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Op-ed: Protecting California’s children and communities from leaded aviation fuel pollution

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Friday, April 5, 2024

The California Air Resources Board finds more than 90% of Californians breathe unhealthy levels of pollution at some point each year, and lead is among the most common air toxics. California phased out lead in gasoline for cars and paint decades ago, so what is producing newlead air pollution? One of the main contributors is leaded aviation fuel still used in small, piston engine aircraft. A 2021 study found children who lived less than a mile away from an airport had 21% higher lead levels in their blood compared to children who lived farther away. The study also states young children who are exposed to lead can suffer from long-term negative health, behavioral and cognitive consequences. Select airports and counties in California are attempting to move toward unleaded alternatives, ahead of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommended goal for lead-free aviation by 2030. In 2022, Santa Clara County banned the sale of leaded aviation fuel at their airports. Yet, there is a crucial loophole. Banning the sale in one county’s airports does not stop people from purchasing leaded fuel elsewhere. Long Beach City Council approved a $200,000 subsidy for their airport. Long Beach Airport has offered unleaded aviation fuel since 2023, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed them as the second-highest lead polluting airport in the nation. The subsidy was necessary because the higher price tag of unleaded fuel dissuaded many from choosing to use it. This step by the city is commendable but, not only is use optional, the subsidy will expire in 2025. Similarly, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors directed LA County Public Works to provide unleaded aviation fuel at all five LA County-operated airports by June 1, 2024. It was included in the announcement that unleaded alternatives will be available at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, which is one of the three airports in my Senate district. I applaud the Board of Supervisors for taking action, though leaded fuel will still be available and leaves the decision up to the consumer on whether or not to purchase it. Ubiquitous lead air pollution cannot be remedied by simply offering alternatives or discontinuing the sale at certain locations. The daily impacts of leaded aviation fuel on our communities requires statewide action.This year, I am authoring Senate Bill 1193 to phase-out the sale of harmful leaded aviation fuel in California. No one should be okay with the harm it inflicts on our children, especially when there are impending viable unleaded alternatives. One intent of the tiered approach is to speed up market production and availability of unleaded alternatives at all airports. It also sets a legal deadline in 2030 for complete discontinuation of leaded aviation fuel sales throughout California. We cannot stand by and wait for the federal government to take action when many ofthe highest lead polluting airports in the nation are in our state. The bill will ban the sale in or adjacent to disadvantaged communities by January 1, 2026; urban growth boundaries by January 1, 2028, and everywhere else in California by January 1, 2030. The FAA has already approved a lower octane unleaded fuel (UL 94), currently available at approximately 35 airports in the U.S., as well as a 100 Octane unleaded fuel (G100UL), which is not yet commercially available. This bill delivers on a key campaign promise to my San Fernando Valley constituents and Californians - to fight for cleaner air and hold polluters accountable for the harm they inflict on the people of our beautiful state. Senate Transportation Committee will hear SB 1193 on April 9, 2024, at 1:30 PM. Location: 1021 O Street, Room 1200, Sacramento

The California Air Resources Board finds more than 90% of Californians breathe unhealthy levels of pollution at some point each year, and lead is among the most common air toxics.

California phased out lead in gasoline for cars and paint decades ago, so what is producing newlead air pollution? One of the main contributors is leaded aviation fuel still used in small, piston engine aircraft.

A 2021 study found children who lived less than a mile away from an airport had 21% higher lead levels in their blood compared to children who lived farther away. The study also states young children who are exposed to lead can suffer from long-term negative health, behavioral and cognitive consequences.

Select airports and counties in California are attempting to move toward unleaded alternatives, ahead of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recommended goal for lead-free aviation by 2030.

In 2022, Santa Clara County banned the sale of leaded aviation fuel at their airports. Yet, there is a crucial loophole. Banning the sale in one county’s airports does not stop people from purchasing leaded fuel elsewhere.

Long Beach City Council approved a $200,000 subsidy for their airport. Long Beach Airport has offered unleaded aviation fuel since 2023, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed them as the second-highest lead polluting airport in the nation. The subsidy was necessary because the higher price tag of unleaded fuel dissuaded many from choosing to use it. This step by the city is commendable but, not only is use optional, the subsidy will expire in 2025.

