Tag: Green Living

Reintroduction of 170 European Bison Could Help Remove CO2 Equivalent of 43,000 Cars, Study Finds

A keystone species, bison once roamed the American Great Plains in the tens of millions, but were hunted to near extinction.

Bison are known as ecosystem engineers because they perform many services for the habitats in which they live, like rolling around and packing down soil in wallows that collect rainwater and grazing on different heights of grasses, which provide birds with nesting grounds.

A new study by researchers from Yale University and Memorial University of Newfoundland has found that a herd of 170 bison being reintroduced to the Țarcu mountains of Romania could help sequester carbon dioxide emissions equal to removing at least 43,000 gas-powered cars from United States roads for one year, reported The Guardian.

“Most carbon cycle models do not consider animal-mediated effects, focusing instead on carbon exchanges among plants, microbes, and the atmosphere. Yet, a growing body of empirical evidence from diverse ecosystems points to pervasive animal effects on ecosystem carbon cycling and shows that ignoring them could lead to misrepresentation of an ecosystem’s carbon cycle,” the study said.

More than two centuries ago, Romania lost its last European bison. However, in 2014 the species was reintroduced to the Carpathian mountains by WWF Romania and Rewilding Europe, The Guardian reported. The 100 who were brought to the Tarcu mountains have grown to more than 170 — one of the biggest free-roaming bison populations on the European continent. The landscape can accommodate as many as 350 to 450 individuals.

For the study, the researchers used a model developed at the Yale School for the Environment. It calculates how much atmospheric carbon wildlife assists in capturing and storing in soils through their ecosystem interactions.

“Bison influence grassland and forest ecosystems by grazing grasslands evenly, recycling nutrients to fertilise the soil and all of its life, dispersing seeds to enrich the ecosystem, and compacting the soil to prevent stored carbon from being released,” said professor Oswald Schmitz, lead author of the study and a professor of population and community ecology at Yale University, as reported by The Guardian.

The herd of 170 graze in a grasslands area of nearly 19.3 square miles inside the wider Țarcu mountain range. The research team found that the bison could potentially capture another 59,525 tons of carbon annually.

The team said the number corresponds with the amount of annual carbon dioxide released by an average of at least 43,000 gas-powered cars in the U.S., or 123,000 in Europe, due to their increased energy efficiency.

“These creatures evolved for millions of years with grassland and forest ecosystems, and their removal, especially where grasslands have been ploughed up, has led to the release of vast amounts of carbon. Restoring these ecosystems can bring back balance, and ‘rewilded’ bison are some of the climate heroes that can help achieve this,” Schmitz said.

When bison browse and graze, it helps with the maintenance of a biodiverse landscape of scrub, grasslands, forests and microhabitats.

Their return to the Țarcu has inspired eco-businesses and tourism centered around rewilding.

Schmitz explained that the climate and soil conditions of the Carpathian mountain grasslands are specific, so bison’s impacts might not be the same in other locations around the world, such as prairies in the U.S., which are much less productive.

“This research opens up a whole new raft of options for climate policymakers around the world. Until now, nature protection and restoration has largely been treated as another challenge and cost that we need to face alongside the climate emergency. This research shows we can address both challenges: we can bring back nature through rewilding and this will draw down vast amounts of carbon, helping to stabilise the global climate,” said Magnus Sylvén, Global Rewilding Alliance’s director of science policy practice, as The Guardian reported.

The team explored the details of nine species — including sea otters, musk oxen and tropical forest elephants — and have started looking into others.

“Many of them show similar promise to these bison, often doubling an ecosystem’s capacity to draw down and store carbon, and sometimes much more. This really is a policy option with massive potential,” Schmitz said, as reported by The Guardian.

The study, “Rewiring the Carbon Cycle: A Theoretical Framework for Animal-Driven Ecosystem Carbon Sequestration,” was published in the journal JGR Biogeosciences.

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Sea Otters Use Tools to Break Open Larger Prey, Sparing Their Teeth, Study Finds

The adorable otter is North America’s smallest marine mammal, as well as the largest species of the weasel family, which also includes skunks, badgers and wolverines.

With roughly 3,000 southern sea otters left in California, they are listed as threatened under the United States Endangered Species Act and play a crucial role in the restoration of the state’s damaged kelp forests, a press release from UT Austin said.

A new study by a team of researchers from Monterey Bay Aquarium; University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz); The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin); and elsewhere has found that otters who use tools like rocks and shells to break open the thick outer layers of mollusks are able to eat bigger prey, giving them higher rates of energy consumption while reducing wear on their teeth.

According to Chris Law — a UT Austin postdoctoral researcher who was the study’s lead author while a UC Santa Cruz graduate student — sea otters prefer to eat abalone and sea urchins, which are relatively easy to break apart, but those delicacies are declining, reported The Guardian.

The researchers said that, due to the absence of their preferred foods, sea otters often look for clams, mussels, marine snails and crabs. However, the snails’ hard shells can be damaging to their teeth.

“There’s fishing and habitat destruction, so their favorite prey are gone and they have to switch to alternative preys,” Law said, as The Guardian reported. “What we found is that [using tools] actually allows them to switch to those prey.”

The research team enlisted volunteers to track 196 southern sea otters off the California coast to gain a better understanding of how they use tools in a habitat that is changing quickly, the press release said. The team monitored tool use and linked it to the otters’ dental health and dietary patterns.

They found that using the tools meant less tooth injuries.

“Sea otters vary in how often they use tools,” Law said in the press release. “The females are likely using tools to overcome their smaller body size and weaker biting ability in order to meet their calorie demands. Raising pups takes a lot of energy, and the females need to be efficient in their foraging. The study shows that tool use is an important behavior for survival.”

The study, “Tool use increases mechanical foraging success and tooth health in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis),” was published in the journal Science.

While using tools widened the availability of different types of prey for both female and male otters, the researchers found that female otters had less damage to their teeth. It is more likely for female otters to use tools, research has shown, and the new study found that those who did had access to larger or harder prey than those who did not. The researchers found that females were able to eat prey that were as much as 35 percent harder in comparison with males who used tools.

Females of other species, such as chimpanzees, bonobos and dolphins, have also been known to utilize tools more often than males. Females of these species tend to raise their offspring and are the ones who pass down their tool-using behavior.

“This behavior really allows them to eat other prey items and in an environment where that’s depleted. It really just showcases how it’s important for their overall survival. If there are no urchins and abalone for them to eat and they are faced with other prey types they can’t open, they can’t survive,” Law said, as reported by The Guardian.

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Scientists Detect Microplastics in Testicular Tissue

Researchers at the University of New Mexico have found concentrations of microplastics in the testicular tissue of humans and dogs. The findings raise concerns over how these particles can impact the reproductive system.

The project started when study lead Xiaozhong Yu, a professor at the university’s College of Nursing, spoke with colleague Matthew Campen, professor at the university’s College of Pharmacy, about environmental factors impacting sperm count and quality. Campen had previously revealed the presence of microplastics in human placentas.

Yu led a team of researchers who replicated the method used in Campen’s research to analyze testicle tissue samples obtained for testing from the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator and from animal shelters and veterinary clinics in Albuquerque, as the University of New Mexico reported.

They used advanced sensitive Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) to detect and measure the presence of microplastics. “Our study revealed the presence of microplastics in all human and canine testes,” Yu said.

They found 12 different types of microplastics in testicular tissue samples of 23 humans and 47 dogs. The scientists published their findings in the journal Toxicological Sciences.

Not only did the researchers find evidence of microplastics in the testicular tissue samples, but they also found them at higher concentrations than the average concentrations found in tissues from placenta samples in Campen’s study.

“At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system,” Yu said. “When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans.”

The study authors noted an average concentration of 122.63 micrograms in canine testes and 329.44 micrograms in human testes. The most common type of microplastic found in both the human and dog tissue samples was polyethylene (PE), although the researchers noted no correlation between PE concentrations in the dogs’ tissue samples with lower sperm count. They did, however, find a link between higher PVC concentrations in the canine samples with lower sperm count.

“The plastic makes a difference – what type of plastic might be correlated with potential function,” Yu explained. “PVC can release a lot of chemicals that interfere with spermatogenesis and it contains chemicals that cause endocrine disruption.”

As the Center for Environmental Health, which was not part of the study, reported, PVC is often treated with chemicals like phthalates and bisphenol-A (BPA) to make it less brittle, but the additives can pose health risks, including risks to hormones.

Yu pointed out that the study findings are not meant to scare anyone, but they can help increase awareness and help the public make more informed decisions and try to avoid microplastics.

