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Tag: waste management and remediation services

  • IAEA chief ‘completely convinced’ it’s safe to release treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater | CNN

    IAEA chief ‘completely convinced’ it’s safe to release treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater | CNN


    Tokyo
    CNN
     — 

    Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water into the ocean is safe and there is no better option to deal with the massive buildup of wastewater collected since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog told CNN.

    Japan will release the wastewater sometime this summer, a controversial move 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. Japanese authorities and the IAEA have insisted the plan follows international safety standards – the water will first be treated to remove the most harmful pollutants, and be released gradually over many years in highly diluted quantities.

    But public anxiety remains high, including in nearby countries like South Korea, China and the Pacific Islands, which have voiced concern about potential harm to the environment or people’s health. On Friday, Chinese customs officials announced they would ban food imports from ten Japanese prefectures including Fukushima, and strengthen inspections to monitor for “radioactive substances, to ensure the safety of Japanese food imports to China.”

    Speaking in an interview during a visit to Tokyo Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said that while fears over the plan reflect a “very logical sense of uncertainty” that must be taken seriously, he is “completely convinced of the sound basis of our conclusions.”

    “We have been looking at this basic policy for more than two years. We have been assessing it against … the most stringent standards that exist,” he said. “And we are quite certain of what we are saying, and the scheme we have proposed.”

    Grossi told CNN he had met with Japanese fishing groups, local mayors and other communities affected by the 2011 disaster – and whose livelihoods may be hurt by the release – to listen to those concerns.

    “My disposition … is one of listening, and explaining in a way that addresses all these concerns they have,” he said.

    “When one visits Fukushima, it is quite impressive, I will even say ominous, to look at all these tanks, more than a million tons of water that contains radionuclides – imagining that this is going to be discharged into the ocean. So all sorts of fears kick in, and one has to take them seriously, to address and to explain.

    “This is why I’m here, to listen to all those who in good faith have questions and criticism and question marks, and to address them.”

    On Tuesday, Grossi formally presented the IAEA’s safety review to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The report found the wastewater release plan will have a “negligible” impact on people and the environment, adding that it was an “independent and transparent review,” not a recommendation or endorsement.

    exp iaea fukushima lyman intvw 070512ASEG3 cnni world_00035521.png

    IAEA approves plan for Fukushima’s wastewater

    Japanese authorities have said the release is necessary because they are running out of room to contain the contaminated water – and the move will allow the full decommissioning of the Fukushima plant.

    The 2011 disaster caused the plant’s reactor cores to overheat and contaminate water within the facility with highly radioactive material. Since then, new water has been pumped in to cool fuel debris in the reactors. At the same time, ground and rainwater have leaked in, creating more radioactive wastewater that now needs to be stored and treated.

    That wastewater now measures 1.32 million metric tons – enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

    Japan has previously said there were “no other options” as space runs out – a sentiment Grossi echoed on Friday. When asked whether there were better alternatives to dispose of the wastewater, the IAEA chief answered succinctly: “No.”

    It’s not that there are no other methods, he added – Japan had considered five total options, including hydrogen release, underground burial and vapor release, which would have seen wastewater boiled and released into the atmosphere.

    But several of these options are “considered industrially immature,” said Grossi. For instance, vapor release can be more difficult to control due to environmental factors like wind and rain, which could bring the waste back to earth, he said. That left a controlled release of water into the sea – which, Japanese officials and some scientists point out, is frequently done at nuclear plants around the world, including those in the United States.

    The IAEA will also remain on site for years to come, with a new permanent office set up in Fukushima to help monitor progress.

    “We have the benefit of science,” Grossi said. “Either you have a certain radionuclide in a water sample or you don’t have it … it’s a measurable thing. We have the science, we have the laboratories … to ensure the credibility and the transparency of the process.”

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    CNN goes inside the Fukushima nuclear plant where wastewater is being treated

    But some critics have cast doubt on the IAEA’s findings, with China recently arguing that the group’s assessment “is not proof of the legality and legitimacy” of the wastewater release.

    Many countries have openly opposed the plan; Chinese officials have warned that it could cause “unpredictable harm,” and accused Japan of treating the ocean as a “sewer.” The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, an inter-governmental group of Pacific island nations that includes Australia and New Zealand, also published an op-ed in January voicing “grave concerns,” saying more data was needed.

    And in South Korea, residents have taken to the streets to protest the plan. Many shoppers have stockpiled salt and seafood for fear these products will be contaminated once the wastewater is released – even though Seoul has already banned imports of seafood and food items from the Fukushima region.

    IAEA chief Rafael Grossi during an inspection in Fukushima, Japan, on July 5, 2023.

    International scientists have also expressed concern to CNN that there is insufficient evidence of long-term safety, arguing that the release could cause tritium – a radioactive hydrogen isotope that cannot be removed from the wastewater – to gradually build up in marine ecosystems and food chains, a process called bioaccumulation.

    While Grossi said he takes these objections seriously, he added that he “cannot exclude” the possibility some are driven more by politics than science.

    “We understand that there is a political environment … which is tense. Geopolitical divisions are very, very strong these days so we cannot exclude these things,” he said.

    Grossi also denied media reports that the IAEA had shared a draft of its final report with the Japanese government ahead of its publication. “It’s absurd,” he said. “This is the DNA of the IAEA – to be the nuclear watchdog for nuclear operations, the nuclear watchdog for nuclear safety and security. When we come to a conclusion, it is our independent conclusion.”

    And more broadly, the future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release, he said. Though there has been heightened public alarm toward nuclear plants recently – for instance, regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine – “the problem there is war, the problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi said.

    “If there was one lesson that came clearly after the Fukushima accident, it’s that the nuclear safety standards should be observed to the letter,” he added. “If you do that, the probability of having what happened in Fukushima is extremely low.”

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  • A woman’s body was found in a bag at an abandoned bus stop. Malaysian police are investigating | CNN

    A woman’s body was found in a bag at an abandoned bus stop. Malaysian police are investigating | CNN


    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    Police in Malaysia say they are investigating the death of a woman whose decomposing body was discovered in a travel bag at an abandoned bus station.

    A passerby found the bag near a building belonging to the state electricity company Tenaga Nasional Berhad earlier this week in Kulai, a district in the southern state of Johor, state news agency Bernama reported.

    Kulai district police chief Tok Beng Yeow said the highly decomposed state of the body – which he estimated at more than 50 per cent – had hampered initial identification efforts, according to Bernama.

    However, a preliminary post-mortem report by Sultanah Aminah Hospital suggested the body belonged to a woman over 25 years of age, who had sustained a head injury and may have died around two weeks ago.

    The district police chief said an investigation is ongoing as he appealed to local residents to come forward with information.

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  • ‘A new era’: Germany quits nuclear power, closing its final three plants | CNN

    ‘A new era’: Germany quits nuclear power, closing its final three plants | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Germany’s final three nuclear power plants close their doors on Saturday, marking the end of the country’s nuclear era that has spanned more than six decades.

    Nuclear power has long been contentious in Germany.

    There are those who want to end reliance on a technology they view as unsustainable, dangerous and a distraction from speeding up renewable energy.

    But for others, closing down nuclear plants is short-sighted. They see it as turning off the tap on a reliable source of low-carbon energy at a time when drastic cuts to planet-heating pollution are needed.

    Even as these debates rumble on, and despite last-minute calls to keep the plants online amid an energy crisis, the German government has been steadfast.

    “The position of the German government is clear: nuclear power is not green. Nor is it sustainable,” Steffi Lemke, Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment and Consumer Protection and a Green Party member, told CNN.

    “We are embarking on a new era of energy production,” she said.

    The closure of the three plants – Emsland, Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim – represents the culmination of a plan set in motion more than 20 years ago. But its roots are even older.

    In the 1970s, a strong anti-nuclear movement in Germany emerged. Disparate groups came together to protest new power plants, concerned about the risks posed by the technology and, for some, the link to nuclear weapons. The movement gave birth to the Green Party, which is now part of the governing coalition.

    Nuclear accidents fueled the opposition: The partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania in 1979 and the 1986 catastrophe at Chernobyl that created a cloud of radioactive waste which reached parts of Germany.

    In 2000, the German government pledged to phase out nuclear power and start shutting down plants. But when a new government came to power in 2009, it seemed – briefly – as if nuclear would get a reprieve as a bridging technology to help the country move to renewable energy.

    Then Fukushima happened.

    In March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused three reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to melt down. For many in Germany, Japan’s worst nuclear disaster was confirmation “that assurances that a nuclear accident of a large scale can’t happen are not credible,” Miranda Schreurs, professor of environment and climate policy at the Technical University of Munich, told CNN.

    Three days later then-Chancellor Angela Merkel – a physicist who was previously pro-nuclear – made a speech called it an “inconceivable catastrophe for Japan” and a “turning point” for the world. She announced Germany would accelerate a nuclear phase-out, with older plants shuttered immediately.

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, however, provided another plot twist.

    Fearful of its energy security without Russian gas, the German government delayed its plan to close the final three plants in December 2022. Some urged a rethink.

    But the government declined, agreeing to keep them running only until April 15.

    For those in the anti-nuclear movement, it’s a moment of victory.

    “It is a great achievement for millions of people who have been protesting nuclear in Germany and worldwide for decades,” Paul-Marie Manière, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, told CNN.

    For critics of Germany’s policy, however, it’s irrational to turn off a low-carbon source of energy as the impacts of the climate crisis intensify.