Similarly, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors directed LA County Public Works to provide unleaded aviation fuel at all five LA County-operated airports by June 1, 2024. It was included in the announcement that unleaded alternatives will be available at Whiteman Airport

in Pacoima, which is one of the three airports in my Senate district. I applaud the Board of Supervisors for taking action, though leaded fuel will still be available and leaves the decision up to the consumer on whether or not to purchase it.

Ubiquitous lead air pollution cannot be remedied by simply offering alternatives or discontinuing the sale at certain locations. The daily impacts of leaded aviation fuel on our communities requires statewide action.

This year, I am authoring Senate Bill 1193 to phase-out the sale of harmful leaded aviation fuel in California. No one should be okay with the harm it inflicts on our children, especially when there are impending viable unleaded alternatives. One intent of the tiered approach is to speed up market production and availability of unleaded alternatives at all airports. It also sets a legal deadline in 2030 for complete discontinuation of leaded aviation fuel sales throughout California. We cannot stand by and wait for the federal government to take action when many ofthe highest lead polluting airports in the nation are in our state.

The bill will ban the sale in or adjacent to disadvantaged communities by January 1, 2026; urban growth boundaries by January 1, 2028, and everywhere else in California by January 1, 2030.

The FAA has already approved a lower octane unleaded fuel (UL 94), currently available at approximately 35 airports in the U.S., as well as a 100 Octane unleaded fuel (G100UL), which is not yet commercially available.

This bill delivers on a key campaign promise to my San Fernando Valley constituents and Californians - to fight for cleaner air and hold polluters accountable for the harm they inflict on the people of our beautiful state.

Senate Transportation Committee will hear SB 1193 on April 9, 2024, at 1:30 PM. Location: 1021 O Street, Room 1200, Sacramento

Read the full story here.

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‘This will make our town uninhabitable’: The long-awaited Delta tunnel strikes fear in locals

The governor’s planned $20 billion tunnel to divert more water south and bypass the Delta would bring years of construction noise, pollution and traffic. Residents worry their rural farm towns will never be the same.

