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A burning California landfill has made neighbors miserable for 3 years. Can lawmakers help?

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Friday, March 14, 2025

In summary A smoldering reaction under the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Southern California has made its neighbors’ lives miserable for almost three years. A bill that seeks to compensate them faces uncertainty amid state budget challenges and bigger LA County wildfires. For more than two years, Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo’s constituents have been complaining to her about the stench and fumes they’ve been breathing since trash buried at the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Southern California ignited and never stopped burning. Shiavo, a Democrat representing the Santa Clarita Valley north of Los Angeles, decided to spend the night as a guest of one of the 639-acre landfill’s closest neighbors. She wanted to experience for herself what life is like for the hundreds of people who’ve complained about the noxious fumes since the underground chemical reaction started below the Castaic landfill in May 2022.  It’s not known what caused the chemical reaction, but federal officials say the burn zone has grown underground to at least 35 acres. As the landfill belches a stench like rotten milk, residents allege chemical emissions are making them sick. And it could keep burning for years.When she arrived in Val Verde, it didn’t take long before Schiavo got a pounding headache. Her skin felt itchy. When she woke up the following day, she was disturbed to get her first bloody nose in years, she said. “People are getting sick,” Schiavo said in a video diary taken on her phone during her stay last fall. “People are being barricaded in their homes, and not opening windows and doors and not letting kids come out and play on trampolines because they’re afraid of breathing the air. … We have to get people out of here and keep them safe.” This week, the state Assembly held its first committee hearing for her legislation, Assembly Bill 27, a measure co-authored by six Southern California Democrats that would spare residents from paying taxes on the compensation they have received from the landfill’s owner. The relief fund set up by Texas-based Waste Connections can be used to pay for additional costs such as higher electricity from running air filters and air conditioners and for temporary housing. Faced with lawsuits from residents and Los Angeles County, Waste Connections opened the fund from March 2024 to February to the residents of Val Verde, Live Oak, Hasley Hills, Hillcrest Parkway, Hasley Canyon and Stevenson Ranch. The company didn’t respond to an interview request, but it says on its website that the payments were expected to exceed $25 million. In December the company said in response to a lawsuit that 1,829 households had received funding. “In addition, Chiquita has distributed nearly 3,000 air purifiers to local residents at a cost of over $1 million, and has paid to ensure every school near the landfill has carbon filtration in every classroom and multipurpose space,” the company said. The company maintains that it has taken steps to try to contain the reaction, but just this week state officials told community members in Castaic that the underground heat zone had expanded beyond a plastic cover over the landfill’s surface to try to contain emissions. Chiquita Canyon residents seek state relief Steven Howse, 50, is one of the residents who’s accepted the company’s funds. He told the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee that the money helped make life somewhat more bearable for his family, whose home is just 1,600 feet from the 53-year-old landfill that stopped trucking in more trash late last year. Howse’s family, like many of its neighbors, claims the landfill’s emissions have made them sick. He said his wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and one of their four children was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease. He said he’s constantly battling respiratory illnesses.  He didn’t tell the committee how much he received, but said he used the cash for upgrades for his home to “harden” it to prepare for wildfires. He also had to upgrade the home’s air conditioning system and buy new air filters and windows to try to keep the stench out.  “A lot of times we had to leave the area due to the toxins … because it would be so bad at our house,” he said. “We also used the funds to take our RV trailer out of the area or visit family when we just couldn’t take it any longer.” Richard Humanic, second from left, wears a gas mask while joining fellow residents of Val Verde and Castaic in a protest calling for the closure of Chiquita Canyon Landfill at Hasley Canyon Park in Castaic on Feb. 22, 2024. Photo by Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Howse has a job in the film industry, but Schiavo said other low-income residents who qualify for state assistance programs have been bumped up to a higher tax bracket after taking the payments. “The concern has been that if you take those funds, then do you no longer qualify for CalFresh or Medi-Cal? Does it count against you because of that?” she told the committee. “Are you paying taxes now on this when that money comes in and it goes right out to pay for the costs that are associated with living with this disaster?” Landfill blaze comes amid wildfire budget challenges It’s no sure bet that the bill will advance to become law. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed two similar bills that would have exempted victims of three wildfires from paying state income taxes on settlement payments from the companies alleged to have started those fires.  Learn more about legislators mentioned in this story. Pilar Schiavo Democrat, State Assembly, District 40 (Santa Clarita Valley) Now the state’s budget priorities are uncertain as officials and lawmakers continue to hash out how to pay for Los Angeles wildfire relief, hostility from the Trump administration and a home insurance and affordability crisis.The Revenue and Taxation committee didn’t vote for the measure on Monday, instead moving it to the committee’s “suspense file” for further fiscal analysis. In the meantime, residents aren’t likely to get tax relief from the federal government.Late last year, then-President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that exempted wildfire settlement payments from federal income taxes, but the landfill’s relief funds don’t count since the Chiquita Canyon Landfill site has never been declared an official state or federal disaster.  Meanwhile, residents have filed more than 25,000 complaints to local air quality officials since 2023. The South Coast Air Quality Management District and other state regulators have issued dozens of violation notices. In November, the air district ordered the company to create a webpage that includes real-time air monitoring of smelly or potentially harmful pollutants, including hydrogen sulfide, methane, dimethyl sulfide and volatile organic compounds. As an example of how residents might be breathing potentially toxic fumes, air quality officials noted early last year that local air monitoring data showed that more than one-third of all readings exceeded state standards for hydrogen sulfide, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says can cause eye irritation, headaches and fatigue, as well as potentially causing cancer or be lethal in highly concentrated doses. Owner Waste Connections faces citations In June, the U.S. EPA also cited the landfill company for violating various regulations intended to safeguard human health. The company is facing potential  civil penalties of up to $59,114 for each day of violation. “EPA cannot comment on ongoing investigations, including assessment of penalties,” EPA spokesperson Joshua Alexander said in an email. Schiavo said that her night’s stay next to the landfill made it clear to her that residents need to get out of there until the trash stops burning.  She has also authored Assembly Bill 28, which would secure state help for the residents around the landfill to find new or temporary housing until it stops smoldering. The details of that bill are still being hashed out. “People are in this terrible situation where they can’t afford to leave because housing is so expensive. Now (after the LA fires), it’s almost impossible,” she told CalMatters.  “And if you sell, who’s going to want to buy it? Then if you’re leaving, you know, you have this moral dilemma. People are like, ‘I don’t want to sell to someone else and then (what if) they start getting sick or their kids start getting sick?’ It’s this horrible situation. We just have to relocate people out of there right now, until it’s safe for folks to go back.”

