COP 29

The 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) will take place in Azerbaijan next month, November 11th and 22nd 2024. For 2 weeks, delegates from nations across the globe will convene to discuss the next steps in the ongoing fight against  climate change and pretend that it is still possible to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius. It’s not. We are sitting on a melting ice cube.

Once more the climate three aims have officially been outlined as COP29’s ‘Framework for Action. These are:

• Reduce emissions to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees, while leaving no one behind.
• Inclusive process for inclusive outcomes.
• Enhance ambition and enable action.

Nice words, but in truth since the signing of the Paris Climate Accord, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. We are further from net zero emissions than we were in 2015.  ‘While leaving no one behind’ is a nice thought and signals an interest in ensuring that developing nations and vulnerable communities are included in the discussions and subsequent actions. This is the second aim, to ensure an inclusive process. Enhancing ambition and enabling action. Increasing the ambition is about increasing the pledges that the nations have made.

Under the Paris Agreement China has only agreed to stop growing their CO2 emissions by 2030, and India made no pledged reductions. At COP 26 in 2021 India signed an agreement to reduce coal and increase its renewable energy generating capacity to 500 gigawatts by 2030 with the goal of reaching net-zero CO2 equivalent emissions by 2070. However, In November 2023 India approved a plan that roughly doubled coal production, reaching 1.5 billion tons by 2030 and included more than quadrupling its underground coal production by 2030.  

Meanwhile the news from China is no better. In fall 2023 China announced that coal-fired power capacity would rise by more than 200 Gigawatts by 2030. That increase is equivalent to the entire energy production of Canada. Let’s be honest here despite promises made year after year the CO2 emissions of the planet have grown at a compounded annual rate of 1.8% per year since 1990. Our situation is worse not better, yet, the growth in fossil fuel emissions may be slowing.

Ahead of the meeting Azerbaijan announced the Climate Finance Action Fund (CFAF) to invest in climate action in the developing world. I believe that is what enabling action is about providing money.  CFAF will be capitalized with contributions from fossil fuel producing countries and companies across oil, gas and coal, and Azerbaijan will be a founding contributor. Members will commit to transfer annual contributions as a fixed-sum or based on volume of production.

The United States is an oil and gas producing country. However, we may also be moving towards financial disaster. This month it was reported that the federal budget deficit for fiscal 2024 came in at $1.83 trillion that will have to be funded by selling treasury bonds. That’s 13% larger than the year before adjusting for timing shifts in outlays. It also comes despite an 11%, or $479 billion, increase in receipts for the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2024. Total government revenue was $4.92 trillion, individual income taxes rose 11% or $249 billion. Corporate income taxes rose 26% or $109 billion.

The deficit ought to decline when revenues rise significantly, but the problem is that spending also rose 11% by $699 billion to $6.75 trillion. Social Security rose 8% and Medicare rose 9%. Interest payments on the national debt are now larger at $950 billion than the entire defense budget of $826 billion or Medicare $869 billion. Interest payments accounted for 14% of the budget. The total national debt is 97% of GDP. 

The fiscal path of the Unite States is unsustainable and limits our nation’s ability to maintain a world leadership position (which ensures our ability to sell bonds). Worse than that, it limits our ability to finance climate adaptation in our own country, continue paying full social security benefits and providing health benefits through Medicare without rationing care and contribute to CFAF funding. In August, Fitch downgraded the U.S. government debt, citing "steady deterioration in standards of governance" on "fiscal and debt matters." 

The COP29 leadership states that they are working with a ‘broad range of international stakeholders’ to ensure that all perspectives are considered and that the outcomes of the conference are based on ‘shared solutions.’  I have no idea if this means that there will be renewed effort to move the needle or that world events and the forming of global axis will overshadow these urgent goals. We are sitting on a melting ice cube and we just keep talking..