In summary The governor’s planned $20 billion tunnel to divert more water south and bypass the Delta would bring years of construction noise, pollution and traffic. Residents worry their rural farm towns will never be the same. Change tends to come at a creeping pace, if at all, in the Sacramento River community of Hood. Families that settled in this Delta outpost generations ago remain today, and pear orchards planted decades ago are still the region’s signature crop. Now Hood, population 271, is facing a formidable transformation that residents fear will shatter their sleepy agricultural community. One of the smallest towns in the region, Hood lies at ground zero of the main construction site for the Newsom administration’s proposed Delta water tunnel project. “This will make our town uninhabitable,” said longtime resident Dan Whaley, who helps manage his family’s business, the Willow Ballroom, a community landmark across the main street from Hood’s post office. “There will be so much heavy equipment and traffic and people going through town that the locals will be driven out.” The $20 billion water conveyance project will feature a 45-mile, 36-foot-wide tunnel beneath the West Coast’s largest estuary. Its two intake facilities — which will draw river water into the system — will be situated just a river bend north and south of Hood. Dan Whaley, owner of the Willow Ballroom in Hood, says tunnel construction noise and traffic will ruin his town. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters Various versions of the tunnel concept have been discussed for decades. The goal is to upgrade the massive project that sends water to 27 million people, mostly in Southern California, and vast sprawls of farmland. By diverting river water miles upstream, the tunnel would bypass the ecologically sensitive Delta, where regulations restrict pumping, and allow more water to be sent south. The tunnel project still needs several state and federal permits, and faces multiple legal challenges from environmental and community groups, including the Delta Legacy Communities, a nonprofit representing Hood and other small towns along the lower Sacramento River. In spite of these obstacles, state officials anticipate starting construction as soon as 2029. Standing north of town beside Highway 160, Mario Moreno pointed upstream, across an old Bosc pear orchard inside of a levee. The entire property, he said, could eventually become a complex of cement and steel, with a holding basin and a chasm that draws water into the tunnel system. Turning south, he gestured past Hood, toward the downstream intake site. “And my little town is right there,” said Moreno, who grew up in Hood and now lives in nearby Elk Grove but remains chairman of the Hood Community Council. Mario Moreno describes the potential impacts of the Delta tunnel project in Hood. Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters The planned intakes will be massive industrial complexes, lining thousands of feet of riverbank and covering hundreds of acres of farmland with fuel stations, septic systems, sludge-drying fields, access roads, parking and grout-mixing stations. Construction will mean years of noise, air pollution, dust and traffic. Once operational, the intakes will be capable of diverting 6,000 cubic feet per second of water — a fraction of the Sacramento’s flood-stage flows but more than its volume in dry periods. The water will flow by gravity through protective fish screens, under the highway and into sedimentation basins. As the water clarifies, it will move toward the intake shafts and drop into the tunnel system, which will lead to Bethany Reservoir, near Tracy. Eventually, the water will enter the California Aqueduct, the main artery that transports water south. Major water agencies that could receive its water endorse the Delta Conveyance Project, as it’s officially called. But opposition runs statewide, with many environmentalists saying the project is a water grab that will destroy what’s left of the Central Valley’s fish populations. Anti-tunnel sentiment is especially fierce in the Delta, where many fear the project will leave them with the dregs of the river. Carrie Buckman, the tunnel project’s environmental program manager with the California Department of Water Resources, said pumping limits will protect the river, and existing rules that safeguard downstream water quality will remain in place. But Delta farmer Harvey Correia, who grows chestnuts and figs 25 miles downstream of Hood, said saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay is already a recurring problem for him, and he believes the tunnel will make it worse. “The farther upstream they divert the water, the lower our water quality will be,” Correia said. Dirk Heuvel, of McManis Family Vineyards, said half of the 400-acre vineyard he leases will be lost to the southern intake. The facility will also cut off his access to clean river water, forcing him to draw from nearby Snodgrass Slough. Fed by irrigation runoff, the slough’s water quality is poor, which Heuvel said will reduce the quality of grapes and wine and harm his brand. “If you asked me today if I wanted to lease that property, I’d walk away,” Heuvel said. Modernizing the Delta water system In an early iteration in 1965, the Delta tunnel was to be an aqueduct. Billed “the peripheral canal,” it was killed by voters in 1982. It reemerged in the 2000s as a pair of tunnels. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom downsized the plan to a single tunnel and has promoted it since. California’s Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the “whiplash between very dry conditions and very wet conditions” gives the project great urgency. In December, Newsom called the tunnel “the most important climate adaptation project in the United States of America.” According to state officials, the tunnel will increase annual Delta exports of water by half a million acre-feet, enough to serve almost 5 million people. Buckman said this will offset expected water losses this century due to climate change. Jay Lund, a UC Davis professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering and geography, said the upstream tunnel intakes will be much less vulnerable to saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay, adding a layer of protection to the state’s water supply. He said the tunnel will provide cleaner water than the supply pumped from the southern Delta, which must undergo costly treatment. The tunnel’s upstream diversion point will avoid the earthquake risk of the levees rupturing and allowing seawater to flood water pumps and other facilities, according to state officials, though they acknowledge this danger is small. An aerial view of Threemile Slough in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta near Rio Vista on May 19, 2024. The Delta is formed by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers before their waters flow into San Francisco Bay. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters State officials routinely remind the public of potential water supply benefits of the tunnel with a “what if” recap of recent rainstorms. “If we had had Delta conveyance in place this year … by the time we got to that big three-day storm in February, we would already have filled San Luis Reservoir,” said Department of Water Resources Director Karla Nemeth during a March 4 presentation, referring to a large storage facility near Interstate 5 in Merced County. Chasms, cranes and boring machines Such arguments about bolstering California’s water supply do little to gain the support of Hood, Courtland, Locke and other Delta communities south of Sacramento, where the construction will bring traffic, dust, and other daily disturbances. Building the project will be a gargantuan undertaking lasting an estimated 13 years, and the intakes in Hood are just the beginning. Every few miles along the tunnel path, crews will dig vertical access shafts, some more than 100 feet wide. These will serve as entry, exit and servicing sites for tunnel-boring machines. The excavation will produce 14 million cubic yards of earth. This sludge will be tested for hazardous contaminants and, when necessary, disposed of offsite. Much of the rest will be spread across fields and, to suppress dust emissions, planted with cover crop seeds. To address the plethora of expected impacts on Delta residents, state officials have proposed a suite of “community benefits.” Outlined in the project’s Final Environmental Impact Report, these benefits include new recreation areas, swimming lessons for all Delta residents, support of local agriculture and various economic development programs. Gia Moreno, Mario Moreno’s niece and a teacher in Clarksburg, thinks the offerings will be too little, too late. “We won’t even be here to benefit from