chlorines
How did Irma affect pollution in South Carolina's coastal waters?
Pollution fouled South Carolina's coastal waters after Tropical Storm Irma with tests revealing spikes in fecal bacteria.
Pollution fouled South Carolina's coastal waters after Tropical Storm Irma with tests revealing spikes in fecal bacteria.
Testing conducted by the Charleston Waterkeeper after Irma found 13 of 15 sites had a concentration of fecal bacteria higher than considered safe for swimming. The worst was in the Folly River, at 18 times the level safe for swimming, according to waterkeeper Andrew Wunderley. Fecal bacteria is the only real pollution tested for in open estuary or river waters.
Officials say drinking water supplies weren't affected, but water pollution testing has been criticized as too limited in a fast-developing region facing growth concerns.
The reported increase in fecal bacteria, which comes from human and animal waste, didn’t approach readings from Hurricane Harvey's catastrophic deluge on Texas, where the fecal bacteria was recorded at 58 times more than the safe level in flood waters, according to reports in the Houston Chronicle.
But it was consistent with what is seen in the wake of major storms.
"We see high bacteria levels across all our testing sites after storm events like Irma, Matthew and (the) flood of October 2015," Wunderley said. "That’s because floodwater flushes out septic tanks, causes sewer overflows and washes pet and animal waste right into the nearest creek or river." The bacteria eventually subsides.
Charleston Water System and Santee Cooper utilities officials said that while there were spikes in turbidity — essentially dirtiness — in the drinking water supply, the spikes did not reach levels where the water couldn't be treated by staff. The Santee Cooper treatment plant on Lake Moultrie saw turbidity spike to about twice its usual level, spokeswoman Nicole Aiello said.
Utilities use turbidity as an indicator of whether other pollutants might be present. It's among about a dozen tests regularly done on intake or treated water.
The two utilities provide drinking water for most of the Charleston area.
"They did adjust (chemical treatments of chlorine compounds and minerals) ... but the adjustments were within the normal checks and balances," said Andy Fairey, the Charleston Water System chief operating officer.
Sewer treatment staff also made the same sort of adjustments as the rain flushed in more flow, he said.
No additional water monitoring was done by the state after the storm, said Tim Kelly, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control media relations director.
For at-risk plots of land, the Environmental Protection Agency visited all of the 35 Superfund sites in South Carolina after Irma, including at least three in the Charleston area. But no samples were taken, he said.
"At this moment, the EPA hasn't alerted us to anything warranting action," Kelly said.
State monitoring of water quality has fallen off in recent years because of budget crimps even as efforts to maintain the more urban coastal estuaries for fishing or swimming aren’t stopping pollutants from continuing to foul the waters. The water quality in the Charleston Harbor has been deteriorating for years, according to researchers.
In outwash of the historic floods in 2015, sewage and other fecal waste showed up in the harbor. All 15 area sites tested by Charleston Waterkeeper were considered unsafe for swimming. The flood created wastewater treatment issues across the state, according to DHEC at the time.
"But it doesn’t take a hurricane or flood to pollute local waterways," Wunderley said. "Average rainfall events pollute our local creeks and rivers on a regular basis. In fact, we see high bacteria levels after only a few inches of rain."
Water quality was already poor at many of the sites before Irma because of rain, he said. Some of the highest bacteria counts of the year were found two weeks before the storm. Shem Creek testing then found levels at 24 times and 19 times above safe swimming levels.
"We need to make a serious commitment to improving our stormwater management so it mimics the natural relationship between the land and water," Wunderley said. "We have to allow areas to flood and 'un-flood' by preserving wetlands and green space and allowing water to better infiltrate the ground in built-out areas."
"We can’t tunnel, pump and drain our way of this problem," he said.
Reach Bo Petersen Reporter at Facebook, @bopete on Twitter or 1-843-937-5744.
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Thirty years after Montreal pact, solving the ozone problem remains elusive.
Did the Montreal Protocol fix the ozone hole? It seemed so. With chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-eating chemicals banned, many scientists said it was only a matter of time before the ozone layer recharged, and the annual hole over Antarctica healed for good.
ANALYSIS
Thirty Years After Montreal Pact, Solving the Ozone Problem Remains Elusive
Despite a ban on chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone hole over Antarctica remains nearly as large as it did when the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987. Scientists now warn of new threats to the ozone layer, including widespread use of ozone-eating chemicals not covered by the treaty.
BY FRED PEARCE • AUGUST 14, 2017
Did the Montreal Protocol fix the ozone hole? It seemed so. With chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-eating chemicals banned, many scientists said it was only a matter of time before the ozone layer recharged, and the annual hole over Antarctica healed for good.
But 30 years on, some atmospheric chemists are not so sure. The healing is proving painfully slow. And new discoveries about chemicals not covered by the protocol are raising fears that full recovery could be postponed into the 22nd century – or possibly even prevented altogether.
In mid-September, the United Nations is celebrating the protocol’s 30th anniversary. It will declare that “we are all ozone heroes.” But are we patting ourselves on the back a bit too soon?
The ozone layer is a long-standing natural feature of the stratosphere, the part of the atmosphere that begins about six miles above the earth. The ozone layer filters out dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun that can cause skin cancer and damage many life forms. It may have been essential for the development of life on Earth.
So there was alarm in the 1970s when researchers first warned that extremely stable man-made compounds like CFCs, used in refrigerants and aerosols, were floating up into the stratosphere, where they released chlorine and bromine atoms that break down ozone molecules. In the 1980s, Antarctic researchers discovered that these chemical reactions went into overdrive in the super-cold polar stratospheric clouds that formed over the frozen continent. They had begun creating a dramatic “hole” in the ozone layer at the end of each austral winter.
The ensuing panic resulted in the signing of the Montreal Protocol on September 16, 1987. It and its successors have phased out production of a range of man-made chlorine and bromine compounds thought to persist for the several years needed for them to reach the stratosphere. Besides CFCs, they include carbon tetrachloride, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), and methyl bromide, a fumigant once widely used to kill pests.
So far so good. The amount of ozone-depleters in the atmosphere has dropped by more than 10 percent since peaking in the late 1990s. In response, the total ozone in the atmosphere has been largely unchanged since 2000.
Satellite imagery depicting the annual maximum extent of the ozone hole over Antarctica from 1979 to 2013. Credit: NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
But in the past five years, evidence has emerged that potential ozone-eating compounds can reach the ozone layer much faster than previously thought. Under some weather conditions, just a few days may be enough. And that means a wide range of much more short-lived compounds threaten the ozone layer – chemicals not covered by the Montreal Protocol.
These compounds are all around us. They are widely used as industrial solvents for tasks like degreasing and dry cleaning. And their releases into the atmosphere are increasing fast.
These new ozone-busters include dichloromethane (DCM), a common and cheap paint stripper, also used in foam-blowing agents and, ironically, in the manufacture of “ozone-friendly” alternatives to CFCs. With emissions now exceeding one million tons a year, the concentration of DCM in the lower atmosphere has more than doubled since 2004. Even so, it has not been regarded as a threat to the ozone layer, because its typical lifetime in the atmosphere before it is broken down in photochemical reactions is only about five months. It should, atmospheric chemists concluded, remain safely in the lower atmosphere.
