From their name, you might think Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) are good at building things — and they are — but they have another potentially lifesaving talent: They are experts at wound care and surgery.

A common species native to the state, these amazing insects selectively treat their nestmates’ wounded limbs by cleaning or amputating them, a press release from Cell Press said.

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In a new study, an international team of researchers detailed how these “treatments” not only aided in nestmates’ recovery, but showed that the choice of care provided by the treating ants catered to the specific type of injury.

“When we’re talking about amputation behavior, this is literally the only case in which a sophisticated and systematic amputation of an individual by another member of its species occurs in the animal Kingdom,” said Erik Frank, lead author of the study and a behavioral ecologist with the University of Würzburg, in the press release.

While wound care is not entirely novel among ants, carpenter ants are the only known species to use solely mechanical methods to carry out their treatments. A paper published last year found that another group of ants used a special gland to introduce antimicrobial compounds into injuries.

The research team discovered that carpenter ants’ mechanical care comes in two types: using their mouthparts to clean the wound and cleaning the wound prior to a full leg amputation. Before deciding which treatment to use, the provider ants seem to assess the injury in order to make educated adjustments regarding the best method of care.

The study analyzed two types of injuries: femur lacerations and lacerations on the ankle-like tibia. Initial cleaning was given for all femur injuries, followed by the removal of the leg by a nestmate chewing it off. The only treatment given for tibia injuries, however, was mouth cleaning.

In both cases, intervention led to a much higher survival rate for ants with infected wounds.

“Femur injuries, where they always amputated the leg, had a success rate around 90% or 95%. And for the tibia, where they did not amputate, it still achieved about the survival rate of 75%,” Frank said in the press release.

Untreated infected tibia and femur abrasions had a survival rate of 15 and 40 percent, respectively.

The team surmised that the chosen type of wound care could be associated with infection risk from the wound site. Femur scans showed it is primarily made up of muscle tissue, which suggests it has a role in pumping blood from the leg to the main part of the body.

With femur injuries, the compromised muscles were less able to circulate blood that is potentially contaminated with bacteria. The tibia, on the other hand, doesn’t have much muscle tissue or involvement in the circulation of blood.

“In tibia injuries, the flow of the hemolymph was less impeded, meaning bacteria could enter the body faster. While in femur injuries the speed of the blood circulation in the leg was slowed down,” Frank said.

This would seem to mean that amputating the leg would be the best choice with tibia injuries, but the researchers found the opposite to be true. They discovered that how fast the ants were able to amputate made a difference.

It took a minimum of 40 minutes for an ant-assisted amputation. In cases of an injury to the tibia, it was shown that not amputating the leg immediately post-infection meant the ant would die.

“Thus, because they are unable to cut the leg sufficiently quickly to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria, ants try to limit the probability of lethal infection by spending more time cleaning the tibia wound,” said Laurent Keller, senior author of the study and an evolutionary biologist at the University of Lausanne, in the press release.

The study, “Wound-dependent leg amputations to combat infections in an ant society,” was published in the journal Current Biology.

“The fact that the ants are able to diagnose a wound, see if it’s infected or sterile, and treat it accordingly over long periods of time by other individuals — the only medical system that can rival that would be the human one,” Frank said.

Keller noted that these sophisticated behaviors seemed to be inherent in carpenter ants.

“It’s really all innate behavior,” Keller said. “Ant behaviors change based on the age of an individual, but there is very little evidence of any learning.”

The research team is currently conducting similar experiments in other species of carpenter ant to find out how intact the behavior is and whether all ant species that don’t have the antimicrobial gland perform amputations. The slow removal of an ant’s limb while conscious also brings up the consideration of pain in ant societies.

“When you look at the videos where you have the ant presenting the injured leg and letting the other one bite off completely voluntarily, and then present the newly made wound so another one can finish [the] cleaning process — this level of innate cooperation to me is quite striking,” Frank said.

The post Florida Carpenter Ants Perform Wound Cleaning, Amputations to Help Injured Nestmates appeared first on EcoWatch.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Thompson wildfire in northern California was contained enough for most of the roughly 17,000 residents who had been evacuated to return home.

The fire began near Oroville on Tuesday, but was 46 percent contained as of Friday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

“Overall, things are looking pretty good,” said Kevin Colburn, Cal Fire spokesperson, as The New York Times reported. “The fire is not doing what it was doing on the first day. It’s not burning with a rapid rate of spread. It’s pretty much staying in the footprint that it’s in.”