“We need to really look at what the potential long-term effect,” Yu said. “Are microplastics one of the factors contributing to this decline?”

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Landfills 101: Everything You Need to Know

Quick Key Facts

What Is a Landfill? 

A school adjoins the Dandora landfill, the biggest dumpsite in East Africa and the destination of solid waste generated by Nairobi, Kenya, on Feb. 23, 2023. It was declared full in 1996 but is still operating and many people go there to find plastic, food or clothes they can sell. Simone Boccaccio / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Most of us barely have to think about our trash. We throw it in a bin, take the bag to the curb, then the garbage truck comes and takes it away. Pretty quickly, our waste becomes invisible to us, but it has to end up somewhere. 

Waste comes from many different streams — households, industrial settings, workplaces, medical facilities, etc. — and our current system for trash and garbage disposal primarily entails burying it underground. In the U.S., waste generated by homes and businesses is most commonly sent to landfills: huge repositories in the earth to be filled with trash and covered over. The first modern sanitary landfill was created in California in 1937, but the practice became more widely adapted in the 1960s and 70s as waste production rose, and municipalities sought ways to limit unsanitary waste disposal. In 1976, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was passed and created requirements for landfills to protect surrounding environments. Now, there are more than 2,600 landfills for municipal solid waste (MSW) in the U.S., a waste category that encompasses things like wood, paper, textiles, furniture, glass, plastic, some electronics and more. 

Why Do We Have Landfills? 

The Calabasas landfill in Los Angeles County, California on Jan. 22, 2008. Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

We generate huge amounts of waste and we’re only creating more. Single-use plastics and highly wasteful industries like fast fashion have become ubiquitous in practically every area of our lives. Trash generation has more than tripled since the 1960s, resulting in a current average of 4.9 pounds of MSW generated per person per day. With 11.2 billion tons of MSW produced every year, we need somewhere to put it, and landfills provide that solution. 

Our increased waste is also tied to population growth and urbanization. The more the population grows, the greater our demand for manufactured products and materials, and the more we depend on landfills. According to the World Bank, global waste generation is expected to increase by 73% from 2020 levels by 2050. 

The U.S. in particular generates a great deal of waste. Despite making up only 4% of the global population, the U.S. is responsible for 12% of the planet’s trash. It has historically exported its waste to other countries to handle, but in recent years, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam have put bans in place on imported waste, further increasing the need for domestic repositories for trash, such as landfills. 

While some waste can get recovered or recycled — and some of it is burned — the majority is sent to landfills. In 2018, 69 million tons of MWS was recycled and 25 million tons was composted, which amounts to about 32.1% of all MWS. About 3 million tons was combusted, leaving 146 million tons — half of the total — to be sent to landfills. In the absence of large-scale municipal recycling and composting programs, waste is thrown away when it could have been diverted to other streams. Our recycling system, however, isn’t perfect either — ultimately, only 9% of plastics gets recycled. With bans on our junk being imported to other countries to deal with — leaving about 19,000 shipping containers worth of plastic recycling with nowhere to go every month — much of this waste is being sent to domestic landfills instead.

Are There Different Types of Landfills? 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Different types of landfills exist for different types of waste, as categorized by the EPA. All are supposed to meet nationwide criteria established under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which sets forth requirements for landfills in the absence of state programs including location restrictions, requirements for liners and toxin collection/removal systems, and required operating practices.

Solid Waste Landfills 

Heavy machinery spreads garbage at the King County Cedar Hills Regional Landfill facilities, a municipal solid waste landfill near Maple Valley, Washington on Oct. 5, 2023. Wolfgang Kaehler / LightRocket via Getty Images

Municipal Solid Waste Landfills (MSWLFs) are primarily for the waste that’s generated in our homes, schools, hospitals and businesses, as well as some nonhazardous materials from industry and construction. There are about 2,600 MSWLFs in the U.S., managed by the individual states they reside in. MSW is usually brought to transfer stations in municipalities, then transported on large, long-distance trucks to MSWLs. 

Bioreactor landfills also fall under this category, and are used for degrading organic waste quickly. In these landfills, liquids are added to help bacteria break the waste down using either aerobic or anaerobic techniques. 

The Yolo County Landfill Bioreactor in California was built to accelerate the decomposition of waste and produce renewable energy in 5 to 10 years. Yolo County

Industrial Waste Landfills are used for commercial and institutional waste. For example, Construction and Demolition Debris Landfills are repositories for heavy and bulky materials like wood, concrete, drywall, salvaged components of buildings like plumbing and windows, metal and glass generated during construction and demolition of roads, bridges and buildings. This accounts for a large amount of waste in the U.S. — in 2018, 600 million tons of C&D debris were generated, which is more than twice the amount of MSW. Demolition itself accounts for 90% of all C&D waste. 

The former 38-acre Ascon Landfill operated from 1938 to 1984, taking much of its waste from oil drilling operations and construction debris, pictured in Huntington Beach, California on May 30, 2019. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Coal Combustion Residual Landfills fall under the Industrial Waste category too, housing the nearly 130 million tons of coal ash generated every year from the burning of coal in power plants. After a large coal ash spill in Tennessee in 2008 flooded 300 acres of land and got into two rivers, the EPA established that these materials must be disposed of in such landfills. 

Thousands of tons of coal fly ash deposited in an unlined landfill in Chester, West Virginia on Sept. 10, 2008. The fly ash originates from the coal-fired 2460 MW Bruce Mansfield Power Plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. Fly ash contains toxic heavy metals including arsenic, selenium, mercury, cadmium, chromium and lead. Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images

Hazardous Waste Landfills

Hazardous Waste landfills are exactly what they sound like: repositories for only hazardous waste that is flammable, toxic or chemically reactive, including things like household cleaners, chemical waste, paint and aerosols. These types of landfills are the most regulated by the EPA, and are monitored even after their closure for toxic leachate.

The Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Washington on June 30, 2005. The landfill holds discarded contaminated soil, building materials and debris from cleanup work following Hanford’s decades as a plutonium production complex since the 1940s. Jeff T. Green / Getty Images

Open Dump Landfills 

Residents living near the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, California say it should be closed due to odors, contamination and health risks, pictured on Nov. 22, 2023. Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

When we talk about landfills, we’re typically referring to “sanitary landfills” — that is, municipal landfills that are regulated and controlled. However, open dump landfills are common in many areas of the Global South, and are used by about 70% of countries for disposing MSW. Without municipal waste disposal programs, these dumps are where trash often ends up. 

Because these landfills typically aren’t regulated or controlled, they’re more likely to cause fires, attract pests and pollute the surrounding area. The toxic gases they produce are also not contained, so methane is released into the nearby environment. Water contamination is a primary problem around open dump landfills. Without groundwater monitoring systems in place, toxins make their way into groundwater and nearby drinking water, which has the potential to transmit infection and disease.

Basic Components and Operations of a Landfill 

Open dumping is illegal in the U.S., and landfills must follow certain design and operation guidelines as established under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), although they’re created and managed state-by-state. 

The major components of sanitary landfills include the following:

  • Leachate collection system. Leachate is the liquid that percolates through the landfill, picking up toxins as it moves. Once it reaches the bottom of the landfill, it’s collected by perforated tubes and pumped out into a collection area, and then a holding pond where it’s treated to remove the harmful toxins. 
  • Plastic liner system (or “composite liner”). The liner — created from a layer of compacted clay and specific types of plastic — is meant to keep the landfill completely sealed so groundwater and soil aren’t contaminated by leachate.
To reduce the formation of liquids, gases and dust, geomembrane waterproofing is used in municipal solid waste landfills like this one in Italy pictured on Aug. 20, 2023. It acts as a barrier between covered material and the surrounding space to prevent the spread of pollutant leachate. Marco Scataglini / UCG / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
  • Cells are the areas where trash is dumped and compacted, allowing landfills to be filled in a segmented manner. Every day, waste is tipped into the active cell, which gets mechanically compacted. Layers of soil are laid down to cover the trash at intervals, and help to prevent odor. When the cell becomes full, another one is started.
  • Stormwater drainage systems collect the rainwater that lands on the landfill, move it to drainage ditches, and then to collection ponds. 
  • Methane collection systems are needed to collect the methane — a potent greenhouse gas — that forms during the decomposition of organic waste. Landfills are among the largest sources of methane in the U.S., and collection systems prevent it from being released into the air. Wells, pipes and pumps collect the methane, where it’s then piped to a facility that processes it and removes impurities. From there, the refined methane can be distributed for such uses as vehicle fuel and electricity. About 500 MSW landfills collect methane for energy in this way.