But that view collapsed in 2015, when Emma Leedham Elvidge at the University of East Anglia in England examined air samples taken on board commercial aircraft cruising at the lower edge of the stratosphere. She found high levels of DCM, especially over the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and particularly during the Asian monsoon season, when strong updrafts fast-track air from the ground to the stratosphere. It seems they were taking DCM along for the ride.
Alarm bells are ringing about dozens of other short-lived ozone-destroying chlorine compounds accumulating in the atmosphere.
How much should we worry? Ryan Hossaini, an atmospheric chemist at Lancaster University, recently did the math. He calculated that DCM currently contributes less than 10 percent of the chlorine in the ozone layer. But on current emission trends, it could be That could delay the ozone hole’s recovery by 30 years, until at least 2095, he suggested.
Others share that concern. “Growing quantities of DCM are leaking into the stratosphere, where it is exceptionally effective in destroying the ozone,” says David Rowley, an atmospheric chemist at the University College London, who was not involved in the research. “The potential for DCM to affect the global ozone budget is profound.”
Alarm bells are ringing about dozens of other short-lived, potentially ozone-destroying chlorine compounds accumulating in the atmosphere as a result of fast-rising global manufacturing. They include 1,2-dichloroethane, a chemical widely used in the manufacture of PVC pipes. There are few atmospheric measurements of this compound yet, “but sporadic data suggest it is a significant source of chlorine in the atmosphere,” says Hossaini.
The risks of such chemicals reaching the ozone layer are greatest in the tropics, where manufacturing is booming in fast-industrialising countries such as China and India, and where, as luck would have it, atmospheric circulation patterns are favorable. The Asian monsoon can propel the gases to the stratosphere in as little as ten days, according to unpublished research seen by Yale Environment 360.
The movement of ozone-depleting chemicals through the atmosphere, shifting from the tropics and concentrating in Antarctica. NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
Thirty years on, the Montreal Protocol has not begun to come to grips with these chemicals, warns Rowley. “The naïve view until recently,” he says, “was that short-lived [chemicals] didn’t present a threat to stratospheric ozone. Wrong.”
Other loopholes in the protocol are concerning researchers as well. In 2014, colleagues of Leedham Elvidge’s at the University of East Anglia warned that three CFCs supposedly banned under the protocol were turning up in increasing amounts in the clean air blowing round the Southern Ocean and captured at Cape Grim in Tasmania. Johannes Laube, an atmospheric chemist at the University of East Anglia, calculated that global emissions of CFC-113a, once an important feedstock in manufacturing both refrigerants and pyrethroid pesticides, doubled in two years.
How come? It turns out that the Montreal Protocol never completely banned CFCs. “CFC-113a is covered by a loophole that allows industries to apply for exemptions,” Laube says. Confidentiality clauses in the treaty about these exemptions mean that “we simply don’t know if we have found exempted emissions, or if they are from some illegal manufacture somewhere. Either way, they are increasing fast, which makes this worrying.” Trade in banned ozone-depleting chemicals has declined in the past decade, but remains a problem, and has been documented particularly for hydrochlorofluorocarbons.
Scientists knew recovery of the ozone layer would take time because of the long lifetimes of many of the dangerous compounds we unleashed in past decades. But last year, Susan Solomon of MIT – who back in the 1980s became one of the world’s most celebrated scientists for uncovering the chemistry of the polar stratospheric clouds — declared that she had detected the first “fingerprints” of the hole closing. “The onset of healing of Antarctic ozone loss has now emerged,” she wrote.
“The signature of ozone recovery is not quite there yet,” says one expert.
But other researchers remain cautious. There have been some recent bumper springtime holes in Antarctic ozone. The 2015 hole was the fourth largest since 1991, peaking at an area larger than the continent of North America. It was also deeper than other recent holes and lasted longer. 2016 was also worse than average and 2017 is expected to be severe, too.
Solomon blamed 2015 on the Calbuco volcano in Chile, which ejected sulphur particles that enhanced the ozone-destroying properties of polar stratospheric clouds. But Susan Strahan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center warns that the size of the hole in any given year is still dominated by year-to-year variations in the temperature of the stratosphere and the vagaries of meteorology. “The signature of ozone recovery is not quite there yet,” she says, adding that day will come, but we may have to wait until the 2030s.
Meanwhile at the other end of the planet, ozone losses over the Arctic may still be worsening. The Arctic is less susceptible to the formation of ozone holes than Antarctica, because the weather is messier. The stable air that causes the ultra-cold conditions where polar stratospheric clouds form in Antarctica is much less likely. But it does happen whenever temperatures get cold enough for polar stratospheric clouds to form.
A deep hole briefly formed over the Arctic in 2011. In places, more than 80 percent of the ozone was destroyed, twice the loss in the worst previous years, 1996 and 2005. In both the past two winters, researchers saw polar stratospheric clouds over parts of Britain, says Jonathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey. But they were brief and did not lead to major ozone loss.
Shanklin says an important reason for the sluggish recovery of the ozone layer is global warming. As increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide trap more solar heat radiating from the Earth’s surface, less warmth reaches the stratosphere, which cools as a result. This trend has been evident for almost 40 years. A colder stratosphere improves conditions for ozone loss. Climate change “could delay the recovery of the ozone hole well into the second half of this century,” he says.
Protecting the ozone layer “presents a much greater industrial and political challenge than previously thought,” says one researcher.
Should we be frightened? Some of the crazier hype in the early days of the ozone hole – like blind sheep in Patagonia and collapsing marine ecosystems – proved nonsense. But the raised risk of skin cancers from the extra ultraviolet radiation streaming through the thinned ozone layer is real enough – particularly for reckless white-skinned sunbathers. The ozone layer is still as thin as it was 30 years ago.
The good news is that without the Montreal Protocol things would have been a great deal worse, says Martyn Chipperfield, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Leeds. The Antarctic hole would be 40 percent bigger than it is; the ozone layer over Europe and North America would be 10 percent thinner; the 2011 Arctic hole would have been Antarctic-sized; and we would be looking at about two million more cases of skin cancers by 2030, according to research conducted by Chipperfield and colleagues.
Even so, the idea that the Montreal Protocol is doing its job and the recovery is under way begins to look complacent. If emissions of uncontrolled ozone-depleting chemicals such as DCM continue rising, then the gains could be lost. The answer is obvious. “We should be looking into controlling DCM and other solvents, much in the same way as we did CFCs,” says Leedham Elvidge.
The World Meteorological Organization and other UN agencies overseeing the protocol acknowledge that DCM and other short-lived ozone depleting substances “are an emerging issue for stratospheric ozone,” but the government signatories have yet to take action to limit their emissions.
That would involve getting rid of a far wider range of chemicals than so far done under the protocol. Protecting the ozone layer “presents a much greater industrial and political challenge than previously thought,” says Rowley. Thirty years on, there is evidently still a lot to do.
Fred Pearce is a freelance author and journalist based in the U.K. He is a contributing writer for Yale Environment 360 and is the author of numerous books, including "The Land Grabbers, Earth Then and Now: Potent Visual Evidence of Our Changing World," and "The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth About Global Warming." MORE ABOUT FRED PEARCE →
TOPICS
Climate
PUBLIC HEALTH
POLLUTION
ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
REGIONS
Antarctica and the Arctic
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Do toxic sites pose risk during Irma?
