The “extinction capital of the world” could start losing unique plant species in as little as a month if funding disappears.
President Trump’s budget cuts could doom nearly 200 Hawaiian plant species to rapid extinction, conservationists warn.
“They’d be gone within five to ten years,” says botanist Joan M. Yoshioka. “Some within a year. Some would be extinct within a month.”
As you might expect in a place often referred to as “the extinction capital of the world,” many of Hawaii’s plants are already critically endangered and depend on direct intervention actions for their long-term survival. “A lot of our species are so rare they’re down to one population that’s less than a quarter-acre in size,” says Yoshioka, statewide manager for Hawaii’s Plant Extinction Prevention Program. “Some are down to the last handfuls of individuals.”
Only two wild Kokio drynarioides, remain in the Kona region of Hawaii Island. It has been readily propagated and outplanted. Courtesy PEPP.
All told 239 Hawaiian plant species now have populations of 50 or fewer individuals in the wild. The 11-member team of the Plant Extinction Prevention Program protects 190 of those species. Working on a shoestring budget of just $1.1 million a year, the team does whatever it can to save them, including collecting seeds and cuttings for propagation, replanting new populations in the wild, building and maintaining fences to block out invasive pigs and other herbivores, and even going so far as to help pollinate some species by hand. Their journeys often take them to the most remote areas of the island chain, including steep cliffs and places probably never before seen by other human eyes. They’ve discovered more than a dozen new species in the process.
Wendy Kishida, Kauai coordinator, rappels to a rare plant population. Courtesy PEPP.
“Without the program there wouldn’t be any of those triage-type emergency actions,” Yoshioka says. “So the potential for one feral pig to destroy an entire species is a very real threat and one we experience every single day.”
About 70 percent of the program’s budget comes from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grants through the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund, which provides conservation funding to states and territories. That nationwide fund, initially proposed for a 64 percent reduction, barely survived the federal 2018 budget, which passed just a few weeks ago.
“Now we’re hopeful that Hawaii will receive their share of the Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund for this year, but it’s up to the state to decide what programs will be allocated from those funds,” says Yoshioka.
But the future of the conservation fund remains uncertain, as Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke have proposed completely eliminating it in the 2019 budget. “Whether we can secure funding for fiscal year 2019 is anyone’s guess at this point,” says Yoshioka. The program, a project of the Pacific Cooperative Studies Unit of the University of Hawaii, has started an emergency fundraising campaign to help raise $480,000 — enough to help fill any funding gaps that might emerge.
Yoshioka says the campaign has already helped to raise broader awareness about the plight of Hawaii’s native species, most of which exist nowhere else in the world. “A lot of people don’t know that our extinction crisis is such a huge deal,” she says. Indeed, since Europeans arrived on the islands at least 110 Hawaiian plant species have gone extinct, along with 35 bird species, several fish, dozens of kinds of insects and hundreds of species of snails.
That could be just the beginning. Today more than 500 Hawaiian species are considered endangered. “We’re just a little tiny spot in the middle of the Pacific, but we have a lot of endangered species,” Yoshioka says.
One of the biggest threats on the islands is introduced game and agricultural animals that have gone feral, including pigs, goats, deer and cattle. “Each island has its own suite of ungulate problems,” Yoshioka says. Meanwhile feral cats eat Hawaii’s birds, invasive mosquitoes carry new diseases, and invasive plants choke native species out of their habitats.
Many of these problems build upon each other. As plants begin to disappear, so do their pollinators. This, in turn, causes more plants to vanish, leaving less fruit for native birds, whose populations decline so that they have fewer opportunities to carry seeds to new places, further weakening plant populations. “You have these cascading effects,” Yoshioka says.
On top of all of this, climate change looms as an emerging threat. The program is already anticipating a need to adapt where it plants endangered species if lowland habitats become too warm. “We might have to migrate plants to higher elevations where it’s a little cooler, and we may lose the natural communities that are already at low-elevation areas,” she says, adding, “We imagine that through climate change we will unfortunately see species blink out, as there just won’t be suitable habitat for them.”
The Plant Extinction Prevention Program actually has the best record in Hawaii against this wave of problems, and Yoshioka says she’s proud they haven’t lost a species since they began 15 years ago. She credits her team’s dedicated botanists and horticultural partners around the state, who have worked tirelessly to bring several species back from the brink of extinction.
“I think if you asked every single one of our PEPPers — that’s what we call ourselves — they will say they have a sense of responsibility to protect these plants because they’re part of what makes Hawaii Hawaii,” Yoshioka says. “They existed well before humans ever set foot on this land. We feel that if you are here, if you love Hawaii, if you care about your legacy, that everyone should feel responsible, because they preceded us. In the way that we protect and care for our kupuna, our elders, we need to care for the land.”
Regardless of how the short- or long-term funding pans out, Yoshioka says she and her team remain committed to preserving that natural heritage. “That’s why I can say, with truthfulness, that they’re out there every day — with blood, sweat and tears — to protect what is all of our legacies,” she says. “It’s the fuel that keeps us going.”
Dozens of these water-filtering species are at risk of vanishing, and that’s bad news for every living creature that relies on them.
Give Rachel Mair two tanks of water and she’ll show you something amazing.
“When I do outreach at a festival, I put mud and algae and stuff in the tanks,” says Mair, a biologist with the Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery in Charles City, Va. “Then I put some freshwater mussels in one tank and tell people to come back and check on me in a few hours.”
Those few hours make a difference, as do the mussels. “People come back and the water in the tank that has the mussels will be substantially cleaner,” Mair says. “I say, which water you rather your kids play in or drink? That’s what mussels are doing for you.”
Unfortunately, despite the service they provide to our rivers and streams, North America’s freshwater mussels now need some conservation muscle. Pretty much wherever they’re found, the shelled bivalves are disappearing. Many of the 300-plus mussel species in the United States have already been added to the endangered species list; many more are waiting for similar protection. Beautiful species with crazy names like the orangefoot pimpleback, purple bean, Higgins eye pearlymussel and pink mucket could soon be a thing of the past.
In part that’s because the very water the mussels filter through their bodies has also often become dangerous to them. “A lot of our streams are not as clear as they once were,” Mair says. “With all of the factories and discharges and agriculture and increases in human population, there’s a lot of pressure on our freshwater mussels.”
Scientists don’t always know exactly what levels of contaminants, such as ammonia, affect which mussel species, but we do know is that it doesn’t always take much. “They’re really very sensitive animals,” says Mair. “They’re the canary in the coal mine for our freshwater resources — the first thing to start disappearing when you have water-quality issues.”
Mussels also depend on something else that’s often in short supply in many streams — fish. You see, most mussel species can’t reproduce without assistance. In order to create the next generation, adult mussels lure in nearby fish — often using fleshy appendages camouflaged to look like fish food — then inject them full of larvae (glochidia) and let the fish carry the young’uns around until they’re old enough and big enough to go back into the water and survive on their own.