any of the things they’re offering,” she said. While the proposed benefits include “marketing of the region for tourism,” restaurant owner Michelle Mota expects through-town traffic will decline. Mota, who runs the Hood Supply Co Bar and Grill with her husband, fears the project will displace residents, deter visitors and make her restaurant unprofitable. “It’s our only means of livelihood right now,” Mota said. “We’re really unsure about the future.” Rep. Josh Harder, a Stockton Democrat, described the benefits as “a bribe program to placate outraged communities.” First: A view of the Sacramento River as it passes by the town of Hood. Last: Residents in Hood posted a “No Tunnel” sign. Photos by Fred Greaves for CalMatters Michael Brodsky, an attorney for the town’s community council, believes Hood has been selected as the tunnel intake site not for any technical reason but because the town is small and lacks political power. “Hood doesn’t have any high-value land uses,” Brodsky said. He believes the state chose to place the intakes away from more prosperous (and much larger) communities, such as southern Sacramento, to “not bother people who can fight back and cause a problem.” But Graham Bradner, executive director of the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority — an assemblage of water districts supplied by the State Water Project — said river flow patterns, adjacent levee integrity and considerations of existing land use make the chosen sites optimal. Bradner helped oversee a series of 19 stakeholder engagement meetings held between 2019 and 2022. The meetings, including a team of appointed community representatives, aimed to address Delta residents’ concerns about the tunnel project. But they left some participants frustrated. Several residents told CalMatters that moderators tightly restricted discussions and directed conversation away from topics including relocating the intakes farther from Hood. Osha Meserve, an attorney representing Delta community members in legal challenges against the tunnel, attended the meetings and said discussing project alternatives “wasn’t on the table.” “The reality is this will be a mega-project constructed in a pretty rural area. It’s in everyone’s interest to ensure…that it moves forward in a way that respects the Delta and its uniqueness.”Graham Bradner, Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Authority Doug Hemly, a retired fifth-generation pear farmer who lives just south of Hood, has long challenged the idea of tunneling water from the northern Delta. Like many other locals, he thinks state officials have not given due consideration of alternative routes and different designs — or even a no-project alternative — that would have less impact on the region. “There were a lot of approaches that were dismissed by (state officials) for reasons that never made a lot of sense other than that’s not what they wanted,” said Hemly, whose house would be just a few rows of pear trees south of the southern intake. For instance, fortifying levees protecting the Delta pumps from saltwater intrusion would be much cheaper, said Emily Pappalardo, a Delta levee engineer. Retired pear farmer Doug Hemly in front of his home in Hood that has been in his family for 150 years . Photo by Fred Greaves for CalMatters Bradner, representing water districts, said project leaders have altered the plans in a variety of ways to ease environmental and community impacts, but he also recognized that the tunnel could significantly change the Delta. “The reality is this will be a mega-project constructed in a pretty rural area,” he said. “It’s in everyone’s interest to ensure, if this project moves forward, that it moves forward in a way that respects the Delta and its uniqueness.” ‘Negative outcomes for Bay-Delta fish’ Tunnel opponents also fear for the Delta’s fish, birds and other wildlife. Already strained by the state and federal pumps that can reverse river flows and derail fish migrations, the estuary has collapsed from a once-thriving ecosystem into an aquatic ICU of endangered species and harmful algal blooms. Officials say the tunnel will help because of the upstream position of the intakes. By skimming off river flows many miles from the heart of the estuary, the tunnel, state officials say, will produce more water for people with fewer environmental impacts. But Jon Rosenfield, science director at San Francisco Baykeeper, said the environmental analyses “of every iteration” of the tunnel “that’s been proposed since 2008 have pointed to negative outcomes for Bay-Delta fish, wildlife, and water quality.” The project’s final environmental report predicts, among many other impacts, lower survival of young salmon. Rosenfield said chronically depleted river flow is the key driver of Bay-Delta fish declines. While the tunnel’s operating rules aim to keep flows downstream of the intakes at no less than 10,000 cubic feet per second, Rosenfield said this is a feeble protection. He cited 2023 research showing that juvenile Chinook salmon mortality rises rapidly once Delta river flows drop below 35,000 cubic feet per second. Tunnel opponent State Sen. Jerry McNerney, a Democrat from Stockton, said diversion limits ostensibly safeguarding the estuary would become unreliable if the tunnel is built. He predicts that the cost will be at least twice the estimated $20 billion, and water agencies covering the bill, he said, will push for waivers on environmental rules protecting the Delta to maximize their return on investment. “If they have a drought in Southern California, they’re just going to try and turn it on,” he said. “I have every reason to believe that if that tunnel gets built, it’s going to get used in a way that’s detrimental to the Delta and the state of California.” Anglers begin a morning of fishing on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Stockton. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters Water agencies poised to benefit from the tunnel have publicly endorsed it. These include the State Water Contractors, the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the Kern County Water Agency, and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which pledged in December to pay $142 million for the project’s environmental planning and pre-construction costs. But tapping deeper into the Delta is not a fair solution to perceived shortages in other regions, said Max Gomberg, a water equity and affordability consultant and a former staff member of the state water board. He said cutting farm deliveries to Kern County, which receives Delta diversions, would free up enough water to solve urban shortages. “The core ethos of water since Europeans arrived is to take more, and it really hasn’t changed. The fundamental issue with the tunnel is it perpetuates that.”Max Gomberg, water equity expert and former water board member Agriculture consumes four times the water that California’s towns and cities do, and Gomberg thinks the state’s farm production has surpassed sustainability. “The core ethos of water since Europeans arrived is to take more, and it really hasn’t changed,” Gomberg said. “The fundamental issue with the tunnel is it perpetuates that.” The tunnel debate has many water supply experts touting alternative measures for reducing demand for Delta water. These include using less water, capturing urban stormwater, improved groundwater management and recycling more wastewater — all areas being pursued by water districts around Southern California. Per capita potable water use across Southern California has declined by almost 50% since 1990 in spite of a growing population. Bruze Reznik, executive director of Los Angeles Waterkeeper, said focusing on increased Delta imports will divert interest and money away from local initiatives to conserve and recycle water. “We’ll never wean ourselves 100% off imported water, but there’s a lot more we can do,” Reznik said. As planning proceedings go on, Hood, which is unincorporated, and surrounding communities can’t shake the feeling that they are being sacrificed. “We’re small, we’re an easy target,” said Gia Moreno, who grew up in Hood and now lives in South Sacramento but routinely visits her hometown to see family. Like so many others in the region, she has grown cynical about the state’s treatment of the town that her ancestors helped settle. Over the years, she said she’s noticed several times a conspicuous omission on some project maps: the community of Hood. To Moreno, it’s more than a mapping error, it’s a sign: “They don’t intend for Hood to be here,” she said. More about the delta ‘Dirty Delta’: California’s largest estuary is in crisis. Is the state discriminating against people who fish there? by Rachel Becker October 8, 2024October 9, 2024 $20 billion: The Delta tunnel’s new price tag by Rachel Becker May 16, 2024May 16, 2024