As Floridians prepare for the potential arrival of Hurricane Irma state regulators are keeping an eye on toxic and contaminated sites that could pose a safety risk if flooding were to occur.
FORT MYERS, Fla. -
As Floridians prepare for the potential arrival of Hurricane Irma state regulators are keeping an eye on toxic and contaminated sites that could pose a safety risk if flooding were to occur.
Southwest Florida has two major waste cleanup sites that have been in the headlines. A toxic sludge site in Dunbar contaminated with arsenic and the old Cape Coral Country Club that also is contaminated with arsenic.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement that they will be doing pre-storm preparation measures to secure cleanup sites and treatment systems.
"These site visits are completed by DEP’s Waste Cleanup contractors at least 36 hours ahead of a hurricane watch posting for an affected area," a DEP spokesperson said in an email. "Contractors are required to document site conditions, secure and label all wastes and containers that will remain on site, and shut off power to any remediation treatment systems."
FGCU Environmental Studies professor Don Duke says many of the sites that DEP is monitoring don't concern him the most.
"They're actually reasonably well under control they're working to clean those up," Duke said.
Instead he said people should be wary of nearby local stores that might house hazardous materials as part of their everyday operations.
"If they're not prepared for high winds or high water they might be released in ways that can be harmful to people," Duke said.
Duke's biggest concerns included chlorine tanks, gas stations, large amounts of paint and waste treatment.
The City of Fort Myers is currently constructing a main sewer line on Raleigh Street leading straight to the main wastewater treatment facility. Some of the line is exposed and rushing water can be heard and seen from the street.
"A chlorine gas release or a spill of human waste that might be carrying diseases, these are things that can hurt you today," Duke said.
Lee County and the City of Fort Myers did not provide specifics today on their preparedness of wastewater treatment plants for a flood event. Lee County and Fort Myers utility officials are currently working on hurricane preparedness plans.
DEP says it will also stay in communication with local utilities regarding treatment plants.
"Post-storm site visits to evaluate any potential risk to the public and assess damages are completed by DEP’s contractors as soon as site conditions permit and it is safe to do so. Any safety issues identified are reported to DEP and addressed during the initial site visit if possible," a DEP spokesperson wrote.
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Harvey's floodwaters mix a foul brew of sewage, chemicals.
Harvey's filthy floodwaters pose significant dangers to human safety and the environment even after water levels drop far enough that Southeast Texas residents no longer fear for their lives, according to experts.
Harvey's filthy floodwaters pose significant dangers to human safety and the environment even after water levels drop far enough that Southeast Texas residents no longer fear for their lives, according to experts.
Houston already was notorious for sewer overflows following rainstorms. Now the system, with 40 wastewater treatment plants across the far-flung metropolis, faces an unprecedented challenge.
State officials said several dozen sewer overflows had been reported in areas affected by the hurricane, including Corpus Christi. Private septic systems in rural areas could fail as well.
Also stirred into the noxious brew are spilled fuel, runoff from waste sites, lawn pesticides and pollutants from the region's many petroleum refineries and chemical plants.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported Sunday that of the 2,300 water systems contacted by federal and state regulators, 1,514 were fully operational. More than 160 systems issued notices advising people to boil water before drinking it, and 50 were shut down.
The public works department in Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city, said its water was safe. The system has not experienced the kind of pressure drop that makes it easier for contaminants to slip into the system and is usually the reason for a boil-water order, spokesman Gary Norman said.
In a statement Thursday, federal and state environmental officials said their primary concerns were the availability of healthy drinking water and "ensuring wastewater systems are being monitored, tested for safety and managed appropriately."
About 85 percent of Houston's drinking water is drawn from surface sources — rivers and reservoirs, said Robin Autenrieth, head of Texas A&M; University's civil engineering department. The rest comes from the city's 107 groundwater wells.
"I would be concerned about what's in the water that people will be drinking," she said.
The city met federal and state drinking water standards as well as requirements for monitoring and reporting, said Andrew Keese, spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Keeping it that way will require stepped-up chemical treatments because of the flooding, Norman said.
It's prudent to pump more chlorine and other disinfectants into drinking water systems in emergencies like this, to prevent outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and dysentery, said David Andrews, senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. But doing so poses its own risks, he said.
There's often more organic matter — sewage, plants, farm runoff — in reservoirs or other freshwater sources during heavy rains. When chlorine reacts with those substances, it forms chemicals called trihalomethanes, which can boost the risk of cancer and miscarriages, Andrews said.
"Right now it's a tough time to deal with that, when you're just trying to clean the water up and make sure it's not passing illnesses through the system," he said. "But we should do better at keeping contamination out of source water in the first place."
Federal and state officials said about two-thirds of approximately 2,400 wastewater treatment plants in counties affected by Harvey were fully operational. They said they were monitoring facilities with reported spills and would send teams to help operators restart systems.
Sewage plants are particularly vulnerable during severe storms because they are located near waterways into which they can discharge treated water, said Autenrieth of Texas A&M.; When they are flooded, raw or partially treated sewage can spill from pipes, open-air basins and tanks.
A report by the nonprofit research group Climate Central said more than 10 billion gallons of sewage was released along the East Coast during Superstorm Sandy.
The Houston Chronicle reported last year that Houston averages more than 800 sewage overflows a year and is negotiating an agreement with the EPA that would require system improvements.
Norman said Houston didn't have a running tally of overflows during Harvey.
"Anytime you have wet weather of this magnitude, there's going to be a certain amount of sanitary sewage that escapes the system," he said. "That's one reason why we advise people to stay out of floodwaters."
A Texas A&M; analysis of floodwater samples from the Houston area revealed levels of E. coli — bacteria that signal the presence of fecal matter — 125 times higher than is safe for swimming. Even wading through such tainted water could cause infections and sickness, said Terry Gentry, an associate professor and specialist in detecting tiny disease-producing organisms.
"Precautions should be taken by anyone involved in cleanup activities or any others who may be exposed to floodwaters," said a statement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the state environmental quality commission.
They said they were developing a plan to sample residential wells.
Hazards will remain as waters gradually recede. Puddles, tires and other spots for standing water will attract mosquitoes, which can spread viruses such as West Nile and Zika, Autenrieth said.
Much of the dirty water will flow through rivers, creeks and bayous into Galveston Bay, renowned for its oyster reefs, abundant wildlife and seagrass meadows. Officials will need to monitor shellfish for signs of bacterial contamination, said Doug Rader, chief ocean scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund.
The waters also may be rich with nitrogen and phosphorus, which feed algae blooms. When algae die and rot, oxygen gets sucked from the water, creating "dead zones" where large numbers of fish can suffocate.
"You have a potential for localized dead zones in Galveston Bay for months or maybe even longer," Rader said.
The bay opens into the Gulf of Mexico, where a gigantic dead zone forms in summer, powered by nutrients from the Mississippi River. This year's was the largest on record, said oceanographer Nancy Rabalais of Louisiana State University.
Ironically, Hurricane Harvey may have done the environment at least one favor by churning the Gulf's waters and sending an influx of oxygen from the surface to the depths. "A temporary silver lining," Rabalais said.