The important thing here is that not just any fish will do. Most mussel species partake of this parasitic relationship with just a handful of fish species; others rely on only one kind of fish. Unfortunately, thanks to river dams, pollution, habitat loss and other factors, those fish often aren’t available to mussels anymore. This has left all too many mussel species with limited or nonexistent means of reproduction.
Figuring out how to keep all of these endangered mussels from going extinct is no easy task. “There’s 300 species in North America,” Mair says. “They’re not easy to study. They all need a host fish. They all have different life-history aspects and different water-quality parameters that they can survive in. So you have 300 species that have 300 different needs, and we often don’t know what those needs are.”
Beyond biology, the species also face unique environmental challenges. “It’s certainly harder to clean up rivers than it is to clean up the land,” Mair says. “We can see what’s happening in the land and air. We don’t always see what’s happening in the rivers. We don’t know if our water quality is bad until we can go out there and physically test it.”
Even then, it’s not always easy to pinpoint — let alone resolve — whatever factors might be affecting water clarity. “I mean, you’re talking about thousands of acres,” she says. “Whatever is happening on those thousands of acres, it’s going to be affecting that one stream where that one mussel species lives. These are things that are out of our ability, especially as biologists, to change. You know, I can’t fix the water quality.”
Pollution is bad enough. What comes next might be even worse for mussels. “We’re coming into drought, climate change, water temperatures warming up — there are a lot of other things at play,” she says.
That’s not stopping people, though. More and more scientists are looking into how to breed mussels in captivity. Many of them are learning their craft from experts like Mair, who is one of the co-authors of a just-released book, Freshwater Mussel Propagation for Restoration (Cambridge University Press, March 2018). “There are so many people now that are starting to produce mussels,” she says. “My hope is that this book at least sends them on the right track.”
Mair adds that she knows the need for this knowledge base exists. “We teach a propagation class every year at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia, and every year we have a full class.” People also contact her year-round. “I get questions all the time. ‘I’m starting to grow mussels, how do I do this and do that?’ Nobody needs to start out at point zero. There are a lot of people out there that have been doing it, and I guess that’s my take-home message: Just contact somebody to help you and get you started.”
Rachel Mair on Harrison Lake, where freshwater mussels are reared in floating baskets. Photo: USFWS
Of course, some of these mussel species are so rare now that managing to find a male and a female and bringing them together with the right host fish feels daunting, if not next to impossible. On the other hand, a handful of individuals and a few fish could help put a species back on the right track. “If you get one larvae infestation, you could get a thousand juveniles,” Mair says. “After they got big enough you could potentially put 500 back in the river. That could be incredible. I think a lot of people are looking to propagation right now because it’s the last strategy in a lot of cases.”
It’s easy to see the potential for a cleaner system of waterways if mussels returned to more American rivers and streams. Some places are actually already deploying mussels specifically to help purify the water. “A large bed of mussels could filter millions of gallons of water a day,” Mair says. “That’s pretty huge.”
There’s another reason to support your local mussels: “They are really just amazing,” says Mair. She describes one critically endangered species, the birdwing pearlymussel, which employs the greenside darter as its host fish. “This mussel has a lure it sticks out that looks like a snail, with fake antennae,” she says. The darter, in turn, loves to eat snails and has a specialized mouth designed to suck the meat right out of a shell. The mussel takes advantage of that. When a fish clamps down on the lure looking for a bite to eat, it gets a face full of mussel larvae instead. And the circle of life continues.
That’s just one out of many evolutionary marvels Mair recounts, each species description more excited than the last. And that, she says, is why mussels matter. “Yes, they clean water and that’s really important. But for me, they’re just so interesting, so unique, and that diversity is what makes nature great. I would hate to lose that.”
The rules, bemoaned by auto manufacturers, would have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 540 million metric tons.
As expected, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Monday announced plans to “revise” President Obama’s signature fuel-economy rules for cars and trucks, which would have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 540 million metric tons and reduced oil consumption by 1.2 billion barrels. The rules governed cars and light trucks released during the 2022-2025 model years and would have increased their required fuel economy to more than 50 miles per gallon.
In a press release — which was not posted to the EPA website as of press time and was only distributed to certain members of the media — Pruitt called President Obama’s rules “inappropriate.” Several automakers had vocally opposed the rules, as did Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group.
Science and environmental groups were quick to blast Pruitt’s plan. “This decision is not based on science,” wrote Dave Cook, senior vehicles analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Pruitt, he wrote, “is overturning thousands of pages of hard evidence, and the consequences will be limiting consumer choice, increasing emissions and undercutting the economy.”
Even EPA officials criticized this week’s action, saying it diminishes the role of science at the agency. “I am concerned that those who provide the technical basis for Administrator Pruitt’s regulatory decision will be ignored or dismissed, and that sound science and engineering may be reassigned to another government agency that lacks the technical expertise,” AFGE Local 3907 President Mark Coryell said in a prepared release. The union represents members who work at the EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory.
What comes next? The Obama-era emissions standards were part of an agreement with the state of California, which has set its own clean-air and fuel-emission standards higher than the federal government’s. California officials, anticipating this week’s decision, have already been hinting at a legal fight to maintain the standards. New York, meanwhile, could join the fray, as state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today called Pruitt’s actions “illegal,” adding “we stand ready to take legal action to block the Trump administration’s reckless and illegal efforts to reverse these critical standards and the gains we’ve made in ensuring cars are more fuel-efficient and less polluting.”
Eco-books coming out this April look at the life and death of Cecil the lion, the history of oppressive oil development, and living a zero-waste lifestyle.
April, goes the old saying, is the cruelest month, so perhaps it should be no surprise that one of the most anticipated books being published this month is about the infamous death-by-dentist of Cecil the lion. But that’s not all, and the rest isn’t necessarily cruel — April will also see the publication of fantastic new books about living a zero-waste lifestyle, taking back our public lands, how fossil fuels hurt indigenous peoples and a whole lot more.
Honestly there are more environmental books coming out in April than any one person could read, but we’ve tried to pick what looks like the best of the bunch for you. The full list — 14 amazing titles — includes books for just about every reader, from dedicated environmentalists to Earth-friendly kids. There’s even one for poetry fans. You can check them all out below — links are to publishers’ or authors’ websites — and then settle down in your favorite reading chair for a month of great page-turning.
Wildlife and Endangered Species:
Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil & the Future of Africa’s Iconic Cats by Andrew Loveridge — Advance word on this book is already reigniting the complex emotions around this case. Written by the scientist who studied Cecil the lion for eight years until the big cat was shot by American dentist Walter Palmer, Lion Hearted is about more than just Cecil and Walter; it’s about the plight faced by all of Africa’s disappearing lions. This gets our vote for the book of the month.
The Plant Messiah: Adventures in Search of the World’s Rarest Species by Carlos Magdalena — It’s a sad fact in conservation that endangered plants often don’t get enough attention, whether it’s from the general public, governments or even researchers. Maybe this impassioned memoir from Magdalena, a globe-trotting horticulturalist who spent his life saving endangered plants, will help to turn that around a little bit.