    “We need to keep existing, safe nuclear reactors operating while simultaneously ramping up renewables as fast as possible,” Leah Stokes, a professor of climate and energy policy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told CNN.

    The big risk, she said, is that fossil fuels fill the energy gap left by nuclear. Reductions in Germany’s nuclear energy since Fukushima have been primarily offset by increases in coal, according to research published last year.

    Germany plans to replace the roughly 6% of electricity generated by the three nuclear plants with renewables, but also gas and coal.

    More than 30% of Germany’s energy comes from coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels – and the government has made controversial decisions to turn to coal to help with energy security.

    In January, protestors including Greta Thunberg converged on the west German village of Lützerath in an unsuccessful attempt to stop it being demolished to mine the coal underneath it.

    “Building new coal capacity is the opposite of what we need,” said Stokes. Fossil fuels are a climate problem, but they’re also a health risk, she pointed out. Air pollution from fossil fuels is responsible for 8.7 million deaths a year, according to a recent analysis.

    Veronika Grimm, one of Germany’s leading economists, told CNN that keeping nuclear power plants running for longer would have allowed Germany more time “to electrify extensively,” especially as renewable energy growth “remains sluggish.”

    A new solar energy park near Prenzlau, Germany. The German government is seeking to accelerate the construction of both solar and wind energy parks.

    But supporters of the nuclear shutdown argue it will ultimately hasten the end of fossil fuels.

    Germany has pledged to close its last coal-fired power station no later than 2038, with a 2030 deadline in some areas. It’s aiming for 80% of electricity to come from renewables by the end of this decade.

    While more coal was added in the months following Fukushima, Schreurs said, nuclear shutdowns have seen a big push on clean energy. “That urgency and demand can be what it takes to push forward on the growth of renewables,” she said.

    Representatives for Germany’s renewable energy industry said the shutdown will open the door for more investment into clean energy.

    “Germany’s phase-out of nuclear power is a historic event and an overdue step in energy terms,” Simone Peter, president of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE), told CNN. “It is high time that we leave the nuclear age behind and consistently organize the renewable age.”

    The impacts of nuclear power shouldn’t be overlooked either, Schreurs said, pointing to the carbon pollution created by uranium mining as well as the risk of health complications for miners. Plus, it creates a dependency on Russia, which supplies uranium for nuclear plants, she added.

    Nuclear has also shown itself to have vulnerabilities to the climate crisis. France was forced to reduce nuclear power generation last year as the rivers used to cool reactors became too hot during Europe’s blistering heatwave.

    The Gorleben nuclear waste storage facility, an interim storage facility for spent fuel elements and high-level radioactive waste.

    Now Germany must work out what do with the deadly, high-level radioactive waste, which can remain dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.

    Currently, the nuclear waste is kept in interim storage next to the nuclear plants being decommissioned. But the search is on to find a permanent location where the waste can be stored safely for a million years.

    The site needs to be deep – hundreds of meters underground. Only certain types of rock will do: Crystalline granite, rock salt or clay rock. It must be geologically stable with no risks of earthquakes or signs of underground rivers.

    The process is likely to be fraught, complex and breathtakingly long – potentially lasting more than 100 years.

    BGE, the Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal, estimates a final site won’t be chosen until between 2046 and 2064. After that, it will take decades more to build the repository, fill it with the waste and seal it.

    Plenty of other countries are treading paths similar to Germany’s. Denmark passed a resolution in the 1980s not to construct nuclear power plants, Switzerland voted in 2017 to phase out nuclear power, Italy closed its last reactors in 1990 and Austria’s one nuclear plant has never been used.

    But, in the context of the war in Ukraine, soaring energy prices and pressure to reduce carbon pollution, others still want nuclear in the mix.

    The UK, in the process of building a nuclear power plant, said in its recent climate strategy that energy nuclear power has a “crucial” role in “creating secure, affordable and clean energy.”

    France, which gets about 70% of its power from nuclear, is planning six new reactors, and Finland opened a new nuclear plant last year. Even Japan, still dealing with the aftermath of Fukushima, is considering restarting reactors.

    The Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant, Germany.

    The US, the world’s biggest nuclear power, is also investing in nuclear energy and, in March, started up a new nuclear reactor, Vogtle 3 in Georgia – the first in years.

    But experts suggest this doesn’t mark the start of a nuclear ramp up. Vogtle 3 came online six years late and at a cost of $30 billion, twice the initial budget.

    It encapsulates the big problem that afflicts the whole nuclear industry: making the economics add up. New plants are expensive and can take more than a decade to build. “Even the countries that are talking pro-nuclear are having big trouble developing nuclear power,” Schreurs said.

    Many nuclear power plants in Europe, the US and elsewhere are aging – plants have an operating life of around 40 to 60 years. As Germany puts an end to its nuclear era, it’s coming up to crunch time for others, Schreurs said.

    “There will be a moment of decision as to whether nuclear really has a future”

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  • Who will end up paying for the banking crisis: You | CNN Business

    Who will end up paying for the banking crisis: You | CNN Business

    A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    It cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation about $23 billion to clean up the mess that Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank left in the wake of their collapses earlier this month.

    Now, as the dust clears and the US banking system steadies, the FDIC needs to figure out where to send its invoice. While regional and mid-sized banks are behind the recent turmoil, it appears that large banks may be footing the bill.

    Ultimately, that means higher fees for bank customers and lower rates on their savings accounts.

    What’s happening: The FDIC maintains a $128 billion deposit insurance fund to insure bank deposits and protect depositors. That fund is typically supplied by quarterly payments from insured banks in the United States. But when a big, expensive event happens — like the FDIC making uninsured customers whole at Silicon Valley Bank — the agency is able to assess a special charge on the banking industry to recover the cost.

    The law also gives the FDIC the authority to decide which banks shoulder the brunt of that assessment fee. FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg said this week that he plans to make the details of the latest assessment public in May. He has also hinted that he would protect community banks from having to shell out too much money.

    The fees that the FDIC assesses on banks tend to vary. Historically, they were fixed, but 2010’s Dodd-Frank act required that the agency needed to consider the size of a bank when setting rates. It also takes into consideration the “economic conditions, the effects on the industry, and such other factors as the FDIC deems appropriate and relevant,” according to Gruenberg.

    On Tuesday and Wednesday, members of the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee grilled Gruenberg about his plans to charge banks for the damage done by SVB and others, and repeatedly implored him to leave small banks alone.

    Gruenberg appeared receptive.

    “Will you commit to using your authority…to establish separate risk-based assessment systems for large and small members of the Deposit Insurance Fund so that these well-managed banks don’t have to bail out Silicon Valley Bank?” asked the US Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican who represents of Kentucky’s 6th district.

    “I’m certainly willing to consider that,” replied Gruenberg.

    “if smaller community banks in Texas will be left responsible for bailing out the failed banks in California and New York?” asked US Rep. Roger Williams, a Republican who represents Texas’ 25th district.

    “Let me just say, without forecasting what our board is going to vote, we’re going to be keenly sensitive to the impact on community banks,” replied Gruenberg.

    Representatives Frank Lucas, John Rose, Ayanna Pressley, Dan Meuser, Nikema Williams, Zach Nunn and Andy Ogles all asked similar questions and received similar responses. As did US Sens. Sherrod Brown and Cynthia Lummis.

    “I don’t doubt he’s still fielding a lot of phone calls,” from politicians pressuring him to place the burden on large banks, former FDIC chairman Bill Isaac told CNN.

    Smaller banks are saying that they’re unable to pick up this tab and didn’t have anything to do with the failure of “these two wild and crazy banks,” said Isaac. “They’re arguing to put the assessment on larger banks and as I understand it, the FDIC is thinking seriously about it,” he added.

    A spokesperson from the FDIC told CNN that the agency “will issue in May 2023 a proposed rulemaking for the special assessment for public comment.” In regard to Greunberg’s testimony they added that “when the boss says something, we defer to the boss.”

    Big banks: “We need to think hard about liquidity risk and concentrations of uninsured deposits and how that’s evaluated in terms of deposit insurance assessments,” said Gruenberg to the Senate Banking Committee, indicating that smaller banks that are operating carefully could be asked to bear less of the assessment.

    A larger assessment on big banks would add to what will already be a multi-billion dollar payment from the nation’s largest banks like JPMorgan Chase

    (JPM)    , Citigroup

    (C)    , Bank of America

    (BAC)     and Wells Fargo

    (WFC)    .

    The argument is that the largest US banks will be able to shoulder extra payments without collapsing under it. Those large banks also benefited greatly from the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank as wary customers sought safety by moving billions of dollars worth of money to big banks. 

    Passing it on: Regardless of who’s charged, the fees will eventually get passed on to bank customers in the end, said Isaac. “It’s going to be passed on to all customers. I have no doubts that banks will make up for these extra costs in their pricing — higher fees for services, higher prices for loans and less compensation for deposits.”

    It’s hard out there for a Wall Street banker. Or harder than it was.

    The average annual Wall Street bonus fell to $176,700 last year, a 26% drop from the previous year’s average of $240,400, according to estimates released Thursday by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

    While that’s a big decrease, the 2022 bonus figure is still more than twice the median annual income for US households, reports CNN’s Jeanne Sahadi.

    All in, Wall Street firms had a $33.7 billion bonus pool for 2022, which is 21% smaller than the previous year’s record of $42.7 billion — and the largest drop since the Great Recession.

