The Swamp Stomp

Volume 15, Issue 37

Washington University in St. Louis recently released a study that suggests federal agencies consistently underestimate historic 100-year flood levels on rivers by up to five feet in some areas. Such miscalculations have severe ramifications for future flood risks, flood insurance, and business development in an expanding floodplain.

PhD Robert Criss, a professor of geology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences and the author of the study, claimed, “This analysis shows that average high-water marks on these river systems are rising about an inch per year—that’s a rate then times greater than the annual rise in sea levels now occurring due to climate change.”

Criss continued to explain that his findings are important because many of the nation’s flood-control river levee systems are not designed to withstand flood levels that rise higher than the projected 100-year flood level, a key national index of potential flood severity. He warned that floods that exceed even a few inches over 100-year levee may potentially lead to cataclysmic events.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) establish official 100-year flood levels by computing a series of complicated equations. Any levees that are constructed to withstand “100-year” levels and “100-year” flood zones are then delineated as such on FEMA’s detailed flood insurance maps.

Criss, however, has researched water flows on major rivers for decades now, and has long argued that any man-made river control systems, such as levees, locks, dams, and navigation-enhancing dikes have steadily elevated the risk of devastating flooding by constricting river channels and preventing floodwaters from flowing naturally into surrounding wetlands and floodplains.

In a 2008 study, Criss demonstrated that flood patterns along the Mississippi River near Hannibal, Missouri, already exceeded drastically the official federal flood risk calculations. Since that study was published, Hannibal has seen floods exceeding the “10-year” flood levels in 2009, 2010, and 2011; as well as experiencing stages officially designated as “50-year” floods in 2013 and 2014.

“Such outcomes are far too unlikely to be attributed to a nearly continuous succession of statistical flukes, and instead must be attributed to faulty calculation of flood risks. Many factors such as climate change and in-channel structures are causing flood levels to rise, so realistic estimation of future flood levels must take these changes into account,” Criss said.

Possibly the most significant part of Criss’ new study is the proposed new statistical equation for the analysis of environmental variables that are changing over time. He claimed, “Official calculations emphasize discharges (flows) in flood risk analysis, yet many compelling reasons show that water levels (stages) should be used instead. Stages are easily understood and are, in fact, the most relevant quantity. If floodwaters are encroaching a home, the owner is concerned about the water level, not about the discharge of the river.”

According to Criss’ equation, which gives more consideration to modern river conditions, the projected high water mark for a 100-year flood event on the St. Louis riverfront would be 51.5 feet—that is over 21 feet above the current flood stage.

Criss said, “The official calculations for the ‘100-year’ flood level at St. Louis are about 5.5 feet too low, primarily because they neglect both the tendency for the flood levels to increase over time and the increased volatility we’re seeing with extreme weather swings.”

Such a difference seriously calls into question the reliability of existing flood control systems. The current system in St. Louis was built to a height of 52 feet, and in 1993 flood levels were only two-and-a-half feet from overflowing the city’s flood wall system.

“In other words, if we experience another flood on the Mississippi of the proportions seen in 1993, it’s hard to say whether the floodwalls protecting St. Louis would be high enough to prevent extensive flooding in the downtown area,” asserted Criss.

Criss’ equation demonstrated similar miscalculations in a number of other Midwestern cities and towns along the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois rivers. It may be time for these communities to reassess their flood protection systems in order to protect against higher flood crests.

The Swamp Stomp

Volume 15, Issue 32

A research team from the University of Michigan forecasted a marginally below–average “dead zone” for this summer in the Chesapeake Bay.  While the results were only slightly lower than normal, it is still a significant finding for the nation’s largest estuary.

Released on June 23, 2015, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 2015 Chesapeake Bay forecast indicates an oxygen-depleted, or hypoxic, region of 1.37 cubic miles–roughly 10 percent less than the long-term average.

The annual hypoxic region, or “dead zone,” in the Chesapeake Bay normally results due to farmland runoff containing nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers and livestock waste. Once areas become contaminated, fish and shellfish either leave the oxygen-depleted waters or die. Subsequently, “dead zones” threaten the bay’s production of crabs, oysters, and other important fisheries.

“These annual forecasts help to remind federal and state policymakers and the public that insufficient progress is being made to reduce the size of these low-oxygen regions,” said aquatic ecologist Don Scavia, director of the University of Michigan’s Graham Sustainability Institute. “The size of annual Chesapeake Bay dead zone has changed little over the past decade, which underscores the need for persistent management action to reduce the amount of nutrients flowing into the bay. The Environmental Protection Agency must keep states’ feet to the fire.”