The Pioneer Crossing Landfill in Berks County, Pennsylvania uses methane gas, a byproduct of the decomposition of waste, to produce electricity for the local utility company. J.P. Mascaro & Sons

  • Environmental monitoring systems monitor the groundwater, storm water, and gas around landfills. Pipes go down into the groundwater to find whether they’ve become warmer or more acidic, which could mean that leachate is escaping and getting into the landfill’s surrounding environment.
  • The Cap seals the top of the landfill. Usually, a layer of compacted soil or clay is put down, then layers of fabric and plastic before a 2-foot layer of soil (sometimes followed by more inches of topsoil) is put down so vegetation can grow on top of it.

How Does Waste Act Inside a Landfill?

Waste acts much differently inside a landfill than it would in your trash can, or when merely left out in the open. Different types of waste also act differently, posing unique problems depending on their makeup. 

Organic Waste 

What’s so bad about putting food in a landfill? It’ll just break down eventually, right? Not exactly.

Food is the largest category of landfilled material, according to the EPA, accounting for about 24%. The dark, anaerobic — that is, oxygen-free — environment of a landfill means that the insects and microorganisms needed to properly break down these materials aren’t present. Decomposition thus happens much, much slower, and releases a lot of methane as a byproduct. In a landfill, it can take decades for food to break down completely. By some estimates, a head of lettuce won’t completely decompose for 25 years. In other cases, food may not decompose at all. 

Piles of discarded fruit at the Shelford Landfill, Recycling & Composting Centre near Canterbury, England on Aug. 23, 2007. Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images

Plastics

In landfills, most polymers and plastics remain “unchanged,” according to a 2022 study. Abundant evidence shows that plastic never really degrades, but rather breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually creating microplastics. The forces and environmental conditions of landfills — like gas, the pH of leachate, high salinity, temperature fluctuation, high pressure, etc. — can cause plastics to fragment into microplastics that can then be transported out of landfills in leachate and pollute nearby areas. Microplastic abundance in landfill refuse is between 20,000 and 91,000 items/kg — higher than the concentration in sewage sludge and agricultural soil. Therefore, when you throw a piece of plastic in a bag of landfill-bound trash, that doesn’t guarantee it’ll remain sealed off from the environment forever. 

Energy Recovery in Landfills 

The McCarty Road Landfill in Houston, one of the largest waste disposal facilities in Texas, reclaims methane produced in the landfill to power generators and make renewable natural gas, pictured on May 31, 2022. Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

Sometimes after a landfill is capped, the gases that form within it over time are vented out for energy recovery efforts. These gases can be used to generate electricity or as medium-Btu fuel, and have uses for vehicle fuel, pipeline gas, industrial and institutional buildings, and creating electricity for the grid. They’re recovered using a series of wells and vacuum systems that direct it to a collection area, after which it’s processed and can then be used. About 68% of all landfill gas (LFG) projects is for generating electricity, and 16% is used to offset another fuel, like fracked gas and coal. Another 16% is used to make renewable natural gas (RNG), a high-Btu gas that can be used instead of fossil natural gas. 

Why Are Landfills a Problem? 

On the surface, landfills seem like a logical solution to our waste — if we have nowhere else to put it, why not bury it? Landfills do, however, present serious and potentially life-threatening risks to nearby communities and the environment.

Location 

A plastic liner covers a portion of the Fresh Kills Landfill on the New York City borough of Staten Island, formerly the largest landfill in the world, on June 30, 1995. James Leynse / Corbis via Getty Images

Federal and state regulations mandate where landfills can be built, placing restrictions on building near wetlands or flood zones without certain performance standards in place. In some states, they can’t be put near bodies of water at all. But many landfills are poorly managed, leaving them susceptible to environmental conditions and leading to pollution. Landfills are also associated with poorer quality of life when placed near residential communities, discussed further in the next section. 

Residents of North Bellport, New York say the nearby Brookhaven Town recycling and landfill facility releases toxic emissions and odors, pictured on April 25, 2023. Steve Pfost / Newsday RM via Getty Images

Soil Pollution 

Like water moving through coffee grounds, rainwater moving through landfills becomes saturated with the toxins inside the trash, eventually reaching the bottom as leachate. Some of this liquid does get collected by the leachate collection system, but if there are any holes in the lining, it can easily escape into the surrounding environment. Nearby soil is destroyed by the toxic chemicals, impacting the ability of plants to grow there and threatening the biodiversity of the area. 

Workers cover potential airborne debris and gases on a portion of the West Lake Landfill in St. Louis, Missouri on June 1, 2017. The site was an unlined mixed-waste landfill whose contents included illegally dumped radioactive waste. It’s also an EPA Superfund cleanup site. Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images

Air Pollution 

Air quality also suffers around landfills. Particulates, dust and other air pollutants can escape from landfills. Vinyl chloride, ethyl benzene and toluene, are just some of the hazardous air pollutants emitted from MSW landfills. Respiratory problems — among other adverse health conditions — have been linked to landfill-related air pollution. 

The largest and oldest open-air dump in Argentina is Lujan in Buenos Aires, pictured on March 1, 2024. For 60 years, millions of tons of municipal waste have accumulated in the landfill, which overlooks a lagoon with a rich variety of flora and fauna. The landfill continues to leak leachate as well as toxic gases and smoke into the environment, the surrounding water tables and lagoons. Luciano Gonzalez / Anadolu via Getty Images

Water Pollution 

When landfill leakages occur and leachate gets into groundwater, it becomes contaminated with toxins in industry and household waste, as well as electronics, which contain mercury, cadmium and lead. Ammonia is often in leachate, and produces nitrate. High concentrations of nitrate in ecosystems causes eutrophication, a process by which a high nutrient concentration in water leads to an explosion of plant life and algal growth, creating “dead zones” devoid of oxygen. Besides ammonia, leachate can also transport bacteria and heavy metals into groundwater, potentially contaminating drinking water. 

A large covering that will eventually stretch over a 30-acre area to better suppress odors and emissions from an underground landfill fire at Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic, California on Feb. 22, 2024. Environmental regulators found elevated levels of cancer-causing benzene in the polluted water spilling onto the surface of the landfill. Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Landfill Gas and Greenhouse Gases 

Landfill gas (LFG), formed from the breakdown of organic waste inside the landfill, is mostly methane and CO2 (90-98%), but also contains nitrogen, oxygen, ammonia, hydrogen, and sulfides, among others. Its makeup depends on the specific conditions and age of the landfill, as well as temperature and water content, but some landfills can produce gas for up to 50 years. 

Methane is a primary cause for concern in LFG, formed from the slow decomposition of organic matter in the airtight, anaerobic conditions of the landfill. Landfills are the third largest source of methane emissions in the U.S., and for a greenhouse gas that’s 25% more potent than CO2, this has major implications for global climate change. Methane is also highly flammable. In March 2022, a massive fire started at a landfill site outside of Delhi, India, releasing toxins into the air. The fire, unfortunately, came right on the heels of an analysis stating that New Delhi was already the most polluted capital in the world

Workers use backhoe loaders to move the waste at the biggest landfill in Delhi, India on July 28, 2020. Amarjeet Kumar Singh / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Besides its climate-warming components, landfill gases can also get into structures near the landfill. They come up through the soil in a process called “soil vapor intrusion,” collecting in poorly-ventilated areas and polluting the indoor air of nearby buildings.  

Human Health 

People wearing protective masks hold banners with pictures of polluted areas during a demonstration by Comitato Stop Biocidio (Stop to Biocide Committee) highlighting environmental problems of the Campania Region such as illegal landfills, the burning of toxic waste and the consequent growth of tumors among the population, in Naples, Campania, Italy on June 6, 2020. Manuela Ricci / KONTROLAB / LightRocket via Getty Images

These gases, pollutants and toxins impact the health of people who live near landfills. Open or poorly-managed landfills can lead to drinking water contamination, thereby transmitting diseases and causing infection. Documented adverse health outcomes include higher risk of cancer and birth defects in infants. Trichloroethylene (TCE) is just one carcinogen associated with leachate, entering the soil and groundwater near landfills. Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide are also harmful to humans and can cause coughing, difficulty breathing, and trigger asthma, headaches, nausea, and irritation in the eyes, nose and throat. For those who live near waste lagoons of landfills, adverse health outcomes are an especially serious problem. 

Why Are Landfills an Environmental Justice Issue?

