Virginia's Chesapeake Bay Progress

The Chesapeake Bay was the first estuary in the nation targeted for restoration and protection by Congress. That was over a half a century ago.  After decades of talk and not much progress, in 2010 the EPA set a limit for release of nutrients and sediment into the Chesapeake Bay watershed that was then partitioned to the states based on the Chesapeake Bay computer model and monitoring data.

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 is 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.

The EPA just released their evaluation of Virginia's progress toward attaining its portion of the 2025 Goal. This evaluation includes an assessment of progress toward attaining nutrient and sediment goals at the state and state-basin level and progress toward meeting sector-specific commitments for the 2022-2023 milestone period.

According to the data provided by the Commonwealth, Virginia did not achieve its statewide 2023 targets for nitrogen or phosphorus. These targets included adjustments for climate change that were recently added to the goal. Virginia only achieved its statewide 2023 target for sediment.

At the major river-basin scale, 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. Virginia achieved its 2023 sediment targets for all major river basins. Below are the comments from EPA.

Some notable strengths identified by EPA include:

• Virginia appropriated record funding for agricultural BMPs for fiscal year (FY) 2023-2024 and expanded funding to support agricultural programmatic and technical assistance capacity.
• Appropriated funding in FY 2024-2026 budget sufficient to fully satisfy the state’s portion of the Agricultural Needs Assessment.
• Completed regulatory actions and reissued the Phase II Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) general permit effective November 1, 2023.
• Completed amendments to watershed general permit to incorporate Enhanced Nutrient Removal Certainty Program Wasteload Allocations (WLA) and Chlorophyll-a based WLAs.
• Secured significant new funding to support wetlands acquisition, enhancement, and restoration.

EPA expects Virginia to address in the final 2024-2025 milestone period and beyond include:

• Continue to accelerate BMP implementation in the agricultural sector, especially since several BMP implementation targets were not met in the 2022-2023 milestone period.
• Continue to increase opportunities to accelerate implementation to target nonpoint sources of pollution in the urban/suburban stormwater sector and include updates on specific programmatic efforts and associated BMP implementation in progress reporting.

These evaluations always sound so dismal to me, but when you hear EPA representatives talk about the achievements in the Chesapeake Bay they always sound so upbeat. The bottom line I think is that EPA can measure and forecast improvement in the health of the Chesapeake Bay, while I just look out upon the Bay and can't really perceive the improvement.  We are making progress, though it is so hard to see from here.

Don’t worry, the Chesapeake Bay Program like all government programs will never die. The commissions has already prepared recommendations that outline the next steps for the Watershed Agreement beyond 2025, including integrating new science and restoration strategies, and plan for the future of the Chesapeake Bay partnership .A draft report including these recommendations was completed on July 1, 2024 the public feedback period closes tomorrow.

Upper Occoquan River Cleanup

 On-River volunteers with canoes, kayaks or jon boats are needed for the annual Occoquan River clean up. On Saturday, September 21, 2024 from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. (rain date April 28, 2020September 28, 2024), is the 15th annual clean-up of the upper Occoquan River, from nine different sites along 25+ miles of the Occoquan River. The clean-up ranges from Cedar Run/Broad Run, through Lake Jackson, and from the base of Lake Jackson Dam to Hooes Run (south of Lake Ridge Marina.  During the 2023 cleanup, volunteers on both water and land collected over 1,700 pounds of trash.

This massive collection of trash from the Occoquan River happens every year and on the river is the combined effort of the Prince William Trails and Streams Coalition, Trash Free Potomac Watershed, Penguin Paddling, Prince William County Parks and Recreation Department and the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District . Come on out and help our community. Trash bags, gloves, water and refreshments will be provided to all participants. This is a true on the river cleanup and is done primarily by boat.

Experienced kayakers, canoeists, jon boaters, and pontoon boaters are needed. To sign up for this major on-the-water conservation effort. Some kayaks and canoes will be available for loan provided by Penguin Paddling (at Hooes Run) and the Prince William County Parks and Recreation Department (at Lake Ridge Marina). As in previous years, the cleanup will be staged from multiple sites along the river, from the canoe/kayak launch area below Lake Jackson dam, down to Lake Ridge / Hooes Run. If you are not a boater, you might want to join another of the cleanups that are happening practically every spring weekend.