Based on models developed by NOAA-sponsored researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science, the hypoxia forecast works both with the nutrient-level estimates and stream flow data provided by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The USGS estimates indicate that only 58 million pounds of nitrogen were transported to the Chesapeake Bay between January and May 2015—29 percent below average amounts.

The predicted size of the “dead zone” is a result of the low river flow and below-normal nutrient loading from the Susquehanna River.

USGS associate director for water, William Werkheiser said, “Tracking how nutrient levels are changing in streams, rivers and groundwater, and how the estuary is responding to these changes is critical information for evaluating overall progress in improving the health of the bay. Local, state, and regional partners rely on this tracking data to inform their adaptive management strategies in bay watersheds.”

Besides nutrient-rich waters flowing into the bay, wind speed and direction, precipitation amounts, and temperature also affect the size of “dead zones.” In 2014, the sustained winds from Hurricane Arthur mixed the hypoxic zone water with the water, and oxygen, in the rest of the bay and dramatically reduced the “dead zone” to 0.58 cubic miles.

Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, claimed, “Forecasting how a major coastal ecosystem, the Chesapeake Bay, responds to decreasing nutrient pollution is a challenge due to year-to-year variations and natural lags. But we are heading in the right direction.”

Kathryn Sullivan, undersecretary of commerce for ocean and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, added, “These ecological forecasts are good examples of critical environmental intelligence products and tools that NOAA is providing to stakeholders and interagency management bodies such as the Chesapeake Bay Program. With this information, we can work collectively on ways to reduce pollution and protect our marine environments for future generations.”

If accurate, these predictions indicate that attempts to create healthier, less polluted waterways may be starting to pay off.

The Swamp Stomp

Volume 15, Issue 30

The top three stressed groundwater basins in the world are located in the Middle East, the region between India and Pakistan, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa respectively. Due to continued political unrest and several other human caused obstructions in these areas, a third of the world’s largest groundwater aquifers are depleting rapidly.

A pair of new studies conducted by the University of California at Irvine state that not only are water levels diminishing, but there is no way of knowing how much water actually remains in these mammoth aquifers. The studies on these aquifers—often referred to by water resources scientists as ‘Earth’s water savings accounts’—began due to California’s worst drought on record, whereby farmers in California’s Central Valley have consumed so much ground water that the state has actually sunk by a foot in some places.

The studies are the first to employ data obtained from NASA’s two Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites, otherwise known as GRACE. GRACE enables James Famiglietti, an author of both studies, to claim that men are using water that the Earth has stored for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and not replenishing it fast enough.

Famiglietti, professor of Earth system science at the University of California, Irvine and senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, asserts that the majority of the world’s groundwater accounts “are past sustainability tipping points.”

Both studies, published in the journal Water Resources Research, report on the necessity of discovering how much water is actually left in the world’s most valuable aquifers.

“The message we want to get out there is this is really unacceptable. We really better get on some kind of major exploration program,” Famiglietti said.  He also spoke of his fear over how people may react to the uncertainty of his findings. He said, “What I am afraid of is people will say, ‘oh, we don’t know how much water there is, and maybe we have a ton—but maybe we don’t. The signs of stress are all there.”

It is expected that both climate change and population growth will exacerbate the problem of groundwater depletion. National security experts have repeatedly warned that global warming may act as a threat multiplier and worsen any existing tensions.

Alexandra Richey, a graduate student at UC-Irvine who worked with Famiglietti on the studies, asked, “What happens when a highly stressed aquifer is located in a region with socioeconomic or political tensions that cant supplement declining water fast enough? We’re trying to raise red flags now to pinpoint where active management today could protect future lives and livelihoods.”

Richey then reiterated Famiglietti’s desire to discover exactly how much water remains in the worl’s largest groundwater aquifers. She said, “We don’t actually know how much is stored in each of these aquifers. Estimates of remaining storage might vary from decades to millennia. In a water-scarce society, we can no longer tolerate this level of uncertainty, especially since groundwater is disappearing so rapidly.”

Famiglietti, Richey, and the rest of their team are campaigning for a global expedition to directly measure the amount of water stored in the world’s groundwater aquifers, which would require drilling to reach bedrock in many cases.

“I believe we need to explore the world’s aquifers as if they had the same value as oil reserves,” Famiglietti said.

The Swamp Stomp

Volume 15, Issue 27

In the last month, hundreds of small turtles have washed up dead along the eastern shore of Long Island. Scientists have begun to blame these deaths on waterborne toxins that have achieved unprecedented levels.

Thanks to necropsies performed on over 200 diamondback terrapins found dead on the island’s North Fork Point, scientists think saxitoxin, a biotoxin produced in algae blooms, is to blame. The levels of saxitoxin found in the water was over ten times normal amounts. The turtles absorb the poison by eating the shellfish that have collected the toxin. Paralysis and death occurs soon after.

