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Can OffShore Wind Blow Out California's Fires?

Christine Heinrichs

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Thursday, September 30, 2021

Floating wind projects take advantage of steady winds that blow offshore. Those faster, steadier winds can produce more energy. Wind power increases with the cube of wind speed. Bigger turbines with longer blades capture more wind and are more aerodynamically efficient. How they overcome obstacles such as interference with fisheries, environmental damage, and high cost will influence how many, and which ones, get built.

California jump-started the offshore wind industry when Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB525 on September 23, https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/09/23/governor-newsom-signs-climate-action-bills-outlines-historic-15-billion-package-to-tackle-the-climate-crisis-and-protect-vulnerable-communities/ . Now the state and industry are grappling with the implications for wildlife, the environment and energy demands as they weigh the costs and benefits. Possibilities were reviewed at a conference held in Scotland September 15-16 with dozens of international players attending virtually.

In late May the Biden administration opened two areas off the California coast to floating wind projects: a 399-square-mile area off Morro Bay in the Central Coast and another off the North Coast’s Humboldt County. The permitting process may take a decade or longer before either is constructed.

Eliminating fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables to reduce greenhouse gases are imperative to mitigate the climate crisis. However, floating wind farms will impact local wildlife and local economies. All the impacts need to be evaluated and weighed before choosing the renewable path forward. Energy systems and policy, migratory birds and mammals, and other marine life need to be studied to estimate the effects of floating offshore wind energy production. The amount of energy anticipated from floating wind farms and how it fits into the country’s energy portfolio have to be weighed along with its effects on people and wildlife.

The bill requires that the state’s energy supply be 100 percent zero carbon by 2045. Offshore wind will be needed to make up the 145 Gigawatts of new energy from renewables needed to meet that goal.

“This means great things for offshore wind, after four years of stagnation,” said Jim Lanard, CEO of Magellan Wind, https://mieibc.org/company/magellan-wind/, at an industry conference in Aberdeen, Scotland September 15-16.

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Politics

National programs are leading the way. The Covid stimulus, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, helped by extending the investment tax credit to 2025, reducing expenses. The Biden administration’s Build Back Better package and the Green Jobs Plan also contain economic incentives to develop offshore wind that “have energized lawmakers,” said Jamie McDonald, director of operations for Xodus, https://www.xodusgroup.com/, now at the Boston office.

The political climate is changing. Climate change is becoming a bipartisan issue, with red and blue state governors competing for the jobs, development and supply chain for renewable energy projects, Lanard said.

“The consensus is that climate change is an existential threat,” he said from his office in Houston. “The words I’m hearing out of California are, ‘Doing nothing is doing harm’.”

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California site issues

California is the focus, but Oregon and Washington coasts are also in the sights for floating wind farm locations. Floating offshore wind farms are proposed for California, 30 miles off Morro Bay on the Central Coast, and off the northern coast near the Oregon state line. Construction on the up to 200-turbine Central Coast wind farm could begin in 2025-2027, pending environmental review and regulatory permitting.

The military uses the airspace over the Central Coast for training. That snarled consideration temporarily in 2020, but discussions have resolved the conflict.

“The area has important military uses, but we know we can be compatible,” Lanard, a veteran of the Obama administration, said. “Now we are working together cooperatively. There are a lot of Obama alums in the Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense, directly advising president.”

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Business

Business leaders are looking for certainty to commit investments, McDonald said. The permitting and regulatory process requires the lease areas to be defined, so that environmental assessments can be done preparatory to the lease auction and sale with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, https://www.boem.gov/. Baseline environmental surveys will be required, taking 18 months to two years to complete, on which to write an environmental statement. A federal permit as well as approval of state agencies such as the Department of Fish & Wildlife and the California Public Utility Commission (PUC) could push construction four to six years past that 2025 construction date.

Cost is a significant factor, but these industry leaders expect it to decrease significantly as projects advance. Onshore wind costs have declined, and solar costs declined by 90 percent as the technology improved.