Back From the Brink: Saving Animals From Extinction by Nancy Castaldo — Here’s one for younger readers, the true stories of how humans came close to killing off species like wolves, alligators and the California condor, as well as how we kept them from disappearing forever. Good lessons if we want the next generation to succeed in saving the species around them.
Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution by Menno Schilthuizen — Wildlife and cities don’t mix, right? Well, not so fast. Some species are adapting to live in urban environments, either by changing their behavior or by evolving new physical characteristics. It’s never going to be as good as living in natural habitats, but for some species life goes on, as this book reveals.
Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil — Poetry about a planet in peril. This isn’t strictly about wildlife — it covers a lot of environmental topics — but many of the poems in this thought-provoking volume are about animals, including Bengal tigers, bees and a whole lot more.
Green Living:
Why Good People Do Bad Environmental Things by Elizabeth R. DeSombre — An academic book, but one that asks some important questions we should all be considering if we hope to change our own behaviors or those of the people around us.
Trash Revolution: Breaking the Waste Cycle by Erica Fyvie— What’s the impact of the stuff around us, and how can kids make informed decisions about the products they buy? Fyvie and illustrator Bill Slavin provide the answers in this book, which comes our way from the delightfully named publisher, Kids Can Press.
Zero Waste: Simple Life Hacks to Drastically Reduce Your Trash by Shia Su — Did you know the average American produces 4.4 pounds of garbage a day? Yikes. Well, here are 168 pages of tips on how to reduce your trash footprint all the way down to zero. Not a bad goal!
Life in Oil: Cofán Survival in the Petroleum Fields of Amazonia by Michael L. Cepek — For half a century, the indigenous Cofán nation of Ecuador has struggled under the ecological destruction of the fossil-fuel industry. Cepek, who has worked and lived with the Cofán for more than 20 years, tells their story, revealing how oil extraction has threatened these marginalized people but also how they have remained resilient.
Damming the Peace: The Hidden Costs of the Site C Dam by Wendy Holm (editor) — A massive, $10 billion hydroelectric dam project on British Columbia’s Peace River could threaten the First Nations peoples who live nearby. This volume dives deep into the potential impacts and decades of governmental cover-ups related to this long-planned project.
Climate Change:
Brave New Arctic: The Untold Story of the Melting North by Mark C. Serreze — We all know now that the Arctic is melting, but how did we come to find that out? Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, provides a firsthand account of how scientists first observed and understood these changes and how they will affect the planet.
Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change by Mary Beth Pfeiffer — Ticks like warm places; climate change is making more places warmer. That’s already causing tick-borne illnesses like Lyme to travel to new areas and hurt more people, a situation Pfeiffer explores. (For more on this topic, check out our article and interactive maps, “Climate Goes Viral.”)
LAREDO, Texas — Tom Vaughan steers his two-person kayak across the 50-yard-wide Rio Grande River to an inlet on the Mexican side of the river. On either side of the creek plastic bags, diapers and shredded clothing dangle from the shrubs, providing a warning of the hazard ahead.
“As you can tell, this is raw sewage,” Vaughan says as we paddle up the creek against a gentle current of dark brown water overlaid with a pungent earthy aroma.
Vaughan is a member of the advisory board for the Laredo-based Rio Grande International Study Center, a nonprofit that works to preserve and protect the local watershed. A zoologist with a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, he has been taking weekly water samples for 20 years as part of the Texas Clean Rivers program.
Vaughan turns his blue, rubber-shelled kayak downstream into some rapids. A wave splashes over the bow, sending sewage-laced river water into the boat. We paddle along the Mexican side of the river toward the water-treatment plant for a city called Nuevo Laredo, the sister city of its Texan counterpart.
Nuevo Laredo draws drinking water for its 635,000 residents from the Rio Grande — less than a quarter mile downstream from the sewage outfall.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he says as we glide by the water works.
Fishermen downstream from Nuevo Laredo sewage outfall. Photo: John Dougherty
It used to be much worse — as much as 25 million gallons a day — before the city’s first wastewater-treatment plant was constructed in 1996. An obscure bi-national agency called the International Boundary and Water Commission built and operates the $60 million facility.
More than 20 years later, the Nuevo Laredo wastewater treatment system is in poor condition and the city’s sewage lines are failing. Raw sewage once again plagues the Rio Grande.
Nuevo Laredo drinking water intake. Photo: John Dougherty
The failure of the joint investments by the U.S. and Mexican sections of the International Boundary and Water Commission to permanently eliminate untreated sewage discharges from Nuevo Laredo is just one of many examples of where the commission has been unsuccessful in constructing vital wastewater treatment systems in border communities.
The commission has struggled for decades to address ongoing border sanitation issues along the U.S.-Mexican border. The commission appears to lurch from crisis to crisis and rarely has enough money to complete a wastewater system before it becomes obsolete. Experts tell The Revelator the commission lacks long-term strategic planning to deal with a surging border population and takes a very narrow view of its role in addressing border environmental infrastructure needs.
The commission declined repeated requests for interviews with its top officials.
Another crisis is brewing in California, where the U.S. section of the commission is now under fire for failing to find a solution to Tijuana’s collapsing sewer system. Baja California’s largest city is growing faster than its aging wastewater infrastructure can handle.
Tijuana is built in the hills abutting the U.S. border, so when its wastewater system is overwhelmed it sends millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing into the Tijuana River, which crosses the border and drains into the Pacific Ocean. The floods of sewage force U.S. cities to routinely close public beaches from Imperial Beach to Coronado. (See Part I and Part II of The Revelator’s series “A Border Betrayed.”)
Infuriated by decades of raw sewage flows, two California border cities filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on March 2 against the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission for failing to control and treat untreated wastewater discharges from Tijuana.
“Defendants have utterly failed to fulfill their legal and moral mandates,” alleges the lawsuit filed by the cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista and the San Diego Port Authority.
World War II-Era Treaty
The U.S. and Mexican sections of the International Boundary and Water Commission were created in a 1944 treaty between the two countries. The commission is required to be led by an engineer and the U.S. section has about 313 employees. The Trump administration wants to cut the U.S. section’s annual budget from $77 million in 2017 to $71 million by 2019. The U.S. section is part of the State Department.
One of the commission’s duties — mandated in Article 3 of the 1944 “Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande” treaty — is to “give preferential attention to the solution of all border sanitation problems.” When the treaty was ratified, the preamble noted that the countries were entering into it “by the sincere spirit of cordiality and friendly cooperation which happily governs the relations between them.”
But even with initial goodwill the International Boundary and Water Commission hasn’t been able to meet the border’s environmental infrastructure needs, which continue to steadily increase. Rapid growth of Mexican border communities has outstripped cities’ ability to finance, build, operate and maintain expensive wastewater collection and treatment systems. The U.S. has long subsidized investments in Mexican wastewater-treatment systems because of the positive public health benefits to populations on both sides of the border.
