia el norte del río Monongahela desde su casa.“Me preocupa mucho qué tan grande va a ser este complejo industrial y cómo serán sus emisiones, y si va a aumentar el tráfico en el río y las carreteras”, dijo Coptis, quien trabaja como consejera senior en la oenegé climática Taproot Earth. “También me preocupa que, debido a que esto va a ser hidrógeno azul, aumente la demanda de fracking, y yo ya vivo rodeada de pozos de fracking”.El Centro Regional de Hidrógeno de los Apalaches es una de las siete redes de este tipo de infraestructuras propuestas hace un año y financiadas con fondos federales. Son una iniciativa que nació de la Ley Bipartidista de Infraestructura que la administración de Biden logró pasar en 2021. El hidrógeno creado en los centros, que provendrá tanto de fuentes renovables como de combustibles fósiles, será usado por industrias que son difíciles de electrificar, como la siderurgia, la construcción y la producción de petroquímicos.Los centros apoyan el objetivo de la administración de Biden de alcanzar cero emisiones netas de carbono en todo el país para 2050 y lograr una red eléctrica 100% “limpia” para 2035. Los siete centros de hidrógeno, que están en diversas etapas de desarrollo pero en su mayoría están en la planeación y la selección de sitios, fueron considerados como proyectos de energías limpias bajo la administración de Biden, incluyendo aquellos que usarán combustibles fósiles para la producción.En marzo y mayo, Coptis asistió a unas sesiones de escucha organizadas por los socios industriales del proyecto y por el Departamento de Energía de los Estados Unidos (DOE, por sus siglas en inglés), que es la entidad encargada del desarrollo de los centros y de repartir los $7 mil millones en fondos federales para ellos. Esperaba que las sesiones le dieran respuestas, como por ejemplo exactamente donde se ubicaran las instalaciones y qué pasaría en ellas. Sin embargo, salió con aún más preguntas. Las aplicaciones iniciales que los socios industriales presentaron ante el DOE, que incluyeron cronogramas, costos estimados, detalles de las posibles ubicaciones y estimaciones de los impactos en el medio ambiente y la salud, fueron mantenidas en secreto por la agencia a pesar de las frecuentes peticiones de los miembros de la comunidad para que se compartieran esos detalles.“El Departamento de Energía y las compañías involucradas no han sido transparentes”, dijo Coptis. “No es posible que las comunidades demos aportes significativos sobre los proyectos cuando literalmente no sabemos nada sobre ellos”. En 2023, la administración de Biden logró aprobar una serie de políticas federales históricas que le ordenaron a 80 agencias nacionales priorizar la justicia medioambiental en todas sus decisiones. El DOE prometió ser un ejemplo a través de los centros de hidrógeno, pero, hasta ahora, esto no ha sucedido, de acuerdo con más de 30 miembros de las comunidades potencialmente afectadas y activistas con los cuales EHN habló. Afirman que los detalles siguen siendo confusos, que las consultas públicas sólo se planifican después de que los socios de la industria ya han recibido millones de dólares en fondos públicos y que las comunidades no intervienen en la toma de decisiones.“Las promesas que el DOE ha hecho no han sido cumplidas, de acuerdo con la definición de justicia ambiental de la misma entidad”, dijo a EHN Batoul Al-Sadi, un asociado senior en Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), un grupo ambientalista nacional que ha estado presionando para que haya una mayor transparencia en los centros de hidrógeno. Nuestra investigación también encontró que:En las sesiones iniciales de escucha sobre los centros, 95 de los 113 comentarios públicos que fueron presentados expresaron oposición a los proyectos.49 de los 113 comentarios expresaron preocupación sobre la falta de transparencia y participación significativa de las comunidades.Más de 100 grupos ambientalistas regionales y nacionales le han enviado cartas al DOE pidiéndole mayor transparencia y mejoras en sus procesos de diálogo con las comunidades.Las comunidades no tienen el derecho de rehusarse a la llegada de los centros de hidrógeno si se prueba que los daños serán mayores que los beneficios.El DOE no se está adhiriendo a sus propios planes de participación comunitaria, de acuerdo con expertos y activistas.