Climate Overshoot is a Fantasy

Schleussner, CF., Ganti, G., Lejeune, Q. et al. Overconfidence in climate overshoot. Nature 634, 366–373 (2024).  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08020-9

According to the data from the Global Carbon Project and the Rhodium Group, CO₂  emissions from mankind’s activities continue to grow . This brings CO₂  emissions to a record high above the pre -COVID-19 levels.

While emissions are declining in 26 countries, these efforts remain insufficient to reverse the growth in global  emissions in China and India. Growth in total CO₂  emissions for our planet – the sum of fossil and land-use change emissions has slowed down over the past decade, emissions continue to grow leading to a continued increase in CO₂  in the atmosphere and continued global warming.

The preliminary data for 2023 show global fossil CO₂  emissions are set to reach a record high, with an increase of about  +1.1% (range 0.0% to 2.1%) relative to 2022 level, and expected growth in all fuel types. Projected 2023 emissions decrease in the European Union, USA, and to a lesser extent in the Rest of the World were exceeded by increases in emissions in India and China. CO₂  emissions in India are now above those of the European Union.

As the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC sixth report showed that:

• Climate Change is already affecting ecosystems globally
• The planet is being impacted unevenly
• Despite pledges made the world is still on track for a 2-2.9 degree Celsius warming
• China and India are not our friends and their emissions will continue to grow significantly.

Last year the Washington Post analyzed 1,200 pathways to 1.5 degrees C. The Washington Post could not find a single pathways with  assumptions that did not involve magical technological development that didn’t include temperature overshoot. A recent article in New Scientist Magazine summed up the situation perfectly.

“It is clear that the world is going to exceed the 1.5°C target for global warming, leading to an increasing focus on plans to cool it down again by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere..”

Now the article cited above and published this month in Nature magazine brings into question whether we will even be able to bring the temperature back down after an overshoot; and even if we can bring the planetary temperature back down, some changes in the plant can’t be reversed.  In the analysis cited above the authors adapted existing suites of climate models to capture different elements of the climate response during the warming phase and the long-term phase after net zero emissions is achieved and carbon is removed from the environment. They modeled:

• The expected warming for a given quantity of cumulative emissions until net-zero CO₂.
• The expected warming or cooling for a given quantity of cumulative net-negative emissions after net-zero CO₂.
• The continued temperature response after net-zero CO₂ emissions are achieved and sustained
• What they found was For a range of climate impacts, there is no expectation of immediate reversibility after an overshoot. 

What they found was For a range of climate impacts, there is no expectation of immediate reversibility after an overshoot. This includes changes in the deep ocean, marine biogeochemistry and species abundance, land-based biomes, carbon stocks and crop yields, but also biodiversity on land. An overshoot will also increase the probability of triggering potential Earth system past tipping points that cannot be restored. Sea levels will continue to rise for centuries to millennia even if long-term temperatures decline.

The analysis also showed there is no guarantee that we will be able to bring the temperature back down. The sad truth appears to be that the climate change will impact life on earth. Species that go extinct due to loss of habitat cannot be brought back to life. If the ice sheet collapses, even if temperatures are restored it will take millennia to restore them and the list goes on. Restoring the temperature will not restore the lives that are lost. It is hoped that with adaptation to the changing climate some of mankind will survive this century. 

We have just passed the Jewish Days of Awe. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews recite (more than once) the prayer Unetanneh Tokef, Jews believe God reviews our fates and decides who will live and who will die in the coming year. The older I get, the more appropriate the prayer feels for all of mankind. Below is a portion of the English translation. 