    For New York City and New York State coffers, bonus season means a welcome infusion of revenue, since employees in the securities industry make up 5% of private sector employees in NYC and their pay accounts for 22% of the city’s private sector wages. In 2021, Wall Street was estimated to be responsible for 16% of all economic activity in the city.

    DiNapoli’s office projects the lower bonuses will bring in $457 million less in state income tax revenue and $208 million less for the city compared to the year before.

    Beleaguered retailed Bed Bath & Beyond will attempt to $300 million of its stock to repay creditors and fund its business as it struggles to avoid bankruptcy, reports CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn.

    If it’s not able to raise sufficient money from the offering, the home furnishings giant said Thursday it expects to “likely file for bankruptcy.”

    Bed Bath & Beyond was able to initially avoid bankruptcy in February by completing a complex stock offering that gave it both an immediate injection of cash and a pledge for more funding in the future to pay down its debt. That offering was backed by private equity group Hudson Bay Capital.

    But on Thursday, Bed Bath & Beyond said it was terminating the deal with Hudson Bay Capital for future funding and is turning to the public market.

    Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond dropped more than 26% Thursday. The stock was trading around 60 cents a share.

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  • Parisian streets littered with trash after wave of strikes | CNN

    Parisian streets littered with trash after wave of strikes | CNN


    Paris
    CNN
     — 

    The City of Lights has a garbage problem.

    Massive strikes in Paris against pension reform this week are affecting trash pickup services in the French capital, with piles of waste sitting on many of the city’s normally picturesque streets, including those just steps from monuments like the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe.

    As of Saturday, about 4,400 tonnes of trash were awaiting collection, a spokeswoman for the Paris mayor’s office said. The spokeswoman said that the problem is a blockage at trash incinerators caused by the strikes. Garbage trucks have thus been unable to pick up waste in much of the city because they have nowhere to put it.

    Not all neighborhoods have been equally affected. The municipal government is in charge of garbage collection in half of Paris’ 20 arrondissements. Private contractors are responsible for the other 10.

    Municipal services like trash collection in Paris have been affected since Tuesday, when strikes saw flights and trains canceled and delayed; oil refiners blockaded; schools shuttered; and left thousands without electricity. The French capital was the most affected, with nearly 60% of its primary school teachers walking out and the local metro forced to cut service to all but the busiest times.

    Massive protests have been staged regularly throughout France since January 19, with more than a million people coming out multiple to voice their opposition to the government’s plan to raise the official retirement age for most workers as part of reforms to the government’s pension system, one of Europe’s most generous.

    As of Saturday, about 4,400 metric tones of trash were awaiting collection on the streets of Paris, a spokeswoman for the mayor's office said.

    President Emmanuel Macron’s government says the changes are necessary to make the system financially stable.

    The trash buildup in Paris has been sparked health concerns among Parisians and local politicians. The mayor of the 17th arrondissement, Geoffroy Boulard, said in an interview with CNN affiliate BFMTV that he has asked Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo to hire a private service provider to intervene.

    “We can’t wait,” he said. “This is a matter of public health.”

    Boulard said he’s also worried about the proliferation of rats and rodents as well as Paris’ image.

    Another local mayor, Jean-Pierre Lecoq of the 6th arrondissement, asked Hidalgo to intervene in an open letter he published on Twitter.

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  • As crews remove contaminated soil and liquid from Ohio toxic train wreck site, concerns emerge about where it’s going | CNN

    As crews remove contaminated soil and liquid from Ohio toxic train wreck site, concerns emerge about where it’s going | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    After a brief pause, shipments of contaminated liquid and soil from the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, have resumed after cross-country concerns about where the hazardous waste is going.

    Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency previously said they have approved the shipment of contaminated waste to two EPA-certified sites in Ohio: Heritage Thermal Services in East Liverpool and Vickery Environmental in Vickery. Region 5 Administrator Debra Shore said Monday two more sites – one in Ohio and one in Indiana – will also receive waste from the derailment scene.

    The move came after officials in Texas and Michigan complained they didn’t get any warning that waste from the toxic crash site would be shipped to their states for disposal. The EPA ordered the train’s operator, Norfolk Southern, to stop the shipments Friday so that it could review the company’s disposal plans.

    Shore said she spoke with officials from Ohio and Indiana on Monday regarding the shipment of hazardous waste material to their towns.

    Questions about the disposal of toxic waste from the February 3 derailment have added to the controversy surrounding the crash that has also left residents of the town worried about potential long-term health effects.

    The mayor of East Liverpool, one of the Ohio towns set to incinerate the waste, expressed concerns about the process but said the EPA has assured him that everyone has been following necessary guidelines.

    “We have a 2-year-old daughter and of course that’s a concern,” Mayor Gregory T. Bricker said. “But, again, I think this is a state-of-the-art facility that can handle this type of waste.”

    So far, about 1.8 million gallons of liquid waste and 4,832 cubic yards of solid waste have been pulled from the derailment site, according to the office of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.

    EPA Administrator Michael Regan is expected to make his third trip to East Palestine on Tuesday to mark the grand opening of a new community center, Shore said.

    US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has given Norfolk Southern and other major rail companies a deadline of this week to say whether they will participate in the Confidential Close Call Reporting System – a voluntary program that allows workers to report safety hazards.

    “This common-sense program encourages employees to report safety hazards, including conditions that could lead to derailments, by protecting these workers from reprisal when they come forward,” Buttigieg wrote in a Monday letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw.

    The transportation secretary said “not one major freight rail company participates” in the Confidential Close Call Reporting System, also known as C3RS.

    “By refusing to take this commonsense step, you are sending an undesirable message about your level of commitment to the safety of your workers and the American communities where you operate,” Buttigieg wrote.

    “I am asking you to join the C3RS program now, even as our Department proceeds to take appropriate steps toward making this program mandatory.”

    Buttigieg first called for the change in a letter to railroads dated February 14, but is now going directly to rail CEOs and asking them to reply to the Department of Transportation “by the end of the week.”

    After that, Buttigieg said, he will “present the public with a summary of which companies have agreed to this important safety measure and which have refused.”

    The hazardous waste that has already been sent to Michigan and Texas is being processed, EPA regional administrator Debra Shore said Sunday.

    About 2 million gallons of firefighting water from the train derailment site were expected to be disposed in Harris County, Texas, with about half a million gallons already there, the county’s chief executive said last week.

    In Michigan, contaminated soil from the derailment site was taken to the US Ecology Wayne Disposal in Belleville, Michigan, US Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said.

    Vickery Environmental will process overflow water from the crash scene, according to the Sandusky County Emergency Management Agency.

    The agency didn’t comment on how much water the facility has received so far, saying only that it has been receiving three to four loads per day, but according to Ohio officials, more than 94,000 gallons have been disposed of at the facility so far.

    Until Friday, Norfolk Southern had been “solely responsible” for disposing of waste from the train derailment, but waste disposal plans “will be subject to federal EPA review and approval moving forward,” Shore said.

    Every aspect of transporting and disposing of the hazardous waste “from the moment trucks and rail cars are loaded until the waste is safely disposed of” will be closely regulated and overseen by federal, state, and local governments, Shore said Sunday.

    After speaking to residents in East Palestine, Shore said “we owe it to the people of East Palestine to move it out of the community as quickly as possible.”

    “At the same time,” Shore added, “I know there are folks in other states who have concerns, legitimate concerns, about how this waste is being transported and how it will be disposed of. EPA will continue to work with our local, state, and federal partners to use our longstanding experience and expertise in these matters to ensure the health and safety, and support the East Palestine community and to hold Norfolk Southern accountable.”

    The fiery derailment and subsequent intentional release of vinyl chloride from train cars left East Palestine residents with anxiety about the safety of their air and water. Some have reported rashes, headaches, nausea and bloody noses.

    So far, tests of East Palestine’s public drinking have found “no indication of risk to East Palestine public water system customers” and “treated drinking water shows no detection of contaminants associated with the derailment,” the EPA said in a Sunday update.

    And air quality tests inside 578 East Palestine homes detected no contaminants linked to the derailment, the EPA said.

    But residents are still concerned, and federal teams are going door-to-door to conduct health surveys and provide informational flyers after President Joe Biden directed the move, a White House official told CNN.

    And new wells will be drilled this week “to determine if ground water immediately below the derailment site is contaminated,” DeWine’s office announced Sunday.

    Four wells have already been installed and up to three more will be drilled this week after the soil under the rails is completely excavated, officials said.

    “These monitoring wells will also support a better understanding of the direction and rate of the ground water flow in the area,” DeWine’s office said.

    As for the wreckage, all rail cars except the 11 held by investigators have been removed from the site of the derailment, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Anne Vogel said Sunday.

    “This is so critically important to moving on to next steps. We can now excavate additional contaminated soil and began installing monitoring wells,” Vogel said.

    The Ohio EPA will oversee the installation of water monitoring wells at the site of the derailment that will measure contaminant levels in the groundwater below.

    While the crash was “100% preventable,” it appears the train’s crew didn’t do anything wrong leading up to the derailment, said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.

    An NTSB preliminary report found one of the train’s cars carrying plastic pellets was heated by a hot axle that sparked the initial fire, Homendy said last week. Video of the train before the crash showed what appeared to be an overheated wheel bearing, the report said.

    What caused the wheel bearing failure will be key to the investigation, Homendy added.

    The investigation will also look into the train’s wheelset and the bearing, the designs of tank cars and railcars, the maintenance procedures and practices, as well as the damage from the derailment, the NTSB report said.