Jonah Margulis, senior vice president of US Operations for Aker Offshore Wind, https://akeroffshorewind.com/, expects the Levelized Cost of Energy, the standard measure of cost of energy production, for floating wind to decline from $110 to $60 by 2032.

Transmission is another factor influencing the success of floating wind. Central California has facilities in place that could serve that function. The Morro Bay Power Plant has been vacant for several years. A 600 MW lithium-ion battery storage project is proposed for part of the site. It would be the largest in the US. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant will be closed, one reactor in 2024 and the second in 2025, opening that site for electrical transmission.

The north coast site lacks that advantage, but Humboldt State University, slated to become the state’s next polytechnic university, is studying prospective transmission solutions.

“The future is floating on the west coast,” Margulis said. “The US is back on track for a booming era on east and west coasts.”

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Fishing conflicts

Morro Bay is home to active commercial fishing. The Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Organization and the Port San Luis Commercial Fishermen’s Association have signed a Mutual Benefit Agreement with Castle Wind, https://castlewind.com/, the company actively pursuing development of the site. The agreement provides for a fund to assist the associations with support for members.

Such financial arrangements are made for good relationships, but are not legally required, Adam Payne, Senior Offshore Consenter, Flotation Energy https://www.flotationenergy.com/what-we-do, said. Funds can be directed to projects that benefit the community, such as the Thanet Fishermen’s Association Fuel Depot in the UK, which provides round-the-clock fuel support to fishermen.

Each site requires detailed knowledge of that fishery to develop a unique solution.

“Floating is going to be a more difficult discussion,” said Payne. “Certain gear is not compatible with floating wind equipment.”

Commercial fishing can coexist with floating wind, said Signe Nielsen, senior products management development at RWE, https://www.rwe.com/en. The industry’s experience with fixed wind projects in Europe will help floating wind projects adapt to the fishermen’s needs by siting the projects with their concerns about potential overlap with fisheries, navigation and site design in mind, she said.

“There will be lessons to be learned along the way,” she said, citing cooperation, building communication and transparency as factors to resolve conflicts.

Local opposition can doom a project. Shell encountered opposition to a natural gas pipeline that caused local turmoil and tension, eventually resulting in local activists being jailed. The experience is recounted in the documentary The Pipe, available online, https://guidedoc.tv/documentary/the-pipe-documentary-film/ ‍

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Environmental protection

California’s coastline is subject to various levels of protection. The Central Coast site is just outside the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The corridor is known as the Blue Serengeti, for the many large marine mammals that migrate through the area, several kinds of seals and whales, including Blue Whales. Seabirds also fly through the area. The turbines could be over 700 feet tall. Species that live far at sea are not studied well with respect to disturbance by floating wind turbines. That research remains to be done.

In the respect of environmental disruption, floating wind turbines compare favorably with fixed wind turbines onshore, Nielsen said. Installation is less noisy than pounding pilings into the seabed, and less seabed is disturbed by the floating platform moorings than fixed bottom turbines. The moorings, giant chain cables, are too big for marine mammals to become entangled, but they might snag ghost fishing gear that would endanger seals and whales. Marine mammals might not be diving to the 3,000-foot depths, which remains to be established by research.

The floating platforms could act as fish aggregators and fish nurseries, she said, although it’s unclear whether the fish taking refuge under the platforms represent an increase in fish or relocation of fish from other places.

The platforms could act as artificial reefs to increase biodiversity, Monica Fundingsland, sustainability advisor at Equinor, https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/wind.html, said. Three studies are underway at Hywind in Scotland.

A study of the effect of operational noise on seabirds at Hywind in Scotland is expected by the end of 2021. Whether operational noise could be a barrier to marine mammals is not known.