The commission owns wastewater-treatment facilities in Nuevo Laredo, Rio Rico, Ariz., and in the San Diego community of San Ysidro. The Nuevo Laredo and San Ysidro facilities process sewage from Mexico. The Rio Rico wastewater treatment plant treats sewage from two towns in Arizona and Mexico, each called Nogales.
The Nuevo Laredo wastewater treatment system needs more than $55 million in upgrades. The Rio Rico facility needs at least $40 million to replace a deteriorating sewer line that occasionally ruptures and pollutes the Santa Cruz River.
That pales in comparison to cost estimates to rehabilitate Tijuana’s entire wastewater treatment system, which could run as high as $400 million over the next 50 years.
But more immediate, short-term fixes to capture and divert the current wave of sewage in the Tijuana River are also necessary.
“It’s in the tens of millions to fix the system that we need to stop sewage flows,” says Serge Dedina, mayor of Imperial Beach, Calif.
Even that amount of money will be tough to find.
With bi-national relations seriously strained by President Trump’s demands that first Mexico, and now Congress finance a $25 billion border wall and his threat to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement, the outlook for funding to repair and upgrade the three commission-owned wastewater treatment facilities is bleak.
The commission is also facing $75 million to $80 million in repairs for the wastewater treatment system in the Baja California city of Mexicali, where the northerly flowing New River is contaminated by untreated sewage and slaughterhouse discharges before it crosses the border into Calexico, Calif. The commission estimates it will cost another $98 million for additional treatment once the New River crosses into the U.S.
Spending on the border wall instead of stopping the Tijuana sewage incursion is becoming a major political issue in California, where President Trump made his first visit in mid-March to inspect wall prototypes.
“While the federal government is requesting billions of dollars to build a wall at the border, it has failed repeatedly to act on this serious contamination issue that has plagued the Tijuana River Valley, Imperial Beach residents, businesses and tourism in the San Diego region for 30 years,” state Senator Ben Hueso wrote in a statement after Trump’s visit.
On March 15, Hueso introduced a resolution before the California Legislature requesting that the state join Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and the port authority in their lawsuit. The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control board voted the next day to file 60-day notice with the U.S. section of the commission over its intention to also file a lawsuit.
Five members of the San Diego delegation to the House of Representative — three Democrats and two Republicans — have also requested the State Department’s Office of Inspection General investigate the Tijuana River sewage spills and the role of the International Boundary and Water Commission, KPBS Radio reported on March 26.
Tijuana River channel leaving Mexico. Photo: John Dougherty
Border environmental infrastructure experts say Trump’s proposed wall will do nothing to address the ongoing public health crisis caused by a lack of safely operating wastewater treatment systems.
“The wall doesn’t provide any practicable urban-municipal function,” says Stephen Mumme, a Colorado State University professor and one of the few U.S. academic experts focused on the International Boundary and Water Commission.
Instead, he says increased investment in the border zone to improve the standard of living on both sides of the border would help create a “social wall” that would discourage illegal immigration, increase economic prosperity and reduce public health concerns.
Delaying investments in wastewater treatment systems, Mumme adds, only prolongs the inevitable.
“This is not the place to go about doing a lot of budgetary surgery to save money because you are really getting a lot of value for what you’re putting in,” he says. “And if you don’t do that, you’re going to have to come back and do it anyway because people are going to get sick and people are going to complain,” as is happening now in the San Diego metropolitan area.
Making matters worse, he says, is the Trump administration’s animosity toward Mexico, which reduces that country’s incentive to invest extremely limited funds into border environmental infrastructure when it has pressing needs in far poorer sections of a country that are recovering from two major earthquakes last year.
“It’s just crazy to be alienating a partner that has struggled to make investments in the border area,” Mumme says.
Backing Away From Its Mandate
The International Boundary and Water Commission, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the North American Development Bank are the three federal agencies that have played a fundamental role in attempting to address wastewater management along the 2,000-mile southern border.
The EPA has provided more than $1 billion in grants to communities on both sides of the border since the late 1990s, but now the EPA’s Border Water Infrastructure Grant Program is nearly depleted. Congress passed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2018 that includes $10 million for the grant program. The appropriation came after strong bi-partisan support in the House and the Senate.
The North American Development Bank, which was created by a side-agreement of the North American Free Trade Agreement, is also struggling for funds. Unless Mexico and the United States greatly increase the bank’s capital reserves, it will have to sharply reduce lending for border environmental infrastructure projects. There was no money for the bank included in the 2018 omnibus bill, although the Trump administration has requested $10 million for fiscal year 2019.
The funding crisis comes at the same time the Trump administration appears to be backing away from the 1944 treaty requirements.
In an ominous sign for fixing border wastewater issues, the U.S. Justice Department is now attempting to diminish the U.S. section of International Boundary and Water Commission’s role in handling trans-border sanitation issues, despite the explicit requirement in the treaty.
In response to a request from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board for the commission to commit funds for building infrastructure to stop the Tijuana sewage flows, the Justice Department’s Environmental Defense Section stated in a March 1 letter that the commission is not responsible for trans-border sanitation issues.
The letter states the U.S. section commission’s role under the 1944 Water Treaty “does not make it the agency that, under U.S. law, is ‘responsible for managing trans-boundary trash, sewage and sediment discharges’ from Mexico.”
The Justice Department’s claim that the commission is not responsible for stopping the sewage flowing from Mexico into the United States spurred the California cities to file their joint lawsuit the next day, says Mayor Dedina, who has been pressing for state and federal funding to stop the sewage flows that are damaging his city.
A commission spokesperson declined to comment on the Justice Department letter.
The Justice Department’s position appears contrary to earlier commission agreements for handling Tijuana sewage. In 1990 the U.S. and Mexican sections of the commission entered into an agreement to jointly manage and operate the Tijuana wastewater collection and treatment system.
“The agreements stipulate that the commission oversee and manage the project,” says Mumme, the Colorado State University professor. “The Justice Department is simply wrong in saying that they are not in charge.”
No Fix in Sight
The Mexican section of the commission operates a series of pumps and diversion structures that are supposed to capture up to 25 million gallons a day of Tijuana sewage on the south side of the border. The wastewater is sent across the border to the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is owned and administered by the U.S. section of the commission and managed and operated through a private contractor.
The main diversion pump and deteriorating sewer lines in Tijuana frequently fail, sending raw sewage into the Tijuana River. The untreated wastewater flows past the South Bay wastewater treatment plant that is wedged between the south bank of the Tijuana River and the border. The sewage continues through Border Field State Park and the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge before dumping into the Pacific Ocean.
The boardwalk through Tijuana Slough. Photo: John Dougherty
The U.S. and Mexican sections of the commission are working with the EPA and the North American Development Bank to develop a long-term plan to identify infrastructure improvements to mitigate the transboudary sewage flows in the Tijuana River. The development bank expects to award a contract for the study in April.