Please visit www.pwtsc.org for more information and to register for this event or contact Bill McCarty (wmccarty@manassaslawyers.com) or Veronica Tangiri at waterquality@pwswcd.org (571-379-7514). For cleanup supplies and data sheets to report cleanup data or to share pictures contact Veronica Tangiri waterquality@pwswcd.org (571-379-7514).

Boaters are encouraged to put-in and take-out at the same access point.  Should put-in and take-out locations differ, boaters will personally make transportation arrangements (no shuttle service will be available). 

Unfortunately, it is necessary to hold these river cleanups annually. Year after year volunteers clean our roadways, streams, rivers, and streambeds of trash that started as litter and carried along by stormwater and wind into our waterways and parks. We also remove items that were illegally dumped in the woods or carried by off by storms. Every year rain flushes huge volumes of debris off the landscape.  If we do not collect this trash ultimately it is washed into the Chesapeake Bay.

Biosolids and Contaminants

 

Newmeyer MN, Lyu Q, Sobus JR, Williams AJ, Nachman KE, Prasse C. Combining Nontargeted Analysis with Computer-Based Hazard Comparison Approaches to Support Prioritization of Unregulated Organic Contaminants in Biosolids. Environ Sci Technol. 2024 Jul 9;58(27):12135-12146. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c02934. Epub 2024 Jun 25. PMID: 38916220.

The blog post contains excerpts from the above cited article and the Press Release from Johns Hopkins University.

 In the article cited above, the work was done in the Prasse Lab. Carsten Prasse is an assistant professor of environmental health and engineering, focuses on the occurrence and fate of organic contaminants in the urban water cycle and their impact on environmental and human health. His lab’s recent research has focused on the development of new screening methods to assess exposure to drinking water contaminants. These techniques were used in the research and analysis for this study.

Wastewater treatment processes use screens to remove large solids (human waste) from wastewater, and skim off grease, oil and fat. Wastewater sits in settling tanks where most of the heavy solids fall to the bottom of the tank, where they become thick slurry known as primary sludge. The sludge is separated from the wastewater during the primary treatment is further screened and allowed to gravity thicken in a tank.

Then the sludge is mixed with the solids collected from the secondary and denitrification units in the wastewater treatment plants. The combined solids are pumped to tanks where they are heated to destroy pathogens and further reduce the volume of solids. With treatment sludge is transformed (at least in name) to Biosolids. The U.S. produces 3.76 million tons of biosolids half of which is used to fertilize agricultural lands, golf courses and other landscaped areas (according to the EPA), the remainder is incinerated or disposed of in landfills.  Biosolids are the byproduct of wastewater treatment and have been for decades used a cheap fertilizer.

U.S. EPA regulations limit metals and pathogens in biosolids intended for land applications, but no organic contaminants are currently regulated under 40 CFR Part 503 Rule created in 1989 and still in effect today. It categorizes Biosolids as Class A or B, depending on the level of fecal coliform and salmonella bacteria in the material and restricts the use based on classification. The presence of other emerging contaminants in the Biosolids is not tracked, but has become an emerging area of concern. Previously, research at the University of Virginia found that organic chemicals persist in Biosolids and can be introduced into the food chain.

Land application of biosolids is a widespread practice across the US and remains an approved method by the US EPA. In Maine they had been spreading biosolids on its farms and fields since it was first allowed. Its application on farms had been seen as an inexpensive way to fertilize. Unfortunately, the biosolids became contaminated with PFAS from both residential and industrial wastewater sent to the wastewater treatment plants. Biosolids were land applied and buried in landfills. Animals grazed on the land, food grown on the land picked up some of the PFAS and passed traces into food. PFAS also leached from the land and landfills into groundwater. People passed it onto other wastewater treatment plants and the circle widened.

At last report the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) had found more than 70 PFAS-contaminated farms, a handful of which have had to cease all food production. In 2022, Maine became the first state to ban land application of biosolids and the sale of compost containing biosolids, but not before the farms had to stop producing food. Only Minnesota has done as much testing for PFAS in the agricultural food chain.

Now, the work the work begins to see what is in the biosolids. The above cited research study is the most comprehensive looks at the chemical composition of biosolids across the country and is the first step toward identifying common chemical contaminants that may need government regulation. The findings could help the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prioritize which organic compounds to investigate further, the researchers said. The research was supported by a U.S. EPA grant and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention grant.