It has long been the case that landfills are constructed more often near communities of color and low-income neighborhoods. A 1983 study conducted by Congress’s Government Accountability Office found that in eight southeastern states, 75% of hazardous waste landfill sites were located in communities that were primarily Black, Latine and low-income. This puts marginalized communities at greater health risk. The proximity of landfills to housing also keeps property values low, which can make it hard for residents to sell their property and escape the health hazards. 

What Can We Do? 

Minimize Waste

In the simplest terms, to reduce our dependence on landfills, we need to reduce our waste. Diverting our waste through recycling and composting can keep waste out of landfills, as can just using less stuff altogether. 

The recycling system in the U.S. is far from perfect. Due to a combination of many factors — including the un-recyclability of many materials, poor waste systems and lack of recycling systems in some areas — only about 9% of plastic actually gets recycled. However, when done properly, taking part in recycling programs keeps these materials out of landfills. Composting at home or through municipal programs is another important step, and is possible no matter where you live. An estimated 8-10% of yearly GHG emissions are associated with unconsumed food, and 30-40% of our national food supply is wasted every year. Composting keeps that organic waste from entering landfills in the first place, where it’ll decompose and produce methane. 

Because construction and demolition are huge sources of landfill waste, it’s also crucial that we reduce their waste materials by preserving existing buildings rather than constructing new ones, or by reusing and repurposing existing materials. 

Green waste decomposes at a composting facility at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine, California on Nov. 2, 2022. Paul Bersebach / MediaNews Group / Orange County Register via Getty Images

Legislative Action

Many of these solutions might seem like they’re out of our hands. How are we as individual people supposed to create a better global recycling system? How are we supposed to redistribute construction materials so they aren’t wasted? We can stop using single-use plastics on our own, but how can we make that change on a larger scale? How can we as individuals create a more just and sustainable MSW system?

Voting isn’t a silver bullet for all of our problems, but it’s an important tool we have in bringing about change. Vote for local and federal legislators who have platforms based on environmental action and justice, including the implementation of sustainable integrated waste management on a larger scale. Better-managed and engineered facilities for waste that meet environmental requirements and aren’t placed in sensitive areas is an important step. New York City — where residential composting is now mandatory – is one success story, and shows how large-scale composting solutions can be implemented by people in power. There are models for other ways of handling our waste. In Sweden, for example, 0% of MSW ends up in landfills, due in part to good recycling infrastructure and biological treatment of waste.

Coming up with other uses for the land that landfills occupy has been another topic of conversation. Many landfills in the U.S. have been identified as promising locations for solar farms, and many have already been built, using that land to create clean, renewable energy. 

The Hickory Ridge Landfill near Atlanta, Georgia opened in 2011 as the world’s largest landfill solar energy cap, including 10 acres of solar panels generating enough electricity to power 224 homes. Jeff Greenberg / Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Takeaway

Landfills aren’t merely dumping grounds for our trash, but rather are complex, regulated structures with many components. Soil, air, and water pollution is just one set of issues associated with landfills, along with greenhouse gas emissions, injustices on nearby communities, and steep costs to human health. Creating a more just and sustainable system of waste management that minimizes our reliance on landfills — and makes the landfills we do have better-engineered, better-managed, and better-monitored – will be an effort that incorporates both personal action and large-scale legislation, and changes in how we view and handle waste in our culture.

The Puente Hills Park project in Industry, California involves re-landscaping what had been a vast landfill into a recreation/wilderness area. The landfill closed in 2013 after operating for 56 years. Pictured on June 28, 2023. Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Bottled water is full of microplastics. Is it still ‘natural’?

Is bottled water really “natural” if it’s contaminated with microplastics? A series of lawsuits recently filed against six bottled water brands claim that it’s deceptive to use labels like “100 percent mountain spring water” and “natural spring water” — not because of the water’s provenance, but because it is likely tainted with tiny plastic fragments.

Reasonable consumers, the suits allege, would read those labels and assume bottled water to be totally free of contaminants; if they knew the truth, they might not have bought it. “Plaintiff would not have purchased, and/or would not have paid a price premium” for bottled water had they known it contained “dangerous substances,” reads the lawsuit filed against the bottled water company Poland Spring. 

The six lawsuits target the companies that own Arrowhead, Crystal Geyser, Evian, Fiji, Ice Mountain, and Poland Spring.  They are variously seeking damages for lost money, wasted time, and “stress, aggravation, frustration, loss of trust, loss of serenity, and loss of confidence in product labeling.”

Experts aren’t sure it’s a winning legal strategy, but it’s a creative new approach for consumers hoping to protect themselves against the ubiquity of microplastics. Research over the past several years has identified these particles — fragments of plastic less than 5 millimeters in diameter — just about everywhere, in nature and in people’s bodies. Studies have linked them to an array of health concerns, including heart disease, reproductive problems, metabolic disorder, and, in one recent landmark study, an increased risk of death from any cause.

Of the six class-action lawsuits, five were filed earlier this year by the law firm of Todd M. Friedman, a consumer protection and employment firm with locations in California, Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The sixth was filed by the firm Ahdoot & Wolfson on behalf of a New York City resident.

Each lawsuit uses the same general argument to make its case, beginning with research on the prevalence of microplastics in bottled water. Several of them cite a 2018 study from Orb Media and the State University of New York in Fredonia that found microplastic contamination in 93 percent of bottles tested across 11 brands in nine countries. In half of the brands tested, researchers found more than 1,000 pieces of microplastic per liter. (A standard bottle can hold about half a liter of water.) More recent research has found that typical water bottles have far higher levels: 240,000 particles per liter on average, taking into account smaller fragments known as “nanoplastics.”

The complaints then go on to argue that bottled water contaminated with microplastics cannot be “natural,” as implied by product labels like “natural artisan water” (Fiji), “100 percent natural spring water” (Poland Spring), and “natural spring water” (Evian). The suit against Poland Spring cites a dictionary definition of natural as “existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.” That lawsuit and the others also point to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which does not strictly regulate the use of the word “natural” but has “a longstanding policy” of considering the term to mean a food is free from synthetic or artificial additives “that would not normally be expected to be in that food.”.

The lawsuit against Arrowhead bottled water, advertised as “100 percent mountain spring water,” argues that it’s the “100 percent” that’s deceptive. “Reasonable consumers do not understand the term ‘100 percent’ to mean ‘99 percent,’ ‘98 percent,’ ‘97 percent,’ or any other percentage except for ‘100 percent,’” the complaint reads. In other words, consumers expect a product that’s labeled as 100 percent water to contain exactly 0 percent microplastics.

Are reasonable consumers really taking labels so literally? Jeff Sovern, a professor of consumer protection law at the University of Maryland, said it’s “plausible” that people would expect bottled water labeled as “natural” to not contain non-natural microplastics, but it’s hard to say without conducting a survey. It will be up to judges to evaluate that argument — if the cases go to trial. One of the lawsuits filed by the firm of Todd M. Friedman against the company that owns Crystal Geyser was withdrawn last month, potentially a sign that the parties reached a settlement.

“A lot of these types of cases get settled,” said Laura Smith, legal director of the nonprofit Truth in Advertising, Inc. This may reflect the strength of the plaintiffs’ arguments, or it could reflect a company’s desire to avoid the expense of going to court.

In response to Grist’s request for comment, Evian — owned by Danone — said it could not comment on active litigation, but that it “denies the allegations and will vigorously defend itself in the lawsuit.” 

“Microplastics and nanoplastics are found throughout the environment in our soil, air, and water, and their presence is a complex and evolving area of science,” a spokesperson told Grist, adding that the FDA has not issued regulations for nano- or microplastic particles in food and beverage products.

The companies named in the other lawsuits — BlueTriton Brands Inc., CG Roxane LLC, and The Wonderful Co. LLC — did not respond to requests for comment.

Erica Cirino, a spokesperson for the nonprofit Plastic Pollution Coalition, said the new lawsuits are part of a longstanding effort to hold bottled water companies accountable not only for microplastic contamination, but also for other misleading claims about their products’ purity. A lawsuit against Nestlé in 2017 said its “Pure Life Purified” brand name and labels misrepresented the purity of its water, in violation of the California Legal Remedies Act. That case was dismissed in 2019 for a “failure to allege a cognizable legal theory”; the latest lawsuits’ “natural” claims represent a different tactic.

Rows of Evian bottled water on a table, with blurred plant in the background. Labels say natural spring water.
Evian-branded bottled water.
Roy Rochlin / Getty Images

Perhaps the best-known legal challenges have involved the origin of so-called “spring water.” In 2017, for example, a class-action lawsuit against Nestlé Waters North America, which owned Poland Spring at the time, said the company was fooling customers into buying “ordinary groundwater.” A U.S. district court judge dismissed that suit in 2018 on the grounds that its allegations improperly cited violations of a state law, rather than a federal one. Nestlé settled a similar lawsuit in 2003 for $10 million, though it denied that its practices had been deceptive.