Hywind Scotland is the pilot project, producing electric power since 2017. Its five 830-foot turbines, with rotors 500 feet in diameter, produce enough power to serve the equivalent of 36,000 homes, from about 19 miles offshore in water 300 to over 400 feet deep. The site off the California coast is about 3,000 feet deep.

Centralizing the research could help streamline the process by making information more easily available to all stakeholders, and addressing information gaps. Studies buried in industry information silos may conceal data already collected and result in duplicated effort.

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Port

The port where the turbines will be either manufactured or assembled needs to be able to accommodate the huge equipment. Ports also need to be free of obstructions such as bridges and electrical wires to allow the equipment to be brought in.

Morro Bay is not deep enough, so other facilities will have to be developed to assemble the turbines, which will then be towed out to the site. Morro Bay harbor will then become a staging area for maintenance and operations.

Another restriction is the Jones Act, which requires port-to-port cargo movement on ships that are U.S.-owned, U.S.-crewed, U.S.-registered, and U.S.-built. One Jones Act-compliant vessel is now being built, but the industry plans to bring vessels over from Europe and then transfer the unassembled pieces to feeder vessels that comply with the Jones Act sent out to collect them. That raises a point of risk to the equipment, which could be damaged in the transition from one ship to another.

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Great Lakes

The industry is also evaluating the Great Lakes as floating wind farm sites. A major difference is that the states that border the lakes own the lake bed, so they have more flexibility in leasing them.

The fresh water lakes form ice during the cold months. Floating turbines can be adapted to floating ice, but the pressure of ice on the foundations is another challenge. The Great Lakes Wind Assessment is due in draft form by the end of 2021

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Building an industry

“It’s challenging to build an industry, but we’ve got to start somewhere,” said Aker’s Margulis. “The ambitions we’ve all had for a number of years are being released.”

RenewableUK, https://events.renewableuk.com/fow21, with 25 industry sponsors and partners, hosted the Floating Offshore Wind conference in Aberdeen Scotland September 15-16, 2021. Over 500 attended, in person and virtually. Twenty-eight exhibitors pitched their products and 56 speakers presented information and took questions. Hopefully together they can work out the issues of concern and successfully create new renewable energy options for California and the nation.

Read the full story here.

Photos courtesy of

Christine Heinrichs

Christine Heinrichs writes from her home on California’s Central Coast. She keeps a backyard flock of about a dozen hens. She follows coastal issues, writing a regular column on the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery for the San Luis Obispo Tribune. Her narrative on the Central Coast condor flock will appear in Ten Spurs 2021 edition.

Her book, How to Raise Chickens, was first published in 2007, just as the local food movement was starting to focus attention on the industrial food system. Backyard chickens became the mascot of local food. The third edition of How to Raise Chickens was published in January 2019. The Backyard Field Guide to Chickens was published in 2016. Look for them in Tractor Supply stores and online.

She has a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Oregon and belongs to several professional journalism and poultry organizations.

Related News

How Can Religion Help the Climate Fight?