But that also happened after 2005's Hurricane Katrina, she added. "And within a week, the low-oxygen area had redeveloped."
———
Follow John Flesher on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/johnflesher .
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Preventing disaster in Donbas.
Fighting in eastern Ukraine, one of Europe’s most industrialized regions, risks environmental calamity.
VIENNA — Ukraine suffered one of the most horrendous man-made disasters in recent memory — the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986. It is now suffering through a war that is poisoning relations between Donbas and the rest of Ukraine, polluting the political climate between Kiev and Moscow and tainting the relationship between Russia and countries around the world.
The conflict also has the potential to create pollution of a very real kind — as continued fighting threatens chlorine storage facilities, chemical plants, metallurgical factories, hazardous waste storage sites, and coal mines.
The situation is a ticking time bomb. Because the divided communities are geographically very close, an incident on one side of the line of contact will have an impact on people living on the other side — and beyond.
For example, earlier this year shelling hit a building at the Donetsk Filter Station, where 7,000 kilograms of chlorine gas is stored. Had it exploded, the damage would have been catastrophic.
One of Europe’s most heavily industrialized regions is now one of the most kinetic.
As the crisis in and around Ukraine stretches into its fourth year, cease-fire violations range from a few hundred to well over a thousand daily. Civilians are caught in the cross fire. Unarmed monitors of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) are threatened, their mission impeded.
Despite the Minsk agreements that were meant to stabilize the situation, heavy weapons and ammunition continue to move into the region, and mines are being laid. Since the beginning of the year, the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine has confirmed 347 civilian casualties: 64 killed, and 283 injured — an increase of more than 30 percent compared to the same period last year.
Despite negotiations within the “Normandy” group (the Russian Federation, Ukraine, France and Germany), the political process is stalled. Despite regular meetings of the “Trilateral Contact Group” (Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE — including representatives of certain regions of the Donbas) a normalization of the situation on the ground remains a distant prospect.
It will take time for diplomacy to run its course. In the meantime, urgent action is needed to prevent a humanitarian and environmental disaster in the Donbas.
At a minimum, all sides in the conflict should respect the civilian nature of these facilities, and stay clear of them. They should be treated as safe zones. Channels of communication should be established in case of an emergency. Adequate emergency services and equipment should be made available.
Pollution does not respect boundaries. Therefore, everyone living in the region should have an interest in reducing risks and preventing an ecological disaster.
If chemicals released by a misaimed shell were to leak into rivers or groundwater, hundreds of thousands of people would be affected. The flooding of coal mines has the potential to contaminate the water supply and devastate agriculture — even in neighboring Russia.
Similarly, the threat to basic services, like water and electricity, cannot be understated. This past winter, during freezing cold temperatures, electricity was knocked out around the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka. Power lines were repaired, and then shelled, and then repaired again. Thousands of people were left without heat or drinking water.
In recent weeks, water treatment plants and pumping stations have been hit repeatedly near the line of contact. Over 1 million people in communities on both sides of the line are dependent on the South Donbas Water Pipeline — including almost half a million downstream in Mariupol. Their water supply is at risk, and temperatures remain high.
All parties in the conflict need to put aside politics and focus on the fate of the people in this devastated region. That is why Austria’s chairmanship of the OSCE is calling for a disaster risk reduction initiative for eastern Ukraine. The “Trilateral Contact Group” (Ukraine, Russia, OSCE) has taken up this approach and will discuss it in its upcoming meetings. Evidence-based policies need to be made urgently to prevent a disaster from literally poisoning the people of the Donbas region who have suffered so much already.
To make peace in eastern Ukraine, the parties need to stop shooting. A good place to start would be around critical infrastructure.
Sebastian Kurz is foreign minister of Austria and chairperson-in-office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
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Troubled Water: Crumbling pipes, tainted water plague black communities.
Skepticism about drinking water is pervasive through many black communities in northern cities and in pockets of poverty throughout the south.
By William Taylor Potter, Brandon Kitchin and Alexis Reese | News21. Published Aug. 14, 2017.
CAMPTI, La. – Deep in the winding mass of crumbling back streets in Campti, Leroy Hayes sets a glass of water from his faucet in a patch of sunlight on the railing of his porch and watches specks of sediment float to the top.
Hayes said the town’s water system has been bad for years, with water often coming out brown and smelling like bleach. The family uses bottled water for drinking and cooking and often has to drive to the city of Natchitoches, 11 miles away, to wash their clothes. The Campti water leaves their clothes with a yellowish tint.
“Don’t nobody drink that mess,” Hayes said.
Like many poor African-American communities, Campti’s poverty is a significant impediment to making crucial improvements to the town’s infrastructure – including its old water system. Hayes is a lifelong resident of the town, where according to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than half of the predominantly African-American population lives in poverty. Campti’s median household income is only $15,428.
The water system in Campti, La., is more than 50 years old, and the town lacks money to make infrastructure improvements. Lifelong residents Leroy Hayes and Lequila Phillips said they often receive water boil advisories. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Skepticism about drinking water is pervasive in many black communities, most recently in the urban cities like Milwaukee, where high childhood lead poisoning rates plague the city, and Flint, Michigan, where lead from pipes leached into the city’s water. But it also affects the pockets of poverty in states such as Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina and Texas, where many residents rely on antiquated water systems and haphazard monitoring or live near businesses and industries whose waste, they say, pollutes their water systems.
“Everything that happens now where people don’t want it, it goes into a poor and black neighborhood,” said Esther Calhoun, president of Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice.
A News21 national analysis of water violations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that tens of millions of Americans are drinking contaminated water – particularly in small, low-income and minority communities. Aging infrastructure and limited funding are two of the major water issues posing a threat to public health, according to the agency’s 2016 Drinking Water Action Plan.
“For someone to say that there’s not a correlation to me means they have their eyes closed, or they don’t want to believe that these impacts are actually happening or don’t want to dedicate the resources to these communities,” said Mustafa Ali, the former assistant associate administrator for environmental justice at the EPA.
In Uniontown, Alabama, black residents blame a swell of gastrointestinal complications on the waste from a nearby catfish farm they say pollutes their drinking water. In parts of North Carolina, impoverished African-Americans sometimes rely on contaminated wells for drinking water – though public water systems run just a few feet from their homes.
Campti, La., residents Devontay Driver and Martez Smith said the tap water there ruins their clothes if they use it for laundry, and has been bad as long as they can remember. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
“The probability of drinking water violations is significantly greater in communities that are both poor and nonwhite,” said Manuel Teodoro, a Texas A&M; University professor and the co-author of “Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Justice in Safe Water Compliance,” a 2017 study of violations across the country. “What’s troubling from an environmental justice perspective is that race and ethnicity matter most when people are poor.”
The water system in Campti is more than 50 years old, according to an audit from the Louisiana legislative auditor. Near the end of 2016, the water tank sprang several holes, some of which were temporarily plugged with sticks. A new tank was built in March, but residents still don’t trust that the water is safe.
Annette Caskey lives in one of the poorest areas of Campti – a small community called Sherry Circle. Broken pavement leads to a small hill, where worn dirt paths climb to small trailer-like houses. Caskey’s tap water is often orange or brown. Rather than drink it, she buys water by the caseload at the local Brookshire’s or M&M; Grocery. Her dogs also get bottled water.