“Hoy, las regulaciones [federales de justicia ambiental] están mejor que nunca”, dijo a EHN Stephen Schima, un experto en regulaciones ambientales y consejero legislativo senior en Earthjustice. “Las agencias tienen la oportunidad de hacer esto de forma correcta… solo es una cuestión de implementación, que ha probado ser un gran reto hasta ahora”.Ante nuestras preguntas sobre la transparencia y la participación comunitaria en estos procesos, el DOE respondió a EHN que la agencia “está enfocada en conseguir que estos proyectos sean seleccionados para negociar su adjudicación oficialmente ... Una vez adjudicados, el DOE dará a conocer más detalles sobre los mismos”.Los residentes de las siete comunidades de los centros de hidrógeno temen que, una vez se hayan distribuido millones de dólares en financiación federal para estos proyectos, sus aportes serán irrelevantes.En julio, los centros de los Apalaches y de California ya habían recibido cada uno $30 millones de dólares y el centro del Pacífico Noroeste ya había recibido $27,5 millones en fondos federales. La financiación para el resto de centros sigue en trámite. En total, se prevé que los siete centros planeados recibirán unos $7 mil millones de dólares en fondos públicos federales.Jalonne White-Newsome, la jefa de justicia ambiental del Consejo de la Casa Blanca para la Calidad Ambiental, dijo que es consciente de que las comunidades están frustradas por los centros de hidrógeno. “Paso mucho tiempo trabajando con nuestros colegas del Departamento de Energía [y otras agencias federales] asegurándonos de que estamos apoyando la llegada segura de estas tecnologías”, White-Newsome le dijo a EHN. “Sigo escuchando de muchas formas distintas las preocupaciones de las comunidades: que no hay transparencia, que no hay suficiente información, que hay miedo a la tecnología”.“Entiendo todas esas preocupaciones”, dijo White-Newsome, quien añadió que el Consejo Asesor de Justicia Medioambiental de la Casa Blanca creó un grupo de trabajo de líderes de justicia medioambiental de todo el país para abordar las tecnologías de captura de carbono y el hidrógeno, y está trabajando con un equipo interno, incluidos los socios de la agencia federal en el DOE, “sobre cómo abordar todas las cuestiones que ha planteado este organismo”.Los activistas temen que estas medidas sean insuficientes.“Incluso si éste fuera el mejor proyecto de energía verde, no contaminante y más renovable que llegara a los Apalaches, este proceso no se está ajustando a los principios de justicia ambiental”, señaló Coptis.Justicia ambiental y preocupaciones por la contaminación Los centros de hidrógeno fueron presentados como una bendición para las comunidades afectadas por la injusticia medioambiental que les traería empleos y desarrollo económico, una reducción en la contaminación aérea producto de un menor uso de combustibles fósiles y la promesa de convertirse en protagonistas de la transición energética en Estados Unidos.Pero más de 140 organizaciones por la justicia ambiental han firmado cartas públicas resaltando las formas en las que la energía del hidrógeno podría prolongar el uso de combustibles fósiles, crear riesgos y empeorar la contaminación del aire local, de acuerdo con un reporte publicado por la EFI Foundation.Los centros del Atlántico Medio y del Medio Oeste prevén utilizar energías renovables y energía nuclear además de combustibles fósiles, mientras que los centros de California, el Noroeste del Pacífico y Heartland prevén utilizar combinaciones de energías renovables, biomasa y energía nuclear. Los centros de los Apalaches y la Costa del Golfo prevén utilizar principalmente combustibles fósiles.Los centros de hidrógeno serán una densa red de infraestructuras que se extenderán a lo largo de vastas regiones geográficas. Muchos de sus componentes están siendo planeados para aterrizar en comunidades que han sido desproporcionadamente afectadas por la contaminación (principalmente producto de la extracción de combustibles fósiles), para aprovechar la infraestructura ya existente. Por ejemplo, la región del Canal de Houston, el Inland Empire en California y el noroeste de Indiana incluyen comunidades afectadas por la injusticia ambiental y todas están esperando la llegada tentativa de infraestructuras de los centros de hidrógeno. Las tres regiones figuran entre los peores lugares del país en cuanto a contaminación atmosférica. El DOE ha dicho que los proyectos solo serán premiados si demuestran que tienen planes para minimizar los impactos negativos y para proveer beneficios para estas comunidades, pero hasta ahora las poblaciones que están esperando la llegada de los centros de hidrógeno dicen que no han visto ningún tipo de información sobre cómo los socios de los proyectos planean hacer esto (alguna información ha sido compartido en el plan de beneficios comunitarios en el de California). La gente está preocupada de que los centros añadan nuevas fuentes de contaminación industrial a las comunidades ya contaminadas, mientras que los datos sobre los impactos acumulativos de las redes existentes y ampliadas de infraestructuras energéticas siguen siendo escasos. Las preocupaciones sobre los riesgos de salud son especialmente pronunciados alrededor de los centros de los Apalaches y la Costa del Golfo debido a su gran dependencia de los combustibles fósiles. EHN