While Colburn said officials were feeling “more confident,” some residents remained uneasy.

The Thompson Fire had burned 3,789 acres by the time powerful winds that had initially driven the wildfire weakened.

Evacuation orders and warnings were lifted for 20-plus zones by the Butte County Sheriff’s Office Thursday, with orders and warnings being downgraded for an additional 20 or so.

Kristi Olio, a Butte County public information officer, said the “vast majority” of those under orders or warnings to evacuate had been able to return home, reported The Associated Press. Earlier reports were that 26,000 had been under orders or warnings, Olio said, which was inaccurate. The number was closer to 17,000, but the fire had developed so quickly it had been hard to get definite numbers.

According to Cal Fire, 25 structures had been destroyed by the fire, while six were damaged and 4,384 were threatened.

Four firefighters had reported injuries, all due to the extreme heat, The Associated Press reported.

An excessive heat warning was still in effect.

“For today, dangerous heat will continue across the incident. Afternoon temperatures will climb into the 104-112 range,” Cal Fire said. “The hot and dry conditions will continue through Sunday and early next week.”

Officials said the increasing heat, along with low humidity, could add to more fire activity, reported The New York Times. Two smaller fires started near Oroville on Wednesday, but were quickly brought under control.

“The winds are slowly picking up,” said Chris Peterson, an information officer for Cal Fire, as The Associated Press reported. “You add that with the heat and low humidity,” and the fire potential increases.

Butte County is no stranger to destructive wildfires. In 2018, Paradise — a town of less than 7,000 residents 21 miles north of Oroville — was nearly destroyed by the deadly Camp Fire, which killed 85 people.

As millions across the United States endure a scorching heat wave, California is experiencing “significantly more wildfire activity at this point,” a statement from the office of Governor Gavin Newsom said, as reported by The Associated Press.

The post California’s Thompson Fire 46% Contained, Most Residents Return Home appeared first on EcoWatch.

Mark Garcia can see that there’s no shortage of water in the Rio Grande this year. The river flows past his farm in central New Mexico, about 50 miles south of Albuquerque. The rush of springtime water is a welcome change after years of drought, but he knows the good times won’t last.

As the summer continues, the river will diminish, leaving Garcia with a strict ration. He’ll be allowed irrigation water for his 300 acres just once every 30 days, which is nowhere near enough to sustain his crop of oats and alfalfa.

For decades, Garcia and other farmers on the Rio Grande have relied on water released from a dam called El Vado, which collects billions of gallons of river water to store and eventually release to help farmers during times when the river runs dry. More significantly for most New Mexico residents, the dam system also allows the city of Albuquerque to import river water from long distances for household use.

But El Vado has been out of commission for the past three summers, its structure bulging and disfigured after decades in operation — and the government doesn’t have a plan to fix it. 

“We need some sort of storage,” said Garcia. “If we don’t get a big monsoon this summer, if you don’t have a well, you won’t be able to water.”

The failure of the dam has shaken up the water supply for the entire region surrounding Albuquerque, forcing the city and many of the farmers nearby to rely on finite groundwater and threatening an endangered fish species along the river. It’s a surprising twist of fate for a region that in recent years emerged as a model for sustainable water management in the West. 

“Having El Vado out of the picture has been really tough,” said Paul Tashjian, the director of freshwater conservation at the Southwest regional office of the nonprofit National Audubon Society. “We’ve been really eking by every year the past few years.” 

Surface water imports from the El Vado system have generally allowed public officials in Albuquerque to limit groundwater shortages. This echoes the strategies of other large Western cities such as Phoenix and Los Angeles, which have enabled population growth by tapping diverse sources of water for metropolitan regions and the farms that sit outside of them. The Biden administration is seeking to replicate this strategy in water-stressed rural areas across the region, doling out more than $8 billion in grants to support pipelines and reservoirs. 

But the last decade has shown that this strategy isn’t foolproof — at least not while climate change fuels an ongoing megadrought across the West. Los Angeles has lost water from both the Colorado River and from a series of reservoirs in Northern California, and Phoenix has seen declines not only from the Colorado but also from the groundwater aquifers that fuel the state’s cotton and alfalfa farming. Now, as Albuquerque’s decrepit El Vado dam goes out of commission, the city is trying to balance multiple fragile resources.