Annette Caskey lives in Sherry Circle, one of the poorest areas of Campti, La. Caskey’s tap water often comes out orange or brown. She prefers to drink bottled water that she buys from a nearby store. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
“This water sucks,” Caskey said. “Sometimes it’s got too much chlorine in it, and sometimes it’s got no chlorine at all. It’s like you’re drinking sewage.” For a long time, residents were getting sick with diarrhea and other issues, Caskey said. She said it stopped for a while, but people have started getting sick again.
Campti is the oldest settlement along the Red River, whose waters snake from northwest Texas down to the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana. Worn-down roads lead to the town’s meager collection of businesses, which include a Dollar General, a Papa John’s and a couple of gas stations – the Campti Quick Stop and an All-N-1.
Judy Daniels, Campti’s mayor from 2006-2010, said most of the town’s water infrastructure is anywhere from 40 to 60 years old, and the town doesn’t have money to fix it. She said the water does have problems, and they get worse after a storm or power outage because the water pump does not have a backup generator.
“The funds just aren’t there for us,” Daniels said. “We’re the stepchildren.”
Toward the end of 2016, the water tank in Campti, La., had several holes that were plugged up using sticks. A new water tank was built, but most residents are still distrustful of their water. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Campti’s water system has had seven health-based violations. Six of those came in the 1990s, when tests showed the presence of coliform bacteria – a sign that feces or sewage could be contaminating the water. The only health-based violation this decade was in 2014, when Campti’s system received a treatment violation, meaning there was a deficiency that was not properly treated.
“It’s been like this ever since I’ve been here, and I grew up here,” Caskey said.
There have been no other recent health violations. But then, testing the water for the last five years has been up to the local utilities that manage the water. Budget cuts in 2012 forced the Louisiana Office of Public Health to lay off the state’s sanitarians, the people responsible for taking water samples. According to an audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, during that time – from 2012 until January 2017 – the state could not be sure the results were accurate.
Cases of water are lined up outside a gas station in Tallulah, La. Residents’ frustrations about issues with their water system have left many anxious for the mayor’s plan to build a new water system. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
The town of Tallulah, 150 miles east of Campti, has had 11 health-based violations dating to 1991. In 2015, coliform was found in the system.
Much of Tallulah was born from the 1,440-acre Scottland Plantation, where an old mansion still stands, the only remnant of the former village of Richmond, which was destroyed during Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Today, Tallulah’s median household income is $23,317, about half of the state’s average. About 40 percent of the population – which is 77 percent black – lives in poverty, including 60 percent of its children.
Decorian Herring lives with his two daughters in one of the most impoverished parts of Tallulah, a sparsely populated complex named Magnolia Villas. The neighborhood often floods during storms, and, more than once, he’s seen alligators swimming between the rows of apartments.
The tap water is usually discolored and has a strong odor, Herring said. But it gets worse after a storm floods the complex.
“Sometimes you’ll run the water in the tub … and you’ll see the water come out green or brown,” Herring said. “A lot of times we’ll get the letter around here that they’re going to be shutting the water off for a couple of hours because of the contamination.”
The water started getting worse about a year ago, Herring said. People in the complex started getting sick with stomach viruses, and they stopped drinking the water. He said he’s constantly buying cases of bottled water for his family.
Decorian Herring lives at the Magnolia Villas housing complex in Tallulah, La., with his daughters Lacoral and Mikah. Residents say Magnolia Villas has the worst water in Tallulah. Water boil advisories often arrive late in the mail. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
“You never really know when the boil advisory is,” Herring said. “The majority of the time it comes late in the mail. They’ll have already started it.”
The Rev. Tommy Watson, pastor of East Star Baptist Church and one of Tallulah’s aldermen, said the town has been “repairing and patching” the system for the last several years. The town had four or five boil advisories in 2016, which is more than normal, Watson said. Two of those came when a water main broke.
Tallulah Mayor Paxton Branch said the town plans to replace its system. The current system is so old that companies don’t make the parts necessary for some repairs. Right now, the city has about $6 million of the $10 million needed to begin construction.
For some residents, the new system can’t come fast enough. Hours after the mayor explained his plan for a new system, a water main broke, leaving large swaths of the town without water.
A water main break forced Tallulah, La., to completely shut off water to residents. Keywanda Jacobs, right, said she learned about the outage on the city’s Facebook page. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Pamela Oliver says she doesn’t trust the water enough to use it for anything but cooking and cleaning.
Louisiana only recognizes the lowest level of EPA standards and does not regularly test for secondary issues, such as color and odor, the most common complaints in towns like Campti and Tallulah.
“The problem with Louisiana is that we only recognize the lowest EPA ratings for our water, which means our water is safe,” said Lady Carlson of Together Louisiana, a statewide advocacy group. “So the water in St. Joseph, they said was safe. It looks like gumbo, but you can drink it. In six months, we had the problem fixed.”
Over time, Tallulah, La., fell into economic hardship and many of its businesses closed. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Louisiana’s St. Joseph is the site of the state’s most-publicized water system failure. After pipes in the town’s decrepit water system began to corrode, lead and copper leached into the system.
“When you look at the areas with crumbling infrastructure, it’s in communities of color and low-income communities,” said Ali, the former EPA official.
In his post with the EPA, Ali oversaw the office tasked with advocating for populations inordinately affected by environmental issues – low-income communities, African-Americans, Latinos and Native American tribes. Ali resigned over disagreements with President Donald Trump’s administration.
The Environmental Justice Office is one of several EPA departments that face elimination under the president’s proposed budget.
Yet, across the country, Americans of color are growing more concerned about their drinking water, according to a 2017 Gallup poll. Up from 73 percent in 2015, 80 percent of nonwhite respondents now worry “a great deal” about their water.
"If we don't help our most vulnerable communities to not only be healthier but to be more economically viable, then we leave a gap in our country, and it weakens us," Ali said.
The water tower in Melville, La., sits above the town’s only well. A new tank was built on the other side of town, but was put out of commission because of leaks and lack of pressure. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
In Melville, about an hour northwest of Baton Rouge in southern Louisiana, the town’s water system is served by a single 54-year-old well. One of the country’s poorest communities, it has just over 1,000 residents and a median household income of $17,670.
The self-proclaimed “Catfish Capital of the World” sits on the banks of the Atchafalaya River – one of the state’s most iconic and beloved geographic features. But the town has no second well or backup plan. If the well goes down, the state of Louisiana will have to send trucks of water to keep the town from drying out.
Josh Horton is the gas supervisor for Melville, La., but much of his job now entails maintaining the town’s aging water system. The infrastructure is so old that when a leak is fixed in one part of town, a new one usually sprouts up elsewhere. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Its system also has been poorly maintained and doesn’t have enough money to pay for upgrades, said Mayor Erana Mayes. In 2013, the water system was $125,541 in the red, and in 2014, $62,971 in utility payments went missing. Leaks regularly spring in the underground pipes. But when one leak is clamped, another pops up down the line.
“We’re constantly using chlorine. That’s a daily thing,” Mayes said. “Our water is good, now. Nothing is wrong with it. It’s just the expense of it.”
Carlson said most of the problems in rural towns – like Tallulah and Melville – come from outdated water systems and aging pipes. But there’s little money to make repairs, much less replace the pipes.
