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GoGreenNation news

CalMatters’ investigative journalism and newsletter take top honors in statewide contest

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Monday, July 15, 2024

In summary CalMatters’ journalism was described as “outstanding,” “top-notch” and “presented with empathy” by judges in the California Journalism Awards. CalMatters journalists took home the top two investigative awards, along with first place for in-depth reporting and first place for an email newsletter, at this weekend’s California Journalism Awards.  Byrhonda Lyons won first place for her investigative reporting on California’s parolee rehabilitation failures, which triggered statewide impact. The judges described her work as “great storytelling and impressive depth of reporting” and said this: “CalMatters’ rehab investigation by Byrhonda Lyons revealed how a prisoner rehab operator manipulated the very people who came to him for help. Lyons’ work with court records is outstanding.” Robert Lewis and Wendy Fry won first place for environmental reporting for exposing the ways California dumps toxic waste across state borders. The judges called their work a “well-reported and well-written series of articles that focuses on what could easily have been an overlooked problem.” The reporting was a finalist earlier this year in the Investigative Reporters and Editors awards contest. Their work also won second place in the investigative category, with these judges’ comments: “This is a great example of explanatory journalism about a potentially dull topic. I wasn’t bored at all as a reader, and even though it was a very long series of stories, it kept me engaged and curious about what’s being dumped in our own landfills.”  Lauren Hepler won first place for in-depth reporting for her four-part series dissecting the pandemic fiasco in the state’s unemployment system. Read more about how Hepler completed the year-long investigation involving more than 2,500 pages of public records. The judges described her work this way: “Powerful, impactful journalism done by a single staffer over the course of a year. Truly impressive. It localized a national issue while showing how deserving people suffered while criminals victimized and businesses profited.” In another category, the judges called her work “top-notch” and said she “methodically strips away the chaos and the finger pointing to show how tens of billions of dollars evaporated.” Lynn La won first place in newsletter writing for the weekday WhatMatters email newsletter. If you don’t already receive it, sign up now! The reporting awards were shared with many CalMatters journalists who brought the work to life, including: Miguel Gutierrez, Jr., with photography, Adriana Heldiz with illustrations, Jeremia Kimelman with data reporting and Liliana Michelena with web production. Other CalMatters honors include: Alexei Koseff won second place in business and economy reporting for reporting on the cannabis economy. Judges said: “This series gave an in-depth look into how the legalization of the cannabis industry changed things for the key stakeholders. The human elements to the story were presented with empathy balanced with facts and voices from those impacted.” He won first place in the Best of the West awards earlier this year for the same work. Marisa Kendall won second place in homelessness reporting for her work contrasting California’s approach to homelessness with what has worked in Texas. Ben Christopher won third place for a series of stories on housing and land-use reporting. Said one judge: “I really enjoyed Christopher’s ability to take state/local policy matters and mold them into locally relevant, well-written portraits of how things are playing out on the ground in communities like San Diego and Santa Monica.” Julie Cart won third place in environmental reporting for her story, “Harnessing a windfall.” Judges said: “Well-researched articles. Proposed questions that nobody can answer, yet was effective because that is really the whole point of the stories.” Rachel Becker won third place in feature reporting for a story examining the world’s largest dam demolition on the Klamath River. Gutierrez won third place in news photography for “Gavin Newsom, the sequel: Governor starts second term as leader of liberal America.” Nicole Foy won third place in labor reporting for “The hidden cost of California’s hot workplaces: 20,000 job injuries a year.” Koseff also won fourth place in public service journalism for “A failure to communicate: California government cuts back press access.” Joe Hong and Erica Yee won fourth place in youth and education coverage for “The teacher turnover trap.” Judges said it was “a detailed and well-presented series on the reasons why some schools struggle to hold onto experienced teachers, the effects of high turnover on student achievement and the barriers to solving the problem. The writers ask tough questions of lawmakers in charge.” Kristen Hwang, Ana Ibarra and Yee won fourth place in enterprise reporting for their coverage of maternity ward closures that are leaving large stretches of the state without care. Judges said it was “an important topic fleshed out with interviews and data; good graphics, too. Should be held up by readers demanding action.”

CalMatters’ journalism was described as “outstanding,” “top-notch” and “presented with empathy” by judges in the California Journalism Awards.