In the study the researchers used analytical chemistry techniques capable of identifying thousands of chemicals and developed in Dr. Prasse lab. The researchers screened 16 samples of biosolids from wastewater treatment plants in nine U.S. and three Canadian cities. Samples contained traces of pharmaceuticals, industrial chemicals, and a variety of fragrances. Among them were bisphenol A (BPA), commonly found in plastics, and carbamazepine, a drug used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder, ketoconazole and so many others. There were so many that the researchers had to narrow the list focusing on chemicals that appeared in at least 80% of samples.

There were 92 organic compounds that met that criteria: present in 80% or more of the samples. Interestingly enough PFAS was only present in 70%-75% of the samples and did not make the cutoff.

“Because there are so many compounds in biosolids, the question we had was how do we triage? How do we find the chemicals that are widespread and could potentially be problematic, that the EPA and other scientists would need to investigate before proposing regulations,” Professor Carsten Prasse said.

The researchers then created lists of the chemicals found in each sample and compared them to compounds that popped up in multiple places across the country. They identified 92 compounds that were present in 80% or more of the samples.

 “Regulators need to know what these types of fertilizers are made of to determine how they can be responsibly used.” Prasse said.

“We’re not saying that these compounds pose a risk right now because we haven’t done a formal risk assessment,” said Matthew Newmeyer, a research associate at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and first author on the paper. “We’re saying that these have a potential to be problematic and we need more information in order to make sure these biosolids are safe.”

The team plans to measure the identified compounds in the biosolids and vegetables grown in biosolid-amended soil to determine if their concentration levels warrant concern. The researchers are also investigating risks to farmers, landscapers, and composters who work with biosolids.

Read more:

Combining Nontargeted Analysis with Computer-Based Hazard Comparison Approaches to Support Prioritization of Unregulated Organic Contaminants in Biosolids - PubMed (nih.gov)

A review on the fate and effects of contaminants in biosolids applied on land: Hazards and government regulatory policies - PubMed (nih.gov)

Are all those Dirt Trucks Delivering the Next Environmental Problem?

 As reported by Peter Cary in the Prince William Times:

“Contractors (working on construction of nearby data centers) with excess dirt to dump pay whoever will take it $50 to $100 a load…far less than landfills to take the dirt..”

“At least four farms around Nokesville are taking dirt now, residents say. One is Silver Eagle Stable on Parkgate Road, where farm manager Chris Noakes says he is trying to raise a 3-acre, rear pasture by 18 feet.”

“Trucks carrying dirt to his farm, nearly 100 a day in recent weeks, have accounted for most of the traffic on Parkgate and neighboring roads, residents say.”

Getting paid to accept soil, oil, or biosolids is often not as good a deal as it initially appears. Maybe it’s a good deal for the farmer, certainly it’s a good deal for the contractor, but has this soil been tested to make sure what the farmers are accepting is clean fill because I’ve heard this story before back when I worked at the U.S. EPA. The Shenandoah Stables was a 7-acre property located near Moscow Mills, Missouri. In 1971, before the EPA even existed the owner allowed a waste oil hauler to spray the horse arena on site with waste oil to control dust.

Over 40 horses died, and people became ill after the spraying. The oil contained dioxin. The same year, some of the contaminated soil was excavated and used as fill material in a new highway. More soil was removed from the arena and placed in a swampy area on the site in 1972. The contaminated soil at the arena was first assessed by the EPA in1982. The site was placed on the National Priority List (Superfund) in 1983.

Once the site was placed on the NPL in 1983, the interim remedy involved excavation and on-site storage of dioxin-contaminated soils pending final management. A total of 6,452 tons of dioxin-contaminated was ultimately containerized at the stables, then transported to Times Beach for incineration. After removal of dioxin-contaminated materials from interim storage at the site, buildings were decontamcouinated and sampled. Restoration of the site included backfilling with clean materials to the original grade and revegetation was completed in 1997- twenty six years later. Don’t know what became of the fill used in the highway.

Getting paid to accept soil, waste oil, or biosolids if it is not properly and completely tested could end up being a very bad deal.

PFAS refer to a group of man-made chemicals known as Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances. There are thousands of varieties of these chemicals that repel oil, grease, water, and heat. They became widely used in household products and industrial settings as early as the 1940s and have been used in firefighting foams due to their effectiveness at quickly extinguishing petroleum-based fires.