More recent lawsuits have taken aim at bottled water companies’ claims that their products are “carbon neutral,” or that their bottles are “100 percent recyclable.” Only 9 percent of plastics worldwide ever get recycled. 

Many of these lawsuits have yet to be evaluated by a judge, although a 2021 complaint against Niagara Bottling over “100 percent recyclable” labels was tossed out by a U.S. district court judge in New York in the following year.

According to Smith, one hurdle for these lawsuits is that they’re only able to cite research on the microplastics’ potential to damage people’s health, rather than actual damages that they’ve suffered from drinking contaminated bottled water. Even if the plaintiffs did have health problems linked to microplastics, these particles are ubiquitous; it would be nearly impossible to isolate the effects from drinking microplastics in bottled water from those of microplastics found everywhere else.

“It’s a wider systemic issue with our entire food and beverage supply,” Cirino said.

Keeping microplastics out of people’s bodies would require a similarly systemic approach, potentially involving government rules and incentives for companies to replace single-use plastics with reusables made from glass and aluminum — as well as an overall reduction in the amount of plastic the world makes. In the meantime, one recent article in The Dieline floated the idea of putting microplastics warning labels on plastic water bottles

Of course, anyone worried about drinking plastic could turn to tap water, which typically has lower concentrations of microplastics and other contaminants, and is hundreds of times cheaper than water from a plastic bottle. Research suggests that more than 96 percent of the United States’ community water systems meet government standards for potability.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Bottled water is full of microplastics. Is it still ‘natural’? on May 20, 2024.

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Oil companies contaminated a family farm. The courts and regulators let the drillers walk away.

The first sign of trouble bubbled up from gopher holes a stone’s throw from Stan Ledgerwood’s front door. The salt water left an oily sheen on the soil and a swath of dead grass in the yard.

It was June 2017, and Ledgerwood and his wife, Tina, had recently built a home on the family farm, 230 acres of green amidst the rolling hills and long horizons of south-central Oklahoma. There they planned to spend their retirement, close to Stan’s parents on land that has been in the family since 1920.

The view from the porch took in Stan’s parents’ house, two rows of pecan trees his great-grandfather had planted in the 1930s, and the forest shielding the Washita River, a muddy brown ribbon flowing along the southern edge of the farm. The nearest town, Maysville, has a population of 1,087.

“The only people who come down our road are either lost or the mailman,” said Stan, a husky man with a biting sense of humor.

Also visible from the porch was metal piping in a red-gated enclosure: an aging oil well.

Like many property owners in this rural farming community, the Ledgerwoods own their land but only a meager percentage of the oil beneath it. Pump jacks nod up and down in nearby fields of soybeans and alfalfa.

A woman in a black tee shirt and jeans stands next to a man in a gray tee shirt and black jeans next to a row of trees.
Stan and Tina Ledgerwood in the family’s pecan grove.
Mark Olalde/ProPublica

Stan’s 84-year-old parents, Don and Shirley Ledgerwood, have watched oil companies drill multiple wells on their farm, where the family had grown crops and run cattle. The family received small royalty payments from the oil production. And decades later, they had to allow a wastewater pipe to cross the farm when another company, Southcreek Petroleum Co. LLC, redrilled the well behind the red gate. The well, which plunged about 9,000 feet into the earth, was repurposed to inject salt water into the geologic formation and push any remaining oil up to other wells.

A new production boom never materialized for Southcreek in this slice of Garvin County, and the family didn’t hear much from the oil company.

“When they were through here,” Don said, “we thought we were finished with the oil business.”

But then a corroded valve malfunctioned underground, injecting brine into the soil, according to a report by a Southcreek contractor.

After salt water leaked from an oil well on the Ledgerwoods’ farm, fouling part of their land and their drinking water, the family struggled for years to hold oil companies accountable. Jason Crow/InvestigateTV+

A few days after the release was discovered in June 2017, Stan met with Southcreek and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulatory agency. At the meeting, the company characterized the incident as a “small spill,” the Ledgerwoods later alleged in court. It was unclear how long the leak lasted, but the saltwater plume had already saturated the soil and killed 2 acres of vegetation by the time it broke the surface, according to state oil regulators.

Samples analyzed a month later by Oklahoma State University found that the soil’s concentration of chloride, which occurs in the type of salt water injected into the well, had risen to more than 12 times the state’s acceptable level and was “sufficiently high to reduce yield of even salt tolerant crops.”

Other tests showed that chloride levels in the family’s water well had spiked to more than five times what the Environmental Protection Agency deems safe. The tests didn’t look for other contaminants like heavy metals that are often left behind by the oil production process.

The Ledgerwoods entered a grim limbo, wondering what toxins might be in the cloudy water coming from their faucets and waiting for someone to address the problem.

They experienced firsthand the policy failures that have allowed the oil and gas industry to reap profits without ensuring there will be money to clean up drill sites when the wells run dry and the drillers flee. A recent ProPublica and Capital and Main investigation found a shortfall of about $150 billion between funds set aside to plug wells in major oil-producing states and the true cost of doing so. When the Ledgerwoods later sought to hold the drillers accountable, the family learned how easily oil companies can use bankruptcy to leave their mess to landowners.

Don began traveling 30 miles round-trip to Walmart to buy bottled water. Stan and Tina’s steel pots rusted after being washed, and their 2-year-old great-niece’s skin became irritated and inflamed after repeatedly washing her hands while they potty-trained her. In a text message, the girl’s mother described her hands as looking like they had “a burn.”

Southcreek did not respond to ProPublica and Capital & Main’s requests for comment. In court, the company denied calling the release “small” and argued that the groundwater contamination was contained to the two impacted acres the state identified.

The Ledgerwoods watched in horror as the farm that represented their past and their hope for the future languished. Somehow it had to be fixed, they believed. The rest of the family had also considered retiring to the farm, said Steve Ledgerwood, Stan’s brother and a lawyer in nearby Norman, but that plan was going up in smoke.

“We’ve gone out and made our living and done what we were supposed to do, and we wanted to have a relaxed, peaceful life,” Steve said. “And it has been anything but that.”

“Our only source of fresh water”

The Ledgerwoods and other farmers in Garvin and McClain counties started worrying the moment the oil industry returned in 2012.

Southcreek and other oil companies wanted to resume extraction from the oil field underlying Maysville. But the reservoir was old, so they proposed flooding it with water to force the oil to the surface. Don Ledgerwood and other local farmers signed a petition beseeching the Corporation Commission to reject the companies’ plans.

A woman in a black tee shirt with her hair tied back wears red kitchen gloves and stands with her hands in the kitchen sink.
After an oil well leaked salt water just outside her front door, Tina Ledgerwood wondered what else was in the water flowing from her taps.
Mark Olalde/ProPublica

“This aquifer is our only source of fresh water for our homes, families and livestock,” the farmers wrote. “We fear that any error in development and production could lead to devastating contamination to this critical freshwater supply.”

As is common in American oil fields, property rights in this part of Oklahoma often create split estates, where one person owns the land while another owns the underlying minerals, such as oil and gas. The owner of the minerals has a right to drill, even if the landowner would prefer they didn’t.

The farmers didn’t sway the Corporation Commission, and in 2014, Southcreek redrilled the well on the Ledgerwoods’ land. The company was small but produced about $4 million worth of oil and gas from the area, adjusted for inflation, according to an analysis of Oklahoma Tax Commission data.

State regulators are supposed to minimize the risks that accompany oil and gas production, including by mandating that drillers plug old wells to prevent them from leaking greenhouse gases into the atmosphere or leaching toxic chemicals into the land and water.

Cows graze in a pasture in Garvin County, Oklahoma, where farmers tried and failed to block renewed activity from oil companies over fears of water pollution. Jason Crow/InvestigateTV+

In theory, cleanup is guaranteed by financial instruments called bonds that companies fund and that regulators can put toward the cost of retiring wells if drillers go bankrupt or walk away. Sufficient bonding creates an incentive for companies to plug their own wells: Once the work is completed, the company gets its bond back. But when bonding requirements are lax, there’s little to deter drillers from forfeiting their bonds and leaving their wells as “orphans.”