In summary

CalMatters’ journalism was described as “outstanding,” “top-notch” and “presented with empathy” by judges in the California Journalism Awards.

CalMatters journalists took home the top two investigative awards, along with first place for in-depth reporting and first place for an email newsletter, at this weekend’s California Journalism Awards. 

Byrhonda Lyons won first place for her investigative reporting on California’s parolee rehabilitation failures, which triggered statewide impact.

The judges described her work as “great storytelling and impressive depth of reporting” and said this: “CalMatters’ rehab investigation by Byrhonda Lyons revealed how a prisoner rehab operator manipulated the very people who came to him for help. Lyons’ work with court records is outstanding.”

Robert Lewis and Wendy Fry won first place for environmental reporting for exposing the ways California dumps toxic waste across state borders. The judges called their work a “well-reported and well-written series of articles that focuses on what could easily have been an overlooked problem.” The reporting was a finalist earlier this year in the Investigative Reporters and Editors awards contest.

Their work also won second place in the investigative category, with these judges’ comments: “This is a great example of explanatory journalism about a potentially dull topic. I wasn’t bored at all as a reader, and even though it was a very long series of stories, it kept me engaged and curious about what’s being dumped in our own landfills.” 

Lauren Hepler won first place for in-depth reporting for her four-part series dissecting the pandemic fiasco in the state’s unemployment system. Read more about how Hepler completed the year-long investigation involving more than 2,500 pages of public records.

The judges described her work this way: “Powerful, impactful journalism done by a single staffer over the course of a year. Truly impressive. It localized a national issue while showing how deserving people suffered while criminals victimized and businesses profited.” In another category, the judges called her work “top-notch” and said she “methodically strips away the chaos and the finger pointing to show how tens of billions of dollars evaporated.”

Lynn La won first place in newsletter writing for the weekday WhatMatters email newsletter. If you don’t already receive it, sign up now!

The reporting awards were shared with many CalMatters journalists who brought the work to life, including: Miguel Gutierrez, Jr., with photography, Adriana Heldiz with illustrations, Jeremia Kimelman with data reporting and Liliana Michelena with web production.

Other CalMatters honors include:

  • Alexei Koseff won second place in business and economy reporting for reporting on the cannabis economy. Judges said: “This series gave an in-depth look into how the legalization of the cannabis industry changed things for the key stakeholders. The human elements to the story were presented with empathy balanced with facts and voices from those impacted.” He won first place in the Best of the West awards earlier this year for the same work.
  • Marisa Kendall won second place in homelessness reporting for her work contrasting California’s approach to homelessness with what has worked in Texas.
  • Ben Christopher won third place for a series of stories on housing and land-use reporting. Said one judge: “I really enjoyed Christopher’s ability to take state/local policy matters and mold them into locally relevant, well-written portraits of how things are playing out on the ground in communities like San Diego and Santa Monica.”
  • Julie Cart won third place in environmental reporting for her story, “Harnessing a windfall.” Judges said: “Well-researched articles. Proposed questions that nobody can answer, yet was effective because that is really the whole point of the stories.”
  • Rachel Becker won third place in feature reporting for a story examining the world’s largest dam demolition on the Klamath River.
  • Gutierrez won third place in news photography for “Gavin Newsom, the sequel: Governor starts second term as leader of liberal America.”
  • Nicole Foy won third place in labor reporting for “The hidden cost of California’s hot workplaces: 20,000 job injuries a year.”
  • Koseff also won fourth place in public service journalism for “A failure to communicate: California government cuts back press access.”
  • Joe Hong and Erica Yee won fourth place in youth and education coverage for “The teacher turnover trap.” Judges said it was “a detailed and well-presented series on the reasons why some schools struggle to hold onto experienced teachers, the effects of high turnover on student achievement and the barriers to solving the problem. The writers ask tough questions of lawmakers in charge.”
  • Kristen Hwang, Ana Ibarra and Yee won fourth place in enterprise reporting for their coverage of maternity ward closures that are leaving large stretches of the state without care. Judges said it was “an important topic fleshed out with interviews and data; good graphics, too. Should be held up by readers demanding action.”
Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Why Europe is going ‘car free’

At a time when New York City and the Trump administration are battling over a congestion pricing program, Europe is dramatically scaling back its relationship with cars.