A smoldering reaction under the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Southern California has made its neighbors' lives miserable for almost three years. A bill that seeks to compensate them faces uncertainty amid state budget challenges and bigger LA County wildfires.

An aerial view of a yellow construction truck as it drives through piles of trash on a plot of dirt in a landfill.

In summary

A smoldering reaction under the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Southern California has made its neighbors’ lives miserable for almost three years. A bill that seeks to compensate them faces uncertainty amid state budget challenges and bigger LA County wildfires.

For more than two years, Assemblymember Pilar Schiavo’s constituents have been complaining to her about the stench and fumes they’ve been breathing since trash buried at the Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Southern California ignited and never stopped burning.

Shiavo, a Democrat representing the Santa Clarita Valley north of Los Angeles, decided to spend the night as a guest of one of the 639-acre landfill’s closest neighbors. She wanted to experience for herself what life is like for the hundreds of people who’ve complained about the noxious fumes since the underground chemical reaction started below the Castaic landfill in May 2022. 

It’s not known what caused the chemical reaction, but federal officials say the burn zone has grown underground to at least 35 acres. As the landfill belches a stench like rotten milk, residents allege chemical emissions are making them sick. And it could keep burning for years.

When she arrived in Val Verde, it didn’t take long before Schiavo got a pounding headache. Her skin felt itchy. When she woke up the following day, she was disturbed to get her first bloody nose in years, she said.

“People are getting sick,” Schiavo said in a video diary taken on her phone during her stay last fall. “People are being barricaded in their homes, and not opening windows and doors and not letting kids come out and play on trampolines because they’re afraid of breathing the air. … We have to get people out of here and keep them safe.”