El Vado is an odd dam: It’s one of only four in the United States that uses a steel faceplate to hold back water, rather than a mass of rock or concrete. The dam has been collecting irrigation water for Rio Grande farmers for close to a century, but decades of studies have shown that water is seeping through the faceplate and undermining the dam’s foundations. When engineers tried to use grout to fill in the cracks behind the faceplate, they accidentally caused the faceplate to bulge out of shape, threatening the stability of the entire structure. The Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that manages the dam, paused construction and is now back at the drawing board.

Without the ability to collect irrigation water for the farmers, the Bureau has had no choice but to let the Rio Grande’s natural flow move downstream to Albuquerque. There’s plenty of water in the spring, when snow melts off the mountains and rain rushes toward the ocean. But when the rains peter out by the start of the summer, the river’s flow reduces to a trickle. 

“We run really fast and happy in the spring, and then you’re off pretty precipitously,” said Casey Ish, the conservation program supervisor at the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the irrigation district that supplies water to farmers like Garcia. “It just creates a lot of stress on the system late in the summer.” The uncertainty about water rationing causes many farmers to forego planting crops they aren’t sure they’ll be able to see to maturity, Ish added.

The beleaguered dam also plays a critical role in providing water to the fast-growing Albuquerque metropolitan area, which is home to almost a million people. As the city grew over the past 100 years, it drained local groundwater, lowering aquifer levels by dozens of feet until the city got a reputation as “one of the biggest water-wasters in the West.” Cities across the region were mining their groundwater in the same way, but Albuquerque managed to turn its bad habits around. In 2008, it built a $160 million water treatment plant that allowed it to clean water from the distant Colorado River, giving officials a new water source to reduce their groundwater reliance.

The loss of El Vado is jeopardizing this achievement. In order for Colorado River water to reach the Albuquerque treatment plant, it needs to travel through the same set of canals and pipelines that deliver Rio Grande water to the city and farmers, “riding” with the Rio Grande water through the pipes. Without a steady flow of Rio Grande water out of El Vado, the Colorado River water can’t make it to the city. This means that in the summer months, when the Rio Grande dries out, Albuquerque now has to turn back to groundwater to supply its thirsty residential subdivisions.

This renewed reliance on groundwater has halted the recovery of local aquifers. The water level in these aquifers was rising from 2008 through 2020, but it slumped out around 2020 and hasn’t budged since. 

“We have had to shut down our surface water plant the last three summers because of low flows in Albuquerque,” said Diane Agnew, a senior official at the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, which manages the region’s water. Agnew stresses that aquifer levels are only flattening out, not falling. Still, losing El Vado storage for the long run would be detrimental to the city’s overall water resilience.

“We have more than enough supply to meet demand, but it does change our equation,” she added.

The Bureau of Reclamation is looking for a way to fix the dam and restore Rio Grande water to Albuquerque, but right now its engineers are stumped. In a recent meeting with local farmers, a senior Reclamation official offered a frank assessment of the dam’s future. 

“We were not able to find technical solutions to the challenges that we were seeing,” said Jennifer Faler, the Bureau’s Albuquerque area manager, in remarks at the meeting. 

The next-best option is to find somewhere else to store water for farmers. There are other reservoirs along the Rio Grande, including one large dam owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, but repurposing them for irrigation water will involve a lengthy bureaucratic process. 

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Reclamation told Grist that the agency “is working diligently with our partners to develop a plan and finalize agreements to help alleviate the lost storage capacity” and that it “may have the ability to safely store some water” for farms and cities next year.

In the meantime, farmers like Garcia are getting impatient. When a senior Bureau official broke the bad news at an irrigation district meeting last month, more than a dozen farmers who grow crops in the district stood up to express their frustration with the delays in the repair process, calling Reclamation’s announcement “frustrating” and “a shock.”

“If we don’t have any water for the long term, I have to let my employees go, and I guess start looking for ramen noodles someplace,” Garcia told Grist.

Even though there are only a handful of other steel faceplate dams like El Vado in the United States, more communities across the West are likely to experience similar infrastructure issues that affect their water supply, according to John Fleck, a professor of water policy at the University of New Mexico.

“We’ve optimized entire human and natural communities around the way this aging infrastructure allows us to manipulate the flow of rivers, and we’re likely to see more and more examples where infrastructure we’ve come to depend on no longer functions the way we planned or intended,” he said.