Pollution

Water

Business

Majority of the World's Population Breathes Dirty Air, Report Says

Most of the world has dirty air, with just 17% of global cities meeting WHO air pollution guidelines, a report Tuesday found

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Most of the world has dirty air, with just 17% of cities globally meeting air pollution guidelines, a report Tuesday found. Switzerland-based air quality monitoring database IQAir analyzed data from 40,000 air quality monitoring stations in 138 countries and found that Chad, Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India had the dirtiest air. India had six of the nine most polluted cities with the industrial town of Byrnihat in northeastern India the worst.Experts said the real amount of air pollution might be far greater as many parts of the world lack the monitoring needed for more accurate data. In Africa, for example, there is only one monitoring station for every 3.7 million people. More air quality monitors are being set up to counter the issue, the report said. This year, report authors were able to incorporate data from 8,954 new locations and around a thousand new monitors as a result of efforts to better monitor air pollution. But last week, data monitoring for air pollution was dealt a blow when the U.S. State Department announced it would no longer make public its data from its embassies and consulates around the world.Breathing in polluted air over a long period of time can cause respiratory illness, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer, said Fatimah Ahamad, chief scientist and air pollution expert at Malaysia-based Sunway Centre for Planetary Health. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution kills around 7 million people each year. Ahamad said much more needs to be done to cut air pollution levels. The WHO had earlier found that 99% of the world’s population lives in places that do not meet recommended air quality levels.“If you have bad water, no water, you can tell people to wait for half an hour a day, the water will come. But if you have bad air, you cannot tell people to pause breathing,” she said.Several cities like Beijing, Seoul, South Korea, and Rybnik in Poland have successfully improved their air quality through stricter regulations on pollution from vehicles, power plants and industry. They've also promoted cleaner energy and invested in public transportation.Another notable effort to curb severe air pollution was the Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreement on transboundary haze pollution. Even though its had limited success so far, ten countries in the region pledged to work together to monitor and curb pollution from large forest fires, a common occurrence in the region during dry seasons.Shweta Narayan, a campaign lead at the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said many of the regions witnessing the worst air pollution are also places where planet-heating gases are released extensively through the burning of coal, oil and gas. Slashing planet-warming emissions to slow the heating up of the planet can also improve air quality, she said.Air pollution and climate crisis “are two sides of the same coin,” she said. ___The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Pollution