PFAS have been used to make a host of commercial products including non-stick cookware, stain-resistant carpets and furniture, water-resistant clothing, coated oil resistant paper/cardboard food packaging (like microwave popcorn and pizza boxes), and some personal care products. Our ability to test for PFAS has tremendously increased in the past two years as U.S.  EPA establish a national standard for PFAS in drinking water is informed by the best available science.

When our analytical methods were less precise and PFAS had less time to permeate our environments, we used to think that only people living near the industrial manufactures of PFAS, their industrial waste disposal sites  or airports were exposed. The ability to measure parts per trillion disabused us of that belief. We discovered that we are all exposed to PFAS in everyday life. 

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (part of the NIH): “People are most likely exposed to these chemicals by consuming PFAS-contaminated water or food, using products made with PFAS, or breathing air containing PFAS. Because PFAS break down slowly, if at all, people and animals are repeatedly exposed to them, and blood levels of some PFAS can build up over time.”

Waste water treatment generates biosolids which became contaminated with PFAS from both residential and industrial waste. Biosolids were land applied and buried in landfills. Animals grazed on the land, food grown on the land picked up some of the PFAS and passed traces into food. People passed it onto other wastewater treatment plants and the circle widened.

The application of biosolids on agricultural land is a common tool in agriculture as they contain nutrients and other organic matter that can enhance soils and agricultural production. Land application of residuals is a widespread practice across the US and remains an approved method by the US EPA. In Maine they had been spreading biosolida on its farms and fields since the 1980s. Its application on farms has been seen as an inexpensive way to feed fields.

At last report the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has found more than 70 PFAS-contaminated farms, a handful of which have had to cease all food production. In 2022, Maine became the first state to ban land application of biosolids and the sale of compost containing biosolids, but not before the farms had to stop producing food. Only Minnesota has done as much testing for PFAS in the agricultural food chain.

So, these sites that are hauling off the dirt to build all these data centers, what were they used for previously? Where these military, industrial, or training sites? Has the soil they are hauling off been tested for all likely contaminants based on history and use?

PFAS in Landfill Gas

Landfill Gas: A Major Pathway for Neutral Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance (PFAS) Release
Ashley M. Lin, Jake T. Thompson, Jeremy P. Koelmel, Yalan Liu, John A. Bowden, and Timothy G. Townsend
Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2024 11 (7), 730-737
DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00364

Landfill Gas: A Major Pathway for Neutral Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substance (PFAS) Release | Environmental Science & Technology Letters (acs.org)

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) do not occur in nature, they are an entirely synthetic substance. Yet, most people in the United States have been exposed to PFAS and have PFAS in their blood, especially perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). 

 There are thousands of PFAS chemicals, and they are found in many different consumer, commercial, and industrial products. PFAS has been widely used for over 80 years mainly for their ability to repel oil, grease, water, and heat. PFOS and PFOA found in Scotch Guard and an ingredient in Teflon and traditional Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF) - the firefighting foam used to fight aviation and other chemical fires -were the first to become widely commercially successful providing stain resistant and flame resistant treatments to carpeting, upholstery, clothing.

PFAS  has been used in many consumer products. Spray coatings to cans and food packaging. Food with PFAS containing packaging picked up traces of PFAS and it was passed onto people and thus found its way into waste water treatment plants’ effluent and the biosolids. The reach and spread of PFAS was increased because effluent from wastewater treatment is released to rivers and used as source water for drinking water or irrigation.

Not surprisingly these PFAS containing consumer products and commercial waste, such as children’s clothing, cosmetics and wastewater treatment sludge solids ultimately end up in landfills. In the article cited below, Timothy Townsend and colleagues previously established that PFAS-containing waste, called leachate,  can contaminate the water that seeps through landfills.

This leachate is usually captured and treated before entering the environment. Landfills also produce gas that can be captured and controlled, but unlike leachate, it’s often released untreated. Landfill gas is generated during the natural process of bacterial decomposition of organic material contained in the trash buried in the landfill. Landfill gas is approximately forty to sixty percent methane, with the remainder being mostly carbon dioxide. Landfill gas also contains varying amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, sulfur, and other contaminants including it seems PFAS. The gases produced within the landfill are either collected and flared off or used to produce heat and electricity. The landfill gas cannot be allowed to build up in the landfill because of the explosive potential.