Oklahoma allows companies to cover an unlimited number of wells with a single $25,000 bond. Alternatively, companies can satisfy bonding requirements by proving they are worth at least $50,000, in which case they often do not have to set aside any real money in bonds. Corporation Commission spokesperson Matt Skinner said the agency was unable to find a single case where the state recouped enough money to plug a well from companies that relied solely on the latter option.

To cover all of its roughly 30 wells, Southcreek held a $25,000 bond and filed paperwork to show it was worth at least $50,000. (Different agencies disagree on how many wells Southcreek operated.)

The well that spoiled the Ledgerwoods’ drinking water is one of the 18,500 that the Corporation Commission classifies as orphaned. “We would not be surprised to see that number go higher,” Skinner said. State taxpayers will ultimately be on the hook to plug many of them, or the state can leave the wells unplugged, but many will continue leaking.

Some orphan well cleanup in Oklahoma is funded by a voluntary 0.1 percent fee paid by industry on the sale of oil and natural gas. The Oklahoma Energy Resources Board spent $156 million of the funds collected from this fee over the past three decades. The state has an additional orphan well fund with several million dollars in it.

But Oklahoma has more than 260,000 unplugged wells — behind only Texas — according to data from energy industry software firm Enverus. To plug and clean up the state’s wells could cost approximately $7.3 billion, according to an analysis of state records. Oklahoma has just $45 million in bonds.

A rusting piece of equipment sits in the gras with a large truck in the background.
A state contractor plugs an orphan Southcreek Petroleum Co. LLC oil well on a farm across the road from the Ledgerwoods’ property.
Mark Olalde/ProPublica

The oil industry’s bonds are “shockingly inadequate,” said Peter Morgan, a Sierra Club senior attorney. “It’s clear that abandoning wells and leaving communities and taxpayers to foot the bill to clean them up is baked into the oil and gas industry business model.”

At the Capitol in Oklahoma City, which features repurposed oil derricks outside its main entrance, Republican state Rep. Brad Boles has tried for several years to address the shortfall. This year, he introduced a bill to create a tiered bonding system based on the number of wells a company operates, increasing the highest required bond to $150,000.

“We have a huge liability in our state that we’re trying to get better control of,” he said, acknowledging that his bill would only be a partial solution. “It’s a lot better than it was, but it’s nowhere near where we need to be.”

The Oklahoma House of Representatives and a Senate committee both passed it unanimously, but the bill didn’t receive a vote on the Senate floor. Boles pledged to run a similar bill next session.

“They’re doing you a favor if they clean up”

Shortly after the 2017 brine release, Southcreek began cleaning up with funds from an insurance policy. Fox Hollow Consultants Inc., an environmental consulting firm working with Southcreek, warned in a report that “the remediation of ground water impacted by saltwater is at best a difficult undertaking, costly, and often not effective.”

A stately building with an oil rig next to it.
A monument to oil stands outside the Oklahoma Capitol.
Mark Olalde/ProPublica

A stream of trucks rumbled down the Ledgerwoods’ once-quiet gravel road as workers removed enough dirt to fill 750 dump trucks and pumped more than 71,000 gallons from the Ledgerwoods’ water well.

But the dangerous concentrations of chloride didn’t change, according to Fox Hollow’s report.

A family who leased the Ledgerwoods’ farmland decided not to plant a crop and removed their cattle.

Nearly two years after the spill was discovered, the company drilled new water wells next to each house, but questions about the safety of drinking the water persisted. Southcreek eventually halted its cleanup, and the Corporation Commission deemed the incident resolved.

“It’s your own property, but you’re made to feel like they’re doing you a favor if they clean up their pollution,” Stan Ledgerwood said.

The Ledgerwoods considered moving. A nearby farm was for sale. Although it was half the acreage with only one house, the water was clean and they could distance themselves from the debacle on their farm. So they held an auction for their farm in June 2019.

Workers remove contaminated soil from the Ledgerwoods’ farm after the 2017 saltwater release. Courtesy of Stan Ledgerwood

Their property had been appraised to be worth around $1 million before the spill. They feared bids would be low — they had disclosed the water issues to potential buyers — yet the offers from the auction were shocking, with bids for the whole farm coming in at $450,000.

Potential buyers’ “first question was about the water, and I couldn’t say it was safe,” Stan said.

Still, the Ledgerwoods needed to pay their attorneys, so they sold nearly all the land, about 200 acres, including the fields that earned them income. The family kept the two houses, with the injection well sitting in the field between them.

The same week as the auction, the Ledgerwoods sued Southcreek. The family’s lawsuit also named as defendants Wise Oil & Gas No. 10 Ltd. and Newkumet Exploration Inc. — which each owned an interest in the oil Southcreek was pumping — as well as the companies that manufactured and sold the well’s corroded valve. The family sought reimbursement for expenses related to the spill, monetary damages and an order that the oil companies finish removing the contaminated soil and water.

In court, Newkumet denied responsibility because it did not operate the well, while the other companies argued that the failed valve was not defective.

On a recent, unseasonably warm winter day, with a mackerel sky hanging over the property, Stan and Tina Ledgerwood talked about what brought them back to the farm. Stan had worked for three decades at the Oklahoma Electric Cooperative, a nonprofit utility, while Tina held an administrative role at the University of Oklahoma, and they looked forward to a peaceful retirement.

“There’s a draw to the beauty here,” Tina said.

There were also family memories stretching back a century. Tina recalled taking her niece to camp along the Washita, where sandbars interrupt the river’s meandering flow and willows grow on the red dirt banks.

Her niece still talked about eating the best hamburger of her life on one of those excursions, Tina said with a laugh. “It’s frustrating,” she added, her tone shifting, “because you look out there and it’s not yours anymore.”

An escape hatch

Progress in the lawsuit was short-lived. In November 2019, shortly after the Ledgerwoods’ attorney sent discovery requests to Wise Oil & Gas, the company filed in a Texas court for voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy — a full liquidation of its assets.

A man and a woman stand on a gravel road next to a red fence with a house in the background as the light fades from the sky.
Stan and Tina Ledgerwood at the failed injection well.
Mark Olalde/ProPublica

Company executives acknowledged they declared bankruptcy to avoid legal fees associated with the Ledgerwoods’ suit, according to court records.

Bankruptcy court has become an easy escape hatch for the industry to shed its costly obligations. More than 250 oil and gas companies in the U.S. filed for bankruptcy protection between 2015 and 2021, bringing about $175 billion in debt with them, according to research from law firm Haynes and Boone. (Haynes and Boone is representing ProPublica in several Texas lawsuits.)

Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, said it is “outrageous” that oil executives can pay themselves handsomely before offloading liabilities via bankruptcy. He is preparing a Senate bill to amend the Bankruptcy Code to address this pattern in the oil industry.

“They privatize the profits, and then they dump the costs on the taxpayer, which is an outrageous arrangement that needs to end,” Merkley said, adding that “this is not just one company in one place. This is a practice that has been exquisitely developed by the industry.”

Josh Macey, a University of Chicago law professor who studies bankruptcy, said that “one of the most significant benefits you get when you file for bankruptcy protection is the automatic stay,” which puts other cases on hold while the bankruptcy is ongoing.

The Wise Oil & Gas bankruptcy halted the Ledgerwoods’ suit.

So the Ledgerwoods ventured into labyrinthian bankruptcy court proceedings as creditors. But the bankruptcy filings for Wise Oil & Gas — which owned a 20 percent stake in the oil underlying the Ledgerwood farm — listed between $1 million and $10 million in liabilities against less than $33,000 in assets.

While Wise Oil & Gas appeared to be underwater, financial and legal documents showed that the company was one node in a sprawling business empire run by the wealthy Cocanougher family of North Texas.

Alongside their extended family, brothers Daniel and Robert Cocanougher own the web of businesses that included real estate holdings, golf courses, trash services, charitable organizations and more. A company representative estimated in court that the family controlled more than 100 companies. The entire operation was managed by Cocanougher Asset Management #1 LLC out of an office in North Richland Hills, Texas, near Fort Worth.

Wise Oil & Gas was kept afloat by more than 30 loans from other Cocanougher companies, chiefly Wise Resources Ltd., which shared an office with the oil company, according to records filed in court. The loans ensured the oil company had enough cash to operate, but it otherwise hovered around insolvency. Wise Oil & Gas periodically held less than $0 in its account, internal records revealed in court show.

The Ledgerwoods would never see any money from the Cocanoughers’ businesses.

“A pretty ordinary situation”

In bankruptcy, secured creditors, whose debt is backed by collateral, are first in line to claim proceeds from the liquidating company’s assets. Unsecured creditors — such as the Ledgerwoods — are paid if there are funds left over. Even further back in line are environmental claims, such as money to plug wells.