Climate

Energy

Nigerian king faces Shell in London high court over decades of oil spills

King Okpabi, ruler of Ogale, says Shell has caused chronic pollution, while oil firm argues it is not responsible His Royal Highness King Godwin Bebe Okpabi has carried bottles of water drawn from the wells of his homeland in the Niger delta to the high court in London.It stinks. “This is the water that Shell has left for my people,” said the ruler of the Ogale community in Ogoniland, Nigeria. “This is poison, and they are spending millions of dollars to pay the best lawyers in the world so that they will not clean my land.” Continue reading...

His Royal Highness King Godwin Bebe Okpabi has carried bottles of water drawn from the wells of his homeland in the Niger delta to the high court in London.It stinks. “This is the water that Shell has left for my people,” said the ruler of the Ogale community in Ogoniland, Nigeria. “This is poison, and they are spending millions of dollars to pay the best lawyers in the world so that they will not clean my land.”For the past three and a half weeks, lawyers for Shell have argued at the high court that their client cannot be held responsible for an environmental catastrophe in Ogale, which has suffered from decades of spills and pollution from oil extraction.King Okpabi said ‘people’s way of life has been destroyed’. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The GuardianFor most of that time, Okpabi was there too, watching proceedings in court 63, a nondescript room lined with empty bookcases. Between hearings, he met journalists and activists to spread word of the health crisis his people face.“A people have been completely destroyed: people’s way of life destroyed; people’s only drinking water, which is the underground water aquifer, has been poisoned; people’s farmland has been completely poisoned; people’s streams that they use [for] their normal livelihood have been completely destroyed,” he said.When oil first flowed from the wells in Ogoniland in 1956, before Okpabi was born, it was a lush landscape of mangrove forests. Its sparkling watercourses were populated by fishes, crabs, oysters and other creatures. The land’s people were primarily fishers and farmers.Five and a half decades later, scientists from the UN Environment Programme visited the region to investigate the industry’s effects. They found extensive soil and groundwater contamination, mangrove roots choked with bitumen-like substances, surface water in creeks and streams covered in thick layers of oil. The fish had fled or died and farmers struggled to grow crops in fields soaked with oil.A sign at a creek in Ogale, in Ogoniland in the Niger delta, warns people not to use the water. Photograph: Leigh DayOf all the areas tested, Nisisioken Ogale, Okpabi’s domain, was “of most immediate concern”. People there were drinking from wells contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen, at levels more than 900 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline. Follow-up testing carried out in the same area last year found levels that were even higher – 2,600 times the WHO guideline.The effects of this contamination have been tragic, says Okpabi. “There is a lot of cancer: young girls of 20 to 30 years old, 40 years old, developing breast cancer and other forms of cancer; a lot of strange skin diseases that we don’t know the cause of; low life expectancy, people just drying up and dying. Even eye diseases. In some cases birth defects … Strange diseases everywhere in our lives.”The trial centres on claims by Oganiland’s Ogale and Bille communities that the enduring effects of hundreds of leaks and spills from Shell’s pipelines and infrastructure have breached their right to a clean and healthy environment.The three and a half weeks of hearings, which ended on Friday, were a “preliminary issues trial”, heard by Mrs Justice Juliet May, to determine the scope of the legal issues to be decided at the case’s full trial, set for late 2026. Although the case is being heard by a British judge in a UK court, it will apply Nigerian law, and so May heard from a range of senior Nigerian lawyers about what the law is and how it should be applied.skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionKing Okpabi holds up a bottle of polluted water outside the high court in London. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPAThe claimants, represented by the London law firm Leigh Day, argue that oil pollution by a private company could be legally construed as a violation of a community’s fundamental rights under the Nigerian constitution and African charter. A second key issue was whether Shell could be held responsible for damage to its pipelines due to oil theft, or for the waste produced as a result of illegal refining of spilled or stolen oil – endemic in the Niger delta.Shell argues it cannot be held responsible. The company insists its Nigerian subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), works closely with the Nigerian government to prevent spills and to respond to them and clean them up when they do occur.A man stands on fishing canoes surrounded by polluted water in the Niger Delta. Photograph: Sunday Alamba/AP“We strongly believe in the merits of our case. Oil is being stolen on an industrial scale in the Niger delta. This criminality is a major source of pollution and is the cause of the majority of spills in the Bille and Ogale claims,” a spokesperson for the company said.But for Okpabi, the legal technicalities wrangled over in the court have been frustrating, “because as we are sitting here for these three weeks, people are dying at home,” he said.“I’m not a lawyer, but as I sit down in the court and I see all the arguments going on, Shell trying to bring up arguments as if to try to see how they can wheedle their way out [of it], it’s very painful. But I trust the judicial system here.”