“We are cognizant of the many adverse impacts posed by sewage, trash and sediment flow which include health hazards, habitat destruction and quality of life aspects,” International Boundary and Water Commissioner Edward Drusina wrote in an August 2017 letter to the city of Imperial Beach.
But the commission’s slow pace and bureaucracy have provided no immediate solutions to the problem forcing state and local governments to attempt to fix a federal problem.
The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board has also developed a Tijuana River Recovery Team strategy to address the sewage flows, sediment and massive piles of trash that flow into the river during large storms.
Control board Executive Director Dave Gibson says the agency has proposed installing additional pumps on the U.S. side of the river to capture some of the Tijuana sewage releases that occur when the primary pump operated by the Mexican section of boundary commission fails.
The project would divert the sewage flows to settlement ponds, the South Bay wastewater treatment plant or directly into a pipe that dumps treated wastewater from the South Bay facility into the Pacific Ocean several miles offshore. The project would cost about $10 million to $12 million to build and between $3 million to $5 million a year to operate, he says. But the board has been unable to move forward because of a lack of state and federal funding.
“We’ve been trying to get funds available for years now,” Gibson says. “We haven’t been successful.”
The lack of consistent and timely funding for wastewater-treatment plants along the U.S.-Mexican border has persisted for decades. The U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission states that it can’t do any work on specific projects unless it receives funding authorization from Congress.
The 2018 omnibus bill provides the commission with about $26 million for construction. All of that money is earmarked for improvement of levies along the Rio Grande. The commission is also facing a major construction bill for fixing five of the six dams it owns and operates, which, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, are in unsafe and dangerous condition.
Unless the Trump administration and Congress decide to make major investments on a fundamental government services to safely treat wastewater, the Rio Grande, Santa Cruz, New and Tijuana rivers will continue to be besieged by raw sewage and public health threatened by infectious disease.
As Paul Ganster, chairman of the Good Neighbor Environmental Board, a federal advisory committee on environmental infrastructure needs on the U.S.-Mexican border, puts it: “Without funding from Congress, the border sewage problem cannot be solved.”
Recent lawsuits filed to save the monument’s unique fossil heritage may also protect modern wildlife.
My first day in the desert went by in a blur. Even though I have a background in zoology, I had never been on a paleontological field expedition before and I hadn’t been camping since I was a Girl Scout. Still, I pitched my tent so that the door opened in what I hoped was a scenic direction and got to work.
The next morning showed my reward: The summer air was so clear I could see for miles, all the way to the pair of distinctive mesas that gave Bears Ears National Monument its name. There was even a rainbow in the sky, making the scene so beautiful that I wondered if I might still be asleep.
Little did I know it then, but the place I had just fallen in love with would be under attack before the year was out.
As national monuments go, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are quite new. Yet they house treasures that are almost unimaginably ancient. Traces of the first vertebrates to walk on land are recorded here. Pack rat middens contain information about what plants bloomed during the last ice age. Several sites contain unusual fossils from the Triassic, when dinosaurs first made their appearance.
Other outcroppings tell of time spent under water, showing that much of Utah was once covered with a shallow sea. Because the topography in this area is so varied, all of these scientifically important discoveries are geographically close together, despite their chronological distance. And, until just a few months ago, they were protected from destruction thanks to their inclusion within the boundaries of two of our most picturesque and wild monuments.
It wasn’t just good fortune or coincidence that placed these fossils within Bears Ears and Grand Staircase.
Breathtaking paleontological finds, entwined with a need to preserve unique modern ecosystems as well as important cultural resources, motivated the creation of both monuments. Grand Staircase has been protected since 1996, so more fossil collection has been done there, but the newer Bears Ears might end up eclipsing it in terms of unprecedented discoveries.
Or at least it could, if Trump’s aberrant slashing of Bears Ears’ outlines is found to be illegal. It’s this last fact that has gotten one group of paleontologists, the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology, alarmed enough to sue the government. The society is the first scientific professional organization to file such a lawsuit against this administration.
It might seem that paleontology would be one of the few pursuits actually aided by mining and drilling. After all, fossils are found in the ground, and we’ve all heard stories of large bone deposits being uncovered during the construction of subways and skyscrapers. But such destructive practices more typically destroy fossils as quickly as they destroy the habitats above them.
The reality of a dig, at least one done by a university or other public institution, is much different. Much of the labor is done by hand, as fragile bone fragments are carefully removed and packaged for transport. Common tools include rock hammers and chisels, a far cry from the gigantic earthmovers necessary for mining.
Furthermore, rules put in place to preserve the land are followed to the letter. They have to be, or permits to collect are revoked.
I learned this first-hand. During my weeks in the field, the paleontologists leading the expedition repeatedly warned us not to “bust the crust,” a reference to the paper-thin desert “glue” that covers much of the ground in the desert southwest.
This unprepossessing knobby black varnish is actually Cryptobiotic soil, a biologically active film that takes decades to form yet has big effects on everything from storing spring runoff to allowing plants to fix nitrogen in sandy ground. This in turn supports a healthy habitat for herbivores and predators, like the large rattlesnake I encountered one afternoon sporting a suspiciously mouse-sized lump in its midsection.
The soil is so fragile that some dig sites require that even theropod bones, which can weigh hundreds of pounds, be carried out on foot, since wheeled vehicles of any kind cause too much damage to the landscape.
If something as small as a single wheelbarrow can do years of damage to the desert, imagine how destructive uranium mining will be.
Given these facts, there’s little question that shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante is bad for paleontology, and by extension the current life that occupies these areas.
Even though the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act of 2009 still theoretically grants protections for any vertebrate fossils discovered on public land, it only gives priority to digs within monuments. On ordinary land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, paleontological pursuits are just one use competing against many others.
Indeed, the Bureau has already sold all 43 plots made available on March 20, handing control of more than 51,000 acres of Utah’s desert to oil and gas companies. Many of these drilling plots snuggle close to the former outline of Bears Ears, heightening concerns that drilling could soon occur on what was, until recently, protected land.
If that happens, we will lose not only the wilderness above ground, but also what could be one of the richest troves of Triassic fossils in the world. Recent discoveries from the area include strange 200 million-year-old crocodile-like phytosaur skull fragments with the potential to teach researchers a lot about the period just before mammals diverged from reptiles.
But only, of course, if the site isn’t destroyed first.
That’s why the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology has decided to take legal action to block the cuts. The paleontologists are partnering with other organizations, including a coalition of Native American groups, and have gained the pro bono support of two top-tier environmental law firms. The society’s membership has come together too, providing maps of important finds and other evidence to support their case.
If there’s one thing scientists are good at, it’s gathering facts. Usually the stakes aren’t quite so high, but that only seems to have made my colleagues more determined. With a little luck and a lot of hard work the dinosaurs might just win this battle despite having died out more than 65 million years ago.