One secured claim stood out: $1.9 million for Wise Resources. According to legal filings, a few months before declaring bankruptcy, Wise Oil & Gas had consolidated its “outstanding obligations” and transferred them to Wise Resources, although the deal was backdated to the previous year.

Southcreek tanks that formerly collected contaminated liquid near the Ledgerwoods’ farm are now leaking. Jason Crow/InvestigateTV+

During one deposition, Jamie Downing, a lawyer for the Cocanoughers, went back and forth with Steve Ledgerwood, who occasionally represented his family, over whether Robert Cocanougher was “two different people” when he signed documents for Wise Oil & Gas and for Wise Resources.

“Robert Cocanougher is signing documents in his capacity as general partner of one entity or the manager of another entity,” Downing said. “They would not be the same person.”

Even though the Cocanoughers were wealthy, the layers of corporate entities between the family and the oil limited their liability for the saltwater spill. It is difficult to “pierce the corporate veil” and tie a company’s actions to individuals, so executives finding protection in bankruptcy is “a pretty ordinary situation,” Macey explained. “We’ve gone too far in shielding investors from the cost of corporate misconduct.”

Daniel and Robert Cocanougher and company attorneys did not respond to requests for comment. In court filings, the family and its companies argued that they were not responsible for the brine release and were within their rights to file for bankruptcy protection.

The Ledgerwoods soon realized the bankruptcy case would lead to neither the cleanup of their farm nor Wise Oil & Gas paying for the damage, so they filed a motion to dismiss it, sanction the Cocanoughers and force the company back into their Oklahoma lawsuit.

The judge overseeing the case was Mark X. Mullin, a former corporate bankruptcy attorney himself. At first, he acknowledged the Ledgerwoods’ plight. “To be clear, the court has a lot of empathy for what happened to the Ledgerwoods,” he said during an August 2021 hearing.

But two months later, Mullin ruled against the Ledgerwoods. He disagreed that Wise Oil & Gas had entered bankruptcy to shed bad investments and dodge cleanup obligations. He blasted the Ledgerwoods for requesting sanctions against the Cocanoughers.

“Merely because the Ledgerwood Creditors have been damaged by the saltwater contamination, this does not provide them with an unfettered right to retaliate or lash out against unrelated and far-removed targets, such as the Cocanougher Sanction Targets,” Mullin wrote.

If the Ledgerwoods wanted to continue seeking damages against the Cocanoughers and their businesses, they would have to pay the oil company’s attorneys’ fees, about $107,000, Mullin ruled.

Mullin declined to comment.

In September 2022, the trustee overseeing Wise’s liquidation reported that, after paying administrative fees, the company had no money for creditors. The Ledgerwoods withdrew their claim.

“I can’t afford to come in and clean it up”

The Ledgerwoods weren’t the only ones taking a financial hit. Southcreek, the well’s operator, also entered bankruptcy protection and began offloading its wells. Cleaning them all up could cost taxpayers nearly $1 million, based on the Corporation Commission’s average cost to plug a well.

A man in a plaid long-sleeved shirt, a red vest, and a blue cap moves equipment from a golf cart.
Don Ledgerwood hauls clean water from a well at his son and daughter-in-law’s home.
Mark Olalde/ProPublica

Even before the company liquidated, Southcreek executive Gus Lovelace admitted to the state that the company had stopped maintaining its wells, according to Corporation Commission records.

The company left some wells to the state as orphans, including the injection well that fouled the Ledgerwoods’ land. Some ended up in the hands of other oil companies, although those, too, appear to be on the verge of becoming wards of the state.

Michael Brooks, a neighbor of the Ledgerwoods, lives on a farm that his father-in-law worked before him — they’ve put in more than 50 years between the two generations. On a recent winter morning, Brooks showed ProPublica and Capital & Main a 3-acre drill site that scars his land and provides him no royalties.

The plot would be Bermuda grass pasture for cattle, but the paddock instead hosts two inactive oil wells and huge tanks that the Ledgerwoods believe held the salt water that fouled their land. Brooks has to retrieve cows that slip through the barbed wire fence around the site and chew the wells’ rusting metal and drink wastewater.

“I’m at a complete loss,” he said from beneath the brim of a hat embroidered with the logo of an oil and gas pipeline company. “I can’t afford to come in and clean it up. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

Brooks has for years tried to reach the companies that own the wells, calling phone numbers on the signs posted around them. No one ever answered or called back, he said.

ProPublica and Capital & Main’s attempts to contact the owners were also fruitless. Court records indicate several of the Southcreek wells on Brooks’ farm and other nearby properties were sold out of bankruptcy. But the first company that purchased them is not a registered oil operator in Oklahoma, and the Corporation Commission has no record of the business taking them over.

The idle wells were then transferred to another oil company, but, when asked about that transfer, Corporation Commission staff said they had made a mistake in approving it and would try to revoke it. The best Brooks can now hope for is the state declaring that the wells are orphaned and plugging them.

“It’s just so frustrating because it’s just here. We look at it every day outside our windows,” Brooks said, adding, “It’s been nothing but a pain.”

“We’ll never have back what we had”

Nearly seven years after brine first poured from gopher holes on the Ledgerwood farm, most of the land has been sold. But the well is still there, rusting behind a curtain of dry weeds.

“We don’t get these years back,” Stan Ledgerwood said. “There’s no way to pay for that. We’ll never have back what we had.”

Stan and Tina drink from their new water well. But Don and Shirley Ledgerwood, Stan’s parents, don’t trust the water that flows from their faucets, as their house sits at a lower elevation than the injection well and water tests have shown occasional increases in the salt concentration.

Don’s back is slightly hunched, but his sprightliness belies his 84 years. He still cuts the expanse of grass surrounding his old brick house, and Stan long ago gave up asking to do it for him. “He doesn’t do it right,” Don said, as he filled 5-gallon blue plastic jugs with water from Stan’s well. In one form or another, Don has been hauling water for six years.

As he hoisted the jugs into his off-road vehicle, Don lamented that landowners have to allow oil companies to drill on their property, only to see those operators avoid the costly cleanup.

“That’s not right,” he said.

The sun was rising higher, and Don had more chores to do. So he finished loading the water jugs and whisked them down the gravel road, kicking up dust that hung in the air alongside his parting words.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Oil companies contaminated a family farm. The courts and regulators let the drillers walk away. on May 19, 2024.

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As fossil fuel plants face retirement, a Puerto Rico community pushes for rooftop solar

The coastal communities of Guayama and Salinas in southern Puerto Rico feature acres of vibrant green farmland, and a rich, biodiverse estuary, the protected Jobos Bay, which stretches between the neighboring townships. But this would-be tropical paradise is also the home of both a 52-year-old oil-fired power plant and a 22-year-old coal-fired power plant, which local residents say contaminate their drinking water and air, and harm people’s health. 

“It’s a classic sacrifice zone,” said Ruth Santiago, a lawyer and community activist who has fought against environmental injustice in Puerto Rico for more than 20 years. “A friend calls this ‘the beautiful place with serious problems.’”

Local residents envision a cleaner future as these fossil fuel plants are scheduled to retire within the next several years. They see rooftop solar as the best alternative as the island transitions to renewable energy. 

In November 2023, the federal government allocated $440 million in funding for rooftop solar energy in Puerto Rico, part of a billion dollar energy investment in the island. Officials, in recent years, have acknowledged that the region has suffered as the home of polluting power plants.

After a 2022 visit to Salinas and Guayama, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan announced a plan to spend $100,000 to improve monitoring of the air and water pollution from the coal-fired power plant, which is owned by Virginia-based Applied Energy Services Corporation, or AES.

“For too long, communities in Puerto Rico have suffered untold inequities—from challenges with access to clean drinking water to fragile infrastructure that cannot withstand the increase and intensity of storms brought on by climate change,” Regan said in a press release

The EPA examined a drinking water sample in May 2023 from groundwater near the power plants that supplies drinking water to the region and found that metal levels did not exceed federal criteria. EPA public information officer Carlos Vega said more samples will be analyzed and the EPA will continue to inform the community. No timeline for the additional testing has been established.

For decades, most of Puerto Rico’s electricity has been generated in the southern part of the island. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority uses over 30,000 miles of distribution lines to send energy generated in the south to more urban areas, primarily in the north, like San Juan.