This week, the state Assembly held its first committee hearing for her legislation, Assembly Bill 27, a measure co-authored by six Southern California Democrats that would spare residents from paying taxes on the compensation they have received from the landfill’s owner. The relief fund set up by Texas-based Waste Connections can be used to pay for additional costs such as higher electricity from running air filters and air conditioners and for temporary housing.

Faced with lawsuits from residents and Los Angeles County, Waste Connections opened the fund from March 2024 to February to the residents of Val Verde, Live Oak, Hasley Hills, Hillcrest Parkway, Hasley Canyon and Stevenson Ranch. The company didn’t respond to an interview request, but it says on its website that the payments were expected to exceed $25 million. In December the company said in response to a lawsuit that 1,829 households had received funding.

“In addition, Chiquita has distributed nearly 3,000 air purifiers to local residents at a cost of over $1 million, and has paid to ensure every school near the landfill has carbon filtration in every classroom and multipurpose space,” the company said

The company maintains that it has taken steps to try to contain the reaction, but just this week state officials told community members in Castaic that the underground heat zone had expanded beyond a plastic cover over the landfill’s surface to try to contain emissions.

Chiquita Canyon residents seek state relief

Steven Howse, 50, is one of the residents who’s accepted the company’s funds. He told the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee that the money helped make life somewhat more bearable for his family, whose home is just 1,600 feet from the 53-year-old landfill that stopped trucking in more trash late last year.

Howse’s family, like many of its neighbors, claims the landfill’s emissions have made them sick. He said his wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and one of their four children was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease. He said he’s constantly battling respiratory illnesses. 

He didn’t tell the committee how much he received, but said he used the cash for upgrades for his home to “harden” it to prepare for wildfires. He also had to upgrade the home’s air conditioning system and buy new air filters and windows to try to keep the stench out. 

“A lot of times we had to leave the area due to the toxins … because it would be so bad at our house,” he said. “We also used the funds to take our RV trailer out of the area or visit family when we just couldn’t take it any longer.”

A person wears a beige gas mask while standing next to other people holding signs that read "LA County shut it down, "Poison" and "Shut it down! Save Valverde."
Richard Humanic, second from left, wears a gas mask while joining fellow residents of Val Verde and Castaic in a protest calling for the closure of Chiquita Canyon Landfill at Hasley Canyon Park in Castaic on Feb. 22, 2024. Photo by Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Howse has a job in the film industry, but Schiavo said other low-income residents who qualify for state assistance programs have been bumped up to a higher tax bracket after taking the payments.

“The concern has been that if you take those funds, then do you no longer qualify for CalFresh or Medi-Cal? Does it count against you because of that?” she told the committee. “Are you paying taxes now on this when that money comes in and it goes right out to pay for the costs that are associated with living with this disaster?”

Landfill blaze comes amid wildfire budget challenges

It’s no sure bet that the bill will advance to become law. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed two similar bills that would have exempted victims of three wildfires from paying state income taxes on settlement payments from the companies alleged to have started those fires. 

Learn more about legislators mentioned in this story.

Now the state’s budget priorities are uncertain as officials and lawmakers continue to hash out how to pay for Los Angeles wildfire relief, hostility from the Trump administration and a home insurance and affordability crisis.

The Revenue and Taxation committee didn’t vote for the measure on Monday, instead moving it to the committee’s “suspense file” for further fiscal analysis.

In the meantime, residents aren’t likely to get tax relief from the federal government.

Late last year, then-President Joe Biden signed into law a bill that exempted wildfire settlement payments from federal income taxes, but the landfill’s relief funds don’t count since the Chiquita Canyon Landfill site has never been declared an official state or federal disaster

Meanwhile, residents have filed more than 25,000 complaints to local air quality officials since 2023. The South Coast Air Quality Management District and other state regulators have issued dozens of violation notices. In November, the air district ordered the company to create a webpage that includes real-time air monitoring of smelly or potentially harmful pollutants, including hydrogen sulfide, methane, dimethyl sulfide and volatile organic compounds.

As an example of how residents might be breathing potentially toxic fumes, air quality officials noted early last year that local air monitoring data showed that more than one-third of all readings exceeded state standards for hydrogen sulfide, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says can cause eye irritation, headaches and fatigue, as well as potentially causing cancer or be lethal in highly concentrated doses.

