Algae bloom kills hundreds of sea lions off California
Hundreds of sea lions off the coast of California have been poisoned this year amid a “highly unusual” algae bloom that has persisted in southern and central parts of the state into October.
Experts believe the blooms, which are becoming more common, may be linked to warming and changing ocean conditions. They harm sea life when algae produce a neurotoxic chemical that can be taken up by fish and crustaceans and absorbed by the larger animals that eat them.
Off the US west coast, the proliferations of algae, sometimes called “red tides”, usually peak in the late spring. For the last three years, however, harmful blooms have come on strong in the summer and, this year, lasted into autumn before mostly petering out.
That is “highly unusual,” according to Clarissa Anderson, a researcher with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who is also the director of the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System, which tracks harmful algal blooms.
“It’s catching us all off guard,” Anderson said.
Progress seen on overall industry emissions, even as oil and gas emissions rise, EPA finds
By Shannon Kelleher
US power plants, the largest stationary sources of greenhouse gases in the nation, continue to show reduced emissions but the good news from that sector comes as oil and gas emissions rise, according to new regulatory data.
Power plant emissions totaled about 1.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide last year, down 7% from 2022, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported. The agency collects data from over 8,000 industrial facilities for its Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, accounting for about half of total US emissions.
However, greenhouse gas emissions from petroleum and natural gas plants increased 1.4% in 2023 over 2022, and the 2023 tally was up 16.4% from 2016, the EPA said.
Nine coal-fired power plants were among the top ten greenhouse gas-emitting industrial facilities for 2023, along with a Texas-based ExxonMobil refinery.
The worst emitter – for the ninth year in a row – was the James H Miller power plant outside Birmingham, Alabama.
Altogether, large industrial facilities’ greenhouse gas emissions, the chemicals that are driving human-caused climate change, dropped by 4% last year, the EPA reported.
“The progress is largely driven by the power sector, [which] has seen steadily declining emissions,” Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the National Resources Defense Council, said in an email, noting that the change reflects a shift away from coal over time. “The power sector can, and must, continue to decarbonize,” she said.
Deadly refinery leak adds to US toxic accident toll
By Dana Drugmand
A Texas oil refinery with a history of environmental violations was the site of a deadly hydrogen sulfide leak last week, killing two people and injuring more than two dozen others and adding to a long list of US industrial accidents US regulators say they are trying to rein in.
The chemical release is also the latest accident at the Houston refinery. The facility has been cited for nearly 2,000 environmental violations over the past decade.
Located in Deer Park, Texas along the Houston Ship channel, the 1500-acre refinery complex is owned by the Mexican oil company PEMEX, which took over full ownership of the facility from Shell in 2021.
The incident at the refinery, which occurred on the afternoon of October 10, killed two PEMEX employees, and at least 35 others were treated on the scene or transported for further medical attention, according to officials.
Hydrogen sulfide is a colorless, extremely flammable, highly toxic gas that gives off a rotten egg odor. Exposure at lower concentrations can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, irritation of the eyes, throat and respiratory tract and loss of smell, and acute exposure at high concentrations can result in unconsciousness and even death.
“Unfortunately, Texas has a poor track record of forcing petrochemical facilities to take safety and compliance seriously,” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said in a statement. “It makes me wonder if this awful incident could have been prevented.”
In Hurricane Milton’s wake, toxic “gypstacks” threaten Tampa Bay area
By Shannon Kelleher
As southwest Florida reels from the impact of Hurricane Milton this week, the first hurricane to directly hit the Tampa Bay area in a century, environmentalists are bracing for another possible impact – the contamination of local waterways from towering stacks of toxic industrial waste in the storm’s path.
When phosphate is processed into fertilizers for farmland, enormous quantities of phosphogypsum are left behind as heaps of concrete-like waste called “gypstacks,” which are topped with liquid waste ponds. Most US phosphate production takes place in Florida, with 25 of the 30 gypstacks located in the Sunshine State – a quantity totaling over a billion tons. The waste contains heavy metals as well as radium, which decays into a radioactive gas that causes lung cancer, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“We refer to [the stacks] as ‘Florida’s Mountains’,” said Ragan Whitlock, staff attorney for the environmental nonprofit the Center for Biological Diversity, noting that the heaps of toxic chemical waste are each hundreds of feet wide and hundreds of feet tall. “Lesser storms than hurricanes have created massive structural integrity problems at these stack systems,” he said.
Of Florida’s 25 gypstacks, 22 were “at least generally in Hurricane Milton’s track,” said Whitlock, with three located directly near the bay. Whitlock said he is worried about pollution from the stacks impacting both the bay and the Floridan aquifer, which almost 10 million people depend on for drinking water.
The largest US producer of phosphate fertilizer, The Mosaic Company, confirmed in an email Friday that stormwater at its Riverview site, where it stores toxic phosphogypsum waste from fertilizer production, made its way into Tampa Bay after a water collection system onsite became overwhelmed following the hurricane.
“At this time, we believe some of that impacted stormwater made its way to an outfall which discharges into Tampa Bay,” said the Mosaic spokesperson. “The issue was addressed yesterday and is not continuing. The volume may have been greater than the 17,500 gallon reporting standard. We expect water quality impacts, if any, to be modest.”
Mosaic said in a September 30 statement that early assessments showed “limited damage” to its facilities following Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm that hit Florida on September 27, although its Riverview facility “experienced water intrusion caused by the storm surge.” In an early June statement, Mosaic said it was “prepped and ready” for hurricane season.