“There’s just been a lack of attention to these neighborhoods and a lack of political will to get things done,” said Carlson.
In southern Alabama’s Uniontown, a community first established around a slave plantation, water quality is a persistent worry for the mostly black residents, who say a nearby catfish farm contaminates their town water system.
“Everybody knows about the smell and water in Uniontown. It’s bad,” said Demetrius Holmes, who says he’s been in and out of the hospital 20 times because of gastrointestinal complications. “They just say gastroparesis, or acid reflux. I’ve heard them all. But no one can figure out what’s wrong with my intestines.” He says it’s the water.
Demetrius Holmes has been living in Uniontown, Ala., for the past three years and has been hospitalized more than 20 times for stomach-related issues. He suspects the town’s drinking water may be the cause. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
“You have 2,000 to 2,200 people that live here in Uniontown and just about all of us have problems, and a lot of us have the same problems,” said Ben Eaton, vice president of the Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice. “But as far as good water, I can’t say it’s good. Too many issues around it to just say.”
Mark Elliott, a civil engineer and researcher at the University of Alabama, claims a nearby catfish farm plays a part. “They have been disposing their industrial wastewater to the Uniontown system.”
“The system was not designed to take that load. Basically, ... their wastewater volume is equivalent to the whole town put together,” he said. “So their system ended up being underdesigned. It’s bursting the side of the lagoon and running off into the stream constantly.”
In another community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, residents relied for years on contaminated well water – even though most everyone around received water from a public system. “The well water was bad,” said Robert Campbell, a pastor in the community. “Now, we can basically say what is in there. Fecal matter, benzene, arsenic ... but it wasn’t safe to drink.”
This year, the community was hooked up to public water and sewer services.
“We didn't have the basic amenities, like clean water and sewer,” Campbell said. “There were a lot of things we were looking at, saying, why isn’t it in another community that looks almost like us except for the ethnicity of the community?”
An abandoned store decays in the town of Sandbranch, Texas, which is about 14 miles from downtown Dallas. (Brandon Kitchin/News21)
In Sandbranch, Texas, residents don’t have a public drinking water system at all. Just 14 miles from downtown Dallas, residents used to rely on private wells supplied by groundwater but don’t anymore. Most drink bottled water delivered by the local church each week.
“It would be a miracle if we could ever turn our tap on and get running water,” said 83-year-old Ivory Hall Jr., who makes a 20-mile round trip to the city of Ferris to fill a water tank and hauls it home.
Leroy Thomas has lived in Sandbranch for 40 years and says the water used to be drinkable. He claims the groundwater was contaminated by illegal dumping and more recently, a nearby wastewater treatment.
“The runoff, the illegal dumping, the tires … all of the waste that people bring in here, it’s going in the ground,” he said.
Ivory Hall Jr. moved to Sandbranch, Texas, in 1977 to raise his family and start a hog farm. His house is one of the longest-standing homes in the community. (Brandon Kitchin/News21)
Sandbranch resident Leroy Thomas said his family relies on cases of bottled water that are delivered weekly by a church. (Brandon Kitchin/News21)
News21 requested water testing records for Sandbranch. But an email from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said, “After reviewing the appropriate resources of the TCEQ, we were unable to locate any responsive information in the possession of the TCEQ.”
Most of the community’s 100 or fewer residents live in ramshackle houses they can’t sell because they wouldn’t make enough money to move.
“This is America and in the 21st century, people living in the shadows of the most prosperous urban area as far as job creation for the last five years deserve water,” said Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, who presides over the Dallas County Commissioners Court. “We got families that can stand on a hill and can look at downtown Dallas and don’t have running drinking water. That’s what we’re trying to fix.”
A 2016 report to President Barack Obama outlined several problems affecting water quality across the nation, including aging systems and lead service lines. According to the report, called “Science and Technology to Ensure the Safety of the Nation’s Drinking Water,” lead pipes have become a common problem in old cities and the Midwest. The American Water Works Association estimates 6.1 million lead service lines remain in the U.S. and serve 15 million to 22 million people.
“You hear time and time again this issue with aging infrastructure, and you have the lead pipes being part of the issue,” said Jacqueline Patterson, the director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. “You have this recipe for disaster like what we found in Flint.”
A rainstorm passes over Milwaukee, the largest city in the state, with a population of almost 600,000. According to a 2010 study by professors at Florida State University, Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in America. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
In Milwaukee, about 70,000 homes are connected to the city’s water system with aging lead pipes, many of which run under low-income and African-American communities in the city’s northside neighborhoods. These lead pipes – along with the 130,000 homes with lead-based paint – contribute to the high numbers of poisoned children, according to the 2014 Report on Childhood Lead Poisoning in Wisconsin.
One of them is Troy Lowe, a 4-year-old infatuated with dandelions, which he picks for his bus driver.
In December, his father, Tory Lowe, learned his son had lead poisoning, as do 8.6 percent of the children in Milwaukee, according to a 2014 report by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Tory Lowe and his 4-year-old son, Troy, sit in their Milwaukee home. In December, Tory learned that his son had lead poisoning. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Even before then, Lowe had been working to inform his community on Milwaukee’s north side about the dangers of lead in the water. Lowe also uses his Facebook page to blast messages about shootings, kidnappings and carjackings to his more than 38,000 followers. He also made a music video called “Don’t Drink the Water” in which he raps about the city’s lead service lines.
“If the people most affected don’t know, it doesn’t matter,” Lowe said.
His son’s lead test result of 5.9 micrograms per deciliter is lower than many children in Milwaukee, Lowe said, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says researchers have not defined the effect lower levels might on the central nervous system and cannot rule out adverse effects at low levels. Any level above 5 micrograms is considered lead poisoning.
As part of the line replacement plan, the city published lists of every property known to have lead service lines. The Lowe family’s home was listed. He said his family does not drink from the tap, opting to buy bottled water instead.
After learning about lead in Milwaukee’s water, Tory Lowe bought a water filter for his kitchen, but his family still chooses to use bottled water. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
“I know there’s thousands of kids being lead poisoned … if my son can get lead poisoning and we don’t even drink the water,” Lowe said.
Milwaukee recently began an effort to replace the lead lines, starting with $3.4 million to replace 300 that serve schools and day cares in 2017. Then, the city will spend another $3.4 million to replace 300 lines serving residences.
At that pace, it would it would take more than 233 years to replace all of Milwaukee’s residential lead lines. To replace all 70,000 lead lines in the next 50 years, the city would need replace 1,400 pipes per year, which would cost about $4.5 million each year, according to the Water Quality Task Force.
Milwaukee has about 70,000 lead service lines that lead to homes and schools throughout the city. In order to replace the lead pipes in the next 50 years, the city will need to replace at least 1,400 pipes a year. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Robert Miranda, a representative for the Freshwater for Life Action Coalition, a water advocacy group, said there may be as many as 20,000 more lead service lines the city did not include in its original estimate. An April 2017 report by Milwaukee’s Water Quality Task Force backs up Miranda’s claim, noting that there is a “measure of uncertainty” because the number of lead lines installed from 1951 to 1962 “remains in limbo.”