On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,
And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.
How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,
Who shall live and who shall die,
Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not,
Who shall perish by water and who by fire,
Who by sword and who by wild beast,
Who by famine and who by thirst,
Who by earthquake and who by plague,
Who by strangulation and who by stoning,
Who shall have rest and who shall wander,
Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued,

Dominion 2024 IRP

Last week Dominion Energy released its 2024 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP)and filed it with the State Corporation Commission(SCC).  In the submission, Dominion details how it plans to meet electricity needs and demands over the next 15 years. The picture they paint is that Dominion cannot both meet the power demand of the exploding number of data centers in Virginia and the mandates of the Virginia Clean Economy Act (VCEA). There is simply too much growth in demand for electricity. Dominion estimates that the cost for all plans is a net present value of $94 billion-$103 billion. In all scenarios generating capacity will only be added, there are no retirements.  There were fewer differences than the portfolio in the past because of the need under all scenarios for more capacity to generate electricity. 

The 2020 VCEA is the state’s law outlining a path to decarbonize the electric grid by 2050. VCEA requires the Commonwealth to retire its natural gas power plants by 2045 (Dominion) and 2050 (Appalachian Power). These facilities currently comprise 67% of the current baseload in-state generation as well as 100% of the power plants that meet peak demand. About 30% of Virginia’s generation is from nuclear. Under the VCEA Dominion can run carbon-emitting facilities until 2040 and must build a stated amount of solar and wind generation.  Only by petitioning the SCC and demonstrating a need to maintain grid reliability can they continue running their fossil fuel plants. When the VCEA was crafted, they did not foresee the explosive demand for electricity that unconstrained data center development would drive. I assume that Dominion will comply with the new EPA rules for power plants. In their IRP that cost is given as $6-$6.5 billion.

In the discussion below I have taken excerpts from the IRP. To read the full report, click on this link. 2024 VA IRP (cdn-dominionenergy-prd-001.azureedge.net)

Dominion Energy Virginia does not produce all the electricity it delivers and sells. Dominion Energy is a member of PJM Interconnection, LLC (PJM), the regional transmission organization coordinating the wholesale electric grid in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. PJM other members supply a significant amount of the energy used in Virginia. Over the last decade, Virginia has depended on power purchases for an increasing share of total energy served. In 2021, the Dominion purchased 14% of its total energy served from the PJM market, in 2022 that number increased to 21%, and in 2023 that number increased again to 22%.

However, in February 2023, PJM found that the current pace of bringing new power generation to market would be insufficient to keep up with expected retirements and demand growth in the foreseeable future. For the first time in recent history, PJM could face the projected total capacity from generating resources would not meet projected peak loads by the 2028/2029 Delivery Year and beyond.

The auctions for the PJM  base power residuals published for the 2025/2026 Delivery Year resulted in significantly higher prices for the Dominion service area.  The market clearing price for the Dominion service area was $444.26/MW-Day which is over 60% higher than the Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) clearing price of $269.92 and 15 times higher than the previous 2024/2025 RTO clearing price of $28.92/MW-Day. Constrained supply has pushed the price higher.

Dominion states that the 2024 IRP focuses heavily on reliance on utility resources, recognizing the limits on the ability to import power from elsewhere in PJM. An over-reliance on imported power creates reliability and price risks for Dominion customers, particularly as conventional generation resources have retired and will continue to retire across PJM for economic and environmental compliance reasons.

The need for additional in-state generation, transmission, and distribution resources to reliably supply power is acute.  Demand for power is forecasted to increase 5.5% annually over the next decade and double by 2039 in Dominion's delivery zone within PJM. In this year’s IRP Dominion states that this time they are confident in its Data Center Load Forecast and detail the factors that give them that confidence. Under the VCEA Dominion is supposed to replace all carbon-emitting facilities by 2040, but  the growth they are forecasting make that impossible. All the new generation built will go to supply the increased demand from data centers. The big drivers of current and future growth include migration to the cloud as businesses outsource information technology functions, smartphone technology and apps, 5G technology, digitization of data, and artificial intelligence (“AI”). From storing videos to hosting AI systems that allow consumers to create documents, web pages, music, and more, data centers serve the needs of the public every day.

Dominion Energy’s Data Center Load Forecast is based on existing contracts with customers. As projects progress, customers enter into a series of contracts with binding financial commitments. Dominion Energy regularly reviews this contractual approach to ensure that its Data Center Load Forecast reflects projects that will come to fruition.. Dominion provides a 15-year data center load forecast to PJM, who independently reviews and verifies before incorporating it into PJM’s own forecast.