The landfill gas is mostly made up of methane and carbon dioxide; however, two recent studies also discovered a subset of airborne PFAS called fluorotelomer alcohols, which have the potential to be toxic when inhaled and can be transported long distances. Since the prevalence of PFAS-contaminated landfill vapors isn’t yet widely known, Townsend, Ashley Lin and their team wanted to identify and measure them in vented gas at three sites in Florida.

As recounted in the research cited above, the researchers pumped landfill gas from pipes through cartridges designed to capture the airborne PFAS. They freed the compounds from the cartridges with organic solvents and analyzed the extracts for 27 PFAS, including fluorotelomer alcohols. The found 13 of the 27. Their study reports unexpectedly high levels of airborne PFAS at three landfills and demonstrates that vented gases and landfill leachates could transport similar amounts of these contaminants to the environment.

The researchers also collected leachate samples at the Florida sites and analyzed them for PFAS commonly found in water samples. From this data, they estimated that the annual amount of fluorine (as a proxy for PFAS content) leaving the landfills through gas emissions could be similar to, or even greater than, the amount leaving through leachates.

Because landfills are repositories for PFAS, this work indicates that vented gas from these sites should be considered in future mitigation and management strategies to reduce potential inhalation exposure and release to the environment of PFAS. Some landfills burn the vapors or trap them for energy production (as does Prince William Landfill), and the researhers suggested that further research is needed to determine the degree of removal these treatments provide for airborne contaminants.

 

 Chen Y, Zhang H, Liu Y, Bowden JA, Tolaymat TM, Townsend TG, Solo-Gabriele HM. Evaluation of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in leachate, gas condensate, stormwater and groundwater at landfills. Chemosphere. 2023 Mar;318:137903. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.137903. Epub 2023 Jan 17. PMID: 36669537; PMCID: PMC10536789.

Dr. Famiglietti the Godfather of Groundwater Sustainability

Last week I read a very interesting Opinion piece in the NewYork Times by Jay Famiglietti who is one of the more important groundwater scientists of our time. It was a thought piece addressing what will happen if we don't protect our groundwater and it continues to disappear, will we need to move water to where our food is currently grown?  Dr Famiglietti was not really arguing for pumping the great lakes to California he was trying to highlight the coming water crisis and our need to take action.

Dr Famiglietti is currently a Global Futures Professor in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University and serves as the Director of Science for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. He is Professor Emeritus from the University of Saskatchewan, where he was Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security. He was the founding Chief Scientist of the Silicon Valley startup, Waterplan. Before that he served as the Senior Water Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. From 2013 through 2018, he was appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the California State Water Boards in the Santa Ana and Los Angeles regions.

I know his work best from when Dr. Famiglietti was a professor of Earth System Science and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, (2001 to 2016)  where he was the Founding Director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling. Before that Dr Famiglietti was on the faculty of the Geological Sciences Department at the University of Texas at Austin, where he and his research team including Matt Rodell developed the way to use satellites to track changing water availability around the world. They pioneered the methods to detect groundwater depletion from space using the NASA GRACE mission. 

Dr Famiglietti also has a water podcast “What About Water.” It’s good you, too, should be a listener.  Jay Famiglietti | Global Futures Professor, ASU; Podcast host, "What About Water"

I would like to quote some of the highlights of Dr. Famiglietti’s comment on groundwater.  “For over a century, America’s farmers have overpumped groundwater, and now, as the world warms and the Southwest becomes drier, the situation is only growing more dire. Rivers are slowing to a trickle, water tables are falling, land is sinking, and wells are drying up.”

Our climate has changed and will continue to change. The fantasy of renewable energy and electrification of everything stopping climate change from happening was just that a fantasy. The climate will continue to change because we have failed in both our understand and action.

On Earth Day in 2016 196 countries officially signed the Paris Climate Accord that was intended to put the nations on a course to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels. The Paris Agreement aims to limit global temperature increase to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C by each nation committing to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Even if every nation met their current pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions made in the Paris Climate Accord and its updates, the reductions promised are not enough to even maintain global temperatures within 2 °C above pre-industrial levels; and the nations are not meeting those pledges.  The United States currently represents less than 14% of global carbon emissions. There is virtually nothing we as a nation can do (at this point) to stop the climate from changing. We need to adapt to the future we will face and move to a sustainable path.

As Dr Famiglietti points out: “States are aware there is a problem — many are trying to sustainably manage their groundwater. But it’s not clear how successful these efforts have been. His research team has found that groundwater depletion is accelerating in the Central Valley, in spite of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.”