And that would be very good news for all of the living things now roaming our imperiled wild lands, including bighorn sheep, California condors, desert cottontail rabbits — and yes, even for camping paleontological enthusiasts who revel in the silence and beauty of a desert morning.
The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.
State regulators tried to get the future president to address problems on two golf courses. They got a lesson in how he handles regulatory challenges.
In the grand scheme of his many legal and regulatory conflicts, President Donald Trump’s spats with state regulators over damaged wetlands and excess water use at his New Jersey golf courses seem almost trivial. Trump ultimately was fined $147,000 — less than he banks from a couple of new memberships at the two private country clubs where he was cited for breaking state law. Both disputes were resolved during his presidential campaign and went unnoticed in the press.
Yet, as small as the sum was for a man like Trump, these two episodes are telling, not just because his resistance to oversight seems so disproportionate to the underlying allegations, but also because they provide a revealing anatomy of the five primary stages of Trump response. They could be summarized as Delay, Dissemble, Shift Blame, Haggle and Get Personally Involved. (The elements can be used in any order, more than once.) Often, there’s a sixth stage, too: Offer a job to one of the key players on the opposing side. Trump deployed those tactics again and again in his titanic real estate battles in New York, and his mega-dollar fights over casinos in New Jersey, according to Wayne Barrett’s biography, “Trump: The Deals and the Downfall.”
The stakes may have been smaller on the golf courses, but documents and interviews show the playbook was the same. Historically, Trump’s approach has proved effective, and so it was in New Jersey. The Trump Organization’s repeated infractions at the two clubs lingered unresolved for years. In the end, Trump paid just a fraction of the penalties that state law allows. Then the key regulator, who helped negotiate the generous terms, signed on to a job in the Trump campaign.
The conflicts with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection began on a 500-acre property once owned by disgraced carmaker John DeLorean, which Trump bought for $35 million in 2002. Situated in horse country 40 miles west of Manhattan, the site is now familiar as the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. It’s where President-elect Trump paraded cabinet aspirants before the media; where he plays golf on warm-weather weekends; and where he’s spoken about wanting to be laid to rest after his final deal is done.
Trump transformed the property, building two golf courses, a 25-meter heated pool, tennis courts, clubhouse, fitness center, guest cottages and a helipad. The president has a home at the club; so do Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who were married there. The membership fee has been variously reported at between $100,000 and $350,000.
The violations at Bedminster date back to 2009. At the time, Trump had recently added a second golf course and was making improvements on the first. In the process of reshaping the land — building tee boxes and cart paths and clearing lines of play — his workers chopped down trees, uprooted vegetation and covered open waters. Trump was legally permitted to make changes on the property, but state law required that certain portions, particularly sensitive wetlands, be left untouched.
The Bedminster mini-saga began with what appeared to be a forthright admission of responsibility. On May 29, 2009, Edward Russo, then Trump’s environmental consultant, “self-reported” damage to 4.34 acres of wetlands, open waters and wetland transition areas. In doing so, the Trump Organization was seeking forgiveness under a DEP policy that allows as much as a 100 percent reduction in fines for offenders who voluntarily disclose violations “in a timely manner” and correct them promptly.
Subsequent violations would not be self-reported in a timely manner — indeed, they wouldn’t be self-reported at all — and the series of infractions would take six years to resolve. Indeed, before the first problem was even addressed, state inspectors began discovering more damage during follow-up visits, a problem that continued over the succeeding two years. The violations seemed to multiply faster than the Trump promises to fix them.
It didn’t help that Trump’s representatives sometimes dissembled. In August 2009, for example, a state inspector discovered that trees had “suspiciously” been removed from protected wooded wetland corridors near eight Bedminster golf holes — coincidentally, just where it would be necessary to allow golfers to play through.
Trump’s consultants insisted a state-approved forestry plan allowed the tree-cutting, according to state inspection reports. An examination of the plan showed just the opposite: The plan recommended “no tree harvesting” where workers had cut paths.
New Jersey officials appeared to lose patience. They formally served Trump National with a six-page “Notice of Violation” in May 2011, warning: “ALL UNAUTHORIZED ACTIVITIES MUST CEASE IMMEDIATELY.” The state demanded a prompt plan to avoid further damage and restore the protected areas. DEP officials met again at the course two months later to discuss the situation — only to discover even more “new areas of violation.”
Time kept slipping away and by 2013, Trump’s consultants made a new attempt to avoid responsibility, this time by shifting blame. They fingered two improbable culprits, according to a chronology later prepared by the state: the New Jersey Audubon Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Trump’s team insisted, in a May 2013 meeting, that considerable environmental damage had occurred at the direction of those institutions, which were collaborating with Trump to create grassland bird habitat on the property.
Both New Jersey Audubon and U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials dismiss the notion they had anything to do with damaging protected areas. “Any kind of practice we would recommend wouldn’t adversely affect the wetlands,” commented Fish and Wildlife biologist Brian Marsh, who worked on the Bedminster project. “We’re all about doing restoration and enhancing habitat.” In addition, the habitat work hadn’t begun until the fall of 2012 — more than a year after Trump’s club had already been cited for the destruction of wetlands.
Asked about the environmental conflict, Russo said that Trump executives have barred him from commenting publicly. (He ended more than a dozen years as a consultant for the Trump Organization shortly after the presidential election.) Russo self-published a book entitled “Donald J. Trump: An Environmental Hero,” and citing that book, he dismissed the state complaints as “technical paperwork matters.” He characterized what he called efforts to “expand and enhance habitats” at Bedminster as a “tremendous environmental success.” He also acknowledged that environmental groups had nothing to do with any violations and added, “The DEP’s inference that I was in any way blaming Audubon and Fish and Wildlife was not my intent at all.”
Emails to the Trump Organization seeking comment went unanswered.
Nearly four years into the Bedminster spat, the case remained unresolved. In February 2013, state officials drafted a proposed consent order to settle the matter. It cited Trump’s club for damaging nearly 16 acres of protected areas — more than three times as much as the club had reported back in 2009.
Still, it would take another two and a half years to reach a settlement, as the Trump Organization haggled over what damage it could and couldn’t restore to its natural state — the latter because it was deemed essential for the “playability” of the golf course. Said DEP regional enforcement supervisor Peter Keledy: “They were defending every square inch.” To compensate for those sections, Trump offered instead to establish several acres of new wetland and “natural areas” elsewhere on the property.
Meanwhile, the Trump Organization was racking up violations at its second country club, in Colts Neck, near the Jersey Shore. Trump had purchased the 300-acre golf course out of foreclosure in 2008, spent millions to upgrade the property, and renamed it Trump National Colts Neck.
But he had a problem: Irrigating the course properly, in Trump’s view, required far more water than the site was allowed under its state permit. It was already using about twice its annual limit.
In 2011, Trump sought a new permit that would more than triple his yearly water allowance. This was not a popular request at a time when Colts Neck Township had just suffered a drought. Almost all the houses in the community relied on groundwater wells, and some had gone dry the previous summer.