Coastal power plants in the south have posed health risks for community members, Santiago said; according to a 2022 report from the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice, the AES plant produces 800 tons of coal ash waste per day that contaminates the air and nearby waters. Many low-income residents in the south struggle to pay electricity bills that are more than 30 percent higher than in the U.S. as a whole. Nearly half of Guayama’s residents were below the poverty line in 2022. 

AES did not respond to multiple email requests for comment. AES Puerto Rico said that their plants are in compliance with regulations in a 2020 press release.

A small blue building sits in front of a large industrial complex with cooling towers.
The Aguirre Power Complex oil-fired plant in Salinas, Puerto Rico is scheduled to retire by 2030. The plant neighbors Jobos Bay, a protected estuary home to multiple endangered species, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
Esther Frances/Medill News Service

An EPA inspection in 2021 revealed the coal facility was not in compliance with the Clean Water Act for releasing polluted stormwater without a permit. In 2022, the EPA found the coal plant exceeded legal emission limits for pollutants like carbon monoxide and mercury, according to an Earthjustice analysis. The EPA issued several other violations for the coal plant dating back to 2019, citing it for inadequate disposal of coal ash and endangering residents, according to the Environmental Integrity Project, an environmental watchdog group.

“People know that it’s a terrible impact, but it’s not easy to move to find somewhere else to live,” Santiago said.

Many local residents cannot move because average home prices have increased across the island since Hurricane Maria hit in 2017, according to activists and researchers in Puerto Rico. 

The coal plant is scheduled to retire in 2027, when a 25-year contract expires between AES and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. To replace coal, AES has turned to utility-scale solar power.

AES Puerto Rico began construction for the 135-acre Ilumina Solar PV Park in Guayama in 2011. AES Puerto Rico’s coal plant, solar farm and some smaller projects together supplied up to 25 percent of Puerto Rico’s electricity.

A few solar farms have already been built on the South Coast, and in February 2022, the Puerto Rican Energy Bureau approved 18 new utility-scale solar panel projects across the island. Critics say the solar farms are using dwindling agricultural land, and a group of environmental and public health organizations including Earthjustice and the Sierra Club Puerto Rico filed a lawsuit in August 2023 to stop the government of Puerto Rico from allowing the solar farms to be built on ecologically important land.

2019 law mandated that the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reduce the use of fossil fuels for electrical generation on the island and generate 100 percent renewable energy by 2050. In addition, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority issued an Integrated Resource Plan in 2020 that includes a plan to retire the Aguirre Power Complex oil-fired plant by 2030. 

Instead of large solar farms, many local organizations in Puerto Rico see a better solution for their region’s electricity production—rooftop solar panels. They prefer this kind of solar energy for communities because unlike large solar facilities, rooftop solar installations do not use up farmland, which in Puerto Rico decreased by 37.5 percent between 2012 and 2018, according to the Census of Agriculture

In February, the Department of Energy released results of its study of Puerto Rican renewable energy, named PR100. The study reported the huge potential for rooftop solar in Puerto Rico—up to 6,100 MW by 2050 under the most aggressive scenario—but said utility-scale renewable energy would still be needed. 

The study also noted the challenges in deploying rooftop solar, including unstable roofs and lack of property titles. But Puerto Rico has a long way to go to reach the 2050 green energy goal; as of 2022, only 6 percent of electricity generated in Puerto Rico was renewable.

Ruth Santiago’s son Jose and other electricians helped install rooftop solar panels in Salinas neighborhoods through Coquí Solar, a community-based organization working to help low-income and vulnerable residents access solar energy.

The solar kits from Coquí Solar provided homes with solar panels and batteries, which could provide electricity during a blackout. Rooftop solar arrays often cannot meet a home’s entire electricity demand, but the battery storage the solar array generates can run crucial things like refrigerators, lights and medical equipment in case of an electrical blackout, while also reducing a household’s energy bills significantly. 

The kits cost about $7,000, which Ruth Santiago said Coquí Solar purchased using grants from various Puerto Rico-based organizations and foundations. Coquí Solar, working with other organizations in the area, also installed the equipment in the homes of vulnerable community members for free. Jose Santiago said the elderly and people living with chronic illnesses and disabilities in the area suffer during blackouts, which are frequent on the island.

“Every year, the power leaves for five, six days,” Jose Santiago said. “Sometimes more, sometimes several times, and you don’t want to see the old people in the line at the gas station trying to get ice to put in their fridge. So, [rooftop solar energy] helps them.”

After Hurricane Maria caused structural damages to the island’s electrical infrastructure in 2017, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority reported that all of their electric consumers, over 1.5 million customers, were without power. Some Puerto Rico residents spent close to 11 months without power, according to climate change and development specialist Ramón Bueno.

“That just sounds like a number, but all we have to think about is how do we deal with losing power for two, three days? That’s radical,” Bueno said. “So, two, three months is very radical. And five times that is even more.”

Ruth Santiago said Coquí Solar’s rooftop solar installments have empowered the community by giving residents “agency” over their electricity generation. The desire for electricity independence had grown in Puerto Rico after recent destructive hurricanes and other impacts of climate change.

Organizations like Coquí Solar have spent years working toward decentralizing solar energy across the island, and Bueno said many are strong and independent.

“They’re pretty articulate framers of an alternative way to move forward with energy systems,” Bueno said. 

Ruth Santiago worried that the retirement dates of the coal and oil plants could be delayed or that a new infrastructure would depend heavily on utility scale solar that would rely on a centralized grid and expose communities to blackouts during and after storms. She hoped that concerns about the community’s health and environment would be enough to force the plants to close on schedule and that rooftop solar would be prioritized over large-scale solar. 

“We need to really go beyond resilience, we need to go toward energy security and sovereignty, and that’s what we’re trying to do, at least create and do these pilot projects, these community-based examples of what that transformation would look like,” Ruth Santiago said. “If we don’t do it now, then when?”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline As fossil fuel plants face retirement, a Puerto Rico community pushes for rooftop solar on May 18, 2024.

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‘Monumental Decision’: Biden Admin Proposes Ending Coal Leasing in Nation’s Most Productive Mining Area

The United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has proposed the ending of new coal leases on federal land in Montana and Wyoming’s Powder River Basin (PRB) — the nation’s most productive area for the highly polluting fossil fuel.

The new proposal would impact millions of acres of mineral reserves on federal lands, reported The Associated Press. However, the short-term effects will likely be limited since the leases take years to develop and there is less demand for coal.

“This is a monumental decision that will save lives, safeguard our environment, and significantly cut carbon emissions in the United States,” said Drew Caputo, Earthjustice vice president of litigation for lands, wildlife, and oceans, in a press release from Earthjustice. “We are grateful that the Biden administration has shown the courage to end coal leasing in the Powder River Basin and at long last turn the page on this climate-destroying fuel.”

BLM has issued the final version of a supplemental impact statement (SEIS), as well as an amendment to the land use plan for its Buffalo Field Office, a press release from BLM said.

BLM developed the amendment and SEIS in response to a federal court order from 2022.

“The BLM’s proposed alternative, Alternative A, would amend the 2015 Buffalo Field Office resource management plan and make BLM-managed coal resources in the planning areas unavailable for future leasing. Federal coal production is anticipated to continue through 2041 under existing leases,” the BLM press release said.

The SEIS looks at alternatives to Buffalo Field Office federal coal leases and provides updated data and analysis of the health impacts of fossil fuel development in the area.

In 2022, the 12 surface coal mines that were active in the region produced roughly 220 million “short tons” of coal, down from approximately 400 million tons 14 years earlier.

The Energy Information Administration has said that coal production in both the PRB and the U.S. peaked in 2008 and have declined sharply since.

The proposal brought criticism from Republicans in Congress on the heels of a new air quality regulation by President Joe Biden that could lead to coal-fired plants being shut down if they don’t reduce their pollution, The Associated Press reported.

Environmentalists said the new proposal indicates a shift in the country’s coal policy.

“Coal companies in this region already have decades of coal locked up under leases, and it’s hard to imagine they’ll find buyers that far into the future given the competition from more affordable energy sources,” said Mark Fix, a Montana rancher who belongs to the conservation group Northern Plains Resource Council, as reported by The Associated Press.

Government analyses of the BLM proposal have said stopping federal coal leases would lower carbon dioxide emissions from the fossil fuel equal to 293 million tons annually — about the same as produced by 63 million gas-powered vehicles.

“The BLM’s decision to end coal leasing is a sea change in the transition to clean energy,” said Derf Johnson, Montana Environmental Information Center’s deputy director, in the press release from Earthjustice. “As we wind down the coal mining in the PRB, there is an immense opportunity to continue growing the clean energy economy.”

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