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  • Shipments of contaminated waste to resume from Ohio train derailment site | CNN

    Shipments of contaminated waste to resume from Ohio train derailment site | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The Environmental Protection Agency has approved resuming shipments of contaminated liquid and soil out of East Palestine, Ohio, where a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed earlier this month.

    The EPA on Friday ordered the train’s operator, Norfolk Southern, to halt the shipments so that it could review the company’s plans for disposal, adding to the controversy surrounding the crash that has also left residents of the town worried about potential long-term health effects.

    That’s as officials in Texas and Michigan complained they didn’t receive any warning that hazardous waste from the crash would be shipped into their jurisdictions for disposal.

    Shipments now will be going to two EPA-certified facilities in Ohio, and Norfolk Southern will start shipments to these locations Monday, EPA regional administrator Debra Shore said at a news conference Sunday.

    “Some of the liquid wastes will be sent to a facility in Vickery, Ohio, where it will be disposed of in an underground injection well,” Shore said. “Norfolk Southern will also beghin shipping solid waste to the Heritage Incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio.”

    Until Friday, Norfolk Southern was “solely responsible” for disposing of waste from the train derailment, Shore said Saturday, but waste disposal plans “will be subject to EPA review and approval moving forward.”

    All rail cars, except for those held by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), have been removed from the site of the derailment, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Anne Vogel said in an update Sunday.

    The NTSB is currently holding 11 railcars as part of its investigation into the derailment, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement Sunday.

    “This is so critically important to moving on to next steps. We can now excavate additional contaminated soil and began installing monitoring wells,” Vogel said. The Ohio EPA will oversee the installation of water monitoring wells at the site of the derailment that will measure contaminant levels in the groundwater below.

    Every aspect of transporting and disposing of the hazardous waste material “from the moment trucks and rail cars are loaded until the waste is safely disposed of” will be closely regulated and overseen by federal, state, and local governments, Shore said Sunday.

    Shore detailed the federal, state, and local compliance requirements expected from Norfolk Southern.

    “These extensive requirements cover everything from waste labeling, packaging, and handling, as well as requirements for shipping documents that provide information about the wastes and where they’re going,” Shore said.

    The hazardous waste material previously sent to facilities in Michigan and Texas is now being processed at those facilities, Shore said.

    About 2 million gallons of firefighting water from the train derailment site were expected to be disposed in Harris County, Texas, with about half a million gallons already there, according to the county’s chief executive.

    Also, contaminated soil from the derailment site was being taken to the US Ecology Wayne Disposal in Belleville, Michigan, US Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said Friday.

    The Michigan and Ohio facilities were, in fact, EPA approved sites, but they are not currently accepting any more shipments at this time, and the EPA is “exploring to see whether they have the capacity” to accept shipments in the future, Shore said.

    A spokesperson Gov. DeWine told CNN the governor was not briefed on where in the country the shipments would be sent. But this is typical, as the train company is responsible for the transport of material and the EPA is responsible for regulating that transport, DeWine spokesman Daniel Tierney said Saturday.

    The February 3 derailment of the Norfolk Southern train and subsequent intentional release of vinyl chloride it was hauling first forced East Palestine residents out of their homes, then left them with anxiety about health effects as reports of symptoms like rashes and headaches emerged after they returned.

    Officials have repeatedly sought to assure residents that continued air and water monitoring has found no concerns. The EPA reported last week that they have conducted indoor air testing at a total of 574 homes and detected no contaminants associated with the derailment.

    Federal teams in East Palestine have begun going door-to-door to check in with residents, conduct health surveys and provide informational flyers after President Joe Biden directed the move, a White House official told CNN.

    Also, a 19-person scientific team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been collecting information from residents about symptoms they have experienced since the derailment, said Jill Shugart, a senior environmental health specialist for the CDC.

    The EPA also installed “sentinel wells” near the city’s municipal well field to monitor contaminants in well water as part of the agency’s long-term early detection system “to protect the city for years to come,” Vogel, head of the Ohio EPA, said Saturday.

    In a Saturday update on the removal of contaminated waste, DeWine said 20 truckloads of hazardous solid waste had been hauled away from the Ohio derailment site. Fifteen of those truckloads were disposed of at a licensed hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility in Michigan and five truckloads were returned to East Palestine.

    About 102,000 gallons of liquid waste and 4,500 cubic yards of solid waste remained Saturday in storage on site in East Palestine – not including the five truckloads returned, according to DeWine. Additional solid and liquid wastes are being generated as the cleanup progresses, he added.

    Dingell told CNN on Saturday that neither she nor Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were aware of plans for toxic waste to be delivered to disposal sites in her district.

    “I called everybody,” Dingell said. “Nobody had really been given a heads up that they were coming here.”

    Across the country, Texas Chief Executive Lina Hidalgo expressed frustration that she first learned about the expected water shipments to her state from the news media – not from a government agency or Texas Molecular, the company hired to dispose of the water.

    She added that although there’s no legal requirement for her office to be notified, “it doesn’t quite seem right.”

    Hidalgo said Texas Molecular told her office Thursday that half a million gallons of the water was already in the county and the shipments began arriving around last Wednesday.

    On Thursday, Texas Molecular told CNN it had been hired to dispose of potentially dangerous water from the Ohio train derailment. The company said they had experts with more than four decades of experience in managing water safely and that all shipments, so far, had come by truck for the entire trip.

    Hidalgo’s office had been seeking information about the disposal, including the chemical composition of the firefighting water, the precautions that were being taken, and why Harris County was the chosen site, she said.

    According to a Thursday news release from Ohio Emergency Management Agency, more than 1.7 million gallons of contaminated liquid had been removed from the immediate site of the derailment. Of that, more than 1.1 million gallons of “contaminated liquid” from East Palestine had been transported off-site, with the majority going to Texas Molecular and the rest going to a facility in Vickery, Ohio.

    CNN asked the Ohio agency the location of the remaining 581,500 gallons which had been “removed” but not “hauled off-site” and has yet to receive a response.

    Regarding the causes of the accident, a National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report found that one of the train’s cars carrying plastic pellets was heated by a hot axle that sparked the initial fire, said Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the safety board. So far, the investigation found the three crew members on board the train did not do anything wrong prior to the derailment, though the crash was “100% preventable,” she said.

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  • Ohio governor drinks the tap water as the EPA demands Norfolk Southern manage all cleanup of a toxic train wreck — or face consequences | CNN

    Ohio governor drinks the tap water as the EPA demands Norfolk Southern manage all cleanup of a toxic train wreck — or face consequences | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The US Environmental Protection Agency is ordering Norfolk Southern to handle and pay for all necessary cleanup after a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio.

    The EPA announced its legally binding order Tuesday, 18 days after the freight train derailed. The disaster ignited a dayslong inferno, shot plumes of black smoke into the air and led to the intentional release of vinyl chloride to help avert a more catastrophic blast.

    Some residents have reported health problems, and about 3,500 fish have died in Ohio waterways since the wreck.

    “Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning the mess that they created and the trauma that they inflicted on this community,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said Tuesday.

    As part of the EPA’s legally binding order, Norfolk Southern will be required to:

    • Identify and clean up any contaminated soil and water resources,

    • Reimburse the EPA for cleaning services to be offered to residents and businesses to provide an additional layer of reassurance, which will be conducted by EPA staff and contractors,

    • Attend and participate in public meetings at the EPA’s request and post information online, and

    • Pay for the EPA’s costs for work performed under the order.

    The order will take effect Thursday. The EPA said it will exercise its strongest authority against the train’s operator under CERCLA – the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.

    “In no way, shape or form will Norfolk Southern get off the hook for the mess that they created,” Regan said.

    If the rail company fails to meet the demands, the EPA said it will immediately step in, conduct the necessary work and then seek to compel Norfolk Southern to pay triple the cost.

    In response to the EPA’s announcement, Norfolk Southern said it has been working to clean up the site and will continue helping residents.

    “We recognize that we have a responsibility, and we have committed to doing what’s right for the residents of East Palestine,” Norfolk Southern said in a statement to CNN.

    “We have been paying for the clean-up activities to date and will continue to do so. We are committed to thoroughly and safely cleaning the site, and we are reimbursing residents for the disruption this has caused in their lives. We are investing in helping East Palestine thrive for the long-term, and we will continue to be in the community for as long as it takes. We are going to learn from this terrible accident and work with regulators and elected officials to improve railroad safety.”

    Hours before the EPA’s announcement, Regan and Gov. Mike DeWine visited an East Palestine home and tried to reassure residents that the municipal water supply is safe.

    They raised two glasses filled with water straight from the tap and toasted before drinking.

    The municipal water supply comes from five wells deep underground that are encased in steel, state officials have said. But residents with private well water should get that water tested before using it, since that water may be sourced closer to the ground’s surface.

    “State and local authorities will continue the water sampling efforts, and EPA will continue indoor air screenings to residents within the evacuation zone,” Regan said Tuesday.

    But “I recognize that no matter how much data we collect or provide, it will not be enough to completely reassure everybody,” the EPA chief said.

    “It may not be enough to restore the sense of safety and security that this community once had. But we’re going to work together, day by day, for as long as it takes to make sure that this community feels at home once again.”

    The soil under the railroad track at the site of the wreck is still contaminated, and the tracks need to be lifted to remove that soil, the director of Ohio’s Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday.

    The governor acknowledged residents’ concerns about the contaminated soil and said 4,588 cubic yards of soil and 1.1 million gallons of contaminated water have been removed from East Palestine.