In the best studied area of groundwater depletion attempts to regulate and manage it appear to be failing. The regulatory schemes so far in use appear to have failed. The groundwater management area of Virginia in the Potomac Aquifer is only doing a little better.  There will likely not be enough groundwater to accommodate future growth in the region without additional permit reductions or increasing supply through large-scale, long-term water projects.

Beyond the next few years, though, sustainability is tenuous and can easily be tipped out of balance. Potential growth in both unpermitted and permitted withdrawals can easily push demand in excess of supply, leading again to unsustainable use. Changes in the hydraulic cycle from the changing climate with impact sustainability and management of groundwater resources.

 “If we want to sustain groundwater supplies for future generations, we will need reliable estimates of what’s available in key aquifers, how its quality changes with depth and how much can be safely pumped without risk of running dry. That means we must prioritize the systematic exploration and evaluation of what’s in the ground and make a plan to end or dramatically reduce groundwater depletion.” In addition to the information needs pointed out by Dr. Famiglietti we need to further understand the use of groundwater and in the east we need to fully understand recharge and the impact of land use changes on groundwater recharge and surface water.

I encourage you to explore Dr Famiglietti’s podcasts. They are well worth your time.

Trees Absorb Methane

The article below is excerpted from the research cited below and the Global Carbon Project.

Gauci, V., Pangala, S.R., Shenkin, A. et al. Global atmospheric methane uptake by upland tree woody surfaces. Nature 631, 796–800 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07592-w 

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat 28 times more effectively than carbon dioxide over a 100-year timescale. After carbon dioxide, methane is responsible for about 26% of climate change. Concentrations of methane have increased by more than 150% since industrial activities and intensive agriculture began.

Methane is produced under conditions where little to no oxygen is available. About 30% of methane emissions are produced by wetlands, including ponds, lakes and rivers. Another 20% is produced by agriculture, due to a combination of livestock, waste management and rice cultivation. Activities related to oil, gas, and coal extraction release an additional 30%. The remainder of methane emissions come from minor sources such as wildfire, biomass burning, permafrost, termites, dams, and the ocean.

It is known that trees growing in wetlands emit methane that was generated in the wetland. It is also known that methane eating microbes live on tree bark. These microbes are called methanotrophs and consume methane as their source of energy. In the study cited above Vincent Gauci and his team took measurements of the exchange rate of methane between the atmosphere and the tree bark. To their surprise they found that while most trees emit small amounts of methane at ground level, but as they move up the tree trunk, the exchange of methane with the atmosphere reverses.

They found that once you get to about two meters above the forest floor methane uptake, can dominate the net ecosystem contribution of trees. Trees are on net a methane sink. The scientists findings indicate that the climate benefits of tropical and temperate forest protection and reforestation may be greater than previously assumed. They estimate that in tropical locations trees absorbed about 12% CO2 equivalent emissions once the methane absorbed is factored into the models. In more temperate climate conditions the improvement is less- about 7%. Our existing forest are far more important to our planet than previously thought. Maintaining and restoring our forest is essential, but we need to know more about our forested ecosystems. More research is needed on the atmospheric interactions of tree canopies. The focus should be on not only restoring woods and planting trees, but also preserving current forests. tree planting makes more sense for some areas than others, preserving forests also means removing trees to help prevent forest fires and to help forests better survive in the long run.

Harvard University has announced that they are now accepting applications for the Bullard Fellowships. Harvard University awards a limited number of Bullard Fellowships annually to individuals pursuing a variety of approaches to the study of forested ecosystems. Starting this year, Bullard Fellowships may be awarded as “Short-Term” fellowships (2-3 months) or “Long-Term” fellowships (6 to 12 months) to enable more professionals in the field to pursue the fellowship.

A major goal of the Bullard Fellowship program is to enhance research activities at Harvard Forest and build long-term collaborations that connect Harvard Forest with other parts of the University. Fellows can be based at the Harvard Forest or associated with other departments and centers at Harvard, such as the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, and the Arnold Arboretum. Bullard Fellowships are not intended for post-doctoral fellows; instead they are targeted at individuals with a record of independent scholarship and professional accomplishment.

Applications will open August 1, 2024 for fellowship opportunities in 2025-2026.

The deadline for applications is October 1, 2024.