ROME — European cities are dramatically scaling back their relationship with the car.They are removing parking spaces and creating dedicated bike lanes. They are installing cameras at the perimeter of urban centers and either charging the most-polluting vehicles or preventing them from entering. Some are going so far as to put entire neighborhoods off-limits to vehicles.In Norway, Oslo promotes “car-free livability.” Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo touts the “end of car dependence.” And while those ideas might sound radical to car-loving Americans, they are fast becoming the norm across the Atlantic, where 340 European cities and towns — home to more than 150 million people — have implemented some kind of restrictions on personal car usage.Such programs “are taking over Europe,” said Barbara Stoll, director of the Clean Cities Campaign, part of the Brussels-based Transport & Environment advocacy group. “I think large European cities are realizing that the car has dominated our lives for way too long.”In the popular imagination of tourists, European cities — with their postcard piazzas and narrow footpaths that predate the automotive age — might seem like a seamless fit for such moves. But until several decades ago, European cities were in fact being colonized by vehicles, with engineers devising massive highways and tunnels aimed at easing car access to urban cores.The new policies, then, point to the increasingly assertive way this continent is rethinking the design of cities — and the priorities of health and climate.At least one American city is trying to follow suit. In January, New York began enforcing a first-in-the-nation fee — typically $9 — for drivers trying to enter Lower and Midtown Manhattan during peak hours. The goals were both to thin traffic and pump revenue into the busy and creaking city transit system. Advocates quickly called the program transformative, saying it resulted in less congestion without bruising the economy.But the congestion pricing program has sparked anger from commuters in outer boroughs. And last month the Trump administration moved to halt it, with Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy calling it a “slap in the face” to working-class drivers and small-business owners.The program’s future now hinges on a legal showdown.Only a few other American cities — Chicago, San Francisco and Washington — have transit networks to make major car-reduction policies potentially viable. Some have floated the idea but not implemented it.Outside of Europe, Singapore stands out for one of the most rigorous plans, involving vehicle quotas and charges during peak hours.“The city’s development pattern has to be dense in order to make this work,” said Steven Cohen, a Columbia University vice dean who specializes in sustainability, politics and environmental management.In Europe, some of the programs are framed in explicitly environmental terms, with an emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As of 2022, the transport sector accounted for one-quarter of emissions in the European Union. Many cities also highlight the importance of reducing air pollution, including fine particulate matter, which policymakers describe as a silent urban killer.But whatever the rationale, virtually every major European city is imposing some kind of rule. Milan has a system similar to New York’s, charging for access to the city core — while entirely banning older, highly polluting vehicles. London charges vehicles that don’t meet emissions standards, in what it calls the “largest clean-air zone in the world.” The programs are not just the purview of liberal Western Europe: Warsaw, Poland, and Sofia, Bulgaria, recently adopted similar schemes.Even little Italian villages have added vehicle restrictions to reinforce their historic feel.And the Netherlands just broke ground on a 12,000-person neighborhood that will be entirely car-free. The neighborhood, known as Merwede, will be connected by public transport to Utrecht, a medium-size city that — perhaps no surprise — has a low-emissions zone of its own.“We think we can create much more quality in every sense to place the cars out of this area,” said Mirjam Schmüll, a program manager involved with the Merwede project. Residents, she said, could have access to garages outside the neighborhood, but ideally wouldn’t need them very often.Perhaps the most elaborate and transformative effort has come in Paris, where Hidalgo, a Socialist, was elected mayor in 2014. Since then, Paris has banned the most-polluting vehicles from the city, eliminated 50,000 parking spaces and added hundreds of miles of bike lanes. It turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone, and closed off the famed Rue de Rivoli to traffic.The latest step came in November when four central arrondissements, or districts, were closed to through traffic.Journeys by car in Paris have dropped by about 45 percent since 1990.The city has now become a source for striking before-and-after photos: of clogged streets that have transitioned into tree-lined areas where people can walk and play.“The radical transformation in the recent 10 years is essentially to transform the lifestyle of Parisians,” said Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris’s Sorbonne University who has advised Hidalgo and who devised the concept of the “15-minute city” — putting residents within walking, bicycling or transport distance of everything they need.For Europeans, the personal car isn’t quite the totem of liberty it is in America. But the car crackdown has still been met with outcry: raucous town-hall meetings, protests, even the vandalism of cameras used for enforcement. Conservative papers in Britain have described a “war on motorists.” In his 2023 book, London Mayor Sadiq Khan described an “extensive campaign” on social media to drum up opposition to London’s “Ultra Low Emissions Zone.” Khan also wrote that he was sent a bullet in the mail amid protests over the program.In Sweden, Stockholm several months ago had wanted to designate a 20-block upscale area as a “Zero Emission Zone” — meaning, essentially, that it could be accessed only by electric vehicles. But the plan was held up by a legal challenge from a business group, which cited the risk of “reduced attractiveness of city centers” and job losses.Indeed, Stockholm was one of the first European cities to introduce vehicle restrictions — in 1996, a time when the continent was first confronting the problem of heavy smog. In 2008, the European Union’s parliament set air-quality limits, including for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which can burrow into lungs and cause respiratory disease.“We are a continent of regulation. We regulate, and then things happen,” Stoll said.London says that PM2.5 levels have fallen, and that nitrogen dioxide — a pollutant stemming from combustion — is 53 percent lower than it would have been without the restrictions. One recent study, examining the English city of Bradford, attributed a reduction in hospital admissions for respiratory cases to the city’s clean-air policies.Moreno advises cities to think about transportation options stacked in a pyramid, with the best choices — walking, cycling, public transportation — at the wide bottom.“It’s not about a war on cars,” he said.But yes, he said, cars should be the option of last resort.