    “The railroad got the tracks back on and started running and the soil under the tracks had not been dealt with,” DeWine said. “The tracks will have to be taken up, and that soil will have to be removed.”

    To address the growing reports of rashes, headaches, nausea and other symptoms in East Palestine, the state opened a new health clinic for residents.

    The health clinic will have registered nurses, mental health specialists and – at times – a toxicologist, the Ohio Department of Health said.

    Medical teams from the US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health are expected to arrive in the community as early as this week to help assess what dangers might remain.

    Authorities have repeatedly assured residents that the air and municipal water supply in the town are safe. Crews have checked hundreds of homes and have not detected any dangerous levels of contaminants, the EPA said.

    Still, life in East Palestine has been uprooted as residents question the findings and wonder whether it’s really safe to drink the water or breathe the air.

    “It will be important to monitor people’s health and the environment around the train derailment for some time to come since health impacts may not emerge until later,” said Dr. Erin Haynes, an environmental health scientist at the University of Kentucky.

    “We should never say we’re done looking at this community for potential exposures and health impacts.”

    Petroleum based chemicals float on the top of the water in Leslie Run creek after being agitated from the sediment on Monday in East Palestine.

    Some waterways were contaminated after the crash, killing an estimated 3,500 fish. But officials have said they believe those contaminants have been contained.

    Norfolk Southern installed booms and dams to restrict the flow of contaminated water from Sulphur Run and Leslie Run – two streams where fish were found dead, the EPA said.

    “The spill did flow to the Ohio River during that initial slug, but the Ohio River is very large, and it’s a water body that’s able to dilute the pollutants pretty quickly,” Ohio Environmental Protection Agency official Tiffani Kavalec said last week.

    Kavalec said the agency is pretty confident that the “low levels” of contaminants that remain are not getting passed on to water customers.

    A series of pumps have been placed upstream to reroute Sulphur Run around the derailment site, Norfolk Southern said Monday.

    “Environmental teams are treating the impacted portions of Sulphur Run with booms, aeration, and carbon filtration units,” Norfolk Southern added. “Those teams are also working with stream experts to collect soil and groundwater samples to develop a comprehensive plan to address any contamination that remains in the stream banks and sediment.”

    Water intakes from the Ohio River that were shut off Sunday “as a precautionary measure” were reopened after sampling found “no detections of the specific chemicals from the train derailment,” the Greater Cincinnati Water Works and Northern Kentucky Water District said Monday.

    A third utility provider – Maysville utility in Kentucky – announced that it temporarily shut off water intakes from the Ohio River on Saturday, when the toxic chemicals released into the river from the derailment were expected to arrive at the water treatment intake in Kentucky, utility general manager Mark Julian said.

    Water measurements have been below the level of concern, Julian said, and Maysville took precautionary measures in temporarily shutting down their Ohio River intake valve due to the public concern.

    “The takeaway is that anyone along the Ohio River where the contaminants made their way can breathe a sigh of relief,” he said.

    A member of Ohio EPA Emergency Response looks for fish at Leslie Run creek and checks for chemicals in East Palestine on Monday.

    Meanwhile, the majority of the hazardous rail cars remain at the crash site as investigators continue to probe the wreck. But about 15,000 pounds of contaminated soil and 1.1 million gallons of contaminated water have been removed from the scene, Norfolk Southern announced Monday.

    The contaminated soil became a point of contention last week after a public document sent to the EPA on February 10 did not list soil removal among completed cleanup activities. It is not yet known what significance or impact the soil that was not removed before the railroad reopened on February 8 will have had on the surrounding areas.

    As skepticism spreads about the safety of the air and water, some local businesses say they’ve seen fewer customers.

    “Everybody’s afraid … They don’t want to come in and drink the water,” Teresa Sprowls, a restaurant owner in East Palestine, told CNN affiliate WOIO.

    A stylist at a hair salon told WOIO there’s no doubt the salon lost business and that customers may be worried about what may be in the water washing their hair.

    “I know a lot of our businesses are already suffering greatly because people don’t want to come here,” local greenhouse owner Dianna Elzer told CNN affiliate WPXI.

    Her husband, Donald Elzer, echoed her concerns, saying, “It’s devastating. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets.”

    Dianna Elzer also worried about longer-term economic impacts to the community.

    “Our property values – who is going to want to buy a house here now?” she told WPXI. “It’s going to be a long struggle to get back to where we were.”

    As residents call for accountability from both Norfolk Southern and government officials, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he plans to visit East Palestine “when the time is right” – but did not announce a date.

    He did announce Monday new efforts by the Department of Transportation to improve rail safety.

    “We are accelerating and augmenting our ongoing lines of effort on rail regulation and inspection here at the US DOT, including further regulation on high hazard flammable trains and electronically controlled pneumatic brakes – rules that were clawed back under the previous administration – to the full extent of that we are allowed to under current law, and we will continue using resources from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to fund projects that improve rail safety,” Buttigieg said.

    A DOT news release said the agency will continue to press for the “Train Crew Staffing Rule,” which would require a minimum of two crew members during most railroad operations. Norfolk Southern has opposed the proposed rule.

    Norfolk Southern has committed millions of dollars’ worth of financial assistance to East Palestine, including $3.4 million in direct financial assistance to families and a $1 million community assistance fund, among other aid, the company said.

    Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw posted an open letter telling East Palestine residents, “I hear you” and “we are here and will stay here for as long as it takes to ensure your safety and to help East Palestine recover and thrive.”

    “Together with local health officials,” Shaw said, “we have implemented a comprehensive testing program to ensure the safety of East Palestine’s water, air, and soil.”

    Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the first name of Ohio Environmental Protection Agency official Tiffani Kavalec.

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  • Exclusive: Supreme Court justices used personal emails for work and ‘burn bags’ were left open in hallways, sources say | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Supreme Court justices used personal emails for work and ‘burn bags’ were left open in hallways, sources say | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Long before the leak of a draft opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, some Supreme Court justices often used personal email accounts for sensitive transmissions instead of secure servers set up to guard such information, among other security lapses not made public in the court’s report on the investigation last month.

    New details revealed to CNN by multiple sources familiar with the court’s operations offer an even more detailed picture of yearslong lax internal procedures that could have endangered security, led to the leak and hindered an investigation into the culprit.

    Supreme Court employees also used printers that didn’t produce logs – or were able to print sensitive documents off-site without tracking – and “burn bags” meant to ensure the safe destruction of materials were left open and unattended in hallways.

    “This has been going on for years,” one former employee said.

    The problem with the justices’ use of emails persisted in part because some justices were slow to adopt to the technology and some court employees were nervous about confronting them to urge them to take precautions, one person said. Such behavior meant that justices weren’t setting an example to take security seriously.

    The justices were “not masters of information security protocol,” one former court employee told CNN.

    In a statement attached to the final report, the court called the leak a “grave assault” on the court’s legitimacy and the marshal of the court issued a road map to improve security.

    The report and the new revelations of weak protocols come as the court is trying to protect its own legitimacy after an embarrassing leak and allegations (prompted by the recent rash of high profile cases breaking along familiar ideological lines) that it has simply become another political branch. The 20-page report and its still secret “Annex A” raised some questions as to whether the entire investigation should have been outsourced to someone without close ties to the court.

    Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff reviewed and endorsed the Supreme Court’s internal investigation into the leak. However, the court did not disclose Chertoff had been paid at least $1 million in recent years to perform security assessments for the court.

    The court declined to comment.

    In her report last month, Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley noted that the “court’s current method of destroying court sensitive documents has vulnerabilities that should be addressed.”

    Three former employees told CNN of loose security around burn bags that are supplied to chambers to deal with sensitive documents. A burn bag is a security bag that holds sensitive documents which will ultimately be destroyed by fire or shredding.

    There was no uniform rule that established a procedure for these paper bags with red stripes. Instead, the justices each have their own protocols. According to a source familiar with the court’s security practices, employees have the option to use the burn bags which are later taken to the basement of the building and emptied into locked bins so that they can be retrieved by a shredding company.

    Another source questioned how the burn bags were handled before they were collected. The source said some colleagues would staple a burn bag shut. Others simply filled them to capacity and left them near their desks. But some burn bags were simply left in the hallway outside of chambers, presumably so that they could be taken to the basement. It would not have been difficult, the source suggested, for someone with access to the non-public area of the court to access sensitive documents.

    Another vulnerability outlined by Curley was printer logs meant to track document production. A former employee highlights something that Curley did not detail: employees who had VPN access could print documents from any computer, making it difficult to track copies. Curley made an important concession in the report that some locally connected printers only logged the last 60 documents printed.

    A look at the timeline of the leak reveals how such a system would be problematic for investigators.

    That’s because the initial draft was distributed internally on February 10, 2022. But the leak investigation only started in May when Politico published the draft opinion. Some of those print logs would almost surely no longer exist because the 60-document threshold had been reached.

    Curley did not go into great detail, but she did suggest the court “institute tracking mechanisms” in the future.

    Another potential problem revolved – especially during Covid – around the possibility that opinions could leave the building. According to the report, Court Information System User Guidelines prohibit “attempting to leave facilities with Court Sensitive Information (hard copy or electronic) without proper authorization.”

    But during Covid many such regulations were necessarily relaxed. And even with the rule in place, one source said, there were no mechanisms to check what was actually being taken from the court. To be sure, the hallways in the areas of the court that are closed to the public were guarded and protected by doors with a numerical code necessary to enter, but the code wasn’t necessarily changed very often.