Owner Waste Connections faces citations

In June, the U.S. EPA also cited the landfill company for violating various regulations intended to safeguard human health. The company is facing potential  civil penalties of up to $59,114 for each day of violation.

“EPA cannot comment on ongoing investigations, including assessment of penalties,” EPA spokesperson Joshua Alexander said in an email.

Schiavo said that her night’s stay next to the landfill made it clear to her that residents need to get out of there until the trash stops burning. 

She has also authored Assembly Bill 28, which would secure state help for the residents around the landfill to find new or temporary housing until it stops smoldering. The details of that bill are still being hashed out.

“People are in this terrible situation where they can’t afford to leave because housing is so expensive. Now (after the LA fires), it’s almost impossible,” she told CalMatters. 

“And if you sell, who’s going to want to buy it? Then if you’re leaving, you know, you have this moral dilemma. People are like, ‘I don’t want to sell to someone else and then (what if) they start getting sick or their kids start getting sick?’ It’s this horrible situation. We just have to relocate people out of there right now, until it’s safe for folks to go back.”

Read the full story here.
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Fears that UK military bases may be leaking toxic ‘forever chemicals’ into drinking water

Bases in Norfolk, Devon and Hampshire face MoD investigation over possible leaching of dangerous PFAS into environmentThree UK military bases have been marked for investigation over fears they may be leaking toxic “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources and important environmental sites.The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will investigate RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire after concerns they may be leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into their surroundings. The sites were identified using a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) designed to locate and prioritise pollution threats. Continue reading...