escuchó voces preocupadas por las nuevas emisiones procedentes del tráfico de camiones y barcazas, el posible uso del dominio eminente para confiscar propiedades privadas para construir oleoductos, el riesgo de que los oleoductos exploten o tengan fugas y el aumento de las emisiones de óxido de nitrógeno procedentes de la combustión final del combustible de hidrógeno, que contribuiría a aumentar los niveles de contaminación por partículas y ozono. La exposición a este tipo de contaminantes se ha relacionado con múltiples efectos negativos, incluyendo un aumento en el riesgo de cáncer, enfermedades respiratorias y del corazón, nacimientos prematuros y bajos pesos al nacer.También hay preocupaciones por la dependencia de estos centros de las tecnologías de captura y almacenamiento de carbono, las cuales son necesarias para transformar combustibles fósiles en hidrógeno, pero no serán necesarias en aquellos centros que no usen combustibles fósiles para su producción.La tecnología de captura del carbono es controversial, pues muchos expertos y activistas la consideran una forma de prolongar el uso de combustibles fósiles y han expresado que esta tecnología podría empeorar el cambio climático debido al enorme consumo energético que requiere su implementación. Adicionalmente, debido a que el CO2 capturado contiene sustancias tóxicas, como compuestos orgánicos volátiles y mercurio, la técnica puede plantear riesgos para las aguas subterráneas, el suelo y el aire a través de fugas. El mes pasado, las autoridades informaron de que la primera planta comercial de secuestro de carbono del país, en Illinois, había tenido dos fugas este año bajo el lago Decatur, una fuente de agua potable para el poblado de Decatur. La empresa propietaria de la planta, ADM, no informó a las autoridades de las fugas durante meses. “Se trata de comunidades muy arraigadas a procesos extractivos como la minería del carbón y el gas natural, por lo que la llegada de constructores que les proponen algo no es nada nuevo para ellos. Pero cuando se enteran de que los constructores no están interesados en extraer, sino en depositar, en inyectar, se les abren los ojos”, dijo a EHN Ethan Story, director de defensa y abogado del Center for Coalfield Justice, un grupo de defensa de la salud comunitaria del oeste de Pensilvania.Asociados con el sector de los combustibles fósilesCada centro de hidrógeno cuenta con una empresa, una organización sin ánimo de lucro o una asociación público-privada que supervisa el proyecto. Esta organización está a cargo de crear la propuesta, seleccionar los proyectos, facilitar la participación, recibir y distribuir los fondos federales y actuar como un puente entre el DOE y los socios industriales. Además de la inversión de $7 mil millones de dólares, la financiación para los centros de hidrógeno incluirá inversiones privadas significativas, incentivadas por la Ley de Reducción de la Inflación. Algunos de los principales contratistas existían antes de que se lanzaran los centros, como Battelle, que está a cargo del centro en los Apalaches, o como el Energy & Environmental Research Center, encargado del centro Heartland. Otros se formaron específicamente para supervisar los proyectos de hidrógeno, como la Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES), que está a cargo del centro en California y HyVelocity, Inc, del centro de la Costa del Golfo.Además de estos contratistas, los centros tienen socios individuales para los proyectos que incluyen a compañías de combustibles fósiles. En el centro de la Costa del Golfo, Chevron, ExxonMobil y Shell son solo algunas de las compañías de combustibles fósiles incluidas en la lista de socios proyectados. Los socios del proyecto en los Apalaches incluyen a CNX Resources, Enbridge, Empire Diversified Energy y EQT Corporation; y el centro de California lista a Chevron como uno de sus socios. Esto está sembrando la desconfianza en algunas comunidades.Por ejemplo, en un documento del DOE publicado en agosto, la agencia informó que EQT Corporation, el segundo mayor productor de gas natural del país, organizaría sesiones de escucha comunitaria y trabajaría para establecer un comité asesor comunitario para sus proyectos en el centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches. EQT ha acumulado infracciones medioambientales en sus pozos de fracking que culminaron en el desalojo de varias familias de Virginia Occidental. La empresa también ha promovido la desinformación sobre el papel de la industria del gas natural en el empeoramiento del cambio climático. “Elegir a EQT para hacerse cargo de esta parte del proceso muestra la falta de involucramiento real con la comunidad, la falta de confianza, la falta de transparencia que ha rodeado el proceso de beneficios colectivos [del centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches]”, dijo