The Military Defies an Order to Clean Up Groundwater

Last May, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered the U.S. Air Force to make a plan to clean up groundwater from massive contamination by two dangerous chemicals—PFAS, or  “forever chemicals,” and trichloroethylene (TCE).  Both are associated with serious health problems and have been used across the country, particularly at military bases.

However, the Air Force is defying the order, following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the Chevron deference doctrine. Their lawyers claim the opinion says the EPA does not have the authority to require the clean-up. According to the news site Military.com, lawyers for the service said the Supreme Court made it clear that the EPA’s interpretation of statutes is not entitled to deference.

The Chevron deference doctrine had said federal courts should defer to an agency’s reasonable action, if Congress has not been clear about a law’s provisions. Experts told the Guardian that the case would not affect the EPA’s order, saying it affected only the agency’s rule-making process.

The Air Force also told the EPA that there is no imminent threat to the public because no one is drinking water from the aquifer. However, the EPA responded that it is not required to wait until people are being harmed, rather that it needs to prevent harm from materializing. Furthermore, local officials told the Arizona Daily Star that Tucson may have to use the groundwater again if supplies from the Colorado River are cut significantly.

Ultimately, this dispute between two parts of the federal government will not be decided by courts but by the president, who has authority over both.  However, private businesses that pollute will likely use the same tactic as the Air Force.

In making the announcement, Camille Touton, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, said in a statement that the Colorado River system is showing significant improvements as a result of water savings from investments from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Since 2000, actual stream flows in the basin have been less than what water managers predicted, and a new study from the University of Washington may explain why. Their research says a lack of rainfall and warmer conditions in the spring cause plants and trees to act like giant straws, drawing up the water from snowpack and leaving less to flow into nearby streams. Sunnier skies encourage plant growth and also cause more water to evaporate.

April is typically the time when water managers estimate how much they can count on from snowpack, and the researchers say taking spring rainfall into account will make predictions more accurate.

The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Different creatures have different sound profiles based on their activity, shape, appendages, and size, the scientists say. A millipede with its many legs makes a different sound than an earthworm slithering along. Conversely, an absence of sound would indicate an area is degraded—in which case, silence would not be golden.

The authors note that almost 60 percent of Earth’s species live underground but nearly three-quarters of the soils they inhabit are in poor condition from deforestation, overgrazing, urbanization, and other destructive practices.

Determining if soils are degraded has typically relied on costly and time-consuming methods, such as counting the number of critters in a sample. But through the emerging field of "eco-acoustics"—where scientists are able to analyze sounds produced by animals, plants, and microbes both on land and underwater to gauge an ecosystem’s health—monitoring can be done without disturbing a single creature.

Think of it as akin to a doctor using a stethoscope to assess a patient’s health. Now, researchers can listen to the pulse of the soil, diagnose its condition, and recommend proper treatment.

The study was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology.

That’s because many great breaks are located near mangroves, coastal forests, marshes, and seagrasses—places that store massive amounts of carbon, which, if protected, could help fight climate change. For example, in a single square mile, mangroves can stash away as much carbon as the annual emissions of 90,000 cars, not to mention providing habitat for numerous species and protecting biodiversity.

Scientists led by Conservation International (CI) and Oregon State University mapped 4,800 surf spots in 113 countries and found they store about 88 million tons of “irrecoverable” carbon—an amount roughly equivalent to the emissions from 77 million gas-powered cars. Irrecoverable carbon refers to the vast stores of carbon in nature that, if lost, could not be restored by 2050, the deadline by which the world must reach net-zero emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

The hitch is that the vast majority of these carbon sinks—which are also biodiversity hotspots—are not protected from development and habitat destruction. The scientists say their study could be used to persuade local, state, and national governments to create what are known as “Surf Protected Areas” with formal regulations to safeguard them. According to CI, more than 70 surf breaks and their surrounding ecosystems now have legal protection from unsustainable tourism development, coral and sand mining, deforestation, overfishing, and other threats that could harm their biodiversity and ability to store carbon.

Creating these zones could not only help combat climate change and protect biodiversity but would also support the cultural heritage and economies of communities nearby—and of course, allow surfers to catch that epic wave.

The study was published in the journal Conservation Science and Practice.