Relations between the township and Trump were prickly. Residents bristled at his proposal to build a landing pad for his helicopter at the club. Colts Neck rejected the helipad but Trump then waged an extended court fight, including appeals, and won. That prompted the township’s mayor to decry his “bully mentality.” For a person who helicoptered into town, Trump seemed very sensitive to noise: He was so irked by a dog whose barking disturbed his golf game that he personally sent a police officer to the home of one neighbor to complain, according to a statement the neighbor gave to the board of adjustment.
After a public hearing, the state granted Trump a new water permit in August 2011 with the big increase he wanted, but only if he met certain conditions. Trump would need to make costly alterations to three irrigation ponds on the course, and construct a fourth. This would assure that the club’s increased water use came from sources that weren’t likely to drain the supply for homeowners. But relying on the ponds would also require the club to periodically draw them down to water the property, leaving a mucky eyesore for golfers.
Clearly unhappy about the situation, Trump got personally involved. In October 2012, he called DEP Commissioner Robert Martin to discuss the matter. What Trump said is unknown, but a letter that Martin sent him afterwards alluded to the discussion: “The location of this golf course with respect to the availability of water supply is very challenging,” Martin wrote Trump. The commissioner urged him to fulfill the conditions spelled out in the water permit. “That may be the best way for you to manage through the costs of this project,” Martin wrote.
Having seemingly not gotten what he wanted, Trump chose to ignore the restrictions. For five consecutive years starting in 2011, Trump National Colts Neck blew past its annual water limits. “Once he was caught going over, it’s not like he stopped and waited until he got more allocation,” said Timothy Anfuso, township planner for Colts Neck. “He kept using the water the whole time.”
The Trump Organization received annual notices of its violations, warning of “substantial monetary penalties” — up to $50,000 per day per offense. In theory, that meant the organization could’ve been fined millions (though “cooperative” violators would unlikely face fines of that magnitude, according to the DEP, since the agency’s goal is to bring violators back into compliance and restore any damage).
The state’s long-running conflicts with the two Trump golf clubs continued into the spring of 2015, when Trump was preparing to announce his candidacy for president. On April 9, Russo, Trump’s environmental consultant, met with John Giordano, the agency’s assistant commissioner for compliance and enforcement, who had overseen both matters since his appointment two years earlier.
The logjam finally came unstuck. Russo promised to take steps to “alleviate” the agency’s “compliance concerns” at both Trump National properties, according to a “Dear Ed” letter summarizing the meeting that Giordano sent afterwards. “The Department appreciates your willingness to voluntarily undertake these actions thereby making an adversarial relationship unnecessary,” Giordano wrote. “I look forward to continuing this cooperative relationship as the most efficient and effective means to address the Department’s concerns.”
Six months later, in October, Giordano and Russo signed a consent order settling the Bedminster issues. It required restoration and improvements to compensate for the damaged areas; placement of markers identifying protected areas; training of golf course staff to avoid future violations; and detailed monitoring reports. The agreement imposed no fines.
The Colts Neck dispute was settled in April 2016. By then, Giordano had moved to another post in the agency, leaving Raymond Bukowski, a career agency official, to finalize a second consent order. This one required the Trump Organization to cut its water use by planting drought-resistant grasses, irrigating less of the course’s acreage, and installing sophisticated irrigation systems. Mostly, Trump Colts Neck would meet its needs by buying rights to use 15 million gallons annually from New Jersey American Water, the state’s largest water utility. (Russo said the Colts Neck golf course “had never complied with the water allocation rules of the State of New Jersey” before Trump bought it. “We saved the club,” he asserted, “and brought all environmental issues including water allocation into compliance.”)
In this case, the DEP did assess a fine: Despite five years of violations, just $294,000 — before cutting the amount in half, to $147,000 (plus $2,790 in interest), as part of the settlement. Bukowski asserts that Trump got no special treatment.
A few months later, in August 2016, Giordano left DEP to join the Trump campaign. He then became deputy general counsel to the presidential transition committee and later joined an administration “landing team” at the Energy Department. Giordano then went to work at a Philadelphia law firm and was subsequently considered for appointment as a U.S. attorney for the region, according to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. That article quoted David Urban, a lobbyist and senior Pennsylvania adviser to the Trump campaign, explaining that Giordano “put a lot of work in for the president.” Giordano told the Inquirer he was “prepared to serve my country and support the president’s agenda, whether that’s in the public or private sector.”
Ultimately, however, another attorney got the appointment. In December, Giordano, now 43, was reported to be considering a run for a New Jersey congressional seat. Recently, he posted a photo of himself with Attorney General Jeff Sessions at a Philadelphia Union League lunch, where Sessions began his speech by recognizing Giordano as a “Trump administration alumnus.”
Giordano did not respond to calls and emails seeking comment.
Meanwhile, the agreements with the state did not spell an end to the environmental problems. In April 2017, a year after the Colts Neck settlement, the Trump Organization received yet another notice from New Jersey regulators. Its golf club in Colts Neck had exceeded its monthly water limits five times in 2016. The state and the Trump Organization have not resolved the violation.
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With environmental regulations under attack and EPA budgets being slashed, can the destruction of the agency be prevented?
Like a lot of his fellow EPA professionals, John J. O’Grady is in crisis mode these days.
“You can’t describe the madness that’s going on,” he says. “It’s something that just never would have been expected.”
O’Grady, a 31-year veteran of the Environmental Protection Agency, is president of Council 238 of the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing EPA employees around the country. He’s also the national spokesman for Save the U.S. EPA, a campaign organized by the union to protect its workers — and to protect the environment from assault by the Trump administration.
The campaign has a big goal: “We’re trying to prevent the utter destruction of the EPA,” O’Grady tells The Revelator by phone. “We’re hoping there’s something left in the rubble after this particular administration leaves office, but who knows.”
Saving the agency could be a tough task considering the recent actions by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, which include rolling back regulations for clean air and water, recommending the repeal of the Clean Power Plan, removing climate change from official policies (and from EPA web pages), and extending the use of toxic pesticides.
“By his actions, you can tell Scott Pruitt’s not here to make EPA better, not to protect human health and the environment, not to make sure that the child with asthma is protected, but to deconstruct the agency,” O’Grady says.
The deconstruction starts with the plan to slash the number of people working for the EPA. The pending 2018 federal budget aims to slash the agency’s workforce by about 2,200 employees, funded by $79 million worth of buyouts (something that may or may not survive this week’s budget vote). And that’s just the start: Trump’s 2019 budget proposal contains another $35 million for EPA buyouts, or about another 1,000 people.
With that and everything else that’s gone on over the past year, O’Grady thinks a lot of EPA employees are starting to feel discouraged. “I’m very concerned that this administration under Scott Pruitt has created a very toxic environment at EPA,” he says. “Imagine if you’re a great football player and you were brought on by the team to win Super Bowls, and then you’re told, no, you have play soccer. It’s kind of similar. These people come on board EPA because they’re dedicated to protecting human health and the environment. And then they’re basically not allowed to do their jobs, and that’s creating a lot of frustration.”