It’s a weird time for religion in the United States. Christians are on track to become a religious minority in the country within a few decades but also, soon, to wield incredible power in a second Trump administration—thanks not least to a neo-Crusader defense secretary nominee, Christian nationalists likely leading the Office of Management and Budget as well as the House of Representatives, and an array of powerful Christian judges appointed in Trump’s first term whose numbers will only grow in his second. Meanwhile, amid a devastatingly grim Advent season for other communities, Latino Christian leaders interviewed by Axios “say they will unpack the Holy Family’s immigration plight during Christmas services to offer hope for immigrants” facing ICE raids and deportations in the new administration. White Protestants and Catholics voted by large margins for Trump; Black Protestants, Jews, atheists, and agnostics voted overwhelmingly against him. Muslim voters outraged by Biden’s support for Israel’s slaughter in Gaza abandoned the Democrats at striking rates, many voting instead for Jill Stein.So while the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or even nonreligious may be growing, the relevance of religion to politics clearly persists. And that means religion is relevant to climate change too.The Pew Research polls in 2022 found that moderately or highly religious people were much less likely to rate climate change as a serious problem than atheists were. But the surveys also showed huge numbers of religious people to be concerned. Growing numbers of religious leaders and groups—even among white evangelicals—are pushing for policies protecting the climate and environment.To learn about the contours of the growing religious advocacy for climate and environmental protection, I called up the Reverend Susan Hendershot, an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and president of Interfaith Power and Light, a group focused on engaging people of faith in environmental causes and climate action. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.How do you perceive your job in terms of engaging religious communities in climate advocacy?Interfaith Power and Light started in 2000 because our founder was seeing a disconnect between what she was hearing from environmental organizations, in terms of climate change and care for the earth, and the fact that she was not hearing that in her place of worship. For her, it became a mission to say that as faith communities, we are called to care for creation and we need to find ways to live that out: It’s not just talking about it, it’s doing something. From the start, there was a focus on greening houses of worship as an act of faith. So everything from energy efficiency upgrades to installing solar in houses of worship. And the other side of that has been the focus on policy advocacy, to say personal action is important and it gets us a certain way down the road as part of civil society, but unless we have the right policies in place, we can’t actually make the progress that we need to make. It’s centered on spiritual values and on the moral opportunity to take action—to say people of faith are and should be leaders in working for climate and environmental justice. But this is focused on people from many different religious backgrounds, right?We say we work with people of all spiritual traditions and no spiritual traditions, recognizing that there are a lot of spiritual but not religious folks that are out there and that is a growing percentage. We want to make sure that there’s a big tent out there that’s for everyone who wants to take action from a place of spiritual values.Climate anxiety is on the rise. What does the lens of faith or spiritual values have to offer the climate fight, in your view?I see faith communities and leaders having three roles in the climate movement. The first one is pastoral, because there’s a lot of climate anxiety and grief out there, whether it’s people who have suffered from a climate disaster who are recovering and need a support system or young people who are considering whether they even want to have a family because do you want to bring children into a climate-changed world? So that pastoral role is really, really important. Faith leaders are trained to work with people who are suffering, grieving, in trauma.The second role I see as the practical role, which is offering leadership within their own faith community, working to move climate solutions forward in their houses of worship: renewable energy systems, energy efficiency, electric vehicles. Just serving as models in the community of what’s possible. The third role is the prophetic role. We have to talk about this. One of