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"title": "Good News! Sierra Snowpack Is Above Average",
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"content": "\u003cp>State water officials checked the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada today and reported that recent storms boosted it to the highest level in five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, the statewide snowpack is 114 percent of normal for this time of year. That number isn’t a reflection of how many inches of snow California has; it’s a measurement of how much water the snow contains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today’s manual survey at Phillips Station, south of Lake Tahoe, showed the snowpack at 130 percent of the February average. That’s just one location, though. There are more than 100 locations up and down the Sierra where the state gets readings of the water content in the snowpack. The vast majority of them reported the snowpack at under 90 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-506451\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-506451\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202.jpg\" alt=\"Snowpack\" width=\"1072\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202.jpg 1072w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-400x224.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-800x448.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-768x430.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-960x537.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1072px) 100vw, 1072px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About one-third of the state’s water supply comes from the snowpack, but the good news in the Sierra doesn’t mean the drought is easing. A lot could happen to change the outlook for summer between now and April 1, when, historically, the snowpack has reached its peak before melting and feeding rivers and streams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the state’s major reservoirs are still very low; all but one are below average, because they began the year with so little water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of yesterday, Shasta, the state’s largest reservoir, was only 52 percent full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_506046\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1116px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-506046\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG.jpg\" alt=\"Reservoir levels from February 1, 2016.\" width=\"1116\" height=\"1260\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG.jpg 1116w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-400x452.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-800x903.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-768x867.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-960x1084.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1116px) 100vw, 1116px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reservoir levels from February 1, 2016. \u003ccite>(California Department of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State officials say the drought won’t be over until California makes up the water deficit that’s built up over the last four years. That likely won’t happen for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while today’s snow survey brings good news, officials remind us the drought is far from over.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Snow in the Sierra Nevada is above average for this time of year but California is still a long way from ending the drought.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>State water officials checked the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada today and reported that recent storms boosted it to the highest level in five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On average, the statewide snowpack is 114 percent of normal for this time of year. That number isn’t a reflection of how many inches of snow California has; it’s a measurement of how much water the snow contains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today’s manual survey at Phillips Station, south of Lake Tahoe, showed the snowpack at 130 percent of the February average. That’s just one location, though. There are more than 100 locations up and down the Sierra where the state gets readings of the water content in the snowpack. The vast majority of them reported the snowpack at under 90 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-506451\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-506451\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202.jpg\" alt=\"Snowpack\" width=\"1072\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202.jpg 1072w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-400x224.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-800x448.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-768x430.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/SnowPack_V05_160202-960x537.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1072px) 100vw, 1072px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About one-third of the state’s water supply comes from the snowpack, but the good news in the Sierra doesn’t mean the drought is easing. A lot could happen to change the outlook for summer between now and April 1, when, historically, the snowpack has reached its peak before melting and feeding rivers and streams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the state’s major reservoirs are still very low; all but one are below average, because they began the year with so little water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of yesterday, Shasta, the state’s largest reservoir, was only 52 percent full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_506046\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1116px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-506046\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG.jpg\" alt=\"Reservoir levels from February 1, 2016.\" width=\"1116\" height=\"1260\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG.jpg 1116w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-400x452.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-800x903.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-768x867.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/02/Reservoir-levels_JPG-960x1084.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1116px) 100vw, 1116px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reservoir levels from February 1, 2016. \u003ccite>(California Department of Water Resources)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>State officials say the drought won’t be over until California makes up the water deficit that’s built up over the last four years. That likely won’t happen for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So while today’s snow survey brings good news, officials remind us the drought is far from over.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Pressure Continues to Build on SoCalGas Over Porter Ranch Leak",
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"content": "\u003cp>With natural gas billowing and public pressure mounting around a broken well at Aliso Canyon, public officials this week pushed for federal and state investigations and more oversight of the troubled gas field and others like it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/27/air-regulators-sue-socalgas-over-massive-porter-ranch-leak\" target=\"_blank\">South Coast Air Quality Management District filed a civil complaint\u003c/a> alleging that Southern California Gas Co. was negligent in the operation, design, inspection and construction of the Los Angeles County facility. Through the lawsuit, the AQMD is seeking up to $250,000 in penalties for each day a violation occurred. That lawsuit came three days after an independent hearing board convened by the air district \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/25/california-regulators-order-socalgas-to-permanently-close-leaking-well\" target=\"_blank\">ordered the company to stop the leak\u003c/a>, and placed new restrictions and reporting requirements on its activities in Aliso Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=\"https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244499822\" params=\"color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" iframe=\"true\" /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then on Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/News_Room/News_and_Updates/SS25.DOC.20160126.DR01.1-scg.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">demanded the entire historic record\u003c/a> for Standard Sesnon 25, the broken well. Regulators have given the company until Monday to turn a wide range of data and information over to the CPUC and to the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the branch of the Department of Conservation primarily responsible for gas field oversight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Fran Pavley, who represents the area, is seeking a ban on injecting new gas into the Aliso Canyon field. The Senate \u003ca href=\"http://sd27.senate.ca.gov/news/2016-01-28-senate-unanimously-approves-urgency-legislation-impose-moratorium-new-gas-injections\" target=\"_blank\">rushed the bill through\u003c/a> two committees and a full floor vote on Thursday. The gas company says it has no plans to put more gas into storage there, but Pavley has said that she believes the move is necessary to assuage the concerns of people living in Porter Ranch nearby. Sacramento lawmakers will soon consider \u003ca href=\"http://sd27.senate.ca.gov/sites/sd27.senate.ca.gov/files/Aliso%20Canyon%20Legislative%20Package%20Summary%201-28-16.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">two other bills\u003c/a> proposing restrictions, still moving through the Senate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"3v6EnV6TXkeMYnjrWXx568b2qSnpL8Yr\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Resident Gabriel Khanlian says he’s glad that politicians and regulators are seeking more oversight, but he still wants Aliso Canyon shut down. Khanlian says he’s scared. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For my kids, especially,” he says. “Because there have not been any long-term studies for mercaptan, and all of the other chemicals spewing out of the well right now.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>USC researchers announced this week that \u003ca href=\"https://news.usc.edu/91098/usc-researchers-to-study-long-term-health-effects-of-porter-ranch-gas-leak/\" target=\"_blank\">they’d be looking into exactly that\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond all of these overlapping state efforts, California’s U.S. senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, are calling for a federal investigation into the cause and problems around the facility. California’s senators want the Department of Energy to take six months to look into this gas field and others like it near urban areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a responsibility not only to address this leak, but also to ensure nothing like this ever happens again,” Feinstein \u003ca href=\"http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=AE226B2D-3687-41F4-BC8A-9746453E19C6\" target=\"_blank\">said in a statement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>With natural gas billowing and public pressure mounting around a broken well at Aliso Canyon, public officials this week pushed for federal and state investigations and more oversight of the troubled gas field and others like it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, the \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/27/air-regulators-sue-socalgas-over-massive-porter-ranch-leak\" target=\"_blank\">South Coast Air Quality Management District filed a civil complaint\u003c/a> alleging that Southern California Gas Co. was negligent in the operation, design, inspection and construction of the Los Angeles County facility. Through the lawsuit, the AQMD is seeking up to $250,000 in penalties for each day a violation occurred. That lawsuit came three days after an independent hearing board convened by the air district \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/25/california-regulators-order-socalgas-to-permanently-close-leaking-well\" target=\"_blank\">ordered the company to stop the leak\u003c/a>, and placed new restrictions and reporting requirements on its activities in Aliso Canyon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='100%' height='166'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244499822&visual=true&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false'\n title='https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244499822'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then on Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission \u003ca href=\"http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Content/News_Room/News_and_Updates/SS25.DOC.20160126.DR01.1-scg.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">demanded the entire historic record\u003c/a> for Standard Sesnon 25, the broken well. Regulators have given the company until Monday to turn a wide range of data and information over to the CPUC and to the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, the branch of the Department of Conservation primarily responsible for gas field oversight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State Sen. Fran Pavley, who represents the area, is seeking a ban on injecting new gas into the Aliso Canyon field. The Senate \u003ca href=\"http://sd27.senate.ca.gov/news/2016-01-28-senate-unanimously-approves-urgency-legislation-impose-moratorium-new-gas-injections\" target=\"_blank\">rushed the bill through\u003c/a> two committees and a full floor vote on Thursday. The gas company says it has no plans to put more gas into storage there, but Pavley has said that she believes the move is necessary to assuage the concerns of people living in Porter Ranch nearby. Sacramento lawmakers will soon consider \u003ca href=\"http://sd27.senate.ca.gov/sites/sd27.senate.ca.gov/files/Aliso%20Canyon%20Legislative%20Package%20Summary%201-28-16.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">two other bills\u003c/a> proposing restrictions, still moving through the Senate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Resident Gabriel Khanlian says he’s glad that politicians and regulators are seeking more oversight, but he still wants Aliso Canyon shut down. Khanlian says he’s scared. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For my kids, especially,” he says. “Because there have not been any long-term studies for mercaptan, and all of the other chemicals spewing out of the well right now.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>USC researchers announced this week that \u003ca href=\"https://news.usc.edu/91098/usc-researchers-to-study-long-term-health-effects-of-porter-ranch-gas-leak/\" target=\"_blank\">they’d be looking into exactly that\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Beyond all of these overlapping state efforts, California’s U.S. senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, are calling for a federal investigation into the cause and problems around the facility. California’s senators want the Department of Energy to take six months to look into this gas field and others like it near urban areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a responsibility not only to address this leak, but also to ensure nothing like this ever happens again,” Feinstein \u003ca href=\"http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=AE226B2D-3687-41F4-BC8A-9746453E19C6\" target=\"_blank\">said in a statement\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The seventh and concluding post in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone must inevitably deal, at some point, with “the break-up.” It wears different disguises in different places — the surprise invitation, the unexpected pregnancy, the phone call late in the night — but you know it simply as that which changes your direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In McMurdo Sound the break-up is what happens to the \u003ca href=\"https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glossary/term/fast-ice\">fast ice\u003c/a> that stretches from \u003ca href=\"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/mount-erebus/judson-text\">volcanic Mt. Erebus\u003c/a> on the east all the way west to the edge of the continent. Just about every year the ice around McMurdo breaks up late in the season. Wind force, melting caused by seawater and the actions of a certain plucky icebreaker destabilize the whole giant ice sheet where once we ran around with penguins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498653\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498653 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg\" alt=\"The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thursday afternoon the captain mentioned that a crack had formed across the whole channel. By midnight a 147-square-mile section of the fast ice had broken off and begun floating away north. In a few hours, weeks of work spent grooming the channel all just blew away. Once, there was a path through ice. Now there’s open water. Imagine building a bridge every year, and every year it gets washed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent three days at \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which is a little like a mining town, or a moon colony. It feels very far from the rest of the world. The people are an interesting bunch, scientists and contractors, exactly the kind of people who wish to live very far from the rest of the world. There is pizza 24/7. Just down the road is New Zealand’s \u003ca href=\"http://antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base\">Scott Base\u003c/a>, which is smaller and uniformly painted a delightful shade of pea green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498647\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lts. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the midst of McMurdo’s annual resupply. The freighter \u003ca href=\"http://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Ocean-Giant-9437335.html\">Ocean Giant\u003c/a> is docked, offloading a year’s worth of supplies and collecting a year’s worth of trash and freeze-dried poop, or so I hear. We’ll escort the Giant out, meet up with the fuel ship, bring it in. Once it’s offloaded its fuel, McMurdo will be supplied for the next year. Through McMurdo, the rest of the continent will be, too, because, as Capt. Matt Walker points out, “McMurdo is the major port in Antarctica, so all of Antarctica feeds off of McMurdo for its supplies and logistics.” It’s no exaggeration to say that the survival of the continent, meaning other U.S. bases but also many of the bases belonging to other nations, relies on McMurdo. It’s run by the National Science Foundation, which means, in a way, that NSF runs the continent. And NSF relies on Polar Star carving its thin lifeline in the ice, which nature, presently, will erase.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica.’\u003ccite>Capt. Matt Walker\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Soon we’ll get the hell out of here and the people at McMurdo will get the hell out of here, too, piling into ski-equipped C-130 turboprops and flying to Christchurch and points north. Then winter arrives to turn endless day into endless night, to blot out the sky with 200 mile-per-hour winds, and to replace the sheet of ice in McMurdo Sound as though none of us were ever here. Whatever memory this place has is carried deeper than the few meters of frozen water the ship plows through every year. We will be remembered by no one save a few photobombed penguins and the odd startled seal. Leave no trace, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498643\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498643 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg\" alt=\"Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in the world, with a nudge from President Obama, the Coast Guard this month put out the call for \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coastguard-icebreaker-idUSKCN0UR25R20160114\">two new icebreakers\u003c/a>, saying it plans to award a contract in late 2018 or ’19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the forces in play are going in the right direction,” says Walker, “and now that the public is aware of [the icebreaker mission] more so than it ever has been before, we might get some of the funding required.