While market purchases have been, and will continue to be, part of meeting customers’ needs, overdependence on market purchases could be cause for concern. Power may not be available for purchase when it is needed during extreme weather events or other demand spikes. This risk is expected to be exacerbated in the future by the new environmental regulations, the PJM capacity market reform, and other states’ energy policies.

Dominion’s  generation and transmission adequacy is a vital issue that must be addressed at the state level because of the VCEA. There are challenges to the siting and development of new power generation resources across all technologies. Dominion Energy supplements its generation fleet with third-party PPAs. The Company has existing contracts with renewable energy and fossil based PPAs, for approximately 1,277 MW (nameplate capacity not functional capacity) as of the end of 2023.

Over the past two decades, Dominion has migrated away from coal use towards natural gas and increased renewables. This has resulted in significant reductions in carbon dioxide (“CO2”) emission intensity. CO2 intensity is the quantity of emissions per megawatt hour (“MWh”) delivered to customers. This calculation includes emissions from any source used to deliver power to customers, including Company-owned generation, PPAs, and net purchased power. As shown below  CO2 intensity has decreased by 57% since 2000.

For over half a century, nuclear energy has provided reliable, affordable, and zero carbon electricity to meet customer load demands and remains a fundamental component of the transition to net zero emissions. Dominion Energy is extending the life of its nuclear units and considering additional nuclear energy resources in the form of small modular reactors (“SMRs”). SMRs are a classification of nuclear reactors with an output of approximately 300 MW of electricity per reactor. This output is about one-third of the generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors. The modular nature allows for portions of the plant to be factory-fabricated and delivered to the site.

Given the small size and modular construction process, Dominion states it is possible to locate SMRs on a wide variety of sites, including retired fossil-fuel generation sites (hello Possum Point), existing nuclear power generation sites (Lake Anna), other industrial areas, and areas closer to the electric demand. In this IRP Dominion has assumed that SMRs will be developed and available to meet the generation shortfall. Based on updated capital, operating and maintenance costs, continued progress of licensing timelines, it is conceivable that the deployment of SMRs could be further accelerated by Dominion.

Nonetheless, natural gas will remain essential to continue providing electricity to the customers. Natural gas power generators are dispatchable resources that play a vital role in supporting increased reliance on intermittent renewable resources. With flexible operating characteristics, giving them the ability to follow load, natural gas units support the grid to generate energy when it is needed, thus allowing the units to turn on, run during the times of peak energy usage, and/or when intermittent resources are not available and then turn off. This mitigates the risk of insufficient generation to meet large swings in energy output of intermittent generation. (No wind. Night time. Overcast days.), 

In the 2024 IRP, Dominion presents four generation mixes that will meet customers’ needs in the future under different planning assumptions. These Portfolios are designed using constraint-based least-cost planning techniques and proven energy generation technologies. The chart below shows the capacity by generation type, but the full breakout can be found in  Appendix 5C of the IRP.

Dominion made the following key observations on the energy mix:

• Due to changes in the PJM Market and increasing load forecast, generation capacity was the controlling factor.
• Nuclear units are essential for ensuring reliability.
• VCEA resources (i.e., solar, wind, battery storage) will make 3% of energy supplied  in 2025, and grow to approximately 30% in 2039.
• Natural gas-fired generators will increase in total generating capacity with the addition of almost 6 GW of new natural gas-fired generation. However, due to growth in demand natural gas will decrease from just below 50% of generation in 2025, to below 30% by 2039.
• There were fewer differences than the portfolio in the past because of the need under all scenarios for more capacity to generate electricity. All Portfolios built the maximum amount of new offshore wind, SMRs, and natural gas that they were allowed to build.
• The NPVs for the Portfolios that include the new suite of EPA regulations is $6 to $6.5 billion more costly than those that do not.
• By 2030, all Portfolios show the proportion of energy purchases from the market approaching their upper limit set in the model of 20%, and stays near this limit through 2039. Dominion can only meet long-term demand if it relies on the PJM market to satisfy up to 20% of its customers’ energy needs. 