If many EPA employees do stay frustrated enough to accept buyouts, the agency will be less able — or even unable — to enforce whatever regulations Administrator Pruitt leaves on the books. The EPA has never had the capacity to inspect even a fraction of all potential projects that could affect the land, water or air, but O’Grady says it had enough people on the ground doing their jobs to act as a deterrent. He equates it to the crime-reduction effect of state highway cops: If companies see one “speeder” pulled over, more of them might slow down and comply with environmental regulations.
Beyond that, a shrinking EPA workforce could also result in what O’Grady calls “brain drain and the disappearance of institutional knowledge” — a loss that could take years to reverse.
The damage done to EPA doesn’t just affect things on the federal level. It also spins down to states and local communities. “There’s a lot of talk by Scott Pruitt about ‘cooperative federalism’ and it drives me right up the wall,” O’Grady says. “We’ve been doing that for decades. Sixty-five percent of our EPA budget passes through the agency and goes directly to states, tribal authorities and municipalities. At the same time this administration is talking about pushing cooperative federalism, they’re cutting the funding that goes to the states, tribal authorities and municipalities.” That’s all made worse, he says, because at least 30 states are currently under budgetary restraints and depend on the EPA for technical assistance, scientific expertise and enforcement. “They don’t have excess funds to support additional environmental duties.”
So what’s Save the U.S. EPA doing to try to turn this around? “We’re trying to speak out as much as possible,” O’Grady says. They’ve created alliances with many environmental groups and they’re asking people to write to their elected officials. “Stay on them,” he says. “Make sure they know this is a critical issue and that they need to act accordingly.”
With all that’s going on, what gives O’Grady even a small amount of hope? “November 2018,” he says without hesitation, pointing out that several Republican representatives are up for reelection in potentially tight races, possibly enough to lessen that party’s control of all three houses of government. “I know some people are predicting a sea change,” he says. “That would be wonderful. I’d be happy if they just reduce the margin.”
Ironically, O’Grady thinks the threats to EPA are made possible by the environmental successes we’ve had over the past few decades. “People in America look at our air and they get the tap water for drinking and it all looks clean,” he says. “People should be concerned about their children and their grandchildren. They should be concerned about the quality of the water that comes out of their tap. And you know, when they take that walk in the woods, they should be assured that the land hasn’t been used for some kind of dumping. Before EPA came on board, there was a place called the Valley of the Drums. It was a valley, literally, where companies just threw their drums of spent chemicals. That’s what we’re going to see again, if this doesn’t improve.”
The most famous rhino in the world has died, leaving behind two aging females and a hole in our world.
This is the face of extinction.
Sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), died Monday at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. He was 45 years old and is survived by just two females, 27-year-old Najin and 17-year-old Fatu, neither of which are capable of breeding due to their own various health problems.
Perhaps the most famous rhino in the world, Sudan’s aging visage has graced magazine covers and newspaper articles around the world. In most of those photos he was seen accompanied by rifle-bearing guards that stood guard around the clock to protect him and his family from the threat of poachers, which continue to plague rhino populations wherever they still live.
Most recently the dating app Tinder called Sudan “the most eligible bachelor in the world,” a promotional effort that raised thousands of dollars for the conservation effort at Ol Pejeta.
“We on Ol Pejeta are all saddened by Sudan’s death,” Richard Vigne, Ol Pejeta’s CEO, said in a press release late Monday night. “He was a great ambassador for his species and will be remembered for the work he did to raise awareness globally of the plight facing not only rhinos, but also the many thousands of other species facing extinction as a result of unsustainable human activity. One day, his demise will hopefully be seen as a seminal moment for conservationists worldwide.”
The northern white rhino’s road to extinction was a long and painful one. The subspecies, which once roamed several nations in central Africa, were heavily poached throughout the first part of the 20th century, mostly to feed the rampant desire for their horns, which have been erroneously linked to traditional health treatments in China.
By 1997 the wild population of northern white rhinos had dropped to just 25 animals, all in Garamba National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nine years later that population had fallen to just four lonely animals. Poachers, emboldened and enabled by war and conflict, probably got them, too. Repeated searches in 2007, 2008 and 2011 failed to find any evidence that they had survived.
That wasn’t quite the end, though. Eight aging, non-breeding northern white rhinos remained, all living in zoos: two at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and six at Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic.
In 2009 four of the Dvůr Králové rhinos were flown to Ol Pejeta in Kenya, where it was hoped that the feel of their native sun on their backs and earth beneath their feet would inspire them to start breeding and save their species from extinction, possibly by mating and producing hybrid young with related southern white rhinos (C. s. simum).
The simple act of returning to Africa helped immensely. The animals were in “pretty poor state” when they first arrived, but “within six months of their being here their skin had improved, their toenails had improved, the whole condition of the animal had completely changed,” Richard Vigne told me in 2014. “They became semi-wild very quickly.”
And yes, there were some mating attempts, but no pregnancies ensued. Meanwhile, the last captive rhinos at San Diego and Dvůr Králové slowly passed away from old age, as did one of the four at Ol Pejeta, a male named Suni, who expired in 2014.
Now Sudan has joined the list of the dead. In all likelihood, Najin and Fatu will not be far behind.
That doesn’t mean Ol Pejeta or the worldwide conservation community have given up. For the past few years, scientists have collected sperm from the (now gone) male northern white rhinos and anticipate trying to extract eggs from the females at some point later this year. The hope is that someday that genetic material could be used to implant a fertile egg into a rhino of a different species, resulting in the (re)birth of a northern white.
That possibility of that plan working, like all such de-extinction attempts, still seems remote, but at least it still exists.
And so, for now, do the last two female northern white rhinos. Now they, like Sudan before them, are the faces of this species slowly fading away into extinction.
In part that’s because the very water the mussels filter through their bodies has also often become dangerous to them. “A lot of our streams are not as clear as they once were,” Mair says. “With all of the factories and discharges and agriculture and increases in human population, there’s a lot of pressure on our freshwater mussels.”
That’s not stopping people, though. More and more scientists are looking into how to breed mussels in captivity. Many of them are learning their craft from experts like Mair, who is one of the co-authors of a just-released book, 
Honestly there are more environmental books coming out in April than any one person could read, but we’ve tried to pick what looks like the best of the bunch for you. The full list — 14 amazing titles — includes books for just about every reader, from dedicated environmentalists to Earth-friendly kids. There’s even one for poetry fans. You can check them all out below — links are to publishers’ or authors’ websites — and then settle down in your favorite reading chair for a month of great page-turning.
Tijuana is built in the hills abutting the U.S. border, so when its wastewater system is overwhelmed it sends millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing into the Tijuana River, which crosses the border and drains into the Pacific Ocean. The floods of sewage force U.S. cities to routinely close public beaches from Imperial Beach to Coronado. (See 