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of this mission, a good chunk of the Engineering department, which holds a lot of the institutional memory of the ship, will move on or retire. On next year’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Deep Freeze\u003c/a>, many new folks will receive surprise invitations from Polar Star herself, possibly in the middle of the night, to come on down and repair something that’s gone totally sideways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498646\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498646 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg\" alt=\"Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker is leaving, too, not just Polar Star, but the organization. This is his last sail for the Coast Guard. He’s retiring in 2017 after a year in Saudi Arabia. That’ll be 30 years in the Coast Guard, 21 of which he has spent at sea, which is a tremendous amount of time to be underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not a gray flannel cubicle kind of guy,” he says. “I’m an adventurous kind of guy, I like to get out and see the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walker’s happy that his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/06/life-aboard-a-polar-roller-americas-last-heavy-icebreaker/\">last mission underway was Polar Star\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’ve achieved a lot of significant milestones in the last few years after we brought the Polar Star back to life,” he says. “Even though she is old and she breaks down a lot. We’ve proven to the world that we’re \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">the only vessel\u003c/a> really that can dependably break out McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ve figured out that means is that the icebreaker supports scientific experiments, but also the American experiment. The mission, says Walker, “is essential to mankind and distinguishes us from the animals in that search for science and knowledge. And why would we forfeit that?” On a strategic level, “it’s critical for us to be able to navigate all the waters of the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down here, science and politics and national priorities converge along with all the other lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498654\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg\" alt=\"View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross has been erected to the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross commemorates the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked in the distance. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everything about this place tells the average shivering, possibly dying human that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">we’re the unnatural element\u003c/a>. This has worked out remarkably well for the continent. “One of the most dramatic things about Antarctica is that there is no smog,” says Walker. “You see a mountain range that is 50 to 100 miles away, It’s crystal clear, not like anywhere where humans occupy. There’s pure air down here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That it’s unspoiled makes it desirable for scientists who want to get an unobstructed view of the history of the Earth by looking down and the universe by looking up. It also, of course, makes it desirable for many nations, who see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/29/world/countries-rush-for-upper-hand-antarctica.html?_r=0\">opportunity in the possible wealth\u003c/a> of resources beneath the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in the laboratory of Antarctica, what’s revealed about \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">international cooperation\u003c/a> may be as important as any other discovery. None of this will be readily apparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the young kids, when we sail, they’re down there sweeping the decks, cleaning dishes in the scullery — they don’t get to see the big picture,” Walker says. “It’s very similar to the deck hands on Magellan’s crew or Columbus’ crew: They were just steaming along doing their daily job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498642\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498642 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg\" alt=\"In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But breaking out McMurdo — we might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica,” ventures Walker. “We might not know it today or tomorrow, but maybe, in 10 years, 20 years from now, we might be able to say, ‘Hey, I participated in that, I contributed to that, by washing dishes on the Polar Star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe someday they will realize how they’re participating in this experiment for the future of Earth, or whatever’s beyond Earth. Maybe they’ll turn on the holographic TV we’ve all had genetically wired into our brains, and watch the first Earthlings plant a future flag on a distant planet, and they’ll connect themselves to that moment, from alien soils back through cold space, from space down through the aurora at the bottom of the world, and across a peaceful continent, and through the ice, to where they were once underway, making a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s a whole other story, but that’s for later. For now, there’s a continent to save for one more year and, a world away, the world we want to hurry up and return to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American. On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "With a push from the president, prospects may be improving for updating the worn-out tools that support Antarctic research.",
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"description": "With a push from the president, prospects may be improving for updating the worn-out tools that support Antarctic research.",
"title": "Hope for Supporting Polar Science Brightens at the Bottom of the World | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The seventh and concluding post in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Everyone must inevitably deal, at some point, with “the break-up.” It wears different disguises in different places — the surprise invitation, the unexpected pregnancy, the phone call late in the night — but you know it simply as that which changes your direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In McMurdo Sound the break-up is what happens to the \u003ca href=\"https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/glossary/term/fast-ice\">fast ice\u003c/a> that stretches from \u003ca href=\"http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/mount-erebus/judson-text\">volcanic Mt. Erebus\u003c/a> on the east all the way west to the edge of the continent. Just about every year the ice around McMurdo breaks up late in the season. Wind force, melting caused by seawater and the actions of a certain plucky icebreaker destabilize the whole giant ice sheet where once we ran around with penguins.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498653\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498653 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg\" alt=\"The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/volcano2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The fast ice breaks away from land all the way to Mt. Erebus and begins floating north. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thursday afternoon the captain mentioned that a crack had formed across the whole channel. By midnight a 147-square-mile section of the fast ice had broken off and begun floating away north. In a few hours, weeks of work spent grooming the channel all just blew away. Once, there was a path through ice. Now there’s open water. Imagine building a bridge every year, and every year it gets washed away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We spent three days at \u003ca href=\"https://www.nsf.gov/geo/plr/support/mcmurdo.jsp\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>, which is a little like a mining town, or a moon colony. It feels very far from the rest of the world. The people are an interesting bunch, scientists and contractors, exactly the kind of people who wish to live very far from the rest of the world. There is pizza 24/7. Just down the road is New Zealand’s \u003ca href=\"http://antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base\">Scott Base\u003c/a>, which is smaller and uniformly painted a delightful shade of pea green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498647\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498647\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg\" alt=\"Lt. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Lt. Junior Grade Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/lookouts2-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lts. Junior Grade Jack Hall and Cyrus Unvala check the distance between the Ocean Giant and Polar Star. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’re now in the midst of McMurdo’s annual resupply. The freighter \u003ca href=\"http://www.vesseltracker.com/en/Ships/Ocean-Giant-9437335.html\">Ocean Giant\u003c/a> is docked, offloading a year’s worth of supplies and collecting a year’s worth of trash and freeze-dried poop, or so I hear. We’ll escort the Giant out, meet up with the fuel ship, bring it in. Once it’s offloaded its fuel, McMurdo will be supplied for the next year. Through McMurdo, the rest of the continent will be, too, because, as Capt. Matt Walker points out, “McMurdo is the major port in Antarctica, so all of Antarctica feeds off of McMurdo for its supplies and logistics.” It’s no exaggeration to say that the survival of the continent, meaning other U.S. bases but also many of the bases belonging to other nations, relies on McMurdo. It’s run by the National Science Foundation, which means, in a way, that NSF runs the continent. And NSF relies on Polar Star carving its thin lifeline in the ice, which nature, presently, will erase.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">‘We might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica.’\u003ccite>Capt. Matt Walker\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Soon we’ll get the hell out of here and the people at McMurdo will get the hell out of here, too, piling into ski-equipped C-130 turboprops and flying to Christchurch and points north. Then winter arrives to turn endless day into endless night, to blot out the sky with 200 mile-per-hour winds, and to replace the sheet of ice in McMurdo Sound as though none of us were ever here. Whatever memory this place has is carried deeper than the few meters of frozen water the ship plows through every year. We will be remembered by no one save a few photobombed penguins and the odd startled seal. Leave no trace, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498643\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498643 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg\" alt=\"Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/aloft-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Executive Officer Cmdr. Mary Ellen Durley and Capt. Matt Walker look back at the turning basin as Walker breaks Polar Star into the pier at McMurdo Station. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Back in the world, with a nudge from President Obama, the Coast Guard this month put out the call for \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coastguard-icebreaker-idUSKCN0UR25R20160114\">two new icebreakers\u003c/a>, saying it plans to award a contract in late 2018 or ’19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think the forces in play are going in the right direction,” says Walker, “and now that the public is aware of [the icebreaker mission] more so than it ever has been before, we might get some of the funding required.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the end of this mission, a good chunk of the Engineering department, which holds a lot of the institutional memory of the ship, will move on or retire. On next year’s \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2016/01/06/dispatches-from-a-polar-icebreaker-and-whats-at-stake-for-science/\">Deep Freeze\u003c/a>, many new folks will receive surprise invitations from Polar Star herself, possibly in the middle of the night, to come on down and repair something that’s gone totally sideways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498646\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498646 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg\" alt=\"Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/walker-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Capt. Matt Walker explains the route around Antarctica. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Walker is leaving, too, not just Polar Star, but the organization. This is his last sail for the Coast Guard. He’s retiring in 2017 after a year in Saudi Arabia. That’ll be 30 years in the Coast Guard, 21 of which he has spent at sea, which is a tremendous amount of time to be underway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not a gray flannel cubicle kind of guy,” he says. “I’m an adventurous kind of guy, I like to get out and see the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walker’s happy that his \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/06/life-aboard-a-polar-roller-americas-last-heavy-icebreaker/\">last mission underway was Polar Star\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we’ve achieved a lot of significant milestones in the last few years after we brought the Polar Star back to life,” he says. “Even though she is old and she breaks down a lot. We’ve proven to the world that we’re \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">the only vessel\u003c/a> really that can dependably break out McMurdo.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What I’ve figured out that means is that the icebreaker supports scientific experiments, but also the American experiment. The mission, says Walker, “is essential to mankind and distinguishes us from the animals in that search for science and knowledge. And why would we forfeit that?” On a strategic level, “it’s critical for us to be able to navigate all the waters of the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Down here, science and politics and national priorities converge along with all the other lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498654\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498654\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg\" alt=\"View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross has been erected to the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/obhill-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">View of McMurdo Station from Observation Hill, where a cross commemorates the Robert Falcon Scott expedition, whose members died on their return from the South Pole. Polar Star is docked in the distance. Note the turning basin at left and the channel, dimly visible, which runs out to open water in the distance. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Everything about this place tells the average shivering, possibly dying human that \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">we’re the unnatural element\u003c/a>. This has worked out remarkably well for the continent. “One of the most dramatic things about Antarctica is that there is no smog,” says Walker. “You see a mountain range that is 50 to 100 miles away, It’s crystal clear, not like anywhere where humans occupy. There’s pure air down here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That it’s unspoiled makes it desirable for scientists who want to get an unobstructed view of the history of the Earth by looking down and the universe by looking up. It also, of course, makes it desirable for many nations, who see \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/29/world/countries-rush-for-upper-hand-antarctica.html?_r=0\">opportunity in the possible wealth\u003c/a> of resources beneath the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So in the laboratory of Antarctica, what’s revealed about \u003ca href=\"http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">international cooperation\u003c/a> may be as important as any other discovery. None of this will be readily apparent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For the young kids, when we sail, they’re down there sweeping the decks, cleaning dishes in the scullery — they don’t get to see the big picture,” Walker says. “It’s very similar to the deck hands on Magellan’s crew or Columbus’ crew: They were just steaming along doing their daily job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_498642\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-498642 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg\" alt=\"In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/continent-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">In just a few hours, the fast ice covering McMurdo Sound begins breaking up, taking the channel with it. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“But breaking out McMurdo — we might save the world through some scientific discovery that they find in Antarctica,” ventures Walker. “We might not know it today or tomorrow, but maybe, in 10 years, 20 years from now, we might be able to say, ‘Hey, I participated in that, I contributed to that, by washing dishes on the Polar Star.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maybe someday they will realize how they’re participating in this experiment for the future of Earth, or whatever’s beyond Earth. Maybe they’ll turn on the holographic TV we’ve all had genetically wired into our brains, and watch the first Earthlings plant a future flag on a distant planet, and they’ll connect themselves to that moment, from alien soils back through cold space, from space down through the aurora at the bottom of the world, and across a peaceful continent, and through the ice, to where they were once underway, making a way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s a whole other story, but that’s for later. For now, there’s a continent to save for one more year and, a world away, the world we want to hurry up and return to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American. On Twitter @sonnyborderland.\u003cbr>\n\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Move Over California Poppy: This State Has a New Symbol",
"headTitle": "Move Over California Poppy: This State Has a New Symbol | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>On New Year’s Day, lace lichen, a stringy green organism often called “Spanish moss” that hangs from oak trees around California, joined the grizzly bear, California poppy, California quail and gold as an official \u003ca href=\"http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/california\">California State symbol\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new law, signed last July by Gov. Jerry Brown, made California the first state to claim an official lichen. Lace lichen can be found in almost every part of the state, from the north to south and up to 130 miles inland from the shoreline. Draping from tree branches, which it uses for support, not sustenance, there are about 1,900 kinds of lichen, along with the lace variety, native to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Lichen Society proposed adding a state lichen and state Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, wrote AB 1528, which sailed through the Legislature without much disagreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said he carried the bill because it fits his interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have lifelong love of the outdoors,” he said. “I loved exploring and playing under the tree canopies as a boy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said one of his next bills will identify wildlife corridors to help protect migrating animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_497733\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-497733\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"It's commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks.\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lace lichen is commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kelsey Gielen)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lichen, which is actually a complex life form that is a partnership of fungus and algae, has long been misunderstood and overlooked, scientists say. In the mid-19th century, it was misclassified in the moss and liverwort family. \u003ca href=\"http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/24954/title/Beatrix-Potter--scientist/\">Beatrix Potter\u003c/a>, of Peter Rabbit fame, was an unlikely lichen champion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She contributed to lichen and fungus research before she found literary fame. In the late 1800s she did botanical studies and research in her kitchen, wrote a scientific paper about fungus and spore reproduction, and supported the view, unpopular with scientists of the time, that lichen belonged in its own family. She produced many wonderful, detailed drawings of fungus and lichen species. Since she was a woman, though, a male scientist had to present her scientific paper and research to the Linnean Society of London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lowly lichen is both hardy and sensitive. It has survived the extremities of experimental exposure in outer space. And it can be shut in a drawer in a museum for decades, and yet live again when given sunlight and water. It is found on nearly every surface of the Earth — from the North to the South poles and desert floors to rocky mountain tops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some species are very sensitive to air pollution – especially sulphur dioxide, radiation and other toxic pollutants – making them a useful, inexpensive environmental monitor. The US Forest Service is undertaking a \u003ca href=\"http://fhm.fs.fed.us/fact/pdf_files/fhm_lichen_2009.pdf\">study of lichen communities\u003c/a> that may even help determine how fast the climate is changing. Citizen science projects to \u003ca href=\"https://www.handsontheland.org/environmental-monitoring/lichen-monitoring.html\">monitor lichen\u003c/a> are underway that are easy enough for elementary school students to contribute to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest advocates for the otherwise quirky bill say they had a good reason: to raise public awareness about these unique species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Calling attention to lichens by recognizing one of them as the California state lichen creates an opportunity for us to learn about and celebrate the things that make California special,” the California Lichen Society said in a statement after its bill became law.