Figure 4.2.1.1 below shows a comparison of a typical bill for a residential customer using 1,000 kWh, projected utilizing the Company Methodology (Dominion's) and the Directed Methodology (SCC's  approach).

Africa Water and Food Problems exacerbated by Drought

“Hunger and food insecurity can lead to instability. There is a vicious feedback loop between conflict and hunger currently at play in dozens of countries around the world. War drives hunger and hunger drives war.” - Chase Sova and Eilish Zembilci

Drought can  cause hunger and food insecurity especially in areas of subsistence farming. According to the United Nations, “more than half of global population growth between now and 2050 is expected to occur in Africa. Africa has the highest rate of population growth among major areas. The population of sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double by 2050. …that region will play a central role in shaping the size and distribution of the world’s population over the coming decades.” Unfortunately, they are a very poor  and scientists tell us that sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most vulnerable parts of the world to climate change because of a high dependency on subsistence, rain-fed agriculture and natural resources.

This week, the United Nations’ food agency has declared a food crisis (famine)  in five countries — Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The individual countries have all declared national disasters over the drought and hunger. These countries are all part of sub Saharan Africa and  the U.N.’s World Food Program estimates that about 21 million children in sub Saharan Africa are now malnourished as crops have failed.

In a press conference in Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland the World Food Program Spokesperson for Southern Africa, Tomson Phiri appealed to Western Nations for relief funds. “At the request of governments, WFP has started to provide food assistance and critical support in transport, logistics and food procurement. Against soaring global needs, we have only received one fifth of the US$369 million needed to provide assistance to millions in Southern Africa. 

While the funding received so far has allowed WFP to begin relief food distributions, a significant funding gap remains, which threatens to jeopardize plans for a full-scale response through to the end of the lean season in March next year.” 

Meanwhile, the drought has impacted water availability in South Africa reducing water availability in the Vaal River system. Rand Water, the company that supplies the cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria and Ekurhuleni is in danger of cutting off water supply. This past week they announced that if municipalities do not act on its recommendations to fix leaks and conserve water, the water storage for the cities will soon be depleted. Rand Water can’t pump more water from the Vaal River system and reservoir because of the limits of its extraction license with the Department of Water and Sanitation.

The country’s water-supply systems have deteriorated because of inadequate maintenance, sabotage, a lack of planning for population growth, mismanagement, corruption and political infighting. The South African government that pushed out the completion of a $2 billion project to expand reservoirs to increase supplies from Lesotho, a mountainous enclave in South Africa, by a decade until 2029.

Now with the drought, Rand Water is withdrawing more water than it is authorized 1 680Mm³/Ann vs authorized 1 347Mm³/Annum. When there wasn’t a drought they were able to do this, but not now. Will the conflicts in the area grow as water and food become less available. 

Pesticide Contamination in the Potomac Watershed

Samuel A. Miller, Kaycee E. Faunce, Larry B. Barber, Jacob A. Fleck, Daniel W. Burns, Jeramy R. Jasmann, Michelle L. Hladik, Factors contributing to pesticide contamination in riverine systems: The role of wastewater and landscape sources, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 954,2024, 174939, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.174939.

The article below is excerpted from the research article cited above.

The Potomac River Watershed is the second largest watershed (36,750 km²) within the Chesapeake Bay watershed and contributes about 15 % of the total streamflow to the Bay. The mainstem of the Potomac River has minimal flow regulation and is freshwater and the major source of drinking water for the  Washington, D.C. metropolitan area- Loudoun Water, Fairfax Water, Leesburg Water, WSSC and the Washington Aqueduct.

