Welcome to Friday’s Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. Subscribe here: digital-staging.thehill.com/newsletter-signup.
Today we’re looking at how the bipartisan infrastructure bill will affect Superfund cleanup, the latest on offshore wind and a warning from scientists on a major glacier.
For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk. Write to us with tips: rfrazin@digital-staging.thehill.com and zbudryk@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @RachelFrazin and @BudrykZack.
Let’s jump in.
EPA directing money to Superfund sites
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Friday that it will put the first $1 billion in funds from the recently-signed bipartisan infrastructure bill to address the backlog of Superfund cleanup sites.
Forty-nine Superfund sites are currently unfunded, with low-income and non-white communities disproportionately affected by proximity to them. The bill, which President Biden signed in November, includes a total of $3.5 billion for cleanup at such hazardous contamination sites.
Where are the sites? Unfunded Superfund sites exist in 17 states and Puerto Rico and span nearly all geographic regions of the country, from a former ore mine in Cape Rosier, Maine, to a one-time industrial site in Miami-Dade County, Fla.
Beneficiaries of the first round of cleanup funding include the former site of American Creosote Works in Pensacola, Fla., where chemicals used to treat telephone poles contaminated soil and groundwater in the area.
Funds will also go to the former site of the Roebling Steel Company in Florence Township, N.J., adjacent to the Delaware River, where sections of the Golden Gate Bridge were manufactured. Waste disposal contaminated local soil, sediment and groundwater with substances ranging from arsenic, lead and copper to exposed asbestos.
Read more about the announcement here.
Interior clears wind farms off NY, NJ coasts
The Biden administration on Thursday announced it has determined wind farms offshore New Jersey and New York would not pose a major disruption to the local environment, clearing a key hurdle for lease sales in the region.
In a statement, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced it has issued a finding of no significant impact for leasing nearly 800,000 acres in the New York Bight. The bight encompasses an area between Cape May in New Jersey and Montauk Point in Long Island.
“The completion of this Environmental Assessment is an important step forward in advancing the Biden-Harris administration’s goal of increasing renewable energy development on federal lands and waters,” BOEM Director Amanda Lefton said in a statement. “BOEM is focused on ensuring that any development in the New York Bight is done responsibly and in a way that avoids or minimizes impacts to the ocean and other ocean users in the region.”
So what’s that mean? The BOEM assessment projected any effects on recreational and commercial fishing in the area would “range from negligible to minor.” It projected similarly minimal effects on fish, sea turtle and marine mammal habitats. Potential projects would also have little to no impact on public health or safety, according to BOEM, and the bureau found no indication that installations would violate any local, federal or tribal laws governing use of the area.
The bureau first announced the New York Bight environmental assessment in March and published a draft environmental assessment in August followed by two public, virtual meetings with stakeholders the same month.
Read more about the approval here.
Scientists warn Antarctic glacier could collapse
Scientists are warning an Antarctic glacier could collapse and cause sea levels to raise at least a foot in the next decade.
The scientists said Monday at the American Geophysical Union the Thwaites glacier, which is the size of Florida, could collapse in the next three to five years.
The ice shelf holding the glacier in place is quickly developing cracks due to the warm water hitting it, according to the scientists.
“There’s going to be a dramatic change in the front of the glacier probably within less than a decade,” Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, said.
“It’s doubled its outflow speed within the last 30 years, and the glacier in its entirety holds enough water to raise sea level by over 2 feet. And it could lead to even more sea-level rise, up to 10 feet, if it draws the surrounding glaciers with it,” he added.
He said the collapse of the glacier could harm glaciers nearby due to its size and cause them to fall as well.
The warning from scientists comes after a hole two-thirds the size of Manhattan was found in Thwaites glacier.
Read more about the report here.
WHAT WE’RE READING
- Global use of coal approaching record highs, IEA says, E&E News reports
- Texas approves more power market rules to avoid another February freeze, Reuters reports
- DOJ Environmental Criminal Enforcement is Back, The National Law Review reports
- Experts warn over post-Brexit UK rule changes on chemicals, The Guardian reports
And finally, something offbeat and off-beat: At least some things are the same this holiday season.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s energy & environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you Monday.