Three UK military bases have been marked for investigation over fears they may be leaking toxic “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources and important environmental sites.The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will investigate RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire after concerns they may be leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into their surroundings. The sites were identified using a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) designed to locate and prioritise pollution threats.RAF Marham and AAC Middle Wallop lie within drinking water safeguard zones. RM Chivenor borders protected shellfish waters, a special area of conservation, and the River Taw – an important salmon river.PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of synthetic chemicals widely used in firefighting foams and industrial processes as well as in aconsumer products including waterproof fabrics, non-stick cookware, cosmetics and food packaging. They are known as forever chemicals because they do not break down easily in the environment, and have been found polluting soil and water across the world. Some PFAS build up in the human body over time and have been linked to a range of serious health problems including cancers, immune system disruption and reproductive disorders.Military bases with airfields have used firefighting foams laden with PFAS for decades. Certain chemicals in foams including PFOS, PFOA and PFHxS have been linked to diseases and banned, but they remain in the environment.Prof Hans Peter Arp, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said contamination at UK military sites would not be surprising. “Most, if not all, military bases in Europe and around the world have used vast quantities of firefighting foams that contain PFAS,” he said. “They now have substantial PFAS concentrations in the soil and groundwater beneath them, as well as soaked into the concrete of their buildings.”He warned that PFAS pollution will continue for “decades to centuries” unless immediate local clean-up actions are taken. “These PFAS that are leaching now likely took several decades to get there. There are more PFAS to come.”RAF Puma helicopters above AAC Middle Wallop, Hampshire. Photograph: Neil Watkin/AlamyThis month the Environmental Audit Committee launched a formal inquiry into PFAS contamination and regulation across the UK. Campaigners and scientists warn that until the full scale of PFAS pollution is understood and addressed, the threat to human health and the environment will continue to grow.Alex Ford, professor of biology at the University of Portsmouth, said: “The EA has now identified thousands of high-risk sites around the UK with elevated concentrations of PFAS compounds. These forever chemicals are being detected in our soils, rivers, groundwater, our wildlife – and us.“It is very worrying to hear PFAS is being detected … close to drinking water sources. The quicker we get this large family of chemicals banned the better, as their legacy will outlive everybody alive today.”He added that the cost of cleaning up these pollutants could run into the billions – costs that, he argued, should be footed by the chemical industry.Not all water treatment works can remove PFAS, and upgrades would be costly. A spokesperson for Water UK, which represents the water industry, said: “PFAS pollution is a huge global challenge. We want to see PFAS banned and the development of a national plan to remove it from the environment, which should be paid for by manufacturers.”Prof Crispin Halsall, an environmental chemist at Lancaster University, called for greater transparency and collaboration. “The MoD shouldn’t try to hide things. They should come clean and set up monitoring,” he said.The UK’s monitoring of PFAS is trailing behind the US, where contamination on military sites has been the focus of billions of dollars in federal spending on testing and clean-up operations.In July, the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Army launched a joint project to sample private drinking-water wells near army installations. UK authorities only recently began to investigate the scale of the problem.Brad Creacey, a former US air force firefighter, spent decades training with firefighting foam on military bases across the US and Europe. During fire exercises, Creacey and his colleagues would ignite contaminated jet fuel and extinguish it with AFFF (aqueous film-forming foams) – often wearing old suits that were soaked and never cleaned. On one occasion he was doused in the foams for fun.Twenty years after he had stopped working with the foams, a blood test revealed that Creacey still had high PFOS levels in his blood. He has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and now suffers from Hashimoto’s disease, high cholesterol and persistent fatigue.“We’ve taken on too much of a lackadaisical attitude about this contamination,” he said. “Unless this is taken seriously, we’re doomed.”Creacey is pursuing compensation through the US Department of Veterans Affairs and a separate lawsuit against 3M and DuPont.Pete Thompson is a former Royal Air Force firefighter who served at several UK airbases including RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. During his service he regularly used firefighting foams in training exercises and equipment tests, and said they usually sprayed them directly on to grass fields with no containment.“We used the foam in the back of what was called a TACR 1 – basically a Land Rover with a 450-litre tank of premixed foam on the back. Every six months we had to do a production test to prove that the system worked. That production test we just produced on to the grass … there was no way of stopping it going anywhere other than just draining in through the ground.”Calm waters at the mouth of the estuary where the River Taw meets the River Torridge in Chivenor, North Devon. Photograph: Terry Mathews/AlamyThe MoD is working with the EA to assess its sites, and work has begun to investigate whether to restrict PFAS in firefighting foams. Military sites are not the only sources of PFAS pollution – commercial airports, firefighting training grounds, manufacturers, landfills, paper mills and metal plating plants can also create contamination problems.An EA spokesperson said: “The global science on PFAS is evolving rapidly, and we are undertaking a multi-year programme to better understand sources of PFAS pollution in England. We have developed a risk screening approach to identify potential sources of PFAS pollution and prioritise the sites for further investigation. We have used this tool to assist the MoD in developing its programme of voluntary investigations and risk assessments.”A government spokesperson said: “There is no evidence that drinking water from our taps exceeds the safe levels of PFAS, as set out by the Drinking Water Inspectorate.“Our rapid review of the Environ­mental Improvement Plan will look at the risks posed by PFAS and how best to tackle them to deliver our legally binding targets to save nature.”The guidelines for 48 types of PFAS in drinking water is 0.1 micrograms per litre (100 nanograms per litre).Earlier this year, Watershed Investigations uncovered MoD documents raising concerns that some RAF bases might be hotspots of forever chemical pollution. In 2022, the Guardian reported that Duxford airfield – a former RAF base now owned by the Imperial War Museum – was probably the source of PFOS-contaminated drinking water in South Cambridgeshire. The site is now under investigation by the EA.Patrick Byrne, professor of water science at Liverpool John Moores University, said current monitoring efforts only scratch the surface. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg. We’re only monitoring a handful of PFAS compounds. There are many others we don’t yet fully understand or detect.“There are tests that measure the total PFAS load in water, and we’re finding huge discrepancies between those results and the levels of individual compounds. That tells us there’s a lot more PFAS in the environment than we know.”Even where testing is under way, labs are overwhelmed. “The Environment Agency’s lab is inundated. Private labs can’t keep up either,” he said. “Analytical technology is improving fast – but we’re racing to keep pace.”