 Population in the Potomac River Watershed more than doubled from 1970 (3.2 million) to 2020 (6.9 million). The majority of development during this period occurred in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, where about 84 % of the watershed’s population resided as of 2020. To accommodate population growth, forest and agricultural lands have been reduced and public water supply and wastewater treatment systems have been expanded drawing on the Potomac River itself. A majority of public-supply withdrawals (80 %) in the Potomac River Watershed are from surface water.

The Potomac River Watershed contains a varied landscape consisting of steep mountains, rolling hills, broad valleys, and plains. The majority (53 %) of the basin is forested, 23 % is agricultural, and 13 % is developed whereas smaller remaining portions contain water, wetlands, and barren land cover. 

According to Miller et al wastewater discharges, although treated and in compliance with existing regulations, can be a continuous source of organic contaminants, including pesticides, to the Potomac River and  rivers worldwide. Pesticides can be introduced to wastewater treatment plants by what goes down-the-drain or flushed down the toilet at homes and businesses. Urban and suburban stormwater enter the watershed and may include sources of pesticides from residential lawns and gardens, leaky septic systems, or outdoor pest control, including applications to impervious surfaces. Separate sanitary sewer systems can also contain water sourced from groundwater via infiltration through cracked or broken sewerage pipes.

Frequently, pesticides are transformed or not completely removed during conventional wastewater treatment which are not designed to address these contaminants and are discharged in the wastewater treatment plant effluent to receiving waterbodies. In addition, some wastewater treatment plants receive industrial discharges. Although pesticides are frequently introduced to aquatic environments from agricultural and developed land-use nonpoint sources, wastewater treatment plant-derived pesticides are of particular concern because they are continuously discharged to receiving waters that often serve as source water for drinking water plants. Discharge from the largest wastewater treatment plant in the study area, UOSA,  is one of the largest indirect potable water reuse sources in the world (Jeffrey et al., 2022).

An integrated model was developed for the Potomac River watershed to determine the amount of accumulated wastewater percentage of streamflow and calculate predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) for 14 pesticides in non-tidal National Hydrography Dataset Plus Version 2.1 stream segments. Model predicted environmental concentrations were compared to measured environmental concentrations from 32 stream sites that represented a range of land use to evaluate model performance and to assess possible non-WWTP loading sources. Statistical agreement between PECs and MECs was moderate- it was strongest for insecticides, followed by fungicides and herbicides.

Among the target pesticides, PECs generally had the best agreement with MECs (Fig. 6) for insecticides (ρ = 0.52, p < 0.01), followed by fungicides (ρ = 0.36, p < 0.01) and herbicides (ρ = 0.20, p = 0.14). Individual pesticides with significant correlations between PECs and MECs included dinotefuran (ρ = 0.87, p < 0.01), thiabendazole (ρ = 0.82, p < 0.01), fipronil (ρ = 0.61, p < 0.01), and tebuconazole (ρ = 0.53, p = 0.02). Significant correlations were found between these individual pesticide concentrations and water quality indicators of wastewater presence including the optical brightener-to-fluorescein ratio, and boron concentrations, confirming that wastewater treatment plants effluent likely is a source for these pesticides.

Target pesticide corrected-MECs that had the most significant correlation with estimated agricultural use included atrazine (ρ = 0.54, p < 0.01), clothianidin (ρ = 0.35, p = 0.05), metolachlor (ρ = 0.62, p < 0.01), and simazine (ρ = 0.70, p < 0.01). The lack of agreement between corrected-MECs and estimated pesticide use on agricultural land for the remaining target pesticides indicates there may be sources beyond wastewater treatment plant effluent and agriculture during stream base flow conditions.