a EHN Matt Mehalik, director ejecutivo del Breathe Project, una coalición de oenegés en el occidente de Pensilvania. “La elección de este administrador ilustra la falta de interés por establecer algún tipo de confianza con las comunidades afectadas”, añadió.Karen Feridun, co-fundadora del grupo activista por el clima de Pensilvania Better Path Coalition, dijo que “si EQT crea un CAC [comité asesor comunitario] será para averiguar qué color de las gorras del ARCH2 [centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches] prefiere la gente”.EQT Corporation y Battelle no respondieron a múltiples solicitudes de entrevista, ni a las preguntas específicas que les enviamos sobre el proceso de participación y la supuesta falta de transparencia.El DOE también tercerizó la gestión de la participación ciudadana en la Costa del Golfo a una organización local – el Houston Advanced Research Center, o HARC, por sus siglas en inglés. La organización fue fundada en 1982 por George Mitchell, también conocido como “el padre del fracking”, a quien se le atribuyó el auge del petróleo proveniente de esquisto en Texas. En 2001, HARC actualizó su misión en su página web, e incluyó una referencia a la mitigación del riesgo climático y el fomento de las energías limpias. En 2023, la organización incluyó la energía del hidrógeno en su planificación estratégica y en su visión empresarial. Margaret Cook, quien dirige la oficina de equidad climática de HARC y es una representante de sus esfuerzos de participación comunitaria, le dijo a EHN que la organización había contactado a algunos grupos activistas locales para discutir su rol en el proceso de involucramiento ciudadano del centro. Cook dijo que planean incluir una junta asesora conformada por la comunidad que interactuará con las compañías involucradas, y que esta junta aconsejará en cómo deben gastarse los dólares del DOE a nivel regional y comunitario. Adicionalmente, el grupo estará a cargo de organizar los beneficios comunitarios. “Necesitamos entender sus preocupaciones para poder atenderlas”, dijo Cook. “Y necesitamos entender qué perciben ellos como beneficios que realmente les vaya a ayudar, para que así el proyecto pueda dárselo”. Shiv Srivastava, investigadora de política pública para Fenceline Watch, una organización de justicia ambiental de Houston, le dijo a EHN: “Pienso que estamos ante un problema de raíz…tienes organizaciones que son elegidas para ser básicamente el conector con la comunidad, el representante del centro ante la gente. Esto es algo que el Departamento de Energía debería hacer directamente”.Una falta de transparencia y de participación significativaAlgunos describen al East End de Houston como un tablero de ajedrez, donde los límites de sus casas, escuelas y zonas verdes están flanqueados por plantas industriales, aparcamientos, muelles de entrada, chimeneas y refinerías. La comunidad del East End está en el percentil 99 de exposición a tóxicos en el aire (es decir, que están más expuestos que el 99% de la población en Estados Unidos) y es el hogar de una de las fuentes más grandes de contaminación química del estado de Texas. Los residentes de estos barrios, como Srivastava e Yvette Arellano, directorx ejecutivx de Fenceline Watch, temen que esta enorme presencia industrial sólo aumentará con la introducción del hidrógeno. “En lo que respecta a la captura de carbono, al secuestro y la captura directa en el aire, son casi principios básicos de [la producción de] hidrógeno”, afirma Srivastava. “Vemos que el hidrógeno se postula rápidamente como la nueva materia prima para la producción petroquímica, y que desplazará a los combustibles fósiles, lo que, para nuestra comunidad, no funciona, porque igual siguen produciendo estos tóxicos contaminantes”. Arellano le dijo a EHN que Fenceline Watch educa al público sobre proyectos industriales, pero que esta labor ha sido complicada respecto al centro de hidrógeno pues “no hay un proceso de participación ciudadana formal en los siete centro de producción”. La oficina de demostraciones de energías limpias (OCED, por sus siglas en inglés) del DOE auspició nueve sesiones de escucha iniciales para los centros y resumió los comentarios recibidos durante esas reuniones en su página web. El DOE no dejó las grabaciones disponibles para el público general, pero un análisis de EHN de las transcripciones muestran que la mayoría de comentarios expresaron preocupación sobre temas como la seguridad de los empleados, la localización de los oleoductos, la eficacia de la captura de carbono, el impacto de las emisiones, quién regulará estos proyectos, los permisos, la ubicación de los complejos, barreras lingüísticas y la injusticia medioambiental.En la sesión sobre el centro de la Costa del Golfo, la comunidad pidió hacer sesiones formales en las que pudieran presentar sus preguntas