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Only in California: lichen joins the grizzly, poppy, and quail as a new state symbol.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On New Year’s Day, lace lichen, a stringy green organism often called “Spanish moss” that hangs from oak trees around California, joined the grizzly bear, California poppy, California quail and gold as an official \u003ca href=\"http://www.statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/california\">California State symbol\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new law, signed last July by Gov. Jerry Brown, made California the first state to claim an official lichen. Lace lichen can be found in almost every part of the state, from the north to south and up to 130 miles inland from the shoreline. Draping from tree branches, which it uses for support, not sustenance, there are about 1,900 kinds of lichen, along with the lace variety, native to California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Lichen Society proposed adding a state lichen and state Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael, wrote AB 1528, which sailed through the Legislature without much disagreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said he carried the bill because it fits his interests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have lifelong love of the outdoors,” he said. “I loved exploring and playing under the tree canopies as a boy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Levine said one of his next bills will identify wildlife corridors to help protect migrating animals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_497733\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-497733\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"It's commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks.\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1920x1080.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/20160115_134828-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lace lichen is commonly found along the coast, often in the branches of coast live oaks. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Kelsey Gielen)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lichen, which is actually a complex life form that is a partnership of fungus and algae, has long been misunderstood and overlooked, scientists say. In the mid-19th century, it was misclassified in the moss and liverwort family. \u003ca href=\"http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/24954/title/Beatrix-Potter--scientist/\">Beatrix Potter\u003c/a>, of Peter Rabbit fame, was an unlikely lichen champion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She contributed to lichen and fungus research before she found literary fame. In the late 1800s she did botanical studies and research in her kitchen, wrote a scientific paper about fungus and spore reproduction, and supported the view, unpopular with scientists of the time, that lichen belonged in its own family. She produced many wonderful, detailed drawings of fungus and lichen species. Since she was a woman, though, a male scientist had to present her scientific paper and research to the Linnean Society of London.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lowly lichen is both hardy and sensitive. It has survived the extremities of experimental exposure in outer space. And it can be shut in a drawer in a museum for decades, and yet live again when given sunlight and water. It is found on nearly every surface of the Earth — from the North to the South poles and desert floors to rocky mountain tops.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet some species are very sensitive to air pollution – especially sulphur dioxide, radiation and other toxic pollutants – making them a useful, inexpensive environmental monitor. The US Forest Service is undertaking a \u003ca href=\"http://fhm.fs.fed.us/fact/pdf_files/fhm_lichen_2009.pdf\">study of lichen communities\u003c/a> that may even help determine how fast the climate is changing. Citizen science projects to \u003ca href=\"https://www.handsontheland.org/environmental-monitoring/lichen-monitoring.html\">monitor lichen\u003c/a> are underway that are easy enough for elementary school students to contribute to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest advocates for the otherwise quirky bill say they had a good reason: to raise public awareness about these unique species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Calling attention to lichens by recognizing one of them as the California state lichen creates an opportunity for us to learn about and celebrate the things that make California special,” the California Lichen Society said in a statement after its bill became law.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In a major victory for solar power companies and their customers, California regulators voted to preserve an incentive program that has fueled the dramatic growth of rooftop solar in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program, known as “net energy metering,” means that homeowners with solar are paid by their utility for the extra electricity they feed onto the grid when they make more than they need at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our decision today is big step forward in giving California consumers more choice, more control and more responsibility over their energy choices,” said Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244446076″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling comes after years of contention between solar companies and electric utilities over the future of solar incentives in California. Similar battles are happening in several other states, as solar continues to expand, eating into the electric utility business model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are extremely disappointed that the CPUC did not take the opportunity to meet the important goals set out by the state’s legislation,” wrote PG&E spokesman Ari Vanrenen, in an email to KQED, “and make the smart energy reforms that are needed to ensure a sustainable market for solar in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s Net-Metering?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Net-metering often results in monthly utility bills that are close to zero for customers with rooftop solar panels. Consumers still buy electricity at night, when their solar panels aren’t producing, but they can largely offset that cost by selling electricity back to the utility at the peak of the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s three major investor-owned utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/12/07/with-rooftop-solar-booming-california-utilities-want-to-charge-more/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">argued that the low bills\u003c/a> mean solar customers aren’t contributing enough to maintaining the electrical grid, including transmission lines. As a result, utilities say that non-solar customers have to cover that shortfall by paying higher rates, subsidizing solar customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solar companies argued that those calculations ignore the benefits of solar power, which could help utilities potentially avoid buying electricity from power plants or building new transmission lines. By law, utility profits are tied to investments in infrastructure, not how much electricity they sell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Commissioner Picker admitted the decision, which he called “a painful, challenging process,” didn’t fully evaluate the true costs and benefits of solar. “This decision doesn’t get everything right but it gets us farther along,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-401828\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-800x525.jpg\" alt=\"Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit\" width=\"800\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-800x525.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-1440x944.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-1180x774.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-960x630.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">Utilities made a last-ditch effort to change regulators minds’ over the last month, but the final vote went against them, 3-2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision lies in stark contrast to Nevada, where regulators recently voted to overhaul the state’s net-metering program by increasing monthly fees for customers and reimbursing them less for their power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solar companies are fighting the Nevada decision, but say it renders solar financially unfeasible there. SolarCity announced it would \u003ca href=\"http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/following-nevada-pucs-decision-punish-rooftop-solar-customers-solarcity-forced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eliminate 550 jobs in Nevada\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that this sends a big message to the nation, for California to stand up and say ‘we’re proud of the solar we have and want more’,” said Brad Heavner of the California Solar Energy Industries Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Changes to Solar Incentives\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision does, however, mean slightly higher rates for solar customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New solar customers will pay an interconnection fee of $75-150. They’ll also pay a monthly charge on each kilowatt-hour of electricity they buy from their utility of around 2 cents, which would be in the range of $5-9 dollars a month for an average system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”y6EJgU59LjOF6slKR9tkYsXBW6gWSo76″]The CPUC says those additional charges will cover the cost of mandated utility programs like low-income customer support and nuclear decommissioning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the five CPUC commissioners who voted against the decision wanted to see a charge for the transmission grid included in that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any system that benefits the few at the cost of the many can only subsist for so long,” said Commissioner Mike Florio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Current solar customers won’t be affected by today’s decision and are “grandfathered” into the program at their current rates for 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New solar customers will also see electricity prices that change based on the time of day. Under “time-of-use rates,” electricity is the most expensive in the late afternoon and evening, when demand on the grid is highest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solar industry’s win could be only temporary. The CPUC will revisit the net metering system in 2019. Some commissioners say they anticipate that by that time, a more “mature” solar industry may not need as much support.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "But the ruling will mean slightly higher rates for new customers with rooftop solar.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In a major victory for solar power companies and their customers, California regulators voted to preserve an incentive program that has fueled the dramatic growth of rooftop solar in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program, known as “net energy metering,” means that homeowners with solar are paid by their utility for the extra electricity they feed onto the grid when they make more than they need at home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our decision today is big step forward in giving California consumers more choice, more control and more responsibility over their energy choices,” said Michael Picker, president of the California Public Utilities Commission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='”100%”' height='”166″'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244446076″&visual=true&”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false”'\n title='”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/244446076″'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ruling comes after years of contention between solar companies and electric utilities over the future of solar incentives in California. Similar battles are happening in several other states, as solar continues to expand, eating into the electric utility business model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are extremely disappointed that the CPUC did not take the opportunity to meet the important goals set out by the state’s legislation,” wrote PG&E spokesman Ari Vanrenen, in an email to KQED, “and make the smart energy reforms that are needed to ensure a sustainable market for solar in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>What’s Net-Metering?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Net-metering often results in monthly utility bills that are close to zero for customers with rooftop solar panels. Consumers still buy electricity at night, when their solar panels aren’t producing, but they can largely offset that cost by selling electricity back to the utility at the peak of the day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s three major investor-owned utilities, including Pacific Gas & Electric, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/12/07/with-rooftop-solar-booming-california-utilities-want-to-charge-more/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">argued that the low bills\u003c/a> mean solar customers aren’t contributing enough to maintaining the electrical grid, including transmission lines. As a result, utilities say that non-solar customers have to cover that shortfall by paying higher rates, subsidizing solar customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solar companies argued that those calculations ignore the benefits of solar power, which could help utilities potentially avoid buying electricity from power plants or building new transmission lines. By law, utility profits are tied to investments in infrastructure, not how much electricity they sell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Commissioner Picker admitted the decision, which he called “a painful, challenging process,” didn’t fully evaluate the true costs and benefits of solar. “This decision doesn’t get everything right but it gets us farther along,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-401828\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-800x525.jpg\" alt=\"Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit\" width=\"800\" height=\"525\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-800x525.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-400x262.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-1440x944.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-1180x774.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/12/Solar_FullSize_Layers_credit-960x630.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">Utilities made a last-ditch effort to change regulators minds’ over the last month, but the final vote went against them, 3-2.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision lies in stark contrast to Nevada, where regulators recently voted to overhaul the state’s net-metering program by increasing monthly fees for customers and reimbursing them less for their power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Solar companies are fighting the Nevada decision, but say it renders solar financially unfeasible there. SolarCity announced it would \u003ca href=\"http://www.solarcity.com/newsroom/press/following-nevada-pucs-decision-punish-rooftop-solar-customers-solarcity-forced\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">eliminate 550 jobs in Nevada\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that this sends a big message to the nation, for California to stand up and say ‘we’re proud of the solar we have and want more’,” said Brad Heavner of the California Solar Energy Industries Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Changes to Solar Incentives\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision does, however, mean slightly higher rates for solar customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New solar customers will pay an interconnection fee of $75-150. They’ll also pay a monthly charge on each kilowatt-hour of electricity they buy from their utility of around 2 cents, which would be in the range of $5-9 dollars a month for an average system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>The CPUC says those additional charges will cover the cost of mandated utility programs like low-income customer support and nuclear decommissioning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two of the five CPUC commissioners who voted against the decision wanted to see a charge for the transmission grid included in that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any system that benefits the few at the cost of the many can only subsist for so long,” said Commissioner Mike Florio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Current solar customers won’t be affected by today’s decision and are “grandfathered” into the program at their current rates for 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New solar customers will also see electricity prices that change based on the time of day. Under “time-of-use rates,” electricity is the most expensive in the late afternoon and evening, when demand on the grid is highest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The solar industry’s win could be only temporary. The CPUC will revisit the net metering system in 2019. Some commissioners say they anticipate that by that time, a more “mature” solar industry may not need as much support.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Jerry Brown’s Complicated Relationship With Environmentalists",