As the West gets drier and its dams and canals continue to age, more communities may find themselves forced to strike a balance between groundwater, which is easy to access but finite, and surface water, which is renewable but challenging to obtain. The loss of El Vado shows that neither one of these resources can be relied upon solely and consistently — and in an era of higher temperatures and aging infrastructure, even having both may not be enough.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Albuquerque made itself drought-proof. Then its dam started leaking. on Jul 5, 2024.

This week’s quote is from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “For in the true nature of…

The post Earth911 Inspiration: Every Green Tree — Martin Luther King Jr appeared first on Earth911.

Last year, representatives of New Mexico’s oil industry met behind closed doors with the very groups with which they typically clash — state regulators and environmentalists — in search of an answer to the more than 70,000 wells sitting unplugged across the state. Many leak oil, brine and toxic or explosive gasses, and more than 1,700 have already been left to the public to clean up.

The situation is so dire that oil companies agreed to help try to find a solution.

After months of negotiations, the state regulators who ran the meetings emerged with a proposal that they hoped would appease everyone in the room. The bill would instruct drillers to set aside more money to plug their wells, authorize regulators to block risky sales to companies that would be unlikely to afford to clean up their wells and implement a buffer zone between wells and hospitals, schools, homes and other buildings.

The industry, unhappy with the state’s final language, turned against the bill it helped shape.

The influential New Mexico Oil and Gas Association told its supporters that HB 133 was “a radical and dangerous approach designed to strangle the oil and gas industry” and asked them to send their elected representatives a form letter opposing it. If passed, the trade group proclaimed, the bill would “Destroy New Mexico.” The Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico, which represents small oil companies, called the bill “overzealous.”

In the face of such opposition, Democrats removed key provisions. The New Mexico Oil and Gas Association eventually changed its position to neutral, but largely stripped of substance, the bill died on the floor of the House of Representatives.

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“Industry killing the bills was the dynamic I saw,” said Adam Peltz, a senior attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund who helped write the New Mexico proposal, as well as similar bills in other oil-producing states.

New Mexico faces a multibillion-dollar shortfall between the money companies have set aside to plug wells and the actual cost of doing so, according to state research, a reality mirrored in many states.

Across the country, more than 2 million oil and gas wells sit unplugged, but the money held in cleanup funds, called bonds, is many tens of billions of dollars short of the projected costs, ProPublica and Capital & Main found. Now, a once-in-a-lifetime effort to shrink that shortfall is underway, spurred in large part by federal funding for well-plugging efforts.

As regulators and legislators seek to require that drillers set aside more money for the work, they have invited oil companies and trade groups to help write the regulations. This dynamic — politically expedient in states where the industry wields tremendous influence — has combined with secretive drafting processes and millions of dollars of industry lobbying to weaken or kill proposals in state after state.

In some, including Oklahoma and Utah, lawmakers propose bills only after oil trade groups approve the language. In many others, regulators and drillers work together through organizations such as the quasi-governmental Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission to design policy. But even when given a seat at the table, like in New Mexico, the industry has turned against reform efforts.

Holly Hopkins, a vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s largest trade group, said in a statement, “We are continuing to work with policymakers to advance balanced regulations that enhance safety, sustainability and environmental stewardship and help ensure that American energy is produced responsibly from start to finish.”

Those working to reform a status quo that has left potentially millions of wells as orphans disagree. Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, is preparing to file a bill in Congress targeting oil companies’ use of bankruptcy to offload cleanup obligations on the public.

“The challenge in anything that involves fossil fuels, and particularly that addresses a profit strategy of fossil fuel companies, is you’re taking on the most powerful lobby in the United States of America,” he said.

‘All hell broke loose’

After a previous effort to update oil regulations failed in the New Mexico Legislature last year, the state convened a working group. Regulators, the industry and environmentalists spent months negotiating the details. Written with input from this broad coalition, and with the governor’s office and the Legislature in the hands of Democrats, it appeared the political stars had aligned.

But roadblocks quickly appeared. Lawmakers hadn’t been included in the negotiations, even though a sponsor would have to carry the bill through the session, which lasts only a few weeks. The talks were also closed to the public, and some environmental groups had been excluded because of ongoing litigation against the state.

As soon as Rep. Kristina Ortez, a Democrat, filed HB 133, “all hell broke loose,” she said, with infighting from the closed-door negotiations spilling into the Legislature.

“The oil and gas companies didn’t appreciate the language,” Ortez said. “They felt like they weren’t being listened to.”