Business
Climate
Health

Luxury hiking developments look picture-perfect, but could stop everyday Australians from accessing national parks

While many opt for deluxe alternatives to a backpack and tent, they can also stop independent hikers with smaller budgets from accessing national parks.

Leah-Anne Thompson/ShutterstockLuxury hiking developments are popping up around Australia – fancy lodges, hot showers and extensive walking infrastructure. While many opt for these deluxe alternatives to a backpack and tent, they can also stop independent hikers with smaller budgets from accessing national parks if not carefully planned. National parks are open to all and are arguably some of Australia’s least locked-up lands. They are fundamental to Australia’s tourism offerings with 53 million domestic visits to national parks in New South Wales alone. National parks are meant to support nature and community. Can remaking sections of them for a select clientele get in the way of these goals? Why do we have national parks? The primary purpose of national parks is to conserve nature and cultural heritage. A secondary purpose is for people to engage with and enjoy nature. Parks agencies use many tools to support conservation and recreation, including building infrastructure or limiting the number of visitors. Outdoor infrastructure – such as raised boardwalks on hiking trails and cabins for accommodation – can increase visitor comfort and improve physical access. It also helps protect habitat and reduces soil damage and problem behaviours by visitors. Capping visitor numbers can prevent crowding and lessen physical and social impact. For example, visitors to Lord Howe Island is limited to the number of guest beds. Infrastructure such as raised boardwalks can serve to protect the environment by reducing soil erosion and compaction — the Overland Track, Tasmania. Alex Cimbal/Shutterstock Society is changing – and so is hiking The number of Australians accessing national parks is growing. But society is changing and people are engaging with nature differently than they used to. Today’s national park visitors come from diverse backgrounds. They increasingly use parks as meeting places and have less outdoor survival experience. There is also a growing number of people seeking – and willing to pay for – “hero” experiences - exciting luxury activities that showcase unique aspects of a place. This means parks agencies must cater to a broad audience. To do this, they are diversifying their offerings from basic experiences to include higher-cost adventures. An example of the latter includes multi-day hiking routes, such as the Three Capes Track in Tasmania and the Milford Track in New Zealand. They take place on well-established, high-quality trails maintained by parks agencies and catering to a limited daily number of independent fee-paying walkers. can you please say how much they cost, with a link? Readers will be interested. Often, the trips are guided by private operators at extra cost. While these projects may boost tourism, some fear they may exclude visitors on a budget.can we please attribute this - who holds these fears, and can we please provide a link? Everyday Australians may find it increasingly difficult to enjoy national parks — Wilsons Promontory National Park, Victoria. I. Noyan Yilmaz/Shutterstock Privatisation by stealth? One of the main concerns with these developments is that private businesses profit from public assets with little benefit to conservation, the primary purpose of national parks. Private operators are building luxury lodges and being granted concessions to operate guided hiking experiences in national parks. Independent hikers can still visit the Three Capes Track in Tasmania, though the experience is no longer as accessible, affordable or spontaneous as it once was. Increased infrastructure on the Three Capes Track in Tasmania has reduced accessibility for some hikers. Mandy Creighton/Shutterstock The Falls to Hotham Alpine Crossing master plan People are raising similar concerns about the Falls to Hotham Alpine Crossing master plan. This master plan proposes a multi-day walking experience across the Victorian Alps. It is a clear example of the tension between tourism development and accessibility. A 2022 community consultation by the Victorian government noted “high levels of concern” for the plan. It centred on increased visitor numbers, the prospect of unprepared and inexperienced walkers, environmental damage, and the costs to stay in huts. The proposal includes a longer walk, environmentally sensitive track upgrades, and new campsites. The inclusion of commercially operated huts “tailored for those who desire an added level of comfort” is a concern for those opposed to the development. Concerned community members worry the Falls to Hotham Alpine Crossing master plan will negatively impact the environment and attract unprepared and inexperienced walkers. Ainslie Holland/Shutterstock Are there pros to development? Advocates argue private investments in protected areas can support well-managed, sustainable tourism opportunities while generating revenue for conservation. License fees from luxury lodges and guided tours may help fund park maintenance. Visitor caps and track upgrades protect against environmental degradation and offer controlled access that minimises visitor impact and reduces seasonality of visitation. But opponents worry these projects prioritise profit over public access. If national parks become exclusive spaces for wealthier visitors, they risk losing their purpose as places for all Australians to enjoy. Sustainable tourism The primary and overriding purpose of national parks is nature conservation. Recreation and tourism are secondary and should not undermine the park’s environmental and cultural integrity. Visitor caps and serviced experiences are part of the toolkit to cater to an increasingly diverse population while protecting the very attraction visitors come to see. Tourism development in protected areas, however, needs a social license and local community engagement is an important sustainability principle. For national parks to operate as they are intended, free or low-cost options and access must be available alongside premium experiences. This means that low-cost experiences such as facilitated by tent platforms or simple shelters need to be part of the spectrum of offerings. National parks belong to everyone and their management must reflect this. While tourism developments can offer benefits, they must not come at the cost of accessibility, affordability, or most importantly, environmental integrity. Often, taxpayer money is invested in establishing these experiences. Pascal Scherrer has received research funding from the NSW NPWS in the past. Isabelle Wolf has received funding from the NSW NPWS in the past.Jen Smart receives funding from the NSW NPWS Hawkweed Eradication Program for her PhD Scholarship.

Business
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The Mexican women who defied drug-dealers, fly-tippers and chauvinists to build a thriving business

The Guardianas del Conchalito ignored chants of ‘get back to your kitchens’, determined to protect the environment and create a sustainable shellfish operationAhead of the small boat, as it bobs on the waters near La Paz in the Mexican state of Baja California, is a long line of old plastic bottles strung together on top of the waves. Underneath them are as many as 100,000 oysters, waiting to be sold to the upmarket hotels down the coast.Cheli Mendez, who oversees the project, pulls a shell up from below, cuts it open with a knife, and gives me the contents to try: a plump, tasty oyster. Mendez is one of a group known as Guardianas del Conchalito, or guardians of the shells, and theirs is the first oyster-growing business in the region run entirely by women, she says.The women dug a channel with shovels and pickaxes to allow seawater to reach the mangroves Continue reading...