"headTitle": "Jerry Brown’s Complicated Relationship With Environmentalists | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In 1976, a year into his first term as governor, Jerry Brown signed a bill that came to be seen as one of the strongest environmental protection laws in the country. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/ccatc.html\">California Coastal Act\u003c/a> limited development along the 1,100-mile shoreline and guaranteed public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Yet just two years later, Brown had become frustrated with the commission tasked with upholding the Coastal Act. He made headlines in 1978 for calling commissioners “bureaucratic thugs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">[contextly_sidebar id=”bvhcVaoNxMgJ2oQeEZkaReD1f1BGCqOh”]It was an early indication of Brown’s complicated relationship with the environmental movement, a dynamic that still shapes his governorship today. Weeks after returning from global climate-change talks in Paris that positioned Brown as an environmental leader, the fourth-term Democrat is now facing the wrath of environmentalists at home. It’s the result of a new drama unfolding on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/\">Coastal Commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation advocates have been critical of the decisions made by Brown’s appointees to the commission, who have voted in favor of projects environmentalists opposed. Now they are furious that the commission is holding a vote next month to dismiss Executive Director Charles Lester. They view him as an environmental guardian and say commissioners appointed by Brown are trying to oust Lester to make the coastal agency more amenable to development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It is kind of alarming that his appointees are trying to do this because it flies in the face of the environmental legacy that he wants to leave,” said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, coastal preservation manager for the Surfrider Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It’s very problematic that it’s (Brown’s) appointees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and other environmentalists are pressuring Brown to intervene. So far Brown has declined to comment on the situation; his spokesman Evan Westrup wrote an email saying, “This is a matter the Coastal Commission initiated without any involvement from our office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The criticism from environmentalists is reminiscent of the pressure Brown faced a few years ago from activists opposed to the oil-extraction method known as fracking. They demonstrated in front of the Capitol, followed Brown to speaking appearances and raised the question of his environmental legacy after the governor signed a 2013 bill that fell short of activists’ desire to ban fracking in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_496887\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-496887\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory in October 2015.\" width=\"800\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-400x223.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-768x428.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1440x802.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1920x1070.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1180x658.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-960x535.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown.jpg 2008w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory in October 2015. \u003ccite>(California State Assembly Democratic Caucus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, environmentalists have hailed Brown’s efforts to combat climate change. He signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18938\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">executive order\u003c/a> last year to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. He won \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/despite-setbacks-california-climate-push-accelerates/\">legislative approval\u003c/a> to increase the amount of renewable energy that flows to California’s electricity grid. He has made the battle against global warming his cause celebre, traveling to Italy for talks with Pope Francis and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/california-a-climate-model-for-the-world-has-work-to-do-at-home/\">Paris\u003c/a> for the conference last month that resulted in an international deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who know Brown well are not surprised that he is at odds with environmentalists on the latest Coastal Commission controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He is not a 100-percent-er on any of these things and that’s what’s made him a pretty interesting and effective governor,” said journalist Orville Schell, who wrote a biography of Brown in 1978 and remains friendly with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He isn’t a carbon cutout of one left or right view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor appoints 4 of 12 seats on the Coastal Commission, with the remainder appointed by the two legislative leaders. Lester and the commissioners he reports to are not commenting before the Feb. 10 vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lester, who assumed leadership of the commission in 2011, has been through lengthy performance evaluations behind closed doors in the last three years. Publicly, commissioners have pressed him for not providing enough information about projects that have applied for permits, and a lack of ethnic diversity among commission staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Brown has demonstrated support for the Coastal Commission. His \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/by-the-numbers-analysis-governor-budget/\">budget proposal\u003c/a>this month gave the commission 25 permanent positions that had been temporary. The budget Brown approved two years ago gave the commission new authority to levy fines on property owners who block public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Environmentalists applaud those moves, even as they criticize Brown’s appointments for steering the commission in a pro-development direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In August, Brown’s appointees voted to take away public use of a portion of a Malibu bluff overlooking the ocean to make way for eight new mansions. In October, on a different project in Malibu, three of the governor’s appointees voted to approve a beach restoration project that excludes a public path advocates sought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“They are voting poorly to protect the coast,” Sekich-Quinn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Steve Blank, a former coastal commissioner who was appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Brown may assume he has the support of environmentalists because he is a Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“Under Schwarzenegger, there was an extended effort to reach out to a constituency he didn’t own. And now, with Brown, there is benign neglect of the constituency he’ll own forever,” Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Brown’s evolution from an environmental visionary 40 years ago to a fiscal watchdog today has put his legacy at risk, Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“No one is going to remember his skills as an accountant. It’s sad but true. But people will remember driving the California coast (as the result of) Jerry Brown’s signature in 1976,” Blank said. “I hope they don’t remember it as Jerry Brown’s destruction in 2016.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In 1976, a year into his first term as governor, Jerry Brown signed a bill that came to be seen as one of the strongest environmental protection laws in the country. The \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/ccatc.html\">California Coastal Act\u003c/a> limited development along the 1,100-mile shoreline and guaranteed public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Yet just two years later, Brown had become frustrated with the commission tasked with upholding the Coastal Act. He made headlines in 1978 for calling commissioners “bureaucratic thugs.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>It was an early indication of Brown’s complicated relationship with the environmental movement, a dynamic that still shapes his governorship today. Weeks after returning from global climate-change talks in Paris that positioned Brown as an environmental leader, the fourth-term Democrat is now facing the wrath of environmentalists at home. It’s the result of a new drama unfolding on the \u003ca href=\"http://www.coastal.ca.gov/\">Coastal Commission\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation advocates have been critical of the decisions made by Brown’s appointees to the commission, who have voted in favor of projects environmentalists opposed. Now they are furious that the commission is holding a vote next month to dismiss Executive Director Charles Lester. They view him as an environmental guardian and say commissioners appointed by Brown are trying to oust Lester to make the coastal agency more amenable to development.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It is kind of alarming that his appointees are trying to do this because it flies in the face of the environmental legacy that he wants to leave,” said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, coastal preservation manager for the Surfrider Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“It’s very problematic that it’s (Brown’s) appointees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She and other environmentalists are pressuring Brown to intervene. So far Brown has declined to comment on the situation; his spokesman Evan Westrup wrote an email saying, “This is a matter the Coastal Commission initiated without any involvement from our office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The criticism from environmentalists is reminiscent of the pressure Brown faced a few years ago from activists opposed to the oil-extraction method known as fracking. They demonstrated in front of the Capitol, followed Brown to speaking appearances and raised the question of his environmental legacy after the governor signed a 2013 bill that fell short of activists’ desire to ban fracking in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_496887\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-496887\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg\" alt=\"Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory in October 2015.\" width=\"800\" height=\"446\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-800x446.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-400x223.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-768x428.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1440x802.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1920x1070.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-1180x658.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown-960x535.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Governor-Brown.jpg 2008w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Governor Jerry Brown signs SB 350 at Los Angeles’ Griffith Observatory in October 2015. \u003ccite>(California State Assembly Democratic Caucus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, environmentalists have hailed Brown’s efforts to combat climate change. He signed an \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18938\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">executive order\u003c/a> last year to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. He won \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/despite-setbacks-california-climate-push-accelerates/\">legislative approval\u003c/a> to increase the amount of renewable energy that flows to California’s electricity grid. He has made the battle against global warming his cause celebre, traveling to Italy for talks with Pope Francis and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/california-a-climate-model-for-the-world-has-work-to-do-at-home/\">Paris\u003c/a> for the conference last month that resulted in an international deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who know Brown well are not surprised that he is at odds with environmentalists on the latest Coastal Commission controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He is not a 100-percent-er on any of these things and that’s what’s made him a pretty interesting and effective governor,” said journalist Orville Schell, who wrote a biography of Brown in 1978 and remains friendly with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“He isn’t a carbon cutout of one left or right view.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The governor appoints 4 of 12 seats on the Coastal Commission, with the remainder appointed by the two legislative leaders. Lester and the commissioners he reports to are not commenting before the Feb. 10 vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lester, who assumed leadership of the commission in 2011, has been through lengthy performance evaluations behind closed doors in the last three years. Publicly, commissioners have pressed him for not providing enough information about projects that have applied for permits, and a lack of ethnic diversity among commission staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Brown has demonstrated support for the Coastal Commission. His \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/articles/by-the-numbers-analysis-governor-budget/\">budget proposal\u003c/a>this month gave the commission 25 permanent positions that had been temporary. The budget Brown approved two years ago gave the commission new authority to levy fines on property owners who block public access to the beach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Environmentalists applaud those moves, even as they criticize Brown’s appointments for steering the commission in a pro-development direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">In August, Brown’s appointees voted to take away public use of a portion of a Malibu bluff overlooking the ocean to make way for eight new mansions. In October, on a different project in Malibu, three of the governor’s appointees voted to approve a beach restoration project that excludes a public path advocates sought.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“They are voting poorly to protect the coast,” Sekich-Quinn said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Steve Blank, a former coastal commissioner who was appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said Brown may assume he has the support of environmentalists because he is a Democrat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“Under Schwarzenegger, there was an extended effort to reach out to a constituency he didn’t own. And now, with Brown, there is benign neglect of the constituency he’ll own forever,” Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">Brown’s evolution from an environmental visionary 40 years ago to a fiscal watchdog today has put his legacy at risk, Blank said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\">“No one is going to remember his skills as an accountant. It’s sad but true. But people will remember driving the California coast (as the result of) Jerry Brown’s signature in 1976,” Blank said. “I hope they don’t remember it as Jerry Brown’s destruction in 2016.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Air Regulators Sue SoCalGas Over Massive Porter Ranch Leak",
"title": "Air Regulators Sue SoCalGas Over Massive Porter Ranch Leak",
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"content": "\u003cp>Local air regulators are suing Southern California Gas Co. over the massive ongoing natural gas leak near the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch, seeking millions of dollars in penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2698855-Civil-Suit-Against-SoCalGas.html\">The civil suit\u003c/a> alleges that SoCalGas's negligence led to injuries and has created \"an ongoing public nuisance.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The South Coast Air Quality Management District's suit also notes the leak's deleterious impact on the environment, saying that global warming \"has caused significant harm to animals, plants and people around the globe\" and that the leak has increased the risk of future harm. The Los Angeles Times recently \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/la-porter-ranch-gas-leak-sg-20151225-storygallery.html\">broke down\u003c/a> the leak's impact on the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The accusation of negligence is broad. The lawsuit accuses the gas company of negligence in designing, constructing, operating and inspecting the well; negligently operating and inspecting the facility as a whole; negligently responding to the leak once it had begun; and negligently hiring and overseeing contractors to work at the well and the facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"GVT7PlYFiaqXiZJYC7jlPvZLQ5yqzahu\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit also accuses the company of knowingly violating the law, failing to act quickly enough to address the problem and causing physical harm to residents living near the leaking well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The allegations carry a civil penalty, up to $250,000 for every day of the leak — a maximum that could push $30 million, given how long the utility expects it to take to cap the well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Times and The Associated Press both say SoCalGas declined to comment on pending litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The leaking storage well at the Aliso Canyon facility has been spewing methane — \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/12/14/the-hidden-climate-threat-that-gas-companies-noticed-but-rarely-fixed/\" target=\"_blank\">a potent greenhouse gas\u003c/a> — into the air for months now, and isn't anticipated to be repaired until late February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The odorants in the gas can cause headaches, nausea and vomiting; toxic chemicals such as \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/15/gas-company-understated-benzene-exposure-from-porter-ranch-leak\">the carcinogen benzene\u003c/a> are also present at low levels. In the case of benzene, the gas company and state regulators say those levels are safe, while the World Health Organization says there is no safe level of airborne benzene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of people living in nearby Porter Ranch have been evacuated, and Gov. Jerry Brown has \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/06/brown-declares-state-of-emergency-over-porter-ranch-gas-leak\">declared a state of emergency\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early attempts to plug the well failed due to the high pressure of the leak, and efforts to shut down the well have been delayed until the gas company finishes digging a relief well to reduce the pressure. On Monday, the company announced the relief well has reached 8,400 feet deep and is 200 feet away from intercepting the leaking well — but crossing that last bit of distance \"requires precision and accuracy, which takes time.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleging negligence comes just days after the same air-quality regulators \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/25/california-regulators-order-socalgas-to-permanently-close-leaking-well\">hit SoCalGas with an abatement order\u003c/a> instructing them to shut down the well permanently and to fund independent research into potential health effects of the leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some Porter Ranch residents were upset that the Air Quality Management District hadn't ordered the gas company to shut down the entire Aliso Canyon facility, which contains more than 100 wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, questions continue to mount around the practices SoCalGas was utilizing at Aliso Canyon — and the broader issue of how effectively natural gas storage facilities are regulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10846970\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-10846970\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-800x500.jpg\" alt=\"A SoCalGas worker at the company's Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. A new lawsuit accuses SoCalGas of negligently operating and inspecting the facility.\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-800x500.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-400x250.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-768x480.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-1440x899.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-1180x737.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-960x600.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A SoCalGas worker at the company's Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. A new lawsuit accuses SoCalGas of negligently operating and inspecting the facility. \u003ccite>(Kim Rice-Bogdan/SoCalGas)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Ingrid Lobet \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2016/01/21/463865377/california-examines-safety-of-gas-wells-amid-methane-leak\">reported on NPR's \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> last week\u003c/a>, the failed gas well was being used in a way that was risky but legal. The well consisted of a narrow tubing inside a casing — instead of using just the tubing to inject and withdraw gas, the company was using both. And the well, which is more than 60 years old, didn't have full concrete protection like a more modern well would.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA Weekly had \u003ca href=\"http://www.laweekly.com/news/what-went-wrong-at-porter-ranch-6405804\">earlier reported\u003c/a> that a shutoff valve designed to stop catastrophic leaks was removed in the 1970s and never replaced — again, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/12/porter-ranch-gas-leak-spurs-legislation-to-avert-future-disasters\" target=\"_blank\">perfectly legal for that well\u003c/a>, but raising the risk of an unstoppable leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this week, Reuters reported that SoCalGas itself had been concerned over the infrastructure — even pieces of equipment that met regulators' criteria:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\"The leaking well's owner, Southern California Gas Co, warned state utility regulators in 2014 of 'major failures' without a rate hike to pay for comprehensive inspections of 229 storage wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Twenty-six of its wells were 'high risk' and should be abandoned — even though they complied with state regulations, the utility wrote in a rate filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The previous year, Pacific Gas & Electric pointed to an absence of safety standards for storage wells as reason to launch its own monitoring program that went beyond state rules, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The industry's rising concern underscores the scant oversight of 400 underground natural gas storage facilities in 30 U.S. states. Most storage fields are regulated by states, but national industry groups have pushed for federal oversight - unusual in an industry better known for fighting regulation.