Some environmentalists, meanwhile, felt that industry representatives had already watered down the bill too much during the negotiations and came out against it, she said.

HB 133 was picked apart further as it worked its way through the legislative process.

With the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association now opposed, House committees submitted substitute measures to shift the industry’s position, gain votes and pass the bill. The amended versions eliminated a requirement that wells be a certain distance from schools and other buildings. Also gone was language to remove a cap on the monetary penalties regulators could assess against oil companies. And bonding requirements were watered down to the point that new, stricter rules would only apply to a handful of drillers.

By the time the rewritten legislation made it to the House floor, “I was so wildly unenthusiastic of the bill,” said Andrew Forkes-Gudmundson, who worked on it for environmental group Earthworks.

Missi Currier, the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association’s president and CEO, said that the group dropped its opposition after the bill was amended. But as the bill’s supporters whipped votes, they still encountered resistance from legislators who had been persuaded by small oil companies’ arguments that the new rules would push drillers out of business, Forkes-Gudmundson recalled.

Having hemorrhaged environmentalists’ support without gaining significant votes from moderates and conservatives, Democratic leadership never brought the bill up for a vote by the full House.

State-sponsored influence

Because the oil and gas industry is largely governed at the state level, states banded together in the 1930s with the approval of Congress, and more recently with federal funding, to share best practices for regulating oil. The resulting organization, the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, has evolved into a forum where, much as happened in New Mexico, the industry influences the ideas that regulators take back to their states and write into the rules governing oil companies.

This was on full display in October at the commission’s annual conference, hosted among Utah’s Wasatch Mountains, which were blanketed by autumnal reds and yellows. With Chevron, ExxonMobil and Oxy Petroleum among the conference’s largest sponsors, oil and gas regulators from across the country had gathered at the Chateaux Deer Valley, an upscale ski resort overlooking Park City’s renowned pistes.

As the conference began, regulators were clear-eyed that taxpayers could be saddled with the cost of plugging orphan wells.

“This year, I spent $29 million, and somehow that’s still not enough,” Jason Harmon, one of West Virginia’s head oil regulators, said about his state’s well-plugging efforts.

Catherine Dickert, New York’s top oil regulator, noted that wells in her state get passed to ever-smaller companies “until finally they get transferred to somebody who owns two wells that never, ever will be able to plug them.”

And cleanup funds are “woefully inadequate in Pennsylvania right now,” Kurt Klapkowski, the commonwealth’s lead oil regulator, told the attendees. “And we’ve gotten a lot of opposition about increasing that.”

But as the conference progressed, talk of bonding regulations gave way to discussions of repurposing old wells. Perhaps natural gas would still be needed to develop hydrogen fuel, an ExxonMobil representative discussed on a panel at the conference. Or wells could be used for storing captured carbon dioxide, an Oxy Petroleum representative said on another. State regulators returned home with these and other pitches from the oil industry on how to manage aging oil fields.

In addition to conferences, the organization pens pro-oil and gas resolutions that it has placed in state legislatures. In these resolutions, its members have called on the federal government to minimize regulations on climate-warming gasses, increase oil-related tax credits and shield certain royalty owners from cleanup costs. States including Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma, among others, have passed resolutions pushed by the commission.

By the 1970s, the Department of Justice was arguing that the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission had largely become a lobbying organization. Critics today say the commission is hampering reform.

“They’re this unique mechanism for corporate capture,” said Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher with public interest watchdog organization Documented who has tracked the commission for years. “They get to act as this impartial source of information, when in reality, they’re on the industry side.”

While about 60 percent of the people involved with the group were government officials, a quarter worked in the oil and gas industry, according to a 2021 membership survey Documented obtained via a public records request. The Environmental Defense Fund is typically the only green group in the room.

The survey also found that people involved with the group saw its role as promoting “diverse viewpoints on climate related issues” and “fighting back against measures that seek to ‘keep it in the ground’” — the “it” referring to climate-warming fossil fuels.

As the U.S. Department of the Interior doles out $4.7 billion to plug orphan wells from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the commission and its members have helped write guidelines governing the spending, most of which is going to states, documents obtained via public records requests revealed. In many cases, the commission’s suggestions were highly technical and provided assistance to a federal department trying to navigate various states’ unique laws.

But at other times, the commission and its members asked the Interior Department to tear up requirements that states prioritize plugging wells that are emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and pay the regional prevailing wage to workers hired to do the plugging.