por escrito y recibir respuestas escritas en el mismo lenguaje sencillo. “Lo que hemos oído es que esa no es la forma en la que se hace este proceso”, dijo Arellano. “Lo que hemos oído es un silencio sepulcral”. De los 113 comentarios que el DOE transcribió de las sesiones de escucha, 95 expresaron algún tipo de oposición a los proyectos y hubo por lo menos 49 reclamos exigiendo una mayo transparencia y mejor participación ciudadana. EHN también escuchó reclamos más allá de las sesiones de escucha, particularmente relacionadas con la justicia ambiental y la participación ciudadana respecto a todos los centros menos sobre Heartland, que se expandirá a lo largo de Dakota del Norte y del Sur, así como Minnesota (el centro perdió a sus socios clave Marathon Petroleum y TC Energy, así que no es del todo claro si se realizará).En respuesta a las quejas, el DOE publicó un resumen de los puntos clave que escuchó durante las reuniones y cómo esos comentarios estaban siendo incorporados en el proceso de planeación de los centros de producción. Un vocero de la agencia dijo que este tipo de trabajo con las comunidades es nuevo para el DOE y que los proyectos aún están en las primeras etapas, por lo que la agencia todavía está aprendiendo y trabajando para asegurarse de que las preocupaciones de la gente sean atendidas de forma adecuada. Añadieron que la oficina de demostraciones de energías limpias (OCED) ha llevado a cabo más de 70 reuniones con la gente de la comunidad y grupos organizados, funcionarios locales, personal de primeros auxilios, sindicatos y otros grupos comunitarios, y que ha ofrecido sesiones informativas a más de 4.000 personas en las regiones de los centros de hidrógeno.“Tengo preguntas y preocupaciones”, dijo el senador demócrata por el estado de Dakota del Norte, Tim Mathern. “Hasta ahora, he apoyado al proyecto, pues se presenta como una alternativa de combustible más limpia que los fósiles y mejor para nuestro planeta. Pero se ha dado muy poca información sobre los impactos ambientales y me gustaría saber más”.EHN buscó a otros políticos en los 16 estados en donde se realizarán estos proyectos y recibió cinco respuestas, cuatro de ellas provenientes de las regiones en donde se construirá el centro del Pacífico Noroeste. La mayoría de estas respuestas señalaron la necesidad de contar con más información, tal y como lo han expresado sus votantes.“Ha habido relacionamiento con funcionarios locales y algunos funcionarios estatales”, le dijo el representante repúblicano de Montana, Denley Loge, a EHN. “La mayoría [de personas] no entienden bien pero tampoco buscan información por su parte. A nivel local, cuando se han hecho reuniones, muy poquita gente va, pero los rumores desinformados se expanden fácilmente”.La representante demócrata texana Penny Morales Shaw expresó su apoyo al centro de la Costa del Golfo.“Como representante estatal, recibo mucha información de mis constituyentes todos los días sobre la mala calidad del aire y la forma cómo las condiciones ambientales impactan su salud y calidad de vida”, Morales Shaw le dijo a EHN. “Los centros de hidrógeno pueden ayudarnos a alcanzar las emisiones netas de carbono cero y todos queremos asegurarnos de que se logre de forma eficaz y colaborativa”.Las sesiones de escucha del DOE son solo una de las formas en las que las comunidades han pedido mejoras en el proceso de participación. EHN también hizo seguimiento a las solicitudes escritas en relación con la transparencia fuera de estos espacios. Encontramos que:Un grupo de líderes de distintas organizaciones activistas a nivel nacional, incluyendo al Clean Air Task Force, el Environmental Defense Fund y el Natural Resources Defense Counsel, también le pidieron formalmente al DOE mayor transparencia y participación. 54 organizaciones de los Apalaches y grupos de base firmaron una carta dirigida al DOE en la que pedían suspender el proyecto, citando una falta de transparencia y participación.32 grupos de la región del Atlántico Medio firmaron una carta para el DOE diciendo que la primera reunión sobre el proyecto fue inaccesible para muchos residentes y, una vez más, pidiendo mayor transparencia y participación.15 organizaciones de base enviaron una carta al DOE expresando sus frustraciones sobre el mismo tema en el centro del Medio Oeste.Nueve grupos activistas por la justicia y el ambiente en California hicieron un llamado similar relacionado con los mismos problemas.Una coalición de grupos de Texas, California, Washington, Pensilvania, Nuevo México e Indiana pidieron mejorar la transparencia y participación en un reporte.A falta de una participación significativa en los proyectos, una coalición de grupos activistas también ha publicado recientemente su propia “Guía de beneficios comunitarios en el suroeste de Pensilvania” con la esperanza de que el proyecto del