In East Palestine Derailment Trial, Railroad and Chemical Maker Agree on Who Pays Residents

Norfolk Southern reached an agreement with one of the two companies it has been trying to force to help pay for the $600 million class-action settlement it agreed to over its disastrous 2023 train derailment near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and the toxic chemicals that were released and burned

Norfolk Southern reached an agreement with one of two companies about how much each side will help pay for a $600 million class-action settlement, which the railroad agreed to after the disastrous 2023 Ohio train derailment and toxic chemicals that were released and burned.This lawsuit doesn’t change anything about how much money people will receive from the settlement or any payments to the village of East Palestine or anyone else — those are all established in various settlement agreements. This case only affects which companies have to write the checks to pay for the class-action settlement, which is separate from the cost of the massive environmental cleanup.The railroad and OxyVinyls, the chemical company that made the vinyl chloride that was released and burned after the derailment, announced the settlement Thursday in the midst of the ongoing trial over who should pay people affected by the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.The two companies didn't disclose any details of the agreement in their brief statement.The third company involved in the lawsuit, GATX, which owned the railcar that caused the derailment, declined to comment on the settlement. The case is expected to go to the jury next week in a trial that began late last month.Residents are still waiting to receive most of the money from the settlement because of pending appeals, although some payments have started to go out.After the train derailed in East Palestine, an assortment of chemicals spilled and caught fire. Then three days later, officials blew open five tank cars filled with vinyl chloride because they feared those cars might explode, generating a massive black plume of smoke that spread over the area and forced evacuations. The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed in its investigation that the vent-and-burn operation was unnecessary because the tank cars were starting to cool off and the railroad failed to listen to the advice from OxyVinyls’ experts or share their opinions with the officials who made the decision.But during the trial, Norfolk Southern raised questions about conflicting information that OxyVinyls' representatives on scene and at headquarters provided as officials were deciding whether to release and burn the vinyl chloride.Norfolk Southern has said all along that it believes OxyVinyls should help pay because the railroad says the chemical manufacturer provided inconsistent and inaccurate information about its vinyl chloride before officials decided to burn it.Last year, Norfolk Southern lost a similar lawsuit when it tried to force GATX and OxyVinyls to help pay for the environmental cleanup after the derailment, which has cost the Atlanta-based railroad more than $1 billion. It made similar arguments in this trial to get help paying for the class-action settlement.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

NASA Rover Finds Fresh Evidence of the Warm and Wet Past of Mars

By Will DunhamWASHINGTON (Reuters) -A mineral called siderite found abundantly in rock drilled by a NASA rover on the surface of Mars is providing...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A mineral called siderite found abundantly in rock drilled by a NASA rover on the surface of Mars is providing fresh evidence of the planet's warmer and wetter ancient past when it boasted substantial bodies of water and potentially harbored life.The Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012 to explore whether Earth's planetary neighbor was ever able to support microbial life, found the mineral in rock samples drilled at three locations in 2022 and 2023 inside Gale crater, a large impact basin with a mountain in the middle.Siderite is an iron carbonate mineral. Its presence in sedimentary rocks formed billions of years ago offers evidence that Mars once had a dense atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide, a gas that would have warmed the planet through the greenhouse effect to the point that it could sustain bodies of liquid water on its surface.There are features on the Martian landscape that many scientists have interpreted as signs that liquid water once flowed across its surface, with potential oceans, lakes and rivers considered as possible habitats for past microbial life.Carbon dioxide is the main climate-regulating greenhouse gas on Earth, as it is on Mars and Venus. Its presence in the atmosphere traps heat from the sun, warming the climate.Until now, evidence indicating the Martian atmosphere previously was rich in carbon dioxide has been sparse. The hypothesis is that when the atmosphere - for reasons not fully understood - evolved from thick and rich in carbon dioxide to thin and starved of this gas, the carbon through geochemical processes became entombed in rocks in the planet's crust as a carbonate mineral.The samples obtained by Curiosity, which drills 1.2 to 1.6 inches (3-4 centimeters) down into rock to study its chemical and mineral composition, lend weight to this notion. The samples contained up to 10.5% siderite by weight, as determined by an instrument onboard the car-sized, six-wheeled rover."One of the longstanding mysteries in the study of Martian planetary evolution and habitability is: if large amounts of carbon dioxide were required to warm the planet and stabilize liquid water, why are there so few detections of carbonate minerals on the Martian surface?" said University of Calgary geochemist Benjamin Tutolo, a participating scientist on NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover team and lead author of the study published on Thursday in the journal Science."Models predict that carbonate minerals should be widespread. But, to date, rover-based investigations and satellite-based orbital surveys of the Martian surface had found little evidence of their presence," Tutolo added.Because rock similar to that sampled by the rover has been identified globally on Mars, the researchers suspect it too contains an abundance of carbonate minerals and may hold a substantial portion of the carbon dioxide that once warmed Mars.The Gale crater sedimentary rocks - sandstones and mudstones - are thought to have been deposited around 3.5 billion years ago, when this was the site of a lake and before the Martian climate underwent a dramatic change."The shift of Mars' surface from more habitable in the past, to apparently sterile today, is the largest-known environmental catastrophe," said planetary scientist and study co-author Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago and Astera Institute."We do not know the cause of this change, but Mars has a very thin carbon dioxide atmosphere today, and there is evidence that the atmosphere was thicker in the past. This puts a premium on understanding where the carbon went, so discovering a major unsuspected deposit of carbon-rich materials is an important new clue," Kite added.The rover's findings offer insight into the carbon cycle on ancient Mars.On Earth, volcanoes spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the gas is absorbed by surface waters - mainly the ocean - and combines with elements such as calcium to form limestone rock. Through the geological process called plate tectonics, this rock is reheated and the carbon is ultimately released again into the atmosphere through volcanism. Mars, however, lacks plate tectonics."The important feature of the ancient Martian carbon cycle that we outline in this study is that it was imbalanced. In other words, substantially more carbon dioxide seems to have been sequestered into the rocks than was subsequently released back into the atmosphere," Tutolo said."Models of Martian climate evolution can now incorporate our new analyses, and in turn, help to refine the role of this imbalanced carbon cycle in maintaining, and ultimately losing, habitability over Mars' planetary history," Tutolo added.(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