the things Katharine Hayhoe says as a climate scientist and person of faith is that the most important thing you can do for climate change is to talk about it, because part of the problem is it’s not being discussed enough. Pastors are called to use their prophetic voices in their places of worship to move people to action. How does the fragmentation of religious groups right now complicate your work? I’m thinking about the very prominent evangelical voices allied with Trump who see fossil fuels as part of a kind of a nationalist vision. I like to use Yale Climate Communication’s “Six Americas” study as an example. If you compare when they first started doing those studies to now, over time there has been an increase in the people who are alarmed and concerned about climate change and a really big decrease in those who are what we would call doubters. There are folks who have a lot of influence and power who are pushing fossil fuels and looking to continue to have an “all of the above” energy strategy—we see that in the news media every day now—but the reality I think is that for most folks on the ground, they are grappling with the real climate challenges that they’re facing every day. It used to feel sort of far away, like you’re talking about polar bears and ice caps. Now we’re seeing floods and droughts, and farmers are seeing changes in their growing seasons for their crops. That makes it more real to people. I think those powerful voices pushing fossil fuels will be drowned out by the realities on the ground.So how do you envision people of faith being mobilized for climate policy advocacy?The Inflation Reduction Act was the result of many years of advocacy amongst people from all walks of life across the country, and this money is starting to make a real difference on the ground. There’s a lot of money going into nonprofits, including houses of worship, who are installing solar and other energy efficiency systems and getting rid of their gas appliances and so on. One of the things that we found in our recent solar survey is that there are about 2,500 communities of faith around the country that have installed solar, with more coming through the direct pay mechanism with the IRA. We have a few congregations that have received their payment for direct pay, and many many more that have applied, and others that are in the exploratory phase. This trend is competitive with businesses like Starbucks and Walmart and all these other businesses that get a lot of attention around their solar installations.That’s also happening on the consumer level—faith communities are made up of people, many of whom have homes, and they’re also looking for ways they can adapt, use this federal funding to make these improvements in their own homes that improve their lives, their bottom line, as well as the health of their families.The next piece of work is to protect what those incentives are and have done so that they won’t be rolled back or clawed back. There’s a lot of personal connection to that for folks, whether that’s because they live near drilling sites and they don’t want to see methane rules rolled back because it’s improving the health and air quality in their community, or folks who are saying we don’t want to roll back the direct pay portion of the IRA funding because that’s a way that’s helping faith communities install solar and be able to put more money into the mission and serve their communities. I think part of the opportunity here is to make those connections for individuals that are personal for them—whatever that means for them or their family.Good News/Bad NewsThe BBC has put together a list of “seven quiet breakthroughs for climate and nature in 2024.” They include the U.K. finally closing its last coal-fired power plant and deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil falling to a nine-year low.Driven by the climate crisis, the country’s home insurance problem is growing. Nonrenewal rates (that’s when an insurance company drops a home that was previously covered) rose in 46 states in 2023, according to data obtained by the Senate Budget Committee. Read The New York Times’ feature on this or check out their accompanying data visualization to see where insurers are dropping coverage in your state.Stat of the Week$100 per yearThat’s the possible extra cost to American consumers of increasing liquefied natural gas exports (as the Trump administration plans to do), according to a new study released by the Department of Energy this week. It also found that the LNG exports could lead to an extra 1.5 gigatons of greenhouse gases by 2050.What I’m ReadingAs Clock Ticks to Act on the Climate Crisis, N.C. 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Climate