Pesticides are commonly used within the Potomac River Watershed for non-agricultural purposes, such as: (1) maintenance of lawns, gardens, and golf courses, (2) defoliation of rights-of-way, and (3) structural pest control (Ator et al., 1998). Pesticide usage rates are not well documented for these categories, which makes source identification difficult.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 2012 that more money was spent on insecticides used in home and gardens ($2,650,000,000) than in agriculture ($1,499,000,000) and industry ($700,000,000) combined, and overall, 27 million kilograms of pesticides were applied to home and garden areas (Atwood and Paisley-Jones, 2017). Homeowners frequently apply high rates of pesticides beyond the recommended doses that unintentionally leave residues that pose a variety of human and ecological health threats (Md Meftaul et al., 2020).

Water-quality samples were collected from 32 streams within the Potomac River Watershed during low-flow conditions to represent periods with the greatest effects from ACCWW and legacy pesticide sources. In the study watersheds,  turfgrass percentage of drainage area was found to be significantly correlated with all target fungicides, insecticides, and diuron. This study did not assess variability in results over time, which may be important at some sites based on local conditions. At best this model could be used as a screening tool and not much more.

Inland Flooding

The past few weeks we’ve seen lots of flooding across the southeast, devasting flooding in North Carolina and Georgia and massive storm surge from the two recent hurricanes-Helena and Milton. Tampa and the western cost of Florida suffered a double hit.

There have always been great storms. The Pittsburgh St Patrick’s day flood in 1936 and the flooding that hit the northeast in 1987, but our Climate is changing, too. Locally (here in Prince William County Virginia), rainfall averages approximately 44 inches per year, but varies from year to year.  Climate forecasts are for our region to get wetter with more intense rainstorms and droughts to get more severe. (ICPRB). The relationship between climate change and flooding is complex. Shoreline flooding is the result of land subsidence, sea level rise, building in the flood plain and storm surge. The most well-established connection between climate change and inland flooding is that more warming leads to more intense rainfall, which in turn increases flood severity in the inland areas. 

This rainfall intensification effect reportedly accounts for more than one-third of all damages from inland flooding in the U.S. in recent decades. Changes in land use are also intensifying inland flooding. Land use changes that increase impervious cover reduces the open area for rain and snow to seep into the ground and percolate into the groundwater and the impervious surfaces cause stormwater velocity to increase preventing water from having enough time to percolate into the earth, increasing storm flooding. 

 Increased stormwater volumes and mud flow are a direct result of clearing the land of trees and vegetation, construction activities for buildings and roads. The devastating flooding we’ve seen in North Carolina’s inland mountain towns that are thousands of feet in elevation and hundreds of miles from any coastline seemed so unexpected (despite major floods and landslides in that area -in 1916, tropical storms that originated in Mississippi and South Carolina caused unprecedented flooding in the Asheville area killing around 80 people and causing massive damage. Back-to-back tropical storms hit the region in 2004. Which resulted in flooding.  Helene inundated parts of southern Appalachia with well over 2 feet of rain. Floodwater carried away entire houses and washed out highways, cutting off access to towns some that are still cut off. 

Prince William County has committed to preparing for the impacts of climate change as part of our goal of becoming a Climate Ready Region by 2030. In line with this commitment, the county staff has concentrated on understanding the susceptibility of our county's people and infrastructure to local climate hazards to meet the community's most pressing needs. The county completed a vulnerability assessment in January 2023. This evaluation was designed to anticipate future conditions that could amplify existing vulnerabilities. From 2018 to 2021 Prince William County has had 60 reported Swift Water Rescue events and 178 reported VDOT road closures due to intense precipitation and flooding. Locations of these events are shown below and are mostly inland events. Though the eastern edge of our county is shoreline. This was unexpected. Prince William County realized that they need detailed stormwater modeling  to better understand how flooding occurs throughout the County during precipitation events and to better understand the limitations of existing stormwater infrastructure.  

from PWC

 In the research paper cited below: “The Northeastern United States (which includes Prince William County in their study) has experienced …increases in extreme precipitation events over the past five decades (Melillo et al., 2014, Walsh and Coauthors, 2014, Parr and Wang, 2015a). While the intensities of the most extreme precipitation events (or the heaviest 1% of all daily events) have increased in every region of the contiguous United States since the 1950s, the maximum change in precipitation intensity of extreme events is occurring in the northeast. “ The models used in the study found that that trend is likely to continue for decades.