Salmon Are Being Exposed to Our Anti-Anxiety Medication, and It's Making Them Take More Risks, Study Suggests

Atlantic salmon exposed to a common anti-anxiety drug migrate faster, according to new research. That's not necessarily a good thing

Salmon Are Being Exposed to Our Anti-Anxiety Medication, and It’s Making Them Take More Risks, Study Suggests Atlantic salmon exposed to a common anti-anxiety drug migrate faster, according to new research. That’s not necessarily a good thing Researchers Daniel Cerveny and Marcus Michelangeli collecting salmon from the Dal River in Sweden. Michael Bertram Humans take a lot of medication, and small doses of those drugs—including antibiotics, antidepressants, birth control and more—find their way in the environment through wastewater, even after it’s treated. Nearly 1,000 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in waterways all over the world, even in Antarctica. Now, a new study sheds light on how these drugs affect wildlife behavior. “Pharmaceutical pollution, or chemical pollution in general, is really this invisible agent of global change,” says Jack Brand, the study’s lead author and an environmental researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, to Benji Jones at Vox. “It’s probably posing a greater risk than at least what the public acknowledges. This is a potentially significant threat to our aquatic wildlife.” To better understand this risk, Brand and his team gave young Atlantic salmon the drug clobazam—a common anti-anxiety and sleep medication—in doses that might mirror what they’re exposed to in the wild. The team used tracking tags to monitor how the medication affected the fish’s 17-mile migration from the Dal River in Sweden to the Baltic Sea. The salmon that were given clobazam were more likely to reach the sea than the untreated fish. They also quickly passed through two major hydropower dams that often slow other fish down. The new findings were published in the journal Science last week. Scientists say the drugged salmon might have migrated differently because of an increased willingness to take risks. “It’s interesting to see how one problem impacts how they deal with another problem,” says Olivia Simmons, a salmon ecologist at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research who was not involved in the study, to Rebecca Dzombak at the New York Times. “These bolder fish could just be going faster because they’re less inhibited.” But going faster isn’t necessarily a good thing for the salmon. “It’s important to realize that any change to the natural behavior and ecology of a species is expected to have broader negative consequences, both for that species and the surrounding wildlife community,” explains study co-author Marcus Michelangeli, a behavioral ecologist at Griffith University in Australia, in a statement. Brand tells Jonathan Lambert at NPR that the fish exposed to clobazam may be more risk-prone and solitary, “and therefore just sort of beelining it through the dams rather than waiting around for their salmon friends.” A dam in Älvkarleby, Sweden, which is one of the obstacles that salmon in the Dal River must navigate on their migration. Rebecca Forsberg The researchers also took their study into the lab to better understand the impact of the drugs on the salmon, and the fish displayed other signs of solitary behavior. Clobazam appeared to change the way the fish interact with each other, making them less likely to school in groups—even when a predatory northern pike swam nearby. That independence could make them more vulnerable to being eaten. “It’s like playing poker,” adds Giovanni Polverino, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Tuscia in Italy who was not involved in the study, to the New York Times. “The more risks you take, the more chances you have to lose everything,” he adds. “In this case, the fish’s life.” Still, there’s hope on the horizon for the world’s fish, Michelangeli notes in the statement. Wastewater treatment options are getting better at reducing pharmaceutical contamination, and researchers are also working on making drugs that degrade more quickly. “By designing drugs that break down more rapidly or become less harmful after use, we can significantly mitigate the environmental impact of pharmaceutical pollution in the future,” he says. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Black Residents Get Most of the Pollution but Few of the Jobs From Chemical Industry, Study Finds