centro de hidrógeno de los Apalaches, y otros similares, la utilicen como referencia.Un vocero del DOE dijo que la agencia ha respondido de forma directa a más de 50 cartas pero la mayoría de esas respuestas no están disponibles para el público. Los activistas que recibieron estas respuestas le dijeron a este medio que no se encuentran satisfechos. La agencia se negó a responder nuestras preguntas sobre si estaba trabajando para responder a los reclamos específicos contenidos en dichas misivas. En una presentación inicial sobre los centros, el DOE discutió las etapas de “autorizado / no autorizado” de los proyectos, que requieren que haya participación ciudadana antes de continuar. Esto le hizo creer a muchas comunidades que los proyectos podrían no hacerse si decidían que los costos eran mayores que los beneficios. Resultó ser una apreciación equivocada. “Las comunidades no tienen el derecho a negarse”, dijo el DOE en julio, en un correo electrónico respondiendo a preguntas que les enviaron organizaciones sobre el centro del Atlántico Medio. “Este no es un requisito del programa H2Hubs”.Algunas personas, incluyendo a Feridun de la Better Path Coalition en Pensilvania, se sintieron engañadas. “Nos han repetido una y otra vez lo de estas decisiones de ‘autorizado / no autorizado’ y de cómo participaremos en cada una de ellas, pero eso simplemente no es lo que está ocurriendo”.Los activistas cuestionan qué tan ético es que el gobierno federal pueda autorizar nuevas fuentes de contaminación en comunidades impactadas por la injusticia ambiental, sin que necesiten el consentimiento de las mismas. También hay una percepción generalizada de que los socios industriales de los centros están prosiguiendo con la planeación de reuniones a puerta cerrada con funcionarios de la agencia federal, sin contar con la participación de los ciudadanos.“El DOE apareció en la primera sesión de escucha como un co-anfitrión de la llamada [ junto a los socios industriales]”, dijo Chris Chyung, el director ejecutivo del grupo de activismo ambiental Indiana Conservation Voters, sobre la experiencia en las reuniones sobre el centro de hidrógeno del Medio Oeste. “Esto crea un dilema ético, pues se supone que el DOE debe ser un mediador que supervisa el uso de este dinero y defiende los intereses de los contribuyentes que lo pagan”. En la costa este, el principal contratista del centro del Atlántico Medio organizó reuniones de networking mensuales para los socios corporativos con un costo de participación de entre $25 y $50 dólares y que no están abiertas al público. También estableció un programa de membresías que cuesta entre $2,500 y $10,000 dólares y que le da a sus miembros acceso gratuito a webinars educativos, inscripciones gratuitas para la “Conferencia Anual de Hidrógeno MACH2” y acceso a eventos exclusivos para miembros y a un sitio web con información adicionales sobre los proyectos. En un correo electrónico dirigido a activistas locales que preguntaron porqué estas oportunidades no estaban disponibles para el público general, un vocero del DOE dijo que las reuniones de networking eran para “negocios, startups y otras partes interesadas en la economía de la energía limpia” y que “no están diseñadas para reemplazar los eventos con la comunidad”. “Nuestra preocupación más grande es que muchos de estos proyectos que se están configurando como fundamentales [para el desarrollo del centro del Atlántico Medio] están avanzando sin nuestro involucramiento” le dijo a este medio Tracy Carluccio, quien es la directora adjunta del Delaware Riverkeeper Network. En noviembre de 2023, la oenegé que lidera Carluccio presentó una solicitud FOIA para acceder a estas aplicaciones y a otros contenidos relacionados con el centro en esa región. Cuando recibieron las respuestas en agosto de 2024, se dieron cuenta de que varios proyectos iban mucho más adelante de lo que pensaban. Del mismo modo, cerca de los centros de California, las comunidades han oído promesas de que la producción de hidrógeno sólo provendrá de energías renovables, según Kayla Karimi, abogada de la organización sin ánimo de lucro Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, con sede en California. Su organización no ha visto ningún contrato o documento que respalde esas promesas más allá de los anuncios iniciales realizados antes de la financiación. Karimi dijo que para obtener información sobre el centro de California más allá de la que aparece en su sitio web, le pidieron a su organización firmar un acuerdo de confidencialidad (NDA, por sus siglas en inglés). El acuerdo le pareció “muy punitivo” y dijo que quienes lo firmaran podrían enfrentarse a consecuencias legales por hablar negativamente del centro de California. La organización de Karimi no firmó el acuerdo y abogó por que los miembros de la comunidad no lo hicieran. EHN también