Ahead of the small boat, as it bobs on the waters near La Paz in the Mexican state of Baja California, is a long line of old plastic bottles strung together on top of the waves. Underneath them are as many as 100,000 oysters, waiting to be sold to the upmarket hotels down the coast.Cheli Mendez, who oversees the project, pulls a shell up from below, cuts it open with a knife, and gives me the contents to try: a plump, tasty oyster. Mendez is one of a group known as Guardianas del Conchalito, or guardians of the shells, and theirs is the first oyster-growing business in the region run entirely by women, she says.But this is far from the only success this unusual group of women has had. It all began with four of them sitting round a rickety picnic table, staring out across a rubbish-strewn mangrove plantation in the spring of 2017. They were angry: their fishing village was being ruined by drug-dealers and fast-encroaching tourism, and the shellfish they treasured were being depleted by illegal fishing.We said to the men, ‘we want to clear the place up. And we want to be paid to do it’None of the women had been educated beyond school, but they did understand that they risked losing everything unless something was done to change things“The mangroves were dying, the trash was everywhere,” says Graciela “Chela” Olachea, at 63 the oldest of the group. Huge lorries would arrive to fly-tip on a regular basis, and joyriders on motorbikes would screech across the land. Claudia Reyes, 41, says: “Things were bad, and getting worse.”Soon others had joined them at the picnic table in El Manglito, the neighbourhood of La Paz made famous by John Steinbeck. He wrote about the area’s pearl divers – the forebears of these proud, strong women.El Mangalito, near La Paz, was made famous by John Steinbeck, who wrote about the area’s pearl divers. The women’s sign says: ‘Please keep this wetland clean’“The picnic table became our office,” says Reyes. They had come up with the name for their group by then, based on the callo de hacha, a rare type of scallop that are a prized local delicacy. “We went to the men who were the decision-makers in our community, and we said, ‘We want to clear the place up. And we want to be paid to do it.’”The men – their husbands, fathers, grandfathers, sons – were not impressed. But they eventually and reluctantly agreed, offering wages for five women. But now there were 14 meeting around that picnic table. The money amounted to 8,500 Mexican pesos a week (£320) between them all, a tiny amount for each woman.“But we agreed to it,” says Reyes. “We wanted to show we could do this: we wanted to make a difference, and we wanted to earn some money.”The women set about positioning boulders around the perimeter of the plantation to stop the lorries from coming in and to deter the motorbikes. They dug channels from the sea to restore the water flow to the mangroves and cleared the rubbish. They kept watch at the water’s edge, shouting at the illegal fishing boats, some of whose occupants were their own relatives, to go away.We knew we deserved more … And the men would shout: ‘Get back to your kitchens’And perhaps most impressively, they patrolled the land through the night, facing down, they say, the drug-dealers and telling them to move on.Today we are talking near the old picnic table, sitting under a newly built palapa, or thatched sun shelter. Although February is winter and it’s early morning, the sun is already strong; temperatures will reach 28C (82.4F) in a few hours’ time.The Baja peninsula, snaking for 775 miles (1,250km) down the Mexican coast from the US border, is desert plains dotted with cacti. It is a growing tourist destination, and the guardianas suspect some of the rubbish in their mangroves was illegally dumped by construction companies. ‘It’s not just what’s happening in the ocean … it all affects the shellfish,’ says Wildcoast’s Celeste Ortega, pictured. Above, the palapa where Las guardianas