\"\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>You can read more from \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-losangeles-gas-leak-regulation-exclus-idUSKCN0V00DM\">Reuters\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Local air regulators are suing Southern California Gas Co. over the massive ongoing natural gas leak near the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch, seeking millions of dollars in penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2698855-Civil-Suit-Against-SoCalGas.html\">The civil suit\u003c/a> alleges that SoCalGas's negligence led to injuries and has created \"an ongoing public nuisance.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The South Coast Air Quality Management District's suit also notes the leak's deleterious impact on the environment, saying that global warming \"has caused significant harm to animals, plants and people around the globe\" and that the leak has increased the risk of future harm. The Los Angeles Times recently \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/la-porter-ranch-gas-leak-sg-20151225-storygallery.html\">broke down\u003c/a> the leak's impact on the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The accusation of negligence is broad. The lawsuit accuses the gas company of negligence in designing, constructing, operating and inspecting the well; negligently operating and inspecting the facility as a whole; negligently responding to the leak once it had begun; and negligently hiring and overseeing contractors to work at the well and the facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit also accuses the company of knowingly violating the law, failing to act quickly enough to address the problem and causing physical harm to residents living near the leaking well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The allegations carry a civil penalty, up to $250,000 for every day of the leak — a maximum that could push $30 million, given how long the utility expects it to take to cap the well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Times and The Associated Press both say SoCalGas declined to comment on pending litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The leaking storage well at the Aliso Canyon facility has been spewing methane — \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2015/12/14/the-hidden-climate-threat-that-gas-companies-noticed-but-rarely-fixed/\" target=\"_blank\">a potent greenhouse gas\u003c/a> — into the air for months now, and isn't anticipated to be repaired until late February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The odorants in the gas can cause headaches, nausea and vomiting; toxic chemicals such as \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/15/gas-company-understated-benzene-exposure-from-porter-ranch-leak\">the carcinogen benzene\u003c/a> are also present at low levels. In the case of benzene, the gas company and state regulators say those levels are safe, while the World Health Organization says there is no safe level of airborne benzene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thousands of people living in nearby Porter Ranch have been evacuated, and Gov. Jerry Brown has \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/06/brown-declares-state-of-emergency-over-porter-ranch-gas-leak\">declared a state of emergency\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early attempts to plug the well failed due to the high pressure of the leak, and efforts to shut down the well have been delayed until the gas company finishes digging a relief well to reduce the pressure. On Monday, the company announced the relief well has reached 8,400 feet deep and is 200 feet away from intercepting the leaking well — but crossing that last bit of distance \"requires precision and accuracy, which takes time.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleging negligence comes just days after the same air-quality regulators \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/25/california-regulators-order-socalgas-to-permanently-close-leaking-well\">hit SoCalGas with an abatement order\u003c/a> instructing them to shut down the well permanently and to fund independent research into potential health effects of the leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some Porter Ranch residents were upset that the Air Quality Management District hadn't ordered the gas company to shut down the entire Aliso Canyon facility, which contains more than 100 wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, questions continue to mount around the practices SoCalGas was utilizing at Aliso Canyon — and the broader issue of how effectively natural gas storage facilities are regulated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10846970\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-10846970\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-800x500.jpg\" alt=\"A SoCalGas worker at the company's Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. A new lawsuit accuses SoCalGas of negligently operating and inspecting the facility.\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-800x500.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-400x250.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-768x480.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-1440x899.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-1180x737.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/AlisoCanyonWorker-960x600.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A SoCalGas worker at the company's Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. A new lawsuit accuses SoCalGas of negligently operating and inspecting the facility. \u003ccite>(Kim Rice-Bogdan/SoCalGas)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>As Ingrid Lobet \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2016/01/21/463865377/california-examines-safety-of-gas-wells-amid-methane-leak\">reported on NPR's \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> last week\u003c/a>, the failed gas well was being used in a way that was risky but legal. The well consisted of a narrow tubing inside a casing — instead of using just the tubing to inject and withdraw gas, the company was using both. And the well, which is more than 60 years old, didn't have full concrete protection like a more modern well would.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LA Weekly had \u003ca href=\"http://www.laweekly.com/news/what-went-wrong-at-porter-ranch-6405804\">earlier reported\u003c/a> that a shutoff valve designed to stop catastrophic leaks was removed in the 1970s and never replaced — again, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/12/porter-ranch-gas-leak-spurs-legislation-to-avert-future-disasters\" target=\"_blank\">perfectly legal for that well\u003c/a>, but raising the risk of an unstoppable leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this week, Reuters reported that SoCalGas itself had been concerned over the infrastructure — even pieces of equipment that met regulators' criteria:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\"The leaking well's owner, Southern California Gas Co, warned state utility regulators in 2014 of 'major failures' without a rate hike to pay for comprehensive inspections of 229 storage wells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Twenty-six of its wells were 'high risk' and should be abandoned — even though they complied with state regulations, the utility wrote in a rate filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The previous year, Pacific Gas & Electric pointed to an absence of safety standards for storage wells as reason to launch its own monitoring program that went beyond state rules, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The industry's rising concern underscores the scant oversight of 400 underground natural gas storage facilities in 30 U.S. states. Most storage fields are regulated by states, but national industry groups have pushed for federal oversight - unusual in an industry better known for fighting regulation.\"\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>You can read more from \u003ca href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-losangeles-gas-leak-regulation-exclus-idUSKCN0V00DM\">Reuters\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks)",
"headTitle": "How Drones Could Advance Polar Science and Navigation (Once They Work Out the Kinks) | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>The sixth in a \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/series/breaking-the-ice/\">series of dispatches\u003c/a> from freelance writer Brandon Reynolds aboard the USCG icebreaker Polar Star, on its annual resupply mission to the research base, McMurdo Station. It’s a critical task imperiled by the nation’s aging, shrinking fleet of ice-breaking ships.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the lost continent of Antarctica, what has been discovered most are superlatives. Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, highest continent on Earth. It can also be one of the most treacherous, as the recent \u003ca href=\"http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0\">death of British explorer Henry Worsley\u003c/a> underscores. Since the days of \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_Age_of_Antarctic_Exploration\">Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton\u003c/a>, science here has been a matter of feel as much as anything else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nowadays science is more bureaucratic. It’s to be expected when many nations converge on a continent and all stand around pretending they don’t want to take it over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493682\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493682\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg\" alt=\"Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DSC01668-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">“Take us to your leader:” Antarctic wildlife turns out to greet Polar Star when she reaches the pack ice. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/11/03/aging-u-s-icebreaker-fleet-may-imperil-polar-science/\">U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Star\u003c/a> once supported science on its missions: releasing weather balloons and buoys to measure oceanic tides and temperatures, that esoteric stuff that’s seeking answers to questions you never thought to ask. The National Science Foundation pays for the Polar Star’s mission once it drops below the Antarctic Circle, and its priorities now have stripped the science off Polar Star so that now the icebreaker’s only job is to clear the channel for the ships to bring food and fuel and booze and equipment and t-shirts, the raw materials needed not just to run a research station and the science that goes on there, but to connect an entire continent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So science doesn’t much happen on Polar Star anymore. The shipping container that once housed all the science equipment has become a cigar lounge of the apocalypse, and the onboard lab is used to store bicycles. But science has stowed away, and it looks like toys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493524\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493524 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg\" alt=\"Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/jacobs-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Todd Jacobs of NOAA holds the Puma down against high winds. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has attached a delegation to this year’s Deep Freeze. The Coast Guard, just like any American in any public park these days, is fascinated by all the drones flying around, and wondered: How the hell can we make these things useful?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NOAA’s been exploring the use of drones, or “unmanned aerial vehicles,” depending on your sensitivity to the word “drone,” for counting marine mammals and birds, tracking oil spills, and surveilling protected fisheries. “Aha!,” said the Coast Guard. The two agencies have been partnering for the last few years on using drones for those “dirty, dull, and dangerous” jobs, says Todd Jacobs, Project Manager for \u003ca href=\"http://uas.noaa.gov/\">NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program\u003c/a> Office. Send the drones to those places where the risk of boredom or death is high. “These are places that you couldn’t otherwise get to without unmanned aircraft,” says Jacobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For this trip, the Coast Guard was interested in using drones to scout ice conditions ahead of the ship. In the past, there have been helicopters, which are far more costly to operate. Jacobs and a team from UAV-maker Aerovironment brought some \u003ca href=\"http://www.avinc.com/uas/small_uas/puma/\">electric-motor-driven gliders\u003c/a> with nine-foot wingspans, traditionally used to assess battlefield conditions or silently track, say, suspected terrorists. “I see it as a swords-to-ploughshares kind of conversion,” Jacobs says. “To get another life out of them I think is kind of a big win for the American public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Aerovironment Puma is the big brother of the militarily popular Raven. It can be hand-launched, flown manually or auto-piloted, fly up to four hours, and land on water, which is how NOAA retrieves it after many flights. On Polar Star, a prototype net-capture system has been set up on the flight deck to catch the thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493528\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 853px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-493528 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg\" alt=\"Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink.\" width=\"853\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2.jpg 853w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-400x600.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/fishing2-768x1152.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 853px) 100vw, 853px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Volbrecht of Aerovironment fishes the Puma out of the drink. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>On the Coast Guard’s Arctic icebreaker Healy last summer, the team reports that the Puma flew well and true. On Polar Star, it hasn’t done so great. There have been crashes on ice and water caused by wind and other, as-yet-undiagnosed problems, and delays and cancellations due to scheduling issues with the research base at \u003ca href=\"http://www.coolantarctica.com/Bases/McMurdo/mcmurdo-base-antarctica.php\">McMurdo Station\u003c/a>. The NOAA and Aerovironment teams are frustrated, but they keep patching the birds back together and sending them aloft. They got it out to 25 nautical miles on one run, which is a pioneering first for Antarctic unmanned flight. If they figure it all out, drone technology could at least supplement some of the dangerous/boring things the helos tend to do and expand the ability to map the continent in real-time. On the lost continent, they continue the Antarctic tradition of discovering perseverance in a place that pretty much wants to destroy all of man’s puny works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Backing up the Puma mission is another bit of ice science, led by Pablo Clemente-Colón of NOAA’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.natice.noaa.gov/\">National Ice Center\u003c/a> in Suitland, Maryland. Clemente-Colón is chief scientist at NIC and an expert in sea ice, a satellite oceanographer who scopes out the ice condition from far above. NIC analyst Chris Readinger is also aboard. He provides satellite photos to help the crew make navigational decisions, but this is the first time in a few years that there have been people aboard who can read that information and interpret, say, how old the ice is, or how stable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493525\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1280px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493525\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg\" alt=\"Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA's National Ice Center.\" width=\"1280\" height=\"853\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo.jpg 1280w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-400x267.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-1180x786.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/pablo-960x640.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pablo Clemente-Colón, chief scientist of NOAA’s National Ice Center. \u003ccite>(Brandon R. Reynolds)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Clemente-Colón has been at it since 1979. He’s spent most of the last decade summering in the Arctic with NOAA, NSF, and the Coast Guard, studying the age and melting patterns of ice. It’s not enough to look at how much ice there is. As with most things, the truth is below the surface.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First-year” ice, the two-meter stuff that we’re crashing through here, will often melt during the summers, creating open water before refreezing in the winter. Multiyear sea ice, which can be a decade old, is much thicker and less prone to melting, generally. It’s more stable. So looking at the \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">extent of surface ice\u003c/a> won’t tell the whole story, says Clemente-Colón. Sea ice could extend farther than in previous years, but if it’s first-year, it’s thinner, so the total volume of ice out there is less.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means that for the next summer it could melt much more rapidly and you would have \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=86822\">more weeks or months of open water\u003c/a> during the summer than if the cover contained a significantly larger volume of multiyear ice.” That creates positive feedback, he says. “The more the cover retreats during the summer, the more heat is absorbed by the ocean, the more there is a delay in the next freezing, and the less opportunity for the ice to really sustain itself through the years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_493603\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-493603\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg\" alt=\"Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs.\" width=\"720\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279.jpg 720w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-400x400.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-32x32.jpg 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-64x64.jpg 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-96x96.jpg 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-128x128.jpg 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/spseaice_am2_2015279-75x75.jpg 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sea ice around Antarctica reached its annual peak in October, 2015. The extent was a retreat from recent record highs. \u003ccite>(NASA Earth Observatory)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the Arctic, these changes are more readily apparent, because it’s all ice and no land. In Antarctica, \u003ca href=\"http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice_south.php\">the giant cap of ice\u003c/a> on the continent, plus the circulating Southern Ocean, keeps the system more stable. Don’t look here for answers to what all this will do to your local weather. Clemente-Colón says it raises a lot of questions, which are challenges, which seems to be the primary export of the polar regions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What are the changes in that system? How are those changes affecting the planetary climate? I don’t think we’re there yet,” he says. “Even in the Arctic where we know that the changes are real, it’s sometimes difficult to link those changes to what’s happening in lower latitudes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Next: Where to From Here?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Brandon R. Reynolds lives in Los Angeles but currently summers in the Antarctic Circle. He has written for San Francisco Magazine, SF Weekly, The Atlantic, and Oxford American (not the dictionary).\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "these-crazy-cute-baby-turtles-want-their-lake-back",