In an email responding to questions, Lori Wrotenbery, the commission’s executive director, said the group’s pushback was justified because the Interior Department had exceeded its authority in telling states how to spend the money.

For Coleman, resistance from the commission comes as no surprise.

“The regulations and the resolutions that they promote have allowed a greater degree of pollution,” he said, “and have allowed greater leniency on the oil and gas industry.”

Reform efforts failing to launch

Despite industry pressure, some states have begun addressing the orphan well epidemic. California passed a law in October that could significantly increase oil companies’ bonds. A few weeks later, Louisiana strengthened rules pushing companies to more quickly plug wells that aren’t pumping.

But New Mexico’s story is more typical. There and around the country, reform efforts have foundered.

Oklahoma, for example, faces an estimated shortfall of more than $7 billion between cleanup costs and bonds, according to state data analyzed by ProPublica and Capital & Main. Still, a group of Republican legislators has tried and failed for several years to increase the state’s bonding levels.

This legislative session, Rep. Brad Boles, a Republican, ran a bill to increase the highest level of required bonds from $25,000 to $150,000. Boles told a House committee that he had worked with two oil trade groups on the bill, describing it as “language that helps move the needle but also is not seen as anti-industry.”

His proposal unanimously passed the House of Representatives and a Senate committee. Even so, it died without a vote in the Senate. (Boles declined to “point fingers at any particular person or group” for its failure but said he would try again next session.)

Meanwhile in West Virginia, which has a projected bonding shortfall of more than $15 billion and some of the nation’s weakest bonding laws, a bill to strengthen regulations never made it onto a committee agenda. This is the sixth straight year that such legislation has failed, Mountain State Spotlight reported.

The bill’s lead sponsors did not respond to requests for comment.

“The industry has a pretty solid lock on the Legislature,” said David McMahon, a West Virginia attorney who drafted this year’s bill.

In New Mexico, Ortez, the legislator who ran HB 133, said she was “dismayed” by how the bill fell apart, even though it was “maybe too fair” to oil and gas companies. But she hasn’t given up, pledging to continue pitching the industry on reform and finding language that can secure the necessary votes in advance of next year’s legislative session.

“I feel so strongly about this moving forward,” she said. “We need to make it happen.”

Nick Bowlin of Capital & Main contributed reporting. Copyright 2024 Capital & Main and ProPublica.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How America’s ‘most powerful lobby’ is stifling efforts to reform oil well cleanup in state after state on Jul 4, 2024.

The Fourth of July usually doesn’t conjure up images of being eco-friendly, but there’s nothing…

The post Eco-Responsible July 4th Ideas Worth Celebrating, Too appeared first on Earth911.

Every Fourth of July, Americans fire up the grill and gather to watch fireworks in celebration of the nation’s birthday, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. But unbeknownst to many, the day is something of a dual holiday — because July 4 also marks the anniversary of the creation of the illustrious Caesar salad, a mouthwatering dish that splits the difference between side salad and main course, where romaine lettuce, croutons, Parmesan cheese, and of course, Caesar dressing come together in briny, creamy harmony. 

Accounts of the salad’s birthplace and origin story vary, but a few key details tend to remain the same: The dish was created in Tijuana, Baja California, by the Italian immigrant chef Caesar Cardini, when a group of Americans looking to escape Prohibition-era rules walked into his restaurant, Caesar’s Place. On a whim, Cardini put together a salad using odds and ends from around the kitchen: an egg, garlic, lemon, Parmesan cheese, whole romaine lettuce leaves. It is largely agreed that the Caesar was born on or around July 4, 1924 — 100 years ago. By bringing together a number of culinary influences and appetites, the Caesar salad reflects the multiculturalism of the U.S.-Mexico borderland and the ingenuity of immigrant kitchens; perhaps because of this, it has now loomed large in the American cultural imagination for a century. 

But for some eaters with dietary restrictions — such as vegans and those who can’t tolerate dairy — the anchovies, raw egg yolk (or mayonnaise as a shortcut), and mountains of grated cheese that define the Caesar salad pose a conundrum. And while both small, tinned fish and eggs have a relatively low environmental impact, the carbon footprint of Parmesan cheese may trouble those who strive to eat a planet-friendly diet. The U.S. retail market for plant-based substitutes for animal foods grew from $3.9 billion to $8.1 billion between 2017 and 2023, a period during which Americans’ alarm over climate change reached all-time highs.    