meet The jewels of the region are the beaches: the nearby coves of Balandra are said to be the most beautiful in Mexico. And the seas here in the Gulf of California, also known as the Sea of Cortez, is teeming: the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau called it “the world’s aquarium”. It is home to about 900 species of fish, including more than 70 found nowhere else on the planet, and its marine megafauna includes whale sharks, grey whales and humpback whales.Slowly, the fishers of El Manglito came to understand the importance of sustainability, and the need to stick to quotas so the shellfish would thrive. The women’s first meeting around the picnic table had been in 2017; by autumn the following year, the area was unrecognisable. The drug-dealers had moved on; the fly-tipping had stopped. The mangroves are green and healthy now, and the whole plantation is pristine, with no litter in sight.At one point during our conversation, a motorbike appears with two young lads on the back. Several of the women get up and run across, shouting at them to go away. They do and quickly: the guardianas clearly are not women to be ignored.After the mangrove was cleaned up, the women say that the men thought they could go back to how things had been – them doing the fishing, the women cleaning the shellfish for very little money, as they had in the past. “But we felt we had done the work,” says Daniela Bareño, 35. “We knew we deserved more. Chela would go down to the shore when they were out in their boats and yell: ‘These are ours.’ And the men would shout: ‘Get back to your kitchens.’”By now they were getting funding from environmental organisations. One of their backers was Wildcoast, a California-based charity dedicated to conserving coastal and marine ecosystems. Celeste Ortega, Wildcoast’s mangrove conservation manager, says: “We started talking to the women about the mangroves and how it’s not just what’s happening in the ocean, but what’s happening on the land that affects the shellfish.My girls are proud of me. One is at university doing bioengineering“The trees are a vital part of the ecosystem and that’s the reason the shellfish are here: they attach themselves to the mangrove trees, and that’s how they grow.”Today, the Guardianas del Conchalito is a legally recognised community co-operative and all its members receive a living wage.“We do things differently from the men,” says Bareño. “They had a more individualistic attitude; we work democratically. We have meetings each Monday, we talk things through, we reach decisions collectively.” The picnic table where Las Guardianas first got together; some of the community’s 100,000 or so oysters; Andrea, El Manglito’s first university graduate; the mangrove seedlings being planted to restore the plantation And their work has paid off in other ways too. Andrea Mendez Garcia, 27, studied marine biology after school, becoming the first university graduate from El Manglito. Her inspiration is her mother, Marta – a guardiana.Other women say their work has influenced their children as well. “My girls are proud of me,” says Adriana Mendez, 56, of her two daughters. “One is at university doing bioengineering and agriculture.”Away from the sea, the biggest changes for the Guardianas del Conchalito have been in their own lives. “Before all this, I didn’t really believe in myself,” says Reyes. “But now I know I can achieve things: I know it’s possible.”Other women say their relationships have been upended, too. “I used to ask my husband’s permission if I wanted to leave the house,” says Rosa María Hale Romero, who’s in her early 60s. “Now if I go out, I just tell him: ‘I’ll be back.’ And instead of me serving him, he brings me my coffee.”All the women laugh, in shared recognition; and then they are silent for a moment. After a while, Reyes speaks again. “The truth is, it wasn’t only the mangrove we transformed,” she says. “We transformed ourselves as well.”