"title": "These Crazy Cute Baby Turtles Want Their Lake Back",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]Boxed in by a freeway, a golf course and a neighborhood, it’s a miracle that San Francisco’s Mountain Lake even exists. But not only is the tiny lake—located on the south end of the city’s Presidio park—still there, it now provides one of the few places in San Francisco where visitors can watch California’s only native aquatic turtle bask in the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 50 young western pond turtles that were raised in captivity and released into Mountain Lake last summer are growing at a steady, rapid pace, said Jonathan Young, wildlife ecologist with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.presidio.gov/\">Presidio Trust\u003c/a>, which is overseeing Mountain Lake’s restoration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This animal is on the edge of extinction,” said Young. “It’s priceless.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The turtle release was part of the restoration of Mountain Lake, one of only three remaining natural lakes in San Francisco. Restoration began in 2000 and has so far cost $2.5 million, said Dana Polk, a spokeswoman for the Presidio Trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474470\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474470\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DL_BabyTurtles_Falls_720x405.gif\" alt=\"A young western pond turtle takes a dip in San Francisco's Mountain Lake.\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young western pond turtle takes a dip in San Francisco’s Mountain Lake. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The project required dredging out lead that had flowed in from Highway 1 decades ago before lead was banned in gasoline. Young also removed 62 non-native turtles that were living in the lake and sent them to a rescue center in Sonoma. Non-native turtles like red-eared sliders are often abandoned in city lakes by their owners once they reach adulthood and become too big and smelly to live in small quarters, Young said. These non-native turtles are more assertive than the shy western pond turtles and can take over the best logs in a pond or lake – logs that turtles sun themselves on to activate their digestion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With no red-eared sliders in sight, as soon as the day warms up, Mountain Lake’s 55 western pond turtles climb onto logs and nets that Young has set out for them. The turtles—which are the equivalent age of teenagers—are marble-colored, medium-sized and easy to see because they’re carrying an antenna and a small box on their shells. The radio transmitters allow scientists to keep track of the turtles’ location, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonoma.edu/biology/faculty/nicholas_geist.html\">Nicholas Geist\u003c/a>, a professor of biology at Sonoma State University who was involved in the turtles’ release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474300\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474300\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo.jpg\" alt=\"Morgan Bartoo, conservation intern at the San Francisco Zoo, holds up a two-month-old western pond turtle. The baby turtle is one of nine the zoo is raising until it is big enough not to be eaten by birds or frogs when it’s returned to Boggs Lake, in Lake County.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morgan Bartoo, conservation intern at the San Francisco Zoo, holds up a two-month-old western pond turtle. The baby turtle is one of nine the zoo is raising until it is big enough not to be eaten by birds or frogs when it’s returned to Boggs Lake, in Lake County. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The turtles haven’t been doing well in their native habitat in the western United States. In California, they’re a species of “special concern,” Geist said. This makes it illegal for people to capture them, keep them as pets or otherwise handle them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’ve been pretty beat up by human intervention,” he said. “In the early 1900s they were very popular in the restaurant trade, for soup – San Francisco was the main hub of that. In the past 50 to 60 years, as the pace of development has picked up, urban development and agriculture have been the worse. We’ve drained bodies of water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Western pond turtles live most of their lives in the water, where the meat-eaters feed on crustaceans like crayfish, dragonfly nymphs and fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re not the only \u003ca href=\"http://www.turtlesurvival.org/\">turtles that are in trouble\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Turtles are facing a global crisis,” said Geist. “There are only 300 species, and most of them are doing quite poorly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This makes the story of how these turtles made it back to a lake in the middle of San Francisco all the more meaningful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an urban area it functions as an ambassador species,” said Young. “It’s very charismatic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the past eight years, Geist has been studying western pond turtles in Boggs Lake, located 100 miles north of San Francisco in a nature reserve in Lake County. In an effort to help the population’s survival, every summer he collects a number of turtle eggs from nests around the lake and takes them back to his lab at Sonoma State University, where they hatch after a few weeks in an incubator. Geist then delivers the hatchlings to the Oakland and San Francisco zoos, where keepers “head-start” the baby turtles, fattening them up for about 10 months until they’re too big to be eaten by frogs or birds. When they’re big enough, they’re returned to Boggs Lake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474301\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474301\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims.jpg\" alt=\"A two-month-old western pond turtle swims at the San Francisco Zoo. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A two-month-old western pond turtle swims at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This allows more of the young turtles to survive in the wild, said Frank Slavens, who began head-starting western pond turtles in 1990 at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. The species has been listed as endangered in Washington state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most turtle species grow up without parents, which makes them easy to raise in zoos. Once a female western pond turtle lays her eggs near a lake or pond, she never returns to the nest. Because they lack parental care, turtles don’t imprint on zoo keepers. While a condor, for example, can become used to being fed by its keepers, turtles don’t, said Jessie Bushell, director of conservation at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfzoo.org/\">San Francisco Zoo and Gardens\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Birds are raised by their parents, so they look to their parents for behavior guides. They’re very much visually imprinted,” said Bushell. “Turtles are on their own and they’re hard-wired for the behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, keepers make sure to spend as little time as possible around the babies, said Bushell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t hand-feed them,” she said. “They have to forage. We do things as quickly as we can and give them lots of places to hide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474302\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket.jpg\" alt=\"A baby western pond turtle gets ready to pounce on a cricket at the San Francisco Zoo. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A baby western pond turtle gets ready to pounce on a cricket at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Zoo is currently head-starting nine western pond turtle hatchlings and the \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandzoo.org/\">Oakland Zoo\u003c/a>, 16. The baby turtles at the San Francisco Zoo are on display in the Children’s Zoo, while the Oakland Zoo is raising theirs in a back room where six small tubs create the impression of a maternity ward. Their diets are varied: at the Oakland Zoo, it’s crickets on Wednesday and mealworms on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re raising them under optimal conditions,” said Margaret Rousser, the Oakland Zoo’s zoological manager. “They can grow in one year the amount it would take them to grow in three to four years. That’s what head-starting is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Presidio Trust embarked on restoring Mountain Lake, Young started looking for native species to repopulate the lake and found museum records showing that western pond turtles had once lived there. He then got in contact with the zoos and with Geist, at Sonoma State University, to figure out how to get some of the turtles into the lake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geist and Young hope that the turtles will eventually lay eggs around Mountain Lake. If a population does take hold there, San Franciscans will have western pond turtles for a while: in the wild the reptiles can live to be more than 50 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Can these turtles have a stable, reproducing population long-term?” Geist asked. “It’s a great experiment and if it works, it’s wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Bay Area zoos are raising threatened baby turtles until they’re big enough to survive in the wild. ",
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"title": "These Crazy Cute Baby Turtles Want Their Lake Back | KQED",
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"headline": "These Crazy Cute Baby Turtles Want Their Lake Back",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Boxed in by a freeway, a golf course and a neighborhood, it’s a miracle that San Francisco’s Mountain Lake even exists. But not only is the tiny lake—located on the south end of the city’s Presidio park—still there, it now provides one of the few places in San Francisco where visitors can watch California’s only native aquatic turtle bask in the sun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 50 young western pond turtles that were raised in captivity and released into Mountain Lake last summer are growing at a steady, rapid pace, said Jonathan Young, wildlife ecologist with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.presidio.gov/\">Presidio Trust\u003c/a>, which is overseeing Mountain Lake’s restoration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This animal is on the edge of extinction,” said Young. “It’s priceless.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The turtle release was part of the restoration of Mountain Lake, one of only three remaining natural lakes in San Francisco. Restoration began in 2000 and has so far cost $2.5 million, said Dana Polk, a spokeswoman for the Presidio Trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474470\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474470\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/DL_BabyTurtles_Falls_720x405.gif\" alt=\"A young western pond turtle takes a dip in San Francisco's Mountain Lake.\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A young western pond turtle takes a dip in San Francisco’s Mountain Lake. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The project required dredging out lead that had flowed in from Highway 1 decades ago before lead was banned in gasoline. Young also removed 62 non-native turtles that were living in the lake and sent them to a rescue center in Sonoma. Non-native turtles like red-eared sliders are often abandoned in city lakes by their owners once they reach adulthood and become too big and smelly to live in small quarters, Young said. These non-native turtles are more assertive than the shy western pond turtles and can take over the best logs in a pond or lake – logs that turtles sun themselves on to activate their digestion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With no red-eared sliders in sight, as soon as the day warms up, Mountain Lake’s 55 western pond turtles climb onto logs and nets that Young has set out for them. The turtles—which are the equivalent age of teenagers—are marble-colored, medium-sized and easy to see because they’re carrying an antenna and a small box on their shells. The radio transmitters allow scientists to keep track of the turtles’ location, said \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonoma.edu/biology/faculty/nicholas_geist.html\">Nicholas Geist\u003c/a>, a professor of biology at Sonoma State University who was involved in the turtles’ release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474300\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474300\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo.jpg\" alt=\"Morgan Bartoo, conservation intern at the San Francisco Zoo, holds up a two-month-old western pond turtle. The baby turtle is one of nine the zoo is raising until it is big enough not to be eaten by birds or frogs when it’s returned to Boggs Lake, in Lake County.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_SF_Zoo-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morgan Bartoo, conservation intern at the San Francisco Zoo, holds up a two-month-old western pond turtle. The baby turtle is one of nine the zoo is raising until it is big enough not to be eaten by birds or frogs when it’s returned to Boggs Lake, in Lake County. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The turtles haven’t been doing well in their native habitat in the western United States. In California, they’re a species of “special concern,” Geist said. This makes it illegal for people to capture them, keep them as pets or otherwise handle them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’ve been pretty beat up by human intervention,” he said. “In the early 1900s they were very popular in the restaurant trade, for soup – San Francisco was the main hub of that. In the past 50 to 60 years, as the pace of development has picked up, urban development and agriculture have been the worse. We’ve drained bodies of water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Western pond turtles live most of their lives in the water, where the meat-eaters feed on crustaceans like crayfish, dragonfly nymphs and fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’re not the only \u003ca href=\"http://www.turtlesurvival.org/\">turtles that are in trouble\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Turtles are facing a global crisis,” said Geist. “There are only 300 species, and most of them are doing quite poorly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This makes the story of how these turtles made it back to a lake in the middle of San Francisco all the more meaningful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In an urban area it functions as an ambassador species,” said Young. “It’s very charismatic.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the past eight years, Geist has been studying western pond turtles in Boggs Lake, located 100 miles north of San Francisco in a nature reserve in Lake County. In an effort to help the population’s survival, every summer he collects a number of turtle eggs from nests around the lake and takes them back to his lab at Sonoma State University, where they hatch after a few weeks in an incubator. Geist then delivers the hatchlings to the Oakland and San Francisco zoos, where keepers “head-start” the baby turtles, fattening them up for about 10 months until they’re too big to be eaten by frogs or birds. When they’re big enough, they’re returned to Boggs Lake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474301\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474301\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims.jpg\" alt=\"A two-month-old western pond turtle swims at the San Francisco Zoo. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Baby_turtle_swims-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A two-month-old western pond turtle swims at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This allows more of the young turtles to survive in the wild, said Frank Slavens, who began head-starting western pond turtles in 1990 at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. The species has been listed as endangered in Washington state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most turtle species grow up without parents, which makes them easy to raise in zoos. Once a female western pond turtle lays her eggs near a lake or pond, she never returns to the nest. Because they lack parental care, turtles don’t imprint on zoo keepers. While a condor, for example, can become used to being fed by its keepers, turtles don’t, said Jessie Bushell, director of conservation at the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfzoo.org/\">San Francisco Zoo and Gardens\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Birds are raised by their parents, so they look to their parents for behavior guides. They’re very much visually imprinted,” said Bushell. “Turtles are on their own and they’re hard-wired for the behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That said, keepers make sure to spend as little time as possible around the babies, said Bushell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t hand-feed them,” she said. “They have to forage. We do things as quickly as we can and give them lots of places to hide.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_474302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-474302\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket.jpg\" alt=\"A baby western pond turtle gets ready to pounce on a cricket at the San Francisco Zoo. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-1440x810.jpg 1440w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Turtle_behind_cricket-960x540.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A baby western pond turtle gets ready to pounce on a cricket at the San Francisco Zoo. \u003ccite>(Josh Cassidy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Zoo is currently head-starting nine western pond turtle hatchlings and the \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandzoo.org/\">Oakland Zoo\u003c/a>, 16. The baby turtles at the San Francisco Zoo are on display in the Children’s Zoo, while the Oakland Zoo is raising theirs in a back room where six small tubs create the impression of a maternity ward. Their diets are varied: at the Oakland Zoo, it’s crickets on Wednesday and mealworms on Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re raising them under optimal conditions,” said Margaret Rousser, the Oakland Zoo’s zoological manager. “They can grow in one year the amount it would take them to grow in three to four years. That’s what head-starting is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Presidio Trust embarked on restoring Mountain Lake, Young started looking for native species to repopulate the lake and found museum records showing that western pond turtles had once lived there. He then got in contact with the zoos and with Geist, at Sonoma State University, to figure out how to get some of the turtles into the lake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Geist and Young hope that the turtles will eventually lay eggs around Mountain Lake. If a population does take hold there, San Franciscans will have western pond turtles for a while: in the wild the reptiles can live to be more than 50 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Can these turtles have a stable, reproducing population long-term?” Geist asked. “It’s a great experiment and if it works, it’s wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "California Regulators Order SoCalGas to Permanently Close Leaking Well",
"title": "California Regulators Order SoCalGas to Permanently Close Leaking Well",