Activism

Crisis

Our Big Global Problems Are Connected, so Tackle Them Together, Scientists say

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As global temperatures rise from the burning of fossil fuels, researchers and policymakers have proposed solutions like installing renewable energy, replacing gasoline-powered cars with electric ones, and developing technology to suck carbon out of the air. But these policies often address climate change in isolation—without regard for other pressing issues like a decline in biodiversity, the contamination of freshwater sources, and the pollution of agricultural soils. A new report released Tuesday by the United Nations’ expert panel on biodiversity makes the case for a different approach based on addressing the “nexus” between two or more out of five essential issue areas: climate change, biodiversity, food, human health, and water. Such an approach is not only more likely to help the world meet various UN targets on biodiversity, sustainable development, and climate mitigation; it’s also more cost-effective. “We have to move decisions and actions beyond single-issue silos,” said Paula Harrison, a professor of land and water modeling at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and a co-chair of the report, in a statement. Other scientific reports have studied the interlinkages between two or three of these issues, but she told reporters on Tuesday that this latest report is the “most ambitious” to date. The new report was the result of three years of work of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, or IPBES, an expert body that’s analogous to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which periodically assesses the state of the science on global warming. The report centers on biodiversity—that’s the IPBES’s remit, after all—describing how the variety of life on Earth is “essential to our very existence.” But it goes out of its way to show how rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss is both contributing to and being exacerbated by other crises. Climate change, for instance, is making some habitats inhospitable to their erstwhile animal populations, while the loss of those populations can have impacts on freshwater availability and carbon storage. The five interlinking issues were selected by representatives of the 147 IPBES’s member countries. Meanwhile, solutions that focus on just one issue may have detrimental effects on other elements. Pete Smith, a professor of soils and global change at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, gave the example of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, or BECCS, a climate solution in which crops are grown to draw CO2 out of the air and then burned to generate energy. The resulting greenhouse gas emissions are captured and stored in rock formations, with the aim of removing them from the carbon cycle permanently. The problem, Smith said, is that to implement this process on a large scale would require vast tracts of land that might otherwise have been used to grow food crops—so BECCS can unintentionally harm food security. Devoting land to single-variety crops can also use up lots of water and jeopardize biodiversity. “When you just focus on climate change,” he told Grist, “you might end up with some solutions that damage other elements of the nexus.” In other scenarios, it’s not the solution itself that’s problematic; it’s the way it’s implemented. Planting trees, for example, can be done in consultation with local communities and taking into account unique ecosystem needs. 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The most promising alternative is a “nature-oriented nexus” focused on all five target areas, emphasizing “strong environmental regulation, sustainable agricultural practices, lower rates of global per capita consumption, and strong development of green technologies.” More than 160 scientists from 57 countries contributed to the report, which was formally adopted this weekend at IPBES’s annual conference in Windhoek, Namibia. During a press conference on Tuesday, the authors said they were ending the year “on a high note for multilateralism,” in contrast to the stalemates that defined other intergovernmental negotiations in 2024, like the global plastics treaty and the climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. In addition to the nexus report, IPBES member states also approved a report on the “transformative change” that is needed to address global crises connected to biodiversity, including climate change. Notably, that report says that “disconnection from and domination over nature and people” is at the root of toxic chemical pollution, deforestation, the burning of fossil fuels, and other causes of climate and environmental degradation. Both reports highlight the need to address the inequitable concentration of wealth and power and the prioritization of short-term material gains in order to “prevent triggering the potentially irreversible decline and projected collapse of key ecosystem functions.” “Right now, our economic and financial system is not fit for purpose; it does not value nature,” Pamela McElwee, a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University and a co-chair of the nexus report, told reporters on Tuesday. The nexus report finds that $7 trillion a year in public subsidies and private financial incentives go toward activities that directly damage the five issue areas. Only $200 billion—less than 3 percent of that total—is spent directly on improving biodiversity. Because the nexus report was requested directly by the governments of IPBES’s 147 member countries—among them, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United States, and most of Europe—the scientists who contributed to it are hopeful that their recommendations will be adopted by policymakers. In the report, they highlight 71 cross-cutting responses to interlinked global problems, ranging from reducing plastic pollution to conserving wetland ecosystems to providing universal health coverage. 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Climate

Energy

Technology

Cold weather-related deaths rising in US: Study

Deaths in the United States from cold weather-related causes have been rising, according to a new study published in a medical journal on Thursday. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), found that the number of Americans who died from cold weather-related factors more than doubled from 1999 to 2022, with the highest rate being detected in the Midwest. Over 40,000 people died between 1999 and 2022 in situations in which cold was found to be the underlying or a contributing factor, according to the study. The death rate from cold weather-related causes was the highest among adults aged 75 and over. As people age, the body’s ability to regulate temperature worsens, therefore being more prone to body temperature declines. People between the ages of 45 and 74 had the highest year-to-year increase in cold-related deaths. Black, American-Indian and Alaska Native people had the highest cold-relate death rates, according to the study. The highest annual mortality rate spike from cold weather-related factors was among white and Hispanic people. “Even though we are in this warming world, cold-related deaths are still a public health issue in the U.S.,” Michael Liu, the study’s lead author, told The New York Times. The study’s authors wrote that “although mean temperatures are increasing in the U.S., studies have found that climate change has been linked with more frequent episodes of severe winter weather in the U.S. over the past few decades, which may in turn be associated with increased cold-related mortality.” Deaths during winter months in recent years have been 8 to 12 percent higher than those in non-winter months, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Climate

Health

In Florida, the Miccosukee Fight to Protect the Everglades in the Face of Climate Change

For centuries, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida has called the Everglades home