“What we don’t know is how many more pipes we have from 1952 to 1962,” Miranda said. “They didn’t have anything that really substantiated or made that date concrete.”
Children from the north side of Milwaukee line up for basketball practice in the first junior basketball league day of the summer. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
The Milwaukee Department of Public Works declined an interview request from News21, but an email from department spokeswoman Sandy Rusch Walton said: “The (Milwaukee) Water Works complies with all state and federal drinking water standards, and is known for its extensive water quality monitoring program that reaches beyond basic requirements.”
Anna Smith lived with her children in a decrepit apartment where rain and snow fell through a hole in the ceiling and plastic grocery bags plugged a crack in the wall. It is one of many on the list of buildings with lead service lines.
The Patchwork mural (left) on North Avenue in Milwaukee depicts influential African-Americans from the city. The skeleton of a cross light box stands in a Milwaukee neighborhood called “The Harambee,” which means “pulling together” in Swahili. The neighborhood is known for its African-American heritage and churches. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Her 3-year-old daughter, Laila, tested at 8.8 micrograms per deciliter in October. Her other child, 1-year-old Princeton, tested with 12.1 in July.
“I wouldn’t have stayed there if I knew they had lead poisoning,” Smith said, adding that her daughter “was drinking from the faucet and stuff. I was cooking with the water.”
Short-term lead exposure can cause symptoms such as headaches, constipation and abdominal pain, according to the CDC. Long-term exposure can lead to more serious neurological issues. It often affects children more than adults.
The Praxair towers dominate the skyline view in certain neighborhoods of East Chicago, Ind. The city has long been surrounded by various industries, and many have contributed to the contamination of water and soil. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
In East Chicago, Indiana, residents have filed an emergency action petition with the EPA, asking the agency to address lead service lines affecting water. In the northwest Indiana city known historically for its lead and steel production, as many as 90 percent of the homes could be connected to lead service lines, according to the petition to the EPA. In one neighborhood, 40 percent of the homes tested by the EPA for the Drinking Water Pilot Study exceeded federal action levels, meaning enough lead was in tap water to pose a risk.
The Calumet neighborhood’s water problem was discovered as the EPA was investigating a separate issue – lead and arsenic in the soil left behind by the USS Lead Superfund Site – where the low-income neighborhood now sits. According to the EPA, it’s not possible for lead to leach into the pipes, but many of the homes’ water tested positive, which indicates lead service lines.
The NAACP’s Patterson said communities of color – both urban and rural – are disproportionately affected by polluting industries because they are more likely to be located near low-income neighborhoods.
“There’s an interesting mix of things. One, the pollution that comes externally from power plants or those types of things are disproportionately located in communities of color,” she said. “Then, because those types of facilities are often underregulated and monitored, you have this situation where … all of these things can end up affecting the water supply.”
Akeeshea Daniels lived in the West Calumet Housing complex in East Chicago, Ind., for 13 years, where residents were relocated because of contamination from a lead facility. Since 2008, Daniels has only used bottled water. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
Akeesha Daniels spent 13 years in the West Calumet Housing Complex, a now-abandoned housing project where the lead refinery once stood. She said the residents were never warned about the lead in the soil or the pipes.
“We were never told,” Daniels said. “Not one thing. Why would you let your most vulnerable people live there and not notify us that something was wrong?”
Calumet Lives Matter, a local advocacy group, is distributing cases of water to residents out of churches each week. Sherry Hunter, an organizer of the group, said each family gets four cases of water, some of which are donated by the nearby cities of Hammond and Gary.
The petition, signed by several community groups, says the city’s water is unsafe to drink, even with the measures in place to control corrosion of the lead pipes. State Sen. Lonnie Randolph, whose district includes East Chicago, said the state is working to determine the extent of the water contamination issue and how much it will cost to fix it.
Indiana state Sen. Lonnie Randolph was born and raised in East Chicago near the USS Lead Superfund site. His ties to his community have made him a vocal advocate for his constituents. (Michael M. Santiago/News21)
“We are fed up with the assault of toxic contamination on our city, our neighborhoods and our people,” said the Rev. Cheryl Rivera, one of the leaders with the Community Strategy Group, another organization that pushed for the petition. “Take it to somebody else’s neighborhood. It is absolutely environmental racism. We are tired of our children and our families being poisoned intentionally.”
News21 reporters Bryn Caswell and Michael M. Santiago contributed to this article.
Alexis Reese is a Dallas Morning News Fellow.
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Thirty years after the Montreal Protocol, solving the ozone problem remains elusive.
Scientists warn of new threats to the ozone layer, including widespread use of ozone-eating chemicals not covered by the treaty.
Despite a ban on chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons, the ozone hole over Antarctica remains nearly as large as it did when the Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987. Scientists now warn of new threats to the ozone layer, including widespread use of ozone-eating chemicals not covered by the treaty.
BY FRED PEARCE • AUGUST 14, 2017
Did the Montreal Protocol fix the ozone hole? It seemed so. With chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and other ozone-eating chemicals banned, many scientists said it was only a matter of time before the ozone layer recharged, and the annual hole over Antarctica healed for good.
But 30 years on, some atmospheric chemists are not so sure. The healing is proving painfully slow. And new discoveries about chemicals not covered by the protocol are raising fears that full recovery could be postponed into the 22nd century – or possibly even prevented altogether.
In mid-September, the United Nations is celebrating the protocol’s 30th anniversary. It will declare that “we are all ozone heroes.” But are we patting ourselves on the back a bit too soon?
The ozone layer is a long-standing natural feature of the stratosphere, the part of the atmosphere that begins about six miles above the earth. The ozone layer filters out dangerous ultraviolet radiation from the sun that can cause skin cancer and damage many life forms. It may have been essential for the development of life on Earth.
So there was alarm in the 1970s when researchers first warned that extremely stable man-made compounds like CFCs, used in refrigerants and aerosols, were floating up into the stratosphere, where they released chlorine and bromine atoms that break down ozone molecules. In the 1980s, Antarctic researchers discovered that these chemical reactions went into overdrive in the super-cold polar stratospheric clouds that formed over the frozen continent. They had begun creating a dramatic “hole” in the ozone layer at the end of each austral winter.
The ensuing panic resulted in the signing of the Montreal Protocol on September 16, 1987. It and its successors have phased out production of a range of man-made chlorine and bromine compounds thought to persist for the several years needed for them to reach the stratosphere. Besides CFCs, they include carbon tetrachloride, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), and methyl bromide, a fumigant once widely used to kill pests.
So far so good. The amount of ozone-depleters in the atmosphere has dropped by more than 10 percent since peaking in the late 1990s. In response, the total ozone in the atmosphere has been largely unchanged since 2000.
But in the past five years, evidence has emerged that potential ozone-eating compounds can reach the ozone layer much faster than previously thought. Under some weather conditions, just a few days may be enough. And that means a wide range of much more short-lived compounds threaten the ozone layer – chemicals not covered by the Montreal Protocol.
These compounds are all around us. They are widely used as industrial solvents for tasks like degreasing and dry cleaning. And their releases into the atmosphere are increasing fast.