"headTitle": "The California Report | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>When the Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) finally manages to seal a natural gas storage well that's been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/porter-ranch\" target=\"_blank\">leaking for month\u003c/a>s, the company will have to shut the well down permanently, California regulators say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the meantime, the company will have to minimize air pollution from the ongoing leak and fund an independent study on potential health impacts on the surrounding community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The South Coast Air Quality Management District voted on \u003ca href=\"http://www.aqmd.gov/home/library/public-information/2016-news-archives/aliso-canyon-hb-order-issued-pr\">the new restrictions Saturday\u003c/a>. The order comes in response to a well in the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility that has been leaking since October, and isn't expected to be sealed off for another month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"X6XHUpRJx83eCrwyLbDNme01GWFxvvDz\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The massive leak, in the outer reaches of Los Angeles, mostly consists of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but also contains \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/15/gas-company-understated-benzene-exposure-from-porter-ranch-leak\">the carcinogen benzene\u003c/a> and other chemicals. The AP has said SoCalGas was not consistently alerting the public to unusually high levels of benzene. The company says none of the levels were dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The compounds, added to natural gas to make it easier to detect, also have short-term side effects, including nausea and headaches, health officials say. Residents of the nearby Porter Ranch community have been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/07/reports-of-price-gouging-as-porter-ranch-families-look-for-temporary-homes\" target=\"_blank\">relocated to new homes\u003c/a> while the company works to cap the well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SoCalGas says the leak poses no long-term risks to human health. One of the requirements of the new abatement order is that the company fund an independent study evaluating the impact of the leak on residents' health — including the consequence of exposure to the odorants added to the gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order also requires the company to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Permanently shut down and seal the well — not just fix the leak\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fund continuous air monitoring of the area\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Develop and implement a leak detection and reporting program covering all the wells at the facility\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Monitor the leaking well with an infrared camera for 30 days after the leak has ended (the gas is invisible to the naked eye)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Minimize gas leaking from the well as they work on the long-term solution.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Provide data to regulators to help calculate the total amount of methane leaked\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Submit a plan for notifying residents and the government of future emissions\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Report all odor complaints to regulators\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Obtain approval from regulators before using \"odor suppressants or neutralizers\" to reduce the smell caused by the leak.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some residents were unhappy that regulators didn't go further and order SoCalGas to shut down the entire Aliso Canyon facility, \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-porter-ranch-regulators-approve-comprehensive-abatement-order-over-massive-gas-leak-20160123-story.html\">the Los Angeles Times reports\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10844733\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-10844733\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-800x1006.jpg\" alt=\"Workers on-site at a relief well at SoCalGas' Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1006\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-800x1006.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-400x503.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-768x966.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-1440x1811.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-1180x1484.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-960x1207.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers on-site at a relief well at SoCalGas' Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. \u003ccite>(Lance DeLaura/SoCalGas)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/06/brown-declares-state-of-emergency-over-porter-ranch-gas-leak\" target=\"_blank\">declared a state of emergency\u003c/a> over the leaking well earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company attempted to plug the well several times, but the pressure of the leak overwhelmed the would-be blockages. The failed efforts appear to have weakened the well and increased the risk of a blowout, \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-aliso-well-hole-20160115-story.html\">the L.A. Times has reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SoCalGas is drilling a relief well to reduce the pressure before plugging the leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2016/01/21/463865377/california-examines-safety-of-gas-wells-amid-methane-leak\">On NPR's \"All Things Considered\" last week\u003c/a>, Ingrid Lobet of the investigative news organization inewsource reported on the injection practices that may have contributed to the well's failure:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"http://www.npr.org/player/embed/463865377/463865398\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\"An examination of state oil and gas records shows, and a state official confirms that the gas well that failed was being injected in a way that, while legal, can be risky. It's like this: Many wells have both a seven-inch casing and a narrow inner metal tubing. Think of it as a metal straw within another metal straw.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Natural gas was being forced down this well through both straws.\"\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Experts told Lobet that injecting and withdrawing only through the inner tubing is safer, and protects the well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The well, which was drilled in 1953, was used heavily — with injections almost daily, Lobet says. \"Like many wells its age, it also didn't have a full cement job. Cementing protects underground aquifers and it protects the well, too.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lobet said the company declined to comment on its practices, but that a representative had previously said it would be premature to talk about the cause of the well failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Once the well is finally sealed off, regulators say it can never be tapped again. Other new restrictions are also being imposed.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When the Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) finally manages to seal a natural gas storage well that's been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/porter-ranch\" target=\"_blank\">leaking for month\u003c/a>s, the company will have to shut the well down permanently, California regulators say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in the meantime, the company will have to minimize air pollution from the ongoing leak and fund an independent study on potential health impacts on the surrounding community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The South Coast Air Quality Management District voted on \u003ca href=\"http://www.aqmd.gov/home/library/public-information/2016-news-archives/aliso-canyon-hb-order-issued-pr\">the new restrictions Saturday\u003c/a>. The order comes in response to a well in the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility that has been leaking since October, and isn't expected to be sealed off for another month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The massive leak, in the outer reaches of Los Angeles, mostly consists of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, but also contains \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/15/gas-company-understated-benzene-exposure-from-porter-ranch-leak\">the carcinogen benzene\u003c/a> and other chemicals. The AP has said SoCalGas was not consistently alerting the public to unusually high levels of benzene. The company says none of the levels were dangerous.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The compounds, added to natural gas to make it easier to detect, also have short-term side effects, including nausea and headaches, health officials say. Residents of the nearby Porter Ranch community have been \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/07/reports-of-price-gouging-as-porter-ranch-families-look-for-temporary-homes\" target=\"_blank\">relocated to new homes\u003c/a> while the company works to cap the well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SoCalGas says the leak poses no long-term risks to human health. One of the requirements of the new abatement order is that the company fund an independent study evaluating the impact of the leak on residents' health — including the consequence of exposure to the odorants added to the gas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The order also requires the company to:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Permanently shut down and seal the well — not just fix the leak\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Fund continuous air monitoring of the area\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Develop and implement a leak detection and reporting program covering all the wells at the facility\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Monitor the leaking well with an infrared camera for 30 days after the leak has ended (the gas is invisible to the naked eye)\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Minimize gas leaking from the well as they work on the long-term solution.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Provide data to regulators to help calculate the total amount of methane leaked\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Submit a plan for notifying residents and the government of future emissions\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Report all odor complaints to regulators\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Obtain approval from regulators before using \"odor suppressants or neutralizers\" to reduce the smell caused by the leak.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- [if !supportLists]-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some residents were unhappy that regulators didn't go further and order SoCalGas to shut down the entire Aliso Canyon facility, \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-porter-ranch-regulators-approve-comprehensive-abatement-order-over-massive-gas-leak-20160123-story.html\">the Los Angeles Times reports\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10844733\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-10844733\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-800x1006.jpg\" alt=\"Workers on-site at a relief well at SoCalGas' Aliso Canyon Storage Facility.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1006\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-800x1006.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-400x503.jpg 400w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-768x966.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-1440x1811.jpg 1440w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-1180x1484.jpg 1180w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2016/01/ReliefWellWorkers-960x1207.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Workers on-site at a relief well at SoCalGas' Aliso Canyon Storage Facility. \u003ccite>(Lance DeLaura/SoCalGas)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gov. Jerry Brown \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2016/01/06/brown-declares-state-of-emergency-over-porter-ranch-gas-leak\" target=\"_blank\">declared a state of emergency\u003c/a> over the leaking well earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company attempted to plug the well several times, but the pressure of the leak overwhelmed the would-be blockages. The failed efforts appear to have weakened the well and increased the risk of a blowout, \u003ca href=\"http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-aliso-well-hole-20160115-story.html\">the L.A. Times has reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SoCalGas is drilling a relief well to reduce the pressure before plugging the leak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/2016/01/21/463865377/california-examines-safety-of-gas-wells-amid-methane-leak\">On NPR's \"All Things Considered\" last week\u003c/a>, Ingrid Lobet of the investigative news organization inewsource reported on the injection practices that may have contributed to the well's failure:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe src=\"http://www.npr.org/player/embed/463865377/463865398\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\"An examination of state oil and gas records shows, and a state official confirms that the gas well that failed was being injected in a way that, while legal, can be risky. It's like this: Many wells have both a seven-inch casing and a narrow inner metal tubing. Think of it as a metal straw within another metal straw.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Natural gas was being forced down this well through both straws.\"\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\u003cp>Experts told Lobet that injecting and withdrawing only through the inner tubing is safer, and protects the well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The well, which was drilled in 1953, was used heavily — with injections almost daily, Lobet says. \"Like many wells its age, it also didn't have a full cement job. Cementing protects underground aquifers and it protects the well, too.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lobet said the company declined to comment on its practices, but that a representative had previously said it would be premature to talk about the cause of the well failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "El Niño Has Buildings Teetering on Brink of Bluff in Pacifica",
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"content": "\u003cp>Big swells from El Niño storms have eaten away parts of the Pacifica coastline, leaving several vacant structures at risk of collapse into the sea. A local state of emergency was declared Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pacifica Pier, the Milagra Watershed Outfall and the seawall along Beach Boulevard have seen significant damage during storms over the past month. Several building owners were told their properties are not safe to inhabit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“El Niño is hitting the city’s coastline very hard and creating almost daily reports of impacts to both public and private property,” City Manager Lorie Tinfow said in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drone video shared by \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoc4iO1r4Bv0kuABk5PUwdw\" target=\"_blank\">Duncan Sinfield\u003c/a> on Saturday shows the bluff crumbling beneath apartment buildings on Esplanade Ave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzrymETf9hY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The apartment buildings at 330 and 320 Esplanade Ave. were previously deemed uninhabitable, but had not been demolished. The apartment building at 310 Esplanade Ave., visible to the left in the video, is still inhabited and is being closely monitored for structural integrity, officials say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Locals pretty much know the impact of the ocean and even we are astounded when we see the power of the ocean and what it can do,\" says Pacifica Mayor Sue Digre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">The city is asking for state and federal assistance in responding to what officials say is a growing list of failing infrastructure. \u003c/span>The cost of the damage has not yet been determined.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Big swells from El Niño storms have eaten away parts of the Pacifica coastline, leaving several vacant structures at risk of collapse into the sea. A local state of emergency was declared Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pacifica Pier, the Milagra Watershed Outfall and the seawall along Beach Boulevard have seen significant damage during storms over the past month. Several building owners were told their properties are not safe to inhabit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“El Niño is hitting the city’s coastline very hard and creating almost daily reports of impacts to both public and private property,” City Manager Lorie Tinfow said in a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drone video shared by \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoc4iO1r4Bv0kuABk5PUwdw\" target=\"_blank\">Duncan Sinfield\u003c/a> on Saturday shows the bluff crumbling beneath apartment buildings on Esplanade Ave.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/CzrymETf9hY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/CzrymETf9hY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The apartment buildings at 330 and 320 Esplanade Ave. were previously deemed uninhabitable, but had not been demolished. The apartment building at 310 Esplanade Ave., visible to the left in the video, is still inhabited and is being closely monitored for structural integrity, officials say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Locals pretty much know the impact of the ocean and even we are astounded when we see the power of the ocean and what it can do,\" says Pacifica Mayor Sue Digre.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp class=\"p1\">\u003cspan class=\"s1\">The city is asking for state and federal assistance in responding to what officials say is a growing list of failing infrastructure. \u003c/span>The cost of the damage has not yet been determined.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Carbon Capture Flops in California Despite Millions in Investment",
"headTitle": "Carbon Capture Flops in California Despite Millions in Investment | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>California is barreling ahead with its ambitious climate change goals, pushing renewable energy and cleaner cars. That doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are going away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some doubt that the state can meet its lofty goals without capturing carbon emissions from fossil-fired power plants and stashing it someplace, like deep underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite millions in government investment, “carbon capture and storage,” as it’s called, has largely flopped in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with high costs and public opposition, several projects have failed to move beyond the planning stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nhttp://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2016/01/Sciencecarboncapturefull.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pilot projects gathered momentum six years ago, when they got a boost from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.gov/recovery-act\">federal Recovery Act funding program\u003c/a>, which was designed to develop emerging technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Keith Pronske, CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clean Energy Systems\u003c/a> was riding a wave of optimism for the carbon capture project he was developing, known as the Kimberlina power plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“This is about changing the way power is produced.”\u003ccite>Keith Pronske, Clean Energy Systems\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he told me in 2009. “We’ve had a lot of folks from really all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power plant burned natural gas, which is still where most of California’s electricity comes from. But this one had a key difference: Pronske pointed to an overhead pipe wide enough that it looked like you could roll basketballs through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have here is essentially pure CO2,” he said. “Instead of a big stack venting everything to atmosphere, we’re capturing it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske’s idea was to take the carbon dioxide, compress it, and inject it underground, where it would be permanently trapped by rock layers thousands of feet down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about changing the way power is produced,” he said. “If you bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was designed to be a model project, the first of its kind in California to demonstrate zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six years later, it remains a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and we’ve had a few bumps,” Pronske said, when I caught up with him in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His company’s plans had largely stalled. He had looked for a utility to buy the electricity from his power plant, but with little success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485136\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485136 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg\" alt=\"How carbon capture and sequestration works.\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-400x248.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-768x475.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many carbon-capture-and-sequestration, or CCS schemes aim to intercept carbon emissions and store them underground. \u003ccite>(Vattenfall)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The big focus is on renewable energy – wind and solar,” he said, which utilities are mandated to purchase by state policy. “So we had a hard time finding a market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His project’s electricity would be pricier than wind or solar because it also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bang your head against the wall several times and you figure out it’s not going to really accomplish anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other Projects Stall Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske isn’t alone. Two other carbon capture projects in California are facing the same fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One in Northern California was cancelled. C6 Resources, an affiliate of Shell, \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/fe/articles/secretary-chu-announces-first-awards-14-billion-industrial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was awarded $3 million\u003c/a> in stimulus funds for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/norcal_co2reduction_project.