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  • US citizen charged over alleged killing of DJ in Colombia | CNN

    US citizen charged over alleged killing of DJ in Colombia | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Colombian authorities have charged an American citizen over the alleged murder of a female DJ in Colombia whose body was discovered inside a suitcase at the bottom of a garbage container.

    John Poulos was arrested and detained at the Tocumen International Airport in Panama on Tuesday while trying to leave for Istanbul, the Panamanian National Police said.

    During a televised court hearing in Bogota, lasting more than five hours, Poulos spoke through a translator to deny the charges, which relate to the death of Valentina Trespalacios, 23, a well-known electronic music DJ.

    Trespalacios’ body was found by a recycler in the early hours of January 22 in a garbage container in the southwest of Bogota.

    In a previous hearing on Thursday, the court heard details of a relationship between Trespalacios and Poulos.

    Poulos’s defense alleged that there were flaws in his arrest and that due process had not been respected.

    The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office and police say they have more than 300 hours of security footage in which Poulos and Trespalacios are seen in the days before her body was found.

    Another hearing is set for January 31.

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  • ‘A very significant emergency’: California’s deadly, record-setting storms are about to get an encore | CNN

    ‘A very significant emergency’: California’s deadly, record-setting storms are about to get an encore | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The historic storms devastating much of California have turned entire neighborhoods into lakes, unleashed sewage into floodwater and killed at least 18 people.

    And there’s more to come. About 5 million people were under flood watches Wednesday as yet another atmospheric river is bringing more rain to California.

    “The state has been experiencing drought for the last four years, and now we have storm upon storm,” California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis said Wednesday.

    “We’ve had six storms in the last two weeks. This is the kind of weather you would get in a year and we compressed it just into two weeks.”

    It had already been “one of the deadliest disasters in the history of our state,” Brian Ferguson, California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services spokesman said Wednesday before the 18th death was reported.

    “Yesterday, we had perhaps more air rescues than we’ve ever had on any other single day in the state’s history,” Ferguson said, adding that the Golden State is not out of the woods yet.

    “While there is a bit of a break today, we continue to see additional storms prepared to come onshore in the next two days,” he said. “We’re continued to be concerned about our streams, our culverts and some of the areas that are prone to mudslides, particularly along our central coast.”

    The flood watches Wednesday are primarily in Northern and Central California, including Sacramento, the North Bay and Redding. That barely leaves enough time for residents in flood-ravaged neighborhoods to assess the devastation before the next storm.

    “It’s just brown water everywhere. And it’s just rushing through – it was going fast,” Fenton Grove resident Caitlin Clancy said.

    “We had a canoe strapped up, that we thought if we needed to, we could canoe out. But it was moving too fast.”

    The onslaught of recent storms came from a parade of atmospheric rivers – long, narrow regions in the atmosphere that can carry moisture thousands of miles.

    “We have had five atmospheric rivers come into California over two weeks,” Kounalakis said.

    “Everything is wet. Everything is saturated. Everything is at a breaking point, and there is more rain coming.”

    In fact, four more atmospheric rivers are expected to hit California in the next 10 days.

    Residents scramble to collect belongings Wednesday before floodwater rises in Merced, California.

    Here’s what’s in store as another round of ferocious weather barrels down on the West Coast:

    • The heaviest rain over the next seven days is expected in northern parts of California, where the National Weather Service predicts an additional 5 to 10 inches. On Wednesday, Northern California got a radar-estimated 1-2 inches of rain, with some higher elevations getting around 3 inches.

    • The rain shifted north Wednesday afternoon, giving Central California a brief pause. There’s a slight risk – level 2 of 4 – for excessive rainfall Thursday for the northwest coast, and a marginal risk – level 1 of 4 – along the Pacific Northwest coast.

    • Precipitation pushed inland to the Sierra Nevada Wednesday afternoon, dumping more snow. Snow was still falling Wednesday evening.

    Another round of atmospheric moisture is expected to come onshore Friday, but less severe than earlier ones. A slight risk for excessive rainfall has been issued for the northwest coast of the state, with a marginal risk south, including the hard-hit Bay Area and San Luis Obispo.

    Rescue crews in San Luis Obispo County are scrambling to find 5-year-old Kyle Doan, who was swept away from a truck near the Salinas River Monday morning.

    Kyle Doan, 5, was last seen Monday in San Miguel, San Luis Obispo County.

    National Guard members arrived Wednesday to help with the search, and more will be arriving Thursday, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said in a tweet Wednesday.

    The sheriff’s office earlier urged the public to leave the search operation to the professionals to avoid the risk of volunteers needing to be rescued themselves.

    As another storm looms, many residents are still grappling with devastation to their communities.

    Rachel Oliviera used a shovel to try to push out some of the floodwater and thick mud enveloping her Felton Grove home.

    “It’s backbreaking labor,” Oliviera said, visibly emotional.

    But she was more concerned about her neighbors, whose homes were also covered in thick mud.

    “A lot of us that live here in the neighborhood are elderly, and can’t actually physically do the cleanup.”

    In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Chatsworth, several people had to be rescued after a sinkhole swallowed two vehicles Tuesday. In Malibu, a massive boulder came crashing down, shutting down a key roadway.

    In parts of Santa Barbara County, “the storm caused flows through the sewer system to exceed capacity, resulting in the release of sewage from the system to the street,” County Supervising Environmental Health Specialist Jason Johnston said Monday evening.

    The local health department warned the water could increase the risk of illnesses.

    Another sinkhole was reported Monday in Santa Barbara County’s Santa Maria, where 20 homes were evacuated, CNN affiliate KEYT reported.

    “The storms hit us like a water balloon exploding and just dropped water down through our rivers and creeks. So it’s been this excessive amount of flooding – it’s been the cycles over and over again,” Santa Cruz County spokesman Jason Hoppin told CNN.

    Hoppin said 131 homes in the county received significant damage, but could be salvaged, while five others are not salvageable.

    Trees have been toppling, claiming lives and causing property destruction and roadway obstructions. Sacramento officials estimate that about 1,000 trees have fallen since New Year’s Eve, Sacramento Department of Public Works spokeswoman Gabby Miller told CNN on Wednesday, adding that staff and crews have been working around the clock on cleanup.

    In San Francisco, the public works department has logged about 1,300 tree-related incidents, which include downed trees, but also just limbs and branches, according to Rachel Gordon, director of policy and communications at San Francisco Public Works.

    Parks that are home to some of the state’s iconic redwoods haven’t been spared, according to California State Parks spokesperson Adeline Yee.

    “At Redwood National and State Parks and Big Basin Redwood State Park, we’ve seen some downed trees that are blocking roads and trails,” Yee said. “At this time, most of the trees that have come down are not the old-growth redwoods.”

    In the state park system, 54 park units were closed as of Wednesday morning, and 38 were partially closed.

    The recent atmospheric river storm system also has left dozens of state travel routes inoperable, and at least 40 are closed, according to Caltrans spokesman Will Arnold.

    “Caltrans has activated our 12 Emergency Operations Centers throughout the state and more than 4,000 crews are running 24/7 maintenance patrols for road hazards like downed trees, flooded roads, mudslides/rockslides,” Arnold said.

    The recent storms turned fatal after trees crashed onto homes and cars, rocks and mud cascaded down hillsides and floodwater rapidly rose.

    At least 18 people have died in California storms in just the past two weeks. The latest victim was a 43-year-old woman, whose body was recovered Wednesday from inside a vehicle that had been washed into a flooded Sonoma County vineyard, officials said. Divers found the vehicle submergd in 8 to 10 feet of water.

    “That’s more than we’ve lost in the last two years of wildfires,” the lieutenant governor said. “So this is a very significant emergency.”

    Rebekah Rohde, 40, and Steven Sorensen, 61, were both found “with trees on top of their tents” over the weekend, the Sacramento County Coroner said. Both were unhoused, according to the release.

    In the San Joaquin Valley, a tree fell on a pickup truck on State Route 99 in Visalia on Tuesday, killing the driver. A motorcyclist also died after crashing into the tree, the California Highway Patrol said.

    Another driver died after entering a flooded roadway in Avila Beach Monday, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office said.

    “It only takes six inches of water to lose control of a car to be knocked over. In 12 inches, cars start floating away,” Kounalakis said this week.

    “You’ve heard that creeks that have risen 14 feet just in the last day and in certain areas we’ve had over a foot of rain – just in the last 48 hours. So it is unbelievable.”

    Rescue crews help stranded residents Tuesday in Merced, California.

    Several areas across the state have registered 50% to 70% of their average annual rainfall just since the parade of atmospheric river events began to impact the state on December 26, according to the National Weather Service. Oakland got 69% of its annual average, Santa Barbara 64%, Stockton 60%, and downtown San Francisco 59%.

    Downtown San Francisco, Oakland and Santa Barbara have each gotten more than a foot of rain, according to the NWS.

    Though none of the coming storms are expected to individually be as impactful as the most recent ones, the cumulative effect could be significant in a state where much of the soil is already too saturated to absorb any more rain.

    And the state’s ongoing drought has parched the landscape so much, the soil struggles to absorb the incoming rainfall – which can lead to dangerous flash flooding.

    Scientists have warned the climate crisis is having a significant effect on California’s weather, increasing the swings between extreme drought and extreme rain.

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  • A trash heap 62 meters high shows the scale of India’s climate challenge | CNN

    A trash heap 62 meters high shows the scale of India’s climate challenge | CNN


    New Delhi
    CNN
     — 

    At the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi, a steady flow of jeeps zigzag up the trash heap to dump more garbage on a pile now over 62 meters (203 feet) high.