habló con Steven Lehat, director ejecutivo de la compañía de inversiones bancarias Colton Alexander, la cual firmó NDAs para acceder a tres comités privados de planeación del centro en California. Si bien los NDA permiten acceder a más información, sería ilegal compartirla con los miembros de la comunidad. Barreras como esta plantean dudas sobre qué tan equitativo es el proceso de participación comunitaria, inclusive en aquellos casos en los que se usarán fuentes de energías renovables. “Los comentarios de la comunidad han sido muy limitados hasta ahora porque no sabemos sobre qué estamos comentando”, Karimi le dijo a EHN. “Pero aún así tampoco sabríamos si están siendo incorporados, porque no nos han dicho nada [y] no se han comunicado con nosotros”. Cuando le preguntamos sobre los NDA, una vocera para ARCHES, la organización supervisando el centro de producción de California, le dijo a EHN que los acuerdos no eran obligatorios para poder participar en los grupos de trabajo relacionados con el trabajo comunitario o los beneficios. “ARCHES mantiene su principio de participación de las partes interesadas y de la comunidad y seguirá trabajando para garantizar que todas las partes interesadas puedan formar parte de nuestras reuniones comunitarias”, dijo la portavoz en un correo electrónico. “Sin embargo, los acuerdos de confidencialidad son necesarios para convertirse en miembro de ARCHES, ya que las empresas miembro deben sentirse seguras compartiendo información sensible o de propiedad intelectual”.El centro del Pacífico Noroeste se diferenció del resto al tener información pública disponible. Keith Curl Dove, un organizador de la Washington Conservation Action, le dijo a EHN que su organización pudo acceder a la ubicación proyectada para muchos de los proyectos y al historial de trabajo con comunidades indígenas, y dijo que la Cámara de Comercio de Washington intentó responder a todas las preguntas y preocupaciones que su organización presentó.Los políticos del estado expresaron una perspectiva similar. “Tengo que decir que, desde el principio, creo que ha habido un amplio proceso de participación de las partes interesadas, que es diferente de un proceso de participación de la comunidad, para averiguar qué empresas, qué industrias, etc., iban a estar dispuestas a hacer las inversiones para complementar la inversión federal y del estado de Washington en nuestro centro de hidrógeno del noroeste [del Pacífico]”, dijo a EHN Alex Ramel, representante demócrata del estado de Washington. “Dos de las cinco refinerías del estado están en mi distrito y hay otras dos en el distrito de al lado, al norte”, dijo. “Esto quiere decir que el 90% de la capacidad de refinado del estado está justo al lado, y las refinerías van a ser uno de los principales lugares de implantación del hidrógeno en el Estado de Washington, y creo que son un primer cliente importante... porque ya utilizan hidrógeno sucio, y esta es una oportunidad para sustituirlo por hidrógeno verde”.En documentos de la Agencia de Protección Ambiental de los Estados Unidos, el Consejo Asesor sobre Justicia Medioambiental de la Casa Blanca compartió sus preocupaciones sobre los centros de hidrógeno y otras tecnologías de manejo del carbono. “Esta inversión en la “experimentación” de una tecnología que carece de suficiente investigación sobre su seguridad y eficacia crea aún más barreras de desconfianza entre las comunidades afectadas, en particular las que han sido histórica y actualmente son privadas de sus derechos, y los respectivos organismos gubernamentales”, dice el documento.El Consejo añadió que “un planteamiento humano de la gestión del carbono consistiría en dar prioridad a una investigación sólida (no influida por los contaminadores) que incluya un análisis robusto de los posibles riesgos para la salud pública y el medio ambiente”.Estas preocupaciones reflejan las de los individuos en los territorios. “¿De verdad podemos confiar en otro contaminador?” cuestionó Arellano, de Fenceline Watch.Lea la segunda parte, Los obstáculos para garantizar la justicia ambiental en los centros de hidrógeno federalesEste artículo fue traducido por María Paula Rubiano A.Producción y edición de video: Jimmy EvansSobre las autoras: Kristina Marusic cubre temas de salud ambiental y justicia en Pittsburgh y el occidente de Pennsylvania para Environmental Health News. Su nuevo libro, "A New War On Cancer: The Unlikely Heroes Revolutionizing Prevention", revela la existencia de un naciente movimiento a nivel nacional que busca prevenir el cáncer reduciendo la exposición a sustancias químicas cancerígenas en nuestra vida cotidiana. Cami Ferrell es una reportera de vídeo bilingüe para Environmental Health News, radicada en Houston (Texas). Ferrell informa principalmente sobre el desarrollo de la industria petroquímica en la costa del Golfo de Texas.