A new study led by Tulane University has revealed stark racial disparities across the U.S.’s petrochemical workforce

Residents of the mostly Black communities sandwiched between chemical plants along the lower Mississippi River have long said they get most of the pollution but few of the jobs produced by the region’s vast petrochemical industry. A new study led by Tulane University backs up that view, revealing stark racial disparities across the U.S.’s petrochemical workforce. Inequity was especially pronounced in Louisiana, where people of color were underrepresented in both high- and low-paying jobs at chemical plants and refineries. “It was really surprising how consistently people of color didn’t get their fair share of jobs in the petrochemical industry,” said Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist with the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. “No matter how you slice or dice the data by states, metro areas or parishes, the data’s consistent.”The Tulane study’s findings match what Cancer Alley residents have suspected for decades, said Joy Banner, co-founder of the Descendants Project, a nonprofit that advocates for Black communities in the parishes between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. “You hear it a lot – that Black people are not getting the jobs,” she said. “But to have the numbers so well documented, and to see just how glaring they are – that was surprising.”People of color were underrepresented in all of the highest-paying jobs among the 30 states with a large petrochemical industry presence, but Louisiana and Texas had “the most extreme disparities,” according to the study, which was published in the journal Ecological Economics. While several states had poor representation on the upper pay scale, people of color were typically overrepresented in the lower earnings tiers. In Texas, nearly 60% of the working-age population is non-white, but people of color hold 39% of higher-paying positions and 57% of lower-paying jobs in the chemical industry. Louisiana was the only state in which people of color are underrepresented in both pay categories. People who aren’t white make up 41% of the working-age population but occupy just 21% of higher-paying jobs and about 33% of lower-paid jobs. The study relied on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Bureau of Labor Statistics and Louisiana Economic Development.The chemical industry disputed the study’s findings. “We recognize the importance of examining equity in employment, however, this study offers an incomplete and misleading portrayal of our industry and its contributions,” David Cresson, president and CEO of the Louisiana Chemical Association, said in a statement. Cresson pointed to several industry-supported workforce development programs, scholarships and science camps aimed at “closing the training gap in Louisiana.”But the study indicates education and training levels aren’t at the root of underrepresentation among states or metro areas. Louisiana’s education gap was modest, with college attainment at 30% for white residents and 20% for people of color. In places like Lake Charles and St. John the Baptist Parish, where petrochemical jobs are common, the gap was minimal — five percentage points or less.The industry’s investments in education are “just public relations spin,” Banner said. “The amount of money they’re investing in schools and various programs pales in comparison to how much they’re profiting in our communities,” she said. “We sacrifice so much and get so little in return.”Louisiana is also getting little from generous tax breaks aimed at boosting employment, the study found. The state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program has granted 80% to 100% property tax exemptions to companies that promise to create new jobs. For each job created in Cameron Parish, where large natural gas ports have been built in recent years, companies were exempted from almost $590,000 in local taxes. In St. John, each job equated to about $1 million in uncollected tax revenue.“This tradeoff of pollution in exchange for jobs was never an equal trade,” said Gianna St. Julien, one of the study’s authors. “But this deal is even worse when the overwhelming majority of these companies’ property taxes are not being poured back into these struggling communities.” This story was originally published by Verite News and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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