    Fires caused by heat and methane gas sporadically break out – the Delhi Fire Service Department has responded to 14 fires so far this year – and some deep beneath the pile can smolder for weeks or months, while men, women and children work nearby, sifting through the rubbish to find items to sell.

    Some of the 200,000 residents who live in Bhalswa say the area is uninhabitable, but they can’t afford to move and have no choice but to breathe the toxic air and bathe in its contaminated water.

    Bhalswa is not Delhi’s largest landfill. It’s about three meters lower than the biggest, Ghazipur, and both contribute to the country’s total output of methane gas.

    Methane is the second most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, but a more potent contributor to the climate crisis because methane traps more heat. India creates more methane from landfill sites than any other country, according to GHGSat, which monitors methane via satellites.

    And India comes second only to China for total methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Methane Tracker.

    As part of his “Clean India” initiative, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said efforts are being made to remove these mountains of garbage and convert them into green zones. That goal, if achieved, could relieve some of the suffering of those residents living in the shadows of these dump sites – and help the world lower its greenhouse gas emissions.

    India wants to lower its methane output, but it hasn’t joined the 130 countries who have signed up to the Global Methane Pledge, a pact to collectively cut global methane emissions by at least 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. Scientists estimate the reduction could cut global temperature rise by 0.2% – and help the world reach its target of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius.

    India says it won’t join because most of its methane emissions come from farming – some 74% from farm animals and paddy fields versus less than 15% from landfill.

    In a statement last year, Minister of State for Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change Ashwini Choubey said pledging to reduce India’s total methane output could threaten the livelihood of farmers and affect India’s trade and economic prospects.

    But it’s also facing challenges in reducing methane from its steaming mounds of trash.

    A young boy in the narrow lanes of slums in Bhalswa Dairy Village.

    When Narayan Choudhary, 72, moved to Bhalswa in 1982, he said it was a “beautiful place,” but that all changed 12 years later when the first rubbish began arriving at the local landfill.

    In the years since, the Bhalswa dump has grown nearly as tall as the historic Taj Mahal, becoming a landmark in its own right and an eyesore that towers over surrounding homes, affecting the health of people who live there.

    Choudhary suffers from chronic asthma. He said he nearly died when a large fire broke out at Bhalswa in April that burned for days. “I was in terrible shape. My face and nose were swollen. I was on my death bed,” he said.

    “Two years ago we protested … a lot of residents from this area protested (to get rid of the waste),” Choudhary said. “But the municipality didn’t cooperate with us. They assured us that things will get better in two years but here we are, with no relief.”

    The dump site exhausted its capacity in 2002, according to a 2020 report on India’s landfills from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a nonprofit research agency in New Delhi, but without government standardization in recycling systems and greater industry efforts to reduce plastic consumption and production, tonnes of garbage continue to arrive at the site daily.

    Narrow lanes of the slum in Bhalswa Dairy Village.

    Bhalswa isn’t the only dump causing distress to residents nearby – it is one of three landfills in Delhi, overflowing with decaying waste and emitting toxic gases into the air.

    Across the country, there are more than 3,100 landfills. Ghazipur is the biggest in Delhi, standing at 65 meters (213 feet), and like Bhalswa, it surpassed its waste capacity in 2002 and currently produces huge amounts of methane.

    According to GHGSat, on a single day in March, more than two metric tons of methane gas leaked from the site every hour.

    “If sustained for a year, the methane leak from this landfill would have the same climate impact as annual emissions from 350,000 US cars,” said GHGSat CEO Stephane Germain.

    Methane emissions aren’t the only hazard that stem from landfills like Bhalswa and Ghazipur. Over decades, dangerous toxins have seeped into the ground, polluting the water supply for thousands of residents living nearby.

    In May, CNN commissioned two accredited labs to test the ground water around the Bhalswa landfill. And according to the results, ground water within at least a 500-meter (1,600-foot) radius around the waste site is contaminated.

    A ground water sample from the Bhalswa landfill in northwest Delhi.

    In the first lab report, levels of ammonia and sulphate were significantly higher than acceptable limits mandated by the Indian government.

    Results from the second lab report showed levels of total dissolved solids (TDS) – the amount of inorganic salts and organic matter dissolved in the water – detected in one of the samples was almost 19 times the acceptable limit, making it unsafe for human drinking.

    The Bureau of Indian Standards sets the acceptable limit of TDS at 500 milligrams/liter, a figure roughly seen as “good” by the World Health Organization (WHO). Anything over 900 mg/l is considered “poor” by the WHO, and over 1,200 mg/l is “unacceptable.”

    According to Richa Singh from the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), the TDS of water taken near the Bhalswa site was between 3,000 and 4,000 mg/l. “This water is not only unfit for drinking but also unfit for skin contact,” she said. “So it can’t be used for purposes like bathing or cleaning of the utensils or cleaning of the clothes.”

    Dr. Nitesh Rohatgi, the senior director of medical oncology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, urged the government to study the health of the local population and compare it to other areas of the city, “so that in 15 to 20 years’ time, we are not looking back and regretting that we had a higher cancer incidence, higher health hazards, higher health issues and we didn’t look back and correct them in time.”

    Most people in Bhalswa rely on bottled water for drinking, but they use local water for other purposes – many say they have no choice.

    “The water we get is contaminated, but we have to helplessly store it and use it for washing utensils, bathing and at times drinking too,” said resident Sonia Bibi, whose legs are covered in a thick, red rash.

    Jwala Prashad, 87, who lives in a small hut in an alleyway near the landfill, said the pile of putrid trash had made his life “a living hell.”

    “The water we use is pale red in color. My skin burns after bathing,” he said, as he tried to soothe red gashes on his face and neck.

    “But I can’t afford to ever leave this place,” he added.

    Jwala Prashad, 87, at the handpump in front of his house in Bhalswa Dairy Village.

    More than 2,300 tonnes of Municipal Solid Waste arrive at Delhi’s largest dump in Ghazipur every day, according to a report released in July by a joint committee formed to find a way to reduce the number of fires at the site.

    That’s the bulk of the waste from the surrounding area – only 300 tonnes is processed and disposed of by other means, the report said. And less than 7% of legacy waste had been bio-mined, which involves excavating, treating and potentially reusing old rubbish.

    The Municipal Corporation of Delhi deploys drones every three months to monitor the size of the trash heap and is experimenting with ways to extract methane from the trash mountain, the report said.

    But too much rubbish is arriving every day to keep up. The committee said bio-mining had been “slow and tardy” and it was “highly unlikely” the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (which has now merged with North and South Delhi Municipal Corporations) would achieve its target of “flattening the garbage mountain” by 2024.

    “No effective plans to reduce the height of the garbage mountain have been made,” the report said. Furthermore, “it should have proposed a long time ago that future dumping of garbage in them would pollute the groundwater systems,” the report added.

    CNN sent a series of questions along with the data from the water testing questionnaire to India’s Environment and Health Ministries. There has been no response from the ministries.

    In a 2019 report, the Indian government recommended ways to improve the country’s solid waste management, including formalizing the recycling sector and installing more compost plants in the country.

    While some improvements have been made, such as better door-to-door garbage collection and processing of waste, Delhi’s landfills continue to accumulate waste.

    In October, the National Green Tribunal fined the state government more than $100 million for failing to dispose of more than 30 million metric tonnes of waste across its three landfill sites.

    “The problem is Delhi doesn’t have a concrete solid waste action plan in place,” said Singh from the CSE. “So we are talking here about dump site remediation and the treatment of legacy waste, but imagine the fresh waste which is generated on a regular basis. All of that is getting dumped everyday into these landfills.”

    “(So) let’s say you are treating 1,000 tons of legacy (waste) and then you are dumping 2,000 tons of fresh waste every day it will become a vicious cycle. It will be a never ending process,” Singh said.

    “Management of legacy waste, of course, is mandated by the government and is very, very important. But you just can’t start the process without having an alternative facility of fresh waste. So that’s the biggest challenge.”

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  • What to do with your old phones, gadgets and other e-waste | CNN Business

    What to do with your old phones, gadgets and other e-waste | CNN Business



    CNN Business
     — 

    In the past two months, Apple, Google and Samsung have all unveiled their newest smartphones and other devices with the goal of getting consumers to upgrade ahead of the holidays. But in the process, these and other companies may also be adding to a growing problem: electronic waste.

    The limited lifespan of many tech gadgets combined with few options to fix older devices, have caused the issue of e-waste to surge over the years. United Nation’s data indicates the world generated a staggering 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste in 2019, and only 17.4% of that was recycled.

    Friday marks International E-Waste Day, an annual opportunity to reflect on the impacts of electronic waste and do more to repair or recycle them. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEE) Forum, a Brussels-based nonprofit that has spearheaded the occasion since 2018, said the focus this year is on taking action with the small bits of e-waste many people may unintentionally hoard, including your old cell phone, headphones, remote controls and computer mouse.

    “People tend not to realize that all these seemingly insignificant items have a lot of value, and together at a global level represent massive volumes,” Pascal Leroy, director general of the WEEE Forum, said in a statement.

    The issue of e-waste is about much more than just cleaning out space in your junk drawers.

    The US Environmental Protection Agency says large swaths of e-waste are shipped to developing countries that lack the capacity to reject these imports or infrastructure to safely recycle them. The World Health Organization also warned that children, with their smaller hands, are often used to process mountains of e-waste in developing nations in search of valuable elements such as copper, silver, palladium and more. The WHO said more than 18 million children are exposed to a range of negative health impacts as they engage in this informal e-waste processing industry.