NW Natural customers to see smaller rate increase, won’t pay for pipeline expansion

NW Natural’s residential customers will see a rate increase of 4.5% on November bills, a much smaller increase than the company wanted.

NW Natural’s residential customers will see a rate increase of 4.5% on November bills, a much smaller increase than the company wanted.Customers will also no longer bear the cost of paying for the expansion of the natural gas system in Oregon and for the gas company’s political lobbying.The smaller-than-anticipated rate increase is the result of two separate decisions reached by state regulators over the past week.Last December, NW Natural, the state’s largest natural gas company, filed a general rate case seeking to increase its revenues by $154.9 million, or a rate increase of nearly 17%. General rate cases allow utilities to recover the costs of operating expenses, investments and capital costs.NW Natural was seeking to recover costs related to replacing its aging metering infrastructure, updates to its information technology systems, seismic upgrades to regional operations buildings and improvements to its distribution system and storage facility.But in a decision last Friday, the Oregon Public Utility Commission approved a multi-party settlement reached this summer that set NW Natural’s annual revenue increase at just $95 million, lowering the rate increase to about 10% across all customers.That rate was further lowered Tuesday when the commission approved a decrease in the annual cost of buying natural gas. (why is this a decrease?)The combined impact of the two decisions means a residential customer’s average bill is expected to be about 4.5 % higher than the previous years’ bill, the commission said.The increase goes into effect this Friday.As part of its decision last week, the commission also ordered NW Natural to remove costs for the company’s lobbying activities from rates and to stop charging customers for gas pipeline expansion by 2027.NW Natural will have to phase out charges called line extension allowances, in which all existing customers subsidize the cost of connecting new buildings to the gas pipeline system. Without the subsidies, an individual developer or homeowner would have to cover the costs.State regulators had previously ordered NW Natural in 2022 to reduce – but not completely phase out – those subsidies.A natural gas fact-finding investigation released by the Public Utility Commission in January 2023 found that growing the gas system in Oregon and adding new hookups will increase emissions and drive up utilities’ costs to comply with the state’s climate mandate to reduce fossil fuel emissions – which is likely to lead to rate increases for all customers.Oregon is now one of just a handful of states that have decided to remove the subsidies from customer rates. California, Washington, Colorado, and Connecticut have also taken a similar approach.Getting rid of the subsidies won’t greatly reduce individual residential customers’ rates because new gas connections are paid for over a long period and the cost is spread over hundreds of thousands of customers. (I’m confused – I thought the subsidies would go away and the hundreds and thousands of people won’t have to pay anymore? Or are you saying that it would cause a big reduction because the subsidies are paid over long periods by the utility’s hundreds of thousands of customers.)But activists hailed it a win for the planet and said it will result in more affordable energy bills for Oregonians.“Over time, those costs would have become substantial. We’re nipping the problem at the bud to prevent costs from escalating in the future. Everything adds up,” Earthjustice attorney Jaimini Parekh told The Oregonian/OregonLive. The Seattle-based nonprofit focuses on environmental advocacy.Parekh said phasing out the subsidies may slow the expansion of the natural gas system that contributes to climate warming and lead to the electrification of more buildings.NW Natural — which controls 80% of the state’s natural gas market – is responsible for 9% of Oregon’s carbon dioxide emissions. Natural gas also emits methane, which is responsible for up to 30% of global warming.The utility has continued to expand. In 2023, NW Natural added 4,685 new service lines for residential, commercial and industrial customers, though most of the connections are residential.NW Natural has about 708,000 customer accounts in Oregon, consisting of approximately 644,000 residential, 62,000 commercial, and 840 industrial customers. Almost 90% of the utility’s customers are in Oregon.NW Natural spokesperson David Roy said the company is “committed to providing essential, reliable energy to our customers at an affordable price.” Roy said the utility is disappointed with the commission’s decision on phasing out charges for new hookups.“Line extension allowances are not subsidies – they help lower the up-front costs and are paid back by the new customer over the course of their service,” Roy said.He also pointed to the company’s expansion of its residential bill discount program to help reduce low-income customers’ rate increases. NW Natural is increasing its discounts from 40% to 80% off bills for customers with income less than 15% of the state median and from 25% to 40% off bills for customers with income less than 30% of the state median.

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