Pollution

Water

Crisis

US Supreme Court Reins in EPA Power to Police Water Pollution Discharge

By John KruzelWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Environmental Protection Agency in a ruling on Tuesday involving a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Environmental Protection Agency in a ruling on Tuesday involving a wastewater treatment facility owned by the city of San Francisco that could make it harder for regulators to police water pollution.The justices, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that the EPA exceeded its authority under a landmark anti-pollution law by including vague restrictions in a permit issued for the wastewater treatment facility, which empties into the Pacific Ocean. The city had sued to challenge the EPA restrictions.The ruling, authored by conservative Justice Samuel Alito, reversed a decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had upheld the permit.Alito wrote that the EPA exceeded its powers under the landmark Clean Water Act of 1972 by imposing undefined requirements on permit-holders related to water quality standards in the receiving body of water."This case involves provisions that do not spell out what a permittee must do or refrain from doing; rather, they make a permittee responsible for the quality of the water in the body of water into which the permittee discharges pollutants," Alito wrote."When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards," Alito added.Water quality standards are devised by states and subject to federal approval.Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's three liberal members."EPA is required to issue the limitations necessary to ensure that the water quality standards are met," Barrett wrote. "So taking a tool away from EPA may make it harder for the agency to issue the permits that municipalities and businesses need in order for their discharges to be lawful."The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has limited the EPA's reach in recent years as part of a series of rulings curbing the power federal regulatory agencies.(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

Pollution

Water

Waste

Supreme Court Makes It Harder For EPA To Police Sewage Discharges

The 5-4 decision is the latest in which conservative justices have reined in pollution control efforts.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for environmental regulators to limit water pollution, ruling for San Francisco in a case about the discharge of raw sewage that sometimes occurs during heavy rains.By a 5-4 vote, the court’s conservative majority ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority under the Clean Water Act with water pollution permits that contain vague requirements for maintaining water quality.The decision is the latest in which conservative justices have reined in pollution control efforts.Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that EPA can set specific limits that tell cities and counties what can be discharged. But the agency lacks the authority “to include ‘end-result’ provisions,” Alito wrote, that make cities and counties responsible for maintaining the quality of the water, the Pacific Ocean in this case, into which wastewater is discharged.“When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards,” he wrote.One conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, joined the court’s three liberals in dissent. Limits on discharges sometimes still don’t insure water quality standards are met, Barrett wrote.“The concern that the technology-based effluent limitations may fall short is on display in this case,” Barrett wrote, adding that “discharges from components of San Francisco’s sewer system have allegedly led to serious breaches of the water quality standards, such as ‘discoloration, scum, and floating material, including toilet paper, in Mission Creek.’”The case produced an unusual alliance of the liberal northern California city, energy companies and business groups.The EPA has issued thousands of the permits, known as narrative permits, over several decades, former acting general counsel Kevin Minoli said.The narrative permits have operated almost as a backstop in case permits that quantify what can be discharged still result in unacceptable water quality, Minoli said.With the new restrictions imposed by the court, “the question is what comes in place of those limits,” Minoli said.Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free PressThe next four years will change America forever. But HuffPost won't back down when it comes to providing free and impartial journalism.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless newsroom. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.You've supported HuffPost before, and we'll be honest — we could use your help again. We won't back down from our mission of providing free, fair news during this critical moment. But we can't do it without you.For the first time, we're offering an ad-free experience to qualifying contributors who support our fearless journalism. We hope you'll join us.Support HuffPostAlready contributed? Log in to hide these messages.Alito downplayed the impact of the decision, writing that the agency has “the tools needed” to insure water quality standards are met.

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