These new ozone-busters include dichloromethane (DCM), a common and cheap paint stripper, also used in foam-blowing agents and, ironically, in the manufacture of “ozone-friendly” alternatives to CFCs. With emissions now exceeding one million tons a year, the concentration of DCM in the lower atmosphere has more than doubled since 2004. Even so, it has not been regarded as a threat to the ozone layer, because its typical lifetime in the atmosphere before it is broken down in photochemical reactions is only about five months. It should, atmospheric chemists concluded, remain safely in the lower atmosphere.
But that view collapsed in 2015, when Emma Leedham Elvidge at the University of East Anglia in England examined air samples taken on board commercial aircraft cruising at the lower edge of the stratosphere. She found high levels of DCM, especially over the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, and particularly during the Asian monsoon season, when strong updrafts fast-track air from the ground to the stratosphere. It seems they were taking DCM along for the ride.
Alarm bells are ringing about dozens of other short-lived ozone-destroying chlorine compounds accumulating in the atmosphere.
How much should we worry? Ryan Hossaini, an atmospheric chemist at Lancaster University, recently did the math. He calculated that DCM currently contributes less than 10 percent of the chlorine in the ozone layer. But on current emission trends, it could be That could delay the ozone hole’s recovery by 30 years, until at least 2095, he suggested.
Others share that concern. “Growing quantities of DCM are leaking into the stratosphere, where it is exceptionally effective in destroying the ozone,” says David Rowley, an atmospheric chemist at the University College London, who was not involved in the research. “The potential for DCM to affect the global ozone budget is profound.”
Alarm bells are ringing about dozens of other short-lived, potentially ozone-destroying chlorine compounds accumulating in the atmosphere as a result of fast-rising global manufacturing. They include 1,2-dichloroethane, a chemical widely used in the manufacture of PVC pipes. There are few atmospheric measurements of this compound yet, “but sporadic data suggest it is a significant source of chlorine in the atmosphere,” says Hossaini.
The risks of such chemicals reaching the ozone layer are greatest in the tropics, where manufacturing is booming in fast-industrialising countries such as China and India, and where, as luck would have it, atmospheric circulation patterns are favorable. The Asian monsoon can propel the gases to the stratosphere in as little as ten days, according to unpublished research seen by Yale Environment 360.
The movement of ozone-depleting chemicals through the atmosphere, shifting from the tropics and concentrating in Antarctica. NASA GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER
Thirty years on, the Montreal Protocol has not begun to come to grips with these chemicals, warns Rowley. “The naïve view until recently,” he says, “was that short-lived [chemicals] didn’t present a threat to stratospheric ozone. Wrong.”
Other loopholes in the protocol are concerning researchers as well. In 2014, colleagues of Leedham Elvidge’s at the University of East Anglia warned that three CFCs supposedly banned under the protocol were turning up in increasing amounts in the clean air blowing round the Southern Ocean and captured at Cape Grim in Tasmania. Johannes Laube, an atmospheric chemist at the University of East Anglia, calculated that global emissions of CFC-113a, once an important feedstock in manufacturing both refrigerants and pyrethroid pesticides, doubled in two years.
How come? It turns out that the Montreal Protocol never completely banned CFCs. “CFC-113a is covered by a loophole that allows industries to apply for exemptions,” Laube says. Confidentiality clauses in the treaty about these exemptions mean that “we simply don’t know if we have found exempted emissions, or if they are from some illegal manufacture somewhere. Either way, they are increasing fast, which makes this worrying.” Trade in banned ozone-depleting chemicals has declined in the past decade, but remains a problem, and has been documented particularly for hydrochlorofluorocarbons.
Scientists knew recovery of the ozone layer would take time because of the long lifetimes of many of the dangerous compounds we unleashed in past decades. But last year, Susan Solomon of MIT – who back in the 1980s became one of the world’s most celebrated scientists for uncovering the chemistry of the polar stratospheric clouds — declared that she had detected the first “fingerprints” of the hole closing. “The onset of healing of Antarctic ozone loss has now emerged,” she wrote.
“The signature of ozone recovery is not quite there yet,” says one expert.
But other researchers remain cautious. There have been some recent bumper springtime holes in Antarctic ozone. The 2015 hole was the fourth largest since 1991, peaking at an area larger than the continent of North America. It was also deeper than other recent holes and lasted longer. 2016 was also worse than average and 2017 is expected to be severe, too.
Solomon blamed 2015 on the Calbuco volcano in Chile, which ejected sulphur particles that enhanced the ozone-destroying properties of polar stratospheric clouds. But Susan Strahan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center warns that the size of the hole in any given year is still dominated by year-to-year variations in the temperature of the stratosphere and the vagaries of meteorology. “The signature of ozone recovery is not quite there yet,” she says, adding that day will come, but we may have to wait until the 2030s.
Meanwhile at the other end of the planet, ozone losses over the Arctic may still be worsening. The Arctic is less susceptible to the formation of ozone holes than Antarctica, because the weather is messier. The stable air that causes the ultra-cold conditions where polar stratospheric clouds form in Antarctica is much less likely. But it does happen whenever temperatures get cold enough for polar stratospheric clouds to form.
A deep hole briefly formed over the Arctic in 2011. In places, more than 80 percent of the ozone was destroyed, twice the loss in the worst previous years, 1996 and 2005. In both the past two winters, researchers saw polar stratospheric clouds over parts of Britain, says Jonathan Shanklin of the British Antarctic Survey. But they were brief and did not lead to major ozone loss.
Shanklin says an important reason for the sluggish recovery of the ozone layer is global warming. As increased levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide trap more solar heat radiating from the Earth’s surface, less warmth reaches the stratosphere, which cools as a result. This trend has been evident for almost 40 years. A colder stratosphere improves conditions for ozone loss. Climate change “could delay the recovery of the ozone hole well into the second half of this century,” he says.
Protecting the ozone layer “presents a much greater industrial and political challenge than previously thought,” says one researcher.
Should we be frightened? Some of the crazier hype in the early days of the ozone hole – like blind sheep in Patagonia and collapsing marine ecosystems – proved nonsense. But the raised risk of skin cancers from the extra ultraviolet radiation streaming through the thinned ozone layer is real enough – particularly for reckless white-skinned sunbathers. The ozone layer is still as thin as it was 30 years ago.
The good news is that without the Montreal Protocol things would have been a great deal worse, says Martyn Chipperfield, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Leeds. The Antarctic hole would be 40 percent bigger than it is; the ozone layer over Europe and North America would be 10 percent thinner; the 2011 Arctic hole would have been Antarctic-sized; and we would be looking at about two million more cases of skin cancers by 2030, according to research conducted by Chipperfield and colleagues.
Even so, the idea that the Montreal Protocol is doing its job and the recovery is under way begins to look complacent. If emissions of uncontrolled ozone-depleting chemicals such as DCM continue rising, then the gains could be lost. The answer is obvious. “We should be looking into controlling DCM and other solvents, much in the same way as we did CFCs,” says Leedham Elvidge.
The World Meteorological Organization and other UN agencies overseeing the protocol acknowledge that DCM and other short-lived ozone depleting substances “are an emerging issue for stratospheric ozone,” but the government signatories have yet to take action to limit their emissions.
That would involve getting rid of a far wider range of chemicals than so far done under the protocol. Protecting the ozone layer “presents a much greater industrial and political challenge than previously thought,” says Rowley. Thirty years on, there is evidently still a lot to do.
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