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — As a boy, when the water was low Talbert Cypress from the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida rummaged through the Everglades’ forests, swam in its swampy ponds and fished in its canals.But the vast wetlands near Miami have radically changed since Cypress was younger. Now 42 and tribal council chairman, Cypress said water levels are among the biggest changes. Droughts are drier and longer. Prolonged floods are drowning tree islands sacred to them. Native wildlife have dwindled. “It’s basically extremes now,” he said.Tribal elder Michael John Frank put it this way: “The Everglades is beautiful, but it’s just a skeleton of the way it used to be.” EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series of on how tribes and Indigenous communities are coping with and combating climate change.For centuries, the Everglades has been the tribe's home. But decades of massive engineering projects for development and agriculture severed the wetlands to about half its original size, devastating an ecosystem that’s sustained them. Tribe members say water mismanagement has contributed to fires, floods and water pollution in their communities and cultural sites. Climate change, and the fossil fuel activities that caused it, are ongoing threats.The Miccosukee people have long fought to heal and protect what remains. They were historically reluctant to engage with the outside world due to America’s violent legacy against Indigenous people. But with a new tribal administration, the tribe has played an increasingly collaborative and leadership role in healing the Everglades.They’re working to stop oil exploration and successfully fought a wilderness designation that would have cut their access to ancestral lands. They’ve pushed for a project to reconnect the western Everglades with the larger ecosystem while helping to control invasive species and reintroducing racoons, hawks and other native animals. In August they signed a co-stewardship agreement for some of South Florida's natural landscapes. They've held prayer walks, launched campaigns to raise awareness of important issues and used airboat tours as public classrooms. Even so, a new report on the progress of Everglades work acknowledges a lack of meaningful and consistent engagement with the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes. It calls for applying Indigenous knowledge to restoration efforts and a steady partnership with tribes, whose longstanding, intimate and reciprocal relationship with the environment can help with understanding historical and present ecological conditions. The Miccosukee's past fuels their activism today For generations, the Miccosukee people would make pilgrimages from northern Florida to the Everglades to fish, hunt and hold religious ceremonies. When the Seminole Wars broke out in 1817, the tribe navigated the vast terrain better than the U.S. Army. By the late 1850s, Col. Gustavus Loomis had seared every tribal village and field in a region known as the Big Cypress, forcing the Miccosukee and Seminole people to seek refuge on tree islands deep in the Everglades. “That’s the reason we’re here today. We often look at the Everglades as our protector during that time. And so now, it’s our turn to protect the Everglades,” said Cypress.Many of the Everglades’ modern problems began in the 1940s when the region was drained to build cities and plant crops. Over time, the ecosystems where the Miccosukee people hunted, fished and gathered plants, held sacred rituals and put their deceased to rest, have been destroyed.A state-federal project to clean the water and rehydrate the landscape aims to undo much of the damage. But water management decisions and restoration efforts have flooded or parched lands where tribe members live and hold ceremonies. That’s a reason the tribe has pushed for decades for a comprehensive response with the Western Everglades Restoration Project. Members have spoken at public meetings, written letters to federal agencies, lobbied with state and federal leaders while gathering with stakeholders to hear their concerns. If all goes right, the project will clean polluted water, improve hydrology, provide flood protection and reduce the likelihood and severity of wildfires. Groundbreaking for the project began in July there . Still, there are concerns about community flood risks and whether the project will do enough to improve water quality and quantity after a part of the plan was removed.A second engineered wetland that would have cleaned water was removed from the project proposal after landowners wouldn't give up their lands. The area's geology was also deemed too porous to sustain it. In the absence of an alternative, some people worry water will not meet standards.Even so, Curtis Osceola, chief of staff for the Miccosukee Tribe, said of the project: “If we get this done, we will have forever changed the future for the Miccosukee and Seminole." Victory in fight over wilderness designation In a region of the Everglades now known as the Big Cypress National Preserve, environmental activist and Miccosukee tribe member Betty Osceola learned