In response to this demand, restaurant chefs have been developing vegan Caesar salads. Drawing on myriad secret ingredients — tahini, cashews, coconut aminos — they’re aiming to replicate the flavor profile of a Caesar without  animal products. 

“It’s my favorite salad, it’s a lot of people’s favorite salad,” said Odie O’Connor, who has worked in restaurants for about 20 years and been vegan for almost 10 years. 

When O’Connor started making and selling vegan pizzas in Portland, Oregon, he knew he had to have a Caesar salad on the menu. The chef has worked in pop-ups and currently runs a brick-and-mortar shop called Boxcar Pizza that focuses on Detroit-style pies. In the restaurant’s early days, O’Connor was buying and using a store-bought vegan dressing. Then he decided to make his own in-house.

“When I’m looking to veganize something that is notoriously non-vegan, I’m just like, break it down: What is its flavor profile?” said O’Connor. “To me, that would be garlicky, kinda smoky, very salty, lemony.” Caesar salad also has a distinct umami flavor that comes from the use of anchovies, egg yolk or mayo, and Parmesan. Discovered by Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda in 1908, umami refers to a rich savoriness that stems primarily from the presence of the amino acid glutamate. It is considered to be a fifth taste, along with salty, sweet, sour, and bitter.

To replicate these flavors, O’Connor relied heavily on pantry staples: The garlic and lemon in the original Caesar dressing stayed, as they are already vegan; to them, he added salt, pepper and Dijon mustard, and used tahini, a sesame seed paste, as the base of the salad dressing. For Parmesan cheese, he substituted nutritional yeast. And to emulate the subtle zip that Caesar salad is known for, O’Connor uses a hefty amount of capers and their brine. 

“We try to be super intentional and put in the effort into each ingredient,” said O’Connor, who credits his own veganism to a desire to eat sustainably. Boxcar is first and foremost a pizza restaurant, but O’Connor says it sells “a huge amount” of Caesar salad. For those with dietary restrictions, he says, “I think people look forward to being able to still enjoy things they’ve always enjoyed but that due to their diet” aren’t always accessible to them.

However, in a testament to the persuasiveness of animal-free Caesar recipes, even some restaurants that serve meat have veganized their Caesar salads. 

One of them is Scarr’s Pizza in New York City. The recipe was developed nearly 10 years ago by Gerardo Lalo Gonzalez, who says Scarr’s owner, Scarr Pimentel, specifically requested a vegan Caesar for the menu. For his recipe, Gonzalez used cashews as a base and focused on how to replicate the flavor that anchovies bring to the traditional Caesar. However, he declined to share exactly what else goes into his dressing — although he hinted that seaweed may play a role. “Normally I’m very, very open with my recipes,” said Gonzalez. But Gonzalez promised Pimentel that the specifics of his recipe would be a secret. (Scarr’s did not respond to a request for comment before publication of this story.) The final recipe is “something I’m really proud of,” said Gonzalez, who now lives and freelances in California, says he still hears from Scarr’s customers all the time when they find out the salad is his creation.

“Caesar salad is like, universally everyone’s favorite salad,” he said. “It’s just refreshing and satisfying. I mean, when you break it down, it’s the dressing itself” that makes the salad shine. “It’s almost like a dip. It’s really just like eating a crudité.”

Dig, an East Coast-based fast-casual chain, is another franchise that serves animal products but has opted for a vegan Caesar. Experimentation played a huge role in the recipe’s development, according to chef Matt Weingarten, who wanted to avoid polarizing ingredients and common allergens. “We tried, I mean, I think it was six months,” said Weingarten, who is the culinary director at Dig. “We really, really workshopped this.” 

The final recipe uses cashews to replicate the rich mouthfeel that egg yolk or mayo brings to a traditional Caesar salad dressing. “The best way to understand how that decision was made is that one of the great qualities of Caesar — there’s lots of great qualities, it’s the garlickiness, it’s the sort of funkiness, it’s the brightness,” said Weingarten. “But it’s really that fat mouthfeel” that defines a Caesar, he said. The chef found early on that soaking and pureeing roasted cashews helped mimic that texture.

Their recipe also leans on coconut aminos, a common substitute for soy sauce, to bring a certain funkiness to the dish. The salad’s cheese factor comes from an “amalgamation” of the salad dressing ingredients, rather than from a 1-to-1 substitute. (Weingarten says he’s “not convinced” nutritional yeast tastes quite like Parmesan cheese.)