The results of this study indicate an increase in mean (20–25%) and extreme (>40%) precipitation in near future over the northeast (including the Potomac River basin). In addition, water depths resulting from extreme inland flooding may increase more than 100% in some regions. Neighborhood scale projections suggest that the major cities of the northeast and the surrounding areas will likely be at higher flood risk. In turn, extreme precipitation and flooding can pose significant risks to their infrastructures and networks. It is time to focus on climate adaptation. Even as close as we are to the federal government, we may still find that we are on our own in a flooding disaster.

 

from Sujan et al

Sujan Pal, Jiali Wang, Jeremy Feinstein, Eugene Yan, Veerabhadra Rao Kotamarthi, Projected changes in extreme streamflow and inland flooding in the mid-21st century over Northeastern United States using ensemble WRF-Hydro simulations, Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, Volume 47, 2023, 101371, ISSN 2214-5818, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejrh.2023.101371

Pay For Actual Pollution Reductions

If you recall, in 2010 the EPA set a limit for release of nutrients and sediment into the Chesapeake Bay watershed that was then partitioned to the six  states (and Washington DC) watershed based on the Chesapeake Bay computer model and monitoring data. Likeall government programs it will never die, but continually evolve and grow.

All six Bay watershed states and the District of Columbia were required to submit plans spelling out the measures each would take by 2025 to achieve the needed pollution reductions. Then each year, EPA would evaluate the progress in implementing mitigation measures or practices. The model then would be used to estimate the amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that would make it to the Bay under average conditions.

Only the District of Columbia and West Virginia have so far met their 2025 goals. The rest of us continue to struggle to implement all the measures outlined in our plans. The goal was to have all the practices in place by 2025 to meet the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint restoration goals as predicted by the computer model forecasts.

Virginia continues to lag behind its goals. Virginia achieved its 2023 nitrogen targets for the James basin but did not achieve its 2023 targets for nitrogen in the other major basins (Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and Eastern Shore). Virginia did not achieve its 2023 phosphorus targets for any major basin.  In their “suggestions for improvement” EPA recommended that Virginia target implementation of nonpoint sources of pollution in the urban/suburban stormwater sector and the agricultural sector using the cost share BMP implementation programs.

As Virginia struggles to meet our 2025 Chesapeake Bay clean up goals, DEQ has announced a new $20 million Pay-For-Outcomes Nonpoint Source Pollution Reduction grant program. This is similar to a program that Maryland adopted last year. This one-year pilot program will provide payments based on the number of pounds of pollution actually removed or prevented.

DEQ intends that the Pay-For-Outcomes program will reverse the script and identify the most cost-effective means of reducing nonpoint source pollution and encourage innovation. All this is intended to move us forward in the Chesapeake Bay cleanup. The truth is, thought the Ag BMP modeling is backed by scientific calculations, there isn’t a full verification to guarantee water quality is improving after a practice is installed. The cleanup is further challenged by all the land use changes as the region continues to develop urban and industrial sprawl of higher density housing and data centers.

Under the DEQ Pay-For Outcomes program, any business, nonprofit, government entity, or individual may apply for grants ranging from $100,000 to $7.5 million to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution entering Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay watershed. The proposals may rely on Best Management Practices already commonly used in Virginia or may offer novel technologies based on sound science.

The applicants will need to identify the price per pound of pollution that will reduced, and payments will be based on the actual reductions. A panel of professors chosen as scientific experts will review the proposals and rank each primarily on cost per pound of pollution reduction but with consideration to habitat and resilience benefits, readiness to proceed, and other factors.

Applications are due Feb. 3, 2025. A mandatorypre-application webinar will be held on January 6, 2025. Stay tuned for furtherinformation.