Business
Water
Conservation

Trump administration drops suit that sought to cut toxic emissions in ‘Cancer Alley’

The Trump administration has dropped a lawsuit that sought to cut toxic emissions from a facility in a highly polluted area of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley.” In 2023, the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against Denka Performance Elastomer in an effort to get it to cut down its emissions of chloroprene. Chloroprene is a...

The Trump administration has dropped a lawsuit that sought to cut toxic emissions from a facility in a highly polluted area of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley.” In 2023, the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against Denka Performance Elastomer in an effort to get it to cut down its emissions of chloroprene. Chloroprene is a chemical that’s used in the production of neoprene, a material that is used to make wetsuits, hoses and adhesives. The EPA considers chloroprene to be a likely carcinogen.   When it filed the lawsuit, the EPA said that Denka’s emissions of chloroprene posed “an imminent and substantial endangerment” to public health. “The endangerment is imminent because Denka emits chloroprene at levels that are producing unacceptably high risks of cancer to the people, including children, that are regularly exposed to the Facility’s emissions,” the lawsuit said. “Hundreds of children attend school near the Facility and currently breathe the air there.” However, the Trump administration voluntarily dropped the lawsuit this week. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declined to explain why, referring The Hill to the Justice Department, which did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment. Denka, the company that was being sued, thanked the Trump administration for dropping the case in a written statement, saying it was “lacking scientific and legal merit." The company said that it is “committed to implementing the emissions reductions achieved as we turn the page from this relentless and draining attack on our business.” It also said it was “committed to working with the EPA” to change tighter pollution standards that were set last year under Biden. Environmental advocates criticized the Trump administration’s move.  “The Trump Administration's plan to dismiss this case should raise alarm bells for communities across the country and is a clear signal that the administration is not serious about enforcing the laws on the books that ensure we have access to clean and safe air and water,"  said Jen Duggan, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, in a written statement. "Cancer Alley" has among the highest rates of toxic air pollution in the country. People living in an area close to the facility are exposed to chloroprene at more than 14 times the level the EPA says can increase cancer risk, according to the agency's lawsuit.

Business
Chemicals
Health

How a Trump effort to cut environmental red tape could backfire

The White House is revoking its own authority to oversee implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act — and leaving a bureaucratic mess in its wake.