as a child to spear hunt and subsist off the land like her ancestors did. It's where she still lives, in one of 15 traditional villages that a few hundred Miccosukee and Seminole people also call home. In its cypress swamps and sawgrass prairies, they hunt, gather medicinal plants and hold important events. It’s home to ceremonial and burial grounds, and to the endangered Florida panther.The National Park Service wanted to designate the preserve as wilderness to protect it from human impacts. The tribe pushed back, saying it would have significantly affected their traditional ways of life, limited access to their homelands and ignored the critical stewardship they've provided for centuries. Allowing Indigenous people to remain caretakers of their lands and waters, numerous studies have shown, are critical to protecting biodiversity, forests and fighting climate change. After a stern fight involving campaigns, a petition, testimonials and support from numerous government officials, the tribe succeeded. The National Park Service listened to the tribe's concerns about the legal conflicts the designation would have on their tribal rights, said Osceola, the Miccosukee's chief of staff. Although they continue objecting to the agency's advancing proposal to expand trail systems in the preserve, which the tribe said are near or past culturally significant sites, “they did listen to us on the wilderness designation and at least they’re not, at this time, proceeding with any such designation,” he added. The Miccosukee continue pushing to phase out oil drilling in Big Cypress, writing op-eds and working with local, state and federal governments to stop more oil exploration by acquiring mineral rights in the preserve. Elders look to the next generation to protect the Everglades On a windy afternoon, Frank, the tribal elder, and Hector Tigertail, 18, sat under a chickee, or stilt house, on the tribe’s reservation. A wooden swing swayed near garden beds where flowers, chilies and other plants sprung from the soil. A plastic deer with antlers lay on the grass nearby, used to teach Indigenous youth how to hunt. Frank, 67, shared stories of growing up on tree islands. He remembered when the water was so clean he could drink it, and the deer that emerged to play when a softball game was underway.He spoke of the tribe’s history and a time when wildlife in the Everglades was abundant. Of his distrust of government agencies and the tribe's connection to the land. And he spoke often of his grandfather's words, uttered to him decades ago that still resound. “We were told to never, ever leave the Everglades,” said Frank. “The only way to prolong your life, your culture, your identity is to stay here in the Everglades... as long as you're here, your maker's hand is upon you.”Tigertail heard similar stories from his uncles and grandfather growing up. They helped him feel connected to the Everglades and to his culture. Their stories remind him of the importance of being stewards of the lands that have cared for him and his ancestors. Tribal elders are teaching youth what Cypress called “the modern” way to protect the Everglades – with policy, understanding government practices and integrating traditional and Western science.As a tribal youth member, Tigertail is doing what he can to preserve the Everglades for his generation and ones to come. He works with the Miccosukee Tribe's Fish and Wildlife Department to remove invasive species like pythons and fish like peacock bass. And he tries to be a voice for his people.“To hear that we’re losing it slowly and slowly saddens me," said Tigertail. "But also gives me hope that maybe there is a chance to save it.” The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

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New law paves way for cleaning abandoned mines without legal barriers

A new federal law aims to simplify the cleanup of abandoned mines in the Western U.S. by reducing liability hurdles for local, tribal and nonprofit groups.Danielle Prokop reports for Source New Mexico.In short:The law establishes a pilot program for cleaning 15 low-risk, abandoned mines and waives federal liability for "Good Samaritan" groups undertaking cleanup efforts.This change addresses longstanding legal obstacles that held volunteers responsible for pre-existing pollution, despite their lack of involvement in the original contamination.Abandoned mines have polluted about 40% of Western rivers and streams, with cleanup costs estimated at $50 billion.Key quote:"We can potentially do like a 70% improvement in water quality that would then support aquatic life, as opposed to 100% water quality that would be unachievable both financially and long term.”— Jason Willis, environmental engineer with Trout UnlimitedWhy this matters:Mining pollution poses serious threats to water quality, especially in arid regions impacted by climate change. By reducing legal barriers, this law empowers more groups to tackle hazardous waste, potentially improving water resources for ecosystems and communities.Related: A legacy of destruction: Abandoned mines across the West

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