Originally developed around 2015, the chain’s vegan Caesar salad began as a seasonal item, to be rotated into the menu only for a select period of time. But the recipe was almost instantly a hit. “Really, once we put it on the menu, it hasn’t come off,” said Weingarten. Rather than replacing or sitting next to a traditional Caesar on the menu, the vegan Caesar at Dig has come to stand on its own.

Eating vegan is not, of course, the same as being zero-impact, especially when one’s definition of “impact” looks at more than just carbon emissions. Reports have shown, for example, that the production of cashews is “brutal” and highly exploitative of workers. And farmworkers in the U.S., many of them migrants, often endure dangerous working conditions for very low wages. Meanwhile, cows and hens raised for food in large-scale agriculture facilities often experience deplorable conditions.

Trying to make ethical food choices as a consumer can be vexing, but the journey toward a more sustainable diet can be rewarding — even thrilling. While Gonzalez is not “wholly plant-based” himself, he says the pursuit of cooking without using animal products scratches an itch creatively and professionally. “I’ve always been drawn to plant-based cooking because I think from a flavor point of view it’s a lot more interesting than relying solely on animal product,” he said. After developing the vegan Caesar for Scarr’s, Gonzalez says, “I was really emboldened. I was like, ‘I’m gonna make a vegan blue cheese.’” 

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline No Parm, no problem: How modern chefs are veganizing the Caesar salad on Jul 3, 2024.

It’s almost the Fourth of July in the United States, which for many people means barbeques and fireworks. The long-standing American tradition of colorful pyrotechnic displays may be fun to watch, but they release harmful particulate matter into the air.

The loud noises also frighten wildlife; interfere with feeding, breeding and migratory patterns; and can cause animals to flee into dangerous areas, using precious energy stores.

A new study by Greg Carling, a professor of geology at Brigham Young University (BYU), has revealed the details of what’s in the air pollution produced by fireworks.

“We know we’re breathing in these particles that are unhealthy during firework events, dust storms, or winter inversions,” said Carling in a press release from BYU. “But what’s actually in the particulate matter? No one really knew before this study.”

Particulate matter is made up of microscopic dust, trace metals, liquid droplets, smoke and other pollutants. Smaller particles like PM2.5 are the biggest threat to humans because they can be easily inhaled and go deep into the lungs.

The study found that most particulate matter in Utah’s Wasatch Front came from winter inversion, mineral dust and fireworks.

Over the course of two years, the research team — made up of Carling and students — collected and monitored filtered air samples of differing sizes of particulate matter, which included the extremely hazardous PM2.5. The team measured the trace metal concentration in the particulate matter over time.

The findings revealed that particulate matter metal pollution peaked with winter inversions in January and summer fireworks in July. High levels of copper and barium were found to have been emitted by the fireworks, while inversion smog contained cadmium, lead, arsenic and thallium.

Exposure to these toxic substances can lead to a variety of health issues, from cardiovascular disease to asthma. Utah has stringent drinking water standards, but there are currently no air quality standards for the metals found in the study.

“We know a bit about the acute problems that elements such as lead cause,” Carling said in the press release. “But then there are the chronic problems we don’t know about, and that probably should make people think, ‘Oh, so what’s actually harmful and how do we figure out what’s harmful?’”

Carling warned that any level of particulate matter is dangerous to the environment and human health.

“Metals are really good at moving around from the atmosphere into the soil, into the water and into our food,” Carling said. “And they’re persistent, meaning that they don’t really go away — they just keep cycling through the system.”

Any firework with colored light or that produces smoke contributes significantly to air pollution.

Carling was optimistic that increasing awareness will mean better decision-making and solutions. He recommended that people avoid personal fireworks and watch city displays instead. To reduce the level of toxins breathed in during periods of reduced air quality, Carling recommended exercising indoors or getting out of the city.

The study’s findings could help policymakers limit the quantities and types of fireworks used, as well as to support additional research into health issues caused by trace metal pollution.

“It’s great when research leads toward legislation that can help improve things,” Carling said. “Sometimes it’s just a paper that gets published and a few scientists read it. But other times, it gets picked up and used to create real solutions.”

The post Fireworks Release Toxic Particulate Matter Into the Air, Researchers Find appeared first on EcoWatch.