For roughly half a century, a little-known body called the White House Council on Environmental Quality has been in charge of overseeing implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, a 1970 statute widely considered the “Magna Carta” of environmental law. Congress passed the law at a time when Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River was on fire and yellow smog blanketed American cities. In an attempt to prevent such calamities, NEPA requires that any big infrastructure project funded or authorized by the federal government must account for its environmental impacts before it’s permitted to go forward. Now, when cities and states build federally funded roads, a developer erects an offshore wind farm, or an oil company builds a new refining unit on the Gulf Coast, NEPA applies. This sweeping requirement created a need for coordination within the government. Given the number of federal agencies involved and the potential for larger projects to require authorization from multiple departments — a pipeline, for example, might require sign-off from the Department of Transportation, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency — Congress created the Council on Environmental Quality, or CEQ, and housed it within the White House in part to oversee NEPA implementation across the federal government. Since then, CEQ has been a central clearinghouse for interpreting the landmark law. In the years after its creation, the council issued rules that set forth requirements for public comment, defined key terminology, and laid out when projects required extensive analysis. The rules ensured uniformity in how agencies applied the law, and they were left largely untouched for roughly five decades.  Last month, the Trump administration unraveled those rules, and with them the council’s central role in implementing NEPA. By issuing a new interim rule, the White House is proposing to rescind CEQ’s guidance and instruct federal agencies to develop their own individual guidelines. The White House’s rule is expected to be finalized in the coming months, at which point every agency, from the Bureau of Land Management to the U.S. Forest Service, will be expected to develop its own standards and processes for determining whether a project complies with NEPA requirements, a process that could take years. Their interpretations could also be challenged in court, creating further uncertainty about what standards now apply for getting nearly any infrastructure project approved by the feds. In an echo of the Trump administration’s refrain that extraordinary measures are required to curb government inefficiency, the unraveling of CEQ is intended to “expedite and simplify the permitting process” for important projects, according to Trump’s executive order. But experts who spoke to Grist anticipate that it will have the opposite effect.  “It’s chaos,” said Deborah Sivas, director of the environmental law clinic at Stanford University. “No business would run this way. If you’re a developer, you’re like, ‘What the heck? What even applies? How do I go about doing this right?’” Complying with NEPA involves preparing lengthy environmental assessments, a process that is time-consuming and resource-intensive. The average time to complete the NEPA process is three years, and the average Environmental Impact Statement, one type of assessment reserved for larger projects, is more than 1,200 pages long. As a result, reforming NEPA has become a priority for prominent lawmakers in both parties. (Many Democrats in particular worry that the process hampers efforts to build renewable energy infrastructure.) But simply throwing out a longstanding, centralized playbook for agencies to follow will create uncertainty and slow the process down, at least in the short term, according to Justin Pidot, a law professor at the University of Arizona who was the general counsel at CEQ during the Biden administration.  “It’s a huge mistake,” said Pidot. “It’s going to be very resource-intensive for them to do all these new procedures, and there’s going to be more uncertainty, and the permitting process is going to be harder and more complex. And all that is going to be happening at a time when there are fewer federal employees with less expertise.” CEQ’s authority was largely unquestioned over its 50-year lifespan, but two court cases in the last year seemed to indicate a change in opinion among some legal scholars. In November, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a case deciding whether federal agencies had adequately considered environmental impacts when developing plans to regulate tourist flights over national parks. In their ruling, the judges suggested that CEQ did not have the authority to issue binding regulations in its implementation of NEPA. Then, in February, a district court in North Dakota came to a similar conclusion. Since CEQ is an office within the White House and not an agency created by Congress, the court ruled that CEQ did not have the authority to issue binding regulations.  “The two cases definitely started going down that pathway of questioning or calling out what authority CEQ actually had,” said Jennifer Jeffers, senior counsel at the law firm Allen Matkins. “I don’t think that many people had foreseen this because it had been a longstanding practice and had not been a source of contention until quite recently.” Still, the most significant blow to the office’s authority came only with Trump’s executive order. While it’s unclear how quickly agencies will produce their own NEPA-related rules and what it will mean for project developers, Jeffers said she expects the current requirements will continue to apply for projects in the pipeline as long as they are not inconsistent with the executive order. The irony is that even Trump’s favored constituencies, like the fossil fuel developers he says will restore U.S. “energy dominance,” are left to wonder what new rules they’ll be forced to navigate when seeking federal permits in the future. “It is not a good way for this administration to accomplish what this administration wants to accomplish,” said Pidot. This story was originally published by Grist with the headline How a Trump effort to cut environmental red tape could backfire on Mar 7, 2025.

Business
Energy
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