    Here are a few steps you can take with the phones, laptops and chargers you have stashed at home to alleviate the e-waste burden.

    If you live in an area that offers e-waste disposal services (either via specific pickup dates or at a drop-off location), experts say that’s among the easiest and most intuitive ways to clear out old gadgets.

    Various coalitions have emerged in recent years to give consumers the option to responsibly dispose of devices. The e-Stewards group and Sustainable Electronics Recycling International each offer online tools to find recycling centers that they have certified.

    The collective impact of recycling e-waste can be staggering. For every 1 million cell phones that are recycled, the EPA says 35,000 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold and 33 pounds of palladium can be recovered.

    But not all municipalities in the US offer infrastructure for e-waste recycling.

    If you can’t find a recycling center nearby, a growing list of major retailers — including Staples and Best Buy — also have programs that let customers bring in e-waste for recycling. And many producers, including Apple

    (AAPL)    , have programs that offer credits or free recycling in exchange for trading-in used gadgets. Google

    (GOOG)    , for example, offers an option to request a free shipping label to mail in some used gadgets and electronics for recycling.

    Environmental advocates say the most important step to tackling the mounting e-waste problem is simply to try and use your electronics for as long as possible. In some ways, that’s getting easier than ever.

    While tech manufacturers have come under fire for tactics aimed at making you upgrade, policymakers have recently enacted changes to push companies to make it easier for customers to repair consumer electronics and support the rise of the Right-to-Repair movement.

    Earlier this year, Apple and Samsung launched their self-service repair stores, offering parts for users seeking do-it-yourself fixes for their smartphones. Google similarly announced it would offer genuine Pixel parts for DIY-ers at an online store this year.

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  • Californians will soon be able to turn their remains into soil with human composting | CNN

    Californians will soon be able to turn their remains into soil with human composting | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    California has become the latest state to provide its residents with an eco-friendly, if unorthodox, option for their remains after death: composting.

    Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law last Sunday, according to a news release from the bill’s author, state Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia.

    The process is officially called “natural organic reduction,” and involves “fostering gentle transformation into a nutrient-dense soil, which can then be returned to families or donated to conservation land,” the release explained.

    Natural organic reduction is less harmful to the environment than the other two legal options (cremation and burial), according to the release. Burial can allow chemicals to leek into the soil, and cremation requires the burning of fossil fuels and releases carbon dioxide.

    The law will not go into effect until January 2027, according to the text of the bill. The law stipulates the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau, a subdivision of the Department of Consumer Affairs, will develop regulations for facilities performing the process.

    In the release, Garcia called natural organic reduction “an alternative method of final disposition that won’t contribute emissions into our atmosphere and will actually capture CO2 in our soil and trees.”

    “If more people participate in organic reduction and tree-planting, we can help with California’s carbon footprint,” she said. “This bill has been in the works for the last three years, and I am very happy that it was signed into law. I look forward to continuing my legacy to fight for clean air by using my reduced remains to plant a tree.”

    Recompose, a company which has been offering natural organic reduction services since 2020, also lauded the law in the release.

    “Recompose is thrilled that the options for nature-based death care in California have expanded,” said the company’s CEO and founder Katrina Spade in the release. “Natural organic reduction is safe and sustainable, allowing our bodies to return to the land after we die.”

    According to Recompose’s website, natural organic reduction works much like composting your vegetable scraps does. The body is placed in a vessel along with wood chips, alfalfa, and straw. Over a month, microbes work to break the body down into a cubic yard of soil, which can then be used in a loved one’s garden, or anywhere else.

    Washington became the first state to legalize so-called “human composting” in 2019. Lawmakers similarly cited the ecological benefits of reduction over burial and cremation.

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  • Two very different points of view on nuclear energy in the US | CNN Politics

    Two very different points of view on nuclear energy in the US | CNN Politics

    A version of this story appears in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.



    CNN
     — 

    Two distinct and unrelated stories this week convinced me it was a good moment to look at nuclear power in the US.

    Those developments, which might give anyone pause about the future of nuclear power, are counteracted by other headlines.

    The opening of a new nuclear plant in Georgia, for example, will bring carbon emission-free energy at exactly the time worldwide temperature records drive home the reality of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

    Germany made the decision to decommission all of its nuclear plants after disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima. The last nuclear reactor there was taken offline earlier this year, a decision some might have regretted after Germany’s access to Russian natural gas was threatened by the war in Ukraine.

    Next door, France is the worldwide nuclear leader. Most of its electricity is generated by nuclear power.

    Russia, while it has been ostracized from the world economy in almost every way since its invasion of Ukraine, remains a major player in nuclear power. It enriches and sells uranium through its state-controlled nuclear energy company, Rosatom, which builds and operates plants around the world, according to a March report from CNN’s Clare Sebastian that explains why the West has largely left Russia’s nuclear power industry alone.

    But it is China that is moving the quickest toward nuclear power production, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

    As of 2022, about 18% of US electricity is generated by nuclear power, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Most large US nuclear reactors are old – averaging 40 years or more.

    In addition to the Georgia reactor coming online, a new reactor began operating in Tennessee in 2016. But otherwise, the US nuclear power portfolio is old, and much of it is in need of improvement.

    For an idea of the money and corruption that can revolve around energy production, look at the sentencing last week of Ohio’s former House Speaker Larry Householder to 20 years in prison for his involvement in a bribery scheme meant to get the utility company FirstEnergy Corp. a billion-dollar taxpayer bailout for two nuclear plants.

    The bipartisan infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden in 2021 included a $6 billion program to provide grants to nuclear reactor owners or operators and stave off closing them.

    More than a dozen reactors have closed early in the US over the past decade, according to the Department of Energy. At least one reactor, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California, will be kept open after a more than $1 billion grant.

    Nuclear power – and how aggressively the US and other countries should be pursuing it – is a topic that splits scientists as well.

    I talked to one nuclear expert who said the US should be slow and methodical about nuclear power and another who argued there are multiple, public misperceptions about nuclear power that should be corrected.

    The more circumspect voice is Rodney Ewing, a Stanford University professor and expert on nuclear waste who was chairman of a federal review of nuclear waste procedures. I was put in touch with him by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which aims to “reduce man-made threats to our existence.”

    Despite his decades spent focused on nuclear issues, he said something I found remarkable:

    “I don’t have yet, although I’ve tried for years, a well-formed position for or against nuclear energy,” Ewing said.

    “Too often in the enthusiasm for nuclear energy, a carbon-free source of energy – and in the present situation of the issue of climate change, really a very important existential crisis – it’s easy to say, well, we’ll solve the problems later.”

    He said the issues with nuclear energy – from the potential for disaster to the issue of how to store nuclear waste – should be compared with the potential for renewable alternatives like solar and wind energy.

    The University of Illinois energy professor, David Ruzic – who has a lively YouTube channel, “Illinois EnergyProf,” with multiple videos meant to dispel concerns about nuclear energy – has a much more positive view of nuclear energy’s future.

    Illinois, by the way, generates more nuclear power than any other state. Lawmakers there recently voted to lift a moratorium on new reactor construction that was in place until the federal government can develop a technology for disposing of nuclear waste. That new policy must still be signed by the state’s governor.

    Ruzic argues nuclear waste takes up such little space it should simply be encased in yards of solid concrete and kept at the site of nuclear reactors. The concrete, he argued, can be repaired every 70 years or so as it degrades.

    “Over the 60 years we’ve been doing this commercially, we have learned so much about how to do it extremely safely and very well,” Ruzic said, arguing that the new plant in Georgia would not be affected by an earthquake and tidal wave in the way that Fukushima was, because the new reactor in Georgia is cooled by air in case of an emergency.

    He argued that even in Fukushima, it’s important to note that there were no deaths associated with the radiation due to the failure of the plant, although many thousands were evacuated.

    Any concern you can find to raise about nuclear power, Ruzic has a ready answer. He said no one should worry about the radioactive water Japan plans to release into the ocean from Fukushima because there is a level of radioactivity in everything already.

    “You are adding something trivial and inconsequential, which will be diluted even more,” Ruzic said.

    Even the Russia-Ukraine standoff over the Zaporizhzhia plant does not concern Ruzic; the biggest threat he sees, assuming it is not targeted by bunker-busting bombs, is that the plant ceases making electricity – not that it could turn into another Chernobyl.

    “It’s really unfortunate that it’s in the middle of a war zone. But it’s also really unfortunate that chemical plants or coal plants or other plants are in the middle of a war zone as well,” he argued.

    Both professors brought up the push toward small, modular nuclear technology for which there are numerous companies speculating there will be a major market. That market could grow exponentially if the government decides to put a tax on carbon emissions to account for the harm they cause.

    Ewing argued there is not a clear US national energy strategy, and that means numerous state and federal agencies and private companies are searching, often at odds with each other, for something new. The expense and difficulty of developing nuclear technology will be a roadblock. The new Georgia plant took more than a decade to build and came in over budget.

    Ruzic said that after the initial capital expenditure, the relative low cost of fuel for nuclear plants makes them a good, long-term investment.

    When I came back to Ewing about his comment that he has no clear preference for or against nuclear energy, he said the broad question overlooks too much.

    “The nuclear landscape is, from a technical and social point of view, complicated enough that broad general positions really don’t serve us very well,” he said.

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