Charles Bullard Fellowship in Forest Research | Harvard Forest

 

How Effective is Voluntary Conservation

On July 26, 2024, the Drought Coordination Committee of the Metropolitan Council of Governments declared a Drought Watch calling for voluntary water conservation measures by residents of the DC Metropolitan region. So, I took a look at the regional Potomac River water use as reported to the ICPRB both before and after voluntary conservation measures were in place.

The Saturday and Thursday before the declaration of a drought watch the reported water use was as follows:

Washington metropolitan area Potomac River withdrawals and discharges (2024-07-13):
Fairfax Water Corbalis withdrawal - Potomac: 100 MGD
WSSC Water Potomac withdrawal: 130 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Great Falls: 0 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Little Falls: 126 MGD
Loudoun Water withdrawal: 12 MGD
Loudoun Water Broad Run discharge: 6 MGD
Total Potomac withdrawal: 367 MGD
Total net Potomac withdrawal: 361 MGD

Washington metropolitan area Potomac River withdrawals and discharges (2024-07-18):
Fairfax Water Corbalis withdrawal - Potomac: 106 MGD
WSSC Water Potomac withdrawal: 130 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Great Falls: 0 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Little Falls: 129 MGD
Loudoun Water withdrawal: 13 MGD
Loudoun Water Broad Run discharge: 6 MGD
Total Potomac withdrawal: 378 MGD
Total net Potomac withdrawal: 371 MGD

After the drought watch declaration and the implementation of voluntary water conservation measures the water use reported to the ICPRB was as follows:

Washington metropolitan area Potomac River withdrawals and discharges (2024-07-27):
Fairfax Water Corbalis withdrawal - Potomac: 122 MGD
WSSC Water Potomac withdrawal: 142 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Great Falls: 95 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Little Falls: 63 MGD
Loudoun Water withdrawal: 13 MGD
Loudoun Water Broad Run discharge: 5 MGD
Total Potomac withdrawal: 434 MGD
Total net Potomac withdrawal: 429 MGD

 Washington metropolitan area Potomac River withdrawals and discharges (2024-08-01):

Fairfax Water Corbalis withdrawal - Potomac: 119 MGD
WSSC Water Potomac withdrawal: 134 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Great Falls: 114 MGD
Washington Aqueduct withdrawal - Little Falls: 46 MGD
Loudoun Water withdrawal: 13 MGD
Loudoun Water Broad Run discharge: 5 MGD
Total Potomac withdrawal: 426 MGD
Total net Potomac withdrawal: 422 MGD

So, after the implementation of voluntary water conservation measures, water use increased by 14%-19%. That’s a fail. I am currently reading an excellent book by Tim Smedley, The Last Drop. I would like to quote and paraphrase parts of his introduction here:

“Freshwater scarcity, once considered a local issue, is increasingly a global risk… (Since 2012) the World Economic Forum has included water crisis as on of the top-five  risks to the global economy. Half of the global population…live in areas with severe water scarcity for at east one month a year, while half a billion people face severe water scarcity all year round. Global water demand has increased by 600% over the past one hundred years, while the available fresh water has fallen by 22% over the last twenty.”

Only 2.5% of the water on earth is fresh water. The water on earth is finite. Every drop on earth has been here since the beginning of time, constantly recycled again and again. The  amount of water churning around in our water cycle remains the same. “Climate change is water change; the climate crisis is water crisis…the bottom line is, there is a huge increase in the demand for water. We have a growing population, growing economies, more urban populations. The OECD predict that, if these trends continue, we will need 50% more water in 2050 than twenty years ago. And of course, that is impossible, because water is a finite resource.”

In 2018 when the ICPRB completed the most recent Potomac Basin Comprehensive Water Resources Plan.  A key finding of the planning process was that a complete picture of human water uses in the basin may be lacking. The question was raised whether state water use databases (compiled based on water use reports required under state law) fully or sufficiently capture water use in the major watersheds of the basin. They determined therewere significant gaps and unreported water uses can cumulatively comprise a substantialportion of the overall water use. If left unaccounted for, the system is vulnerable to human demand exceeding supplies, with attendant detrimental effects to aquatic habitats and organisms, especially given the exacerbating effects of climate change on the variability of water supplies.

Not only can our region not respond to voluntary conservation in the major water utiity companies, we have failed to account for and develop a method of contacting the “unreported users” of water. The long range weather forecast is for above average rain in August that should alleviate the immediate pressure on our water supply, but we need to prepare for the future and when the rain fails to come for more than a month.