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern California CO2 Reduction Project\u003c/a>, where a million tons of carbon were to be sequestered underground in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lion’s share of stimulus funding went to \u003ca href=\"http://hydrogenenergycalifornia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hydrogen Energy California\u003c/a> (HECA), a larger project in Kern County. The Department of Energy offered it more than $400 million in grants. It’s already spent $152 million, but it missed so many deadlines, it had to give up its claim on $122 million last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HECA had originally planned to sell the carbon it captured to the oil industry, where it would have been used to boost production from oil wells. After those plans fell through, the project is now looking to sequester the carbon underground, if it can overcome some fierce pubic opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that these projects are green in some way is not true,” said Evan Gillespie, who runs the campaign against the project for the Sierra Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”gQN8H1y3bLQFyuhusmTVtazUF1miwYuW”]Unlike Pronske’s natural gas project, HECA would use coal, a fuel California has spurned because of its air pollution and huge carbon footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that we were going to provide a lifeline to an industry that is a huge public health threat and is actively destroying our climate,” said Gillespie. “We found it really problematic to see a state like California that was such a leader on green energy be so open to coal again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gillespie does see a limited role for capturing carbon. “There are a number of heavy industries: steel, cement factories,” he said. “But in the electric sector, there are just too many cheaper options that have no carbon footprint.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a core debate around capturing carbon from power plants. Some see it as a way to prop up fossil fuels. Others say we won’t be able to cut carbon emissions fast enough without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, when international leaders met in Paris to tackle climate change, scientists said that the world would have to \u003ca href=\"http://bigstory.ap.org/article/54e0d2bd61d24a6eb9d1d57840bc8a22/paris-climate-goals-mean-emissions-need-drop-below-zero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drastically cut emissions\u003c/a>, even to negative levels, to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to de-carbonize everything we can,” says Sally Benson, a professor of energy at Stanford University and a longtime proponent of carbon capture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to wait to replace every gas or coal plant with renewables, I think we’ve run out of time,” she says. The power plants being built today will keep emitting for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Going Too Big?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson admits that big challenges remain for carbon capture. Getting permits for the projects at the county and state level can be complicated, to put it kindly. There are also questions of liability about who is responsible for keeping the carbon underground indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485140\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-485140\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg\" alt=\"Clean Energy Systems' Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\" width=\"800\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-400x260.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-768x499.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-1180x767.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-960x624.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina.jpg 1372w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clean Energy Systems’ Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Financing may be the biggest challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start talking half-billion to one-billion-dollar projects, people begin to get nervous,” said Pronske.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That hasn’t stopped a state agency, the California Air Resources Board, from kick-starting a brand new process in February to \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ccs/ccs.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">set up rules and guidelines\u003c/a> for carbon capture projects, in the hope that the technology will become part of the state’s strategy to meet its climate change goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon capture and sequestration has the potential to help us meet our long term goals, but we need to better understand the extent and ensure that any projects would maintain environmental integrity,” said Dave Clegern, a spokesperson at the Air Resources Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upcoming state guidelines are giving many in the carbon capture industry hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These regulations are critical to establish greater certainty for investors in commercialization and in assuring environmental protection and climate change benefits,” said Elizabeth Burton, technical director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership\u003c/a> (WESTCARB), a research collaboration launched by the Department of Energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burton defends the use of government stimulus funding on the previous projects, saying the work they completed could inform future projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were also useful in progressing the technology by laying the groundwork and providing lessons learned for how to develop a carbon capture, use and storage project in California,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a string of high-profile failures around the country, including the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bna.com/doe-suspends-billion-n17179922773/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$1.65 billion FutureGen project\u003c/a> in Illinois, Pronske worries that carbon capture is getting a bad reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a little frustrating, just because it’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” he said. “We went too big to start with. The real issue is getting across the valley of death of: how do we get these first plants built?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Putting a hefty price on carbon pollution could be the silver bullet the industry is looking for. If polluters have to pay for every ton of carbon they emit, capturing carbon from power plants starts to look pretty good, Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there really has to be clear price on carbon,” she speculates. “$50 a ton plus – that will get people to really pay attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has put a price on carbon, as part of its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/11/09/cap-and-trade-101-how-californias-carbon-market-works/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cap-and-trade program\u003c/a>, but it’s only about $12 dollars a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re on a roller coaster and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for a long time,” Benson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, regulators at the California Energy Commission will decide the final fate of the HECA project sometime this spring.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California is barreling ahead with its ambitious climate change goals, pushing renewable energy and cleaner cars. That doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are going away anytime soon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some doubt that the state can meet its lofty goals without capturing carbon emissions from fossil-fired power plants and stashing it someplace, like deep underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But despite millions in government investment, “carbon capture and storage,” as it’s called, has largely flopped in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Faced with high costs and public opposition, several projects have failed to move beyond the planning stage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Listen to the story:\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pilot projects gathered momentum six years ago, when they got a boost from the \u003ca href=\"http://www.energy.gov/recovery-act\">federal Recovery Act funding program\u003c/a>, which was designed to develop emerging technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back then, Keith Pronske, CEO of \u003ca href=\"http://www.cleanenergysystems.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clean Energy Systems\u003c/a> was riding a wave of optimism for the carbon capture project he was developing, known as the Kimberlina power plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">“This is about changing the way power is produced.”\u003ccite>Keith Pronske, Clean Energy Systems\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>“We’ve had a lot of interest,” he told me in 2009. “We’ve had a lot of folks from really all over the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The power plant burned natural gas, which is still where most of California’s electricity comes from. But this one had a key difference: Pronske pointed to an overhead pipe wide enough that it looked like you could roll basketballs through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we have here is essentially pure CO2,” he said. “Instead of a big stack venting everything to atmosphere, we’re capturing it all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske’s idea was to take the carbon dioxide, compress it, and inject it underground, where it would be permanently trapped by rock layers thousands of feet down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is about changing the way power is produced,” he said. “If you bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was designed to be a model project, the first of its kind in California to demonstrate zero-carbon energy from fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six years later, it remains a dream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Well, it’s been a bit of a wild ride and we’ve had a few bumps,” Pronske said, when I caught up with him in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His company’s plans had largely stalled. He had looked for a utility to buy the electricity from his power plant, but with little success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485136\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-485136 size-full\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg\" alt=\"How carbon capture and sequestration works.\" width=\"800\" height=\"495\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-400x248.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/CCS-image-768x475.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many carbon-capture-and-sequestration, or CCS schemes aim to intercept carbon emissions and store them underground. \u003ccite>(Vattenfall)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The big focus is on renewable energy – wind and solar,” he said, which utilities are mandated to purchase by state policy. “So we had a hard time finding a market.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His project’s electricity would be pricier than wind or solar because it also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon underground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You bang your head against the wall several times and you figure out it’s not going to really accomplish anything,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Other Projects Stall Out\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pronske isn’t alone. Two other carbon capture projects in California are facing the same fate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One in Northern California was cancelled. C6 Resources, an affiliate of Shell, \u003ca href=\"http://energy.gov/fe/articles/secretary-chu-announces-first-awards-14-billion-industrial\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was awarded $3 million\u003c/a> in stimulus funds for the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/norcal_co2reduction_project.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern California CO2 Reduction Project\u003c/a>, where a million tons of carbon were to be sequestered underground in Solano County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the lion’s share of stimulus funding went to \u003ca href=\"http://hydrogenenergycalifornia.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hydrogen Energy California\u003c/a> (HECA), a larger project in Kern County. The Department of Energy offered it more than $400 million in grants. It’s already spent $152 million, but it missed so many deadlines, it had to give up its claim on $122 million last summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HECA had originally planned to sell the carbon it captured to the oil industry, where it would have been used to boost production from oil wells. After those plans fell through, the project is now looking to sequester the carbon underground, if it can overcome some fierce pubic opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that these projects are green in some way is not true,” said Evan Gillespie, who runs the campaign against the project for the Sierra Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>Unlike Pronske’s natural gas project, HECA would use coal, a fuel California has spurned because of its air pollution and huge carbon footprint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea that we were going to provide a lifeline to an industry that is a huge public health threat and is actively destroying our climate,” said Gillespie. “We found it really problematic to see a state like California that was such a leader on green energy be so open to coal again.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gillespie does see a limited role for capturing carbon. “There are a number of heavy industries: steel, cement factories,” he said. “But in the electric sector, there are just too many cheaper options that have no carbon footprint.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a core debate around capturing carbon from power plants. Some see it as a way to prop up fossil fuels. Others say we won’t be able to cut carbon emissions fast enough without it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December, when international leaders met in Paris to tackle climate change, scientists said that the world would have to \u003ca href=\"http://bigstory.ap.org/article/54e0d2bd61d24a6eb9d1d57840bc8a22/paris-climate-goals-mean-emissions-need-drop-below-zero\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">drastically cut emissions\u003c/a>, even to negative levels, to avoid the most catastrophic impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have to de-carbonize everything we can,” says Sally Benson, a professor of energy at Stanford University and a longtime proponent of carbon capture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to wait to replace every gas or coal plant with renewables, I think we’ve run out of time,” she says. The power plants being built today will keep emitting for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Going Too Big?\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson admits that big challenges remain for carbon capture. Getting permits for the projects at the county and state level can be complicated, to put it kindly. There are also questions of liability about who is responsible for keeping the carbon underground indefinitely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_485140\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-485140\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg\" alt=\"Clean Energy Systems' Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\" width=\"800\" height=\"520\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-800x520.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-400x260.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-768x499.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-1180x767.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina-960x624.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/01/Kimberlina.jpg 1372w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clean Energy Systems’ Kimberlina Power Plant, just north of Bakersfield.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Financing may be the biggest challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you start talking half-billion to one-billion-dollar projects, people begin to get nervous,” said Pronske.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That hasn’t stopped a state agency, the California Air Resources Board, from kick-starting a brand new process in February to \u003ca href=\"http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/ccs/ccs.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">set up rules and guidelines\u003c/a> for carbon capture projects, in the hope that the technology will become part of the state’s strategy to meet its climate change goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Carbon capture and sequestration has the potential to help us meet our long term goals, but we need to better understand the extent and ensure that any projects would maintain environmental integrity,” said Dave Clegern, a spokesperson at the Air Resources Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The upcoming state guidelines are giving many in the carbon capture industry hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These regulations are critical to establish greater certainty for investors in commercialization and in assuring environmental protection and climate change benefits,” said Elizabeth Burton, technical director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.westcarb.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership\u003c/a> (WESTCARB), a research collaboration launched by the Department of Energy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burton defends the use of government stimulus funding on the previous projects, saying the work they completed could inform future projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They were also useful in progressing the technology by laying the groundwork and providing lessons learned for how to develop a carbon capture, use and storage project in California,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But with a string of high-profile failures around the country, including the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bna.com/doe-suspends-billion-n17179922773/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">$1.65 billion FutureGen project\u003c/a> in Illinois, Pronske worries that carbon capture is getting a bad reputation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been a little frustrating, just because it’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” he said. “We went too big to start with. The real issue is getting across the valley of death of: how do we get these first plants built?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Putting a hefty price on carbon pollution could be the silver bullet the industry is looking for. If polluters have to pay for every ton of carbon they emit, capturing carbon from power plants starts to look pretty good, Benson says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think there really has to be clear price on carbon,” she speculates. “$50 a ton plus – that will get people to really pay attention.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California already has put a price on carbon, as part of its \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2012/11/09/cap-and-trade-101-how-californias-carbon-market-works/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cap-and-trade program\u003c/a>, but it’s only about $12 dollars a ton.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re on a roller coaster and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for a long time,” Benson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"radiolab": {
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"reveal": {
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},
"rightnowish": {
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"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
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"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
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"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
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