Karen Testa, executive director of Turtle Rescue of the Hamptons, claimed, “We’re seeing bodies washing up in perfect condition. This has never happened before. It’s an alarming thing.”

She continued by claiming that all indicators point to saxitoxin. “There’s no other explanation for what’s causing the die-off of these poor animals.”

Christopher Gobler, a professor at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, has been studying the algae blooms that occur off of Long Island for over 20 years. While saxitoxin is normally detected in the region’s waters, he claims that levels have never been this high, and have never caused such a wildlife die-off.

State officials have labeled saxitoxin a “dangerous neurotoxin” that may damage or impair nerve tissue. Shellfish act as natural filters and absorb the toxins from the water. Other animals then experience paralysis when they feed on the shellfish.

These effects are not limited to sea animals. When humans ingest infected shellfish, they typically experience numbness and tightness in their faces, as well as a loss of coordination. Most humans recover in a matter of days, but in some rare cases, the poisoning has resulted in death.

Both county and state officials have advised people not to consume shellfish from the area, and have also advised against swimming in discolored water.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment, said, “This is a serious threat to public health. When you have a saxitoxin that can kill humans, you need to address the cause.”

While the exact cause to the high levels of saxitoxin currently present in Long Island waterways remains unknown, Gobler and Esposito both think that nitrogen in the water may be to blame. Leaking septic tanks and sewage can make its way into bays and increase nitrogen levels in the water. However, there is no indication of why levels of septic sewage entering bays should be any higher than normal.

Just Meyers, Suffolk County Assistant Deputy County Executive, claimed that the county has devised a plan to reduce nitrogen pollution. He hopes to acquire $400 million in state and federal grants to improve water infrastructure, as well as converting 360,000 homes from cesspools to municipal sewers.

The first step the making the waters safe for food sources for small turtles and humans is to discover why amounts of saxitoxin reached such high levels this year. If the cause remains uncertain, then other bodies of water become in danger of suffering from a similar fate.

Swamp Stomp

Volume 15, Issue 23

President Obama has received rare support from Republicans, industry groups, and states for his changes to the Endangered Species Act. The joint rulemaking by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service would make decisions regarding the Act more efficient, collaborative, and transparent to the public. Democrats also hope that the changes will help mitigate conservatives in Congress who have vowed to overhaul the ESA.

Despite the law preventing over 99 percent of listed species from going extinct over the last four decades, those who criticize the law in Congress claim that it has failed to recover all but roughly two percent of endangered species.

The new rule proposed on May 19, 2015, creates a higher standard for petitions filed under the law to list new species as threatened or endangered, to change the species’ status, to delist species, or to change the boundaries of critical habitat. This will allow the agencies to focus more attention on species that truly warrant action.

Previously, either agency had 90 days to decide whether any of the petitions received contained sufficient information to indicate that action—either listing or delisting—was necessary. If a decision was made in the affirmative, then an additional twelve months was allocated to decide whether or not to propose a listing rule.

However, the sheer volume of petitions submitted by environmental groups in recent years has exceeded FWS’s capacity to respond to them, and has often landed in the agency in court. In the four years before signing a sweeping legal agreement with two separate green groups in 2011, the agency received petitions for over 1,230 species—a number that is just shy of the total amount received in the last thirty years.

In attempts to do away with “mega-petitions,” such as the one submitted by the Center for Biological Diversity and other environmental groups in April 2010 that listed 404 species, this new rule limits petitions to just one species at a time. “Mega-petitions” were often vaguely written and difficult to follow. This new rule requires that all petitions be organized on a species-by-species basis, so that each species can be given the attention it deserves.

Furthermore, petitions must now contain clear documentation of the threats to wildlife. Relevant information includes the following:

• Literature citations that are specific enough for the agencies to find the information, including by page and chapter.
• Electronic or hard copies of any supporting materials such as publications, maps, reports and letters cited in the petition, or valid links to public websites where the information can be found.
• Information demonstrating that the petitioned wildlife meets ESA’s definition of a “species.”
• Information on current population status and trends and estimates of current population sizes and distributions, both in captivity and the wild, if available.

 

If a petition is missing any of this information, then FWS will be able to return the petition.

The new rule defines “substantial scientific or commercial information” as information that “a reasonable person conducting an impartial scientific review would conclude that the action proposed in the petition may be warranted.”

“For example, a petition that states only that a species is rare and thus should be listed, without other credible information regarding its status, does not provide substantial information,” it says.

The rule also states that for a failed petition to be resubmitted, it must contain new information in support of its claim. It says, “These changes would improve the quality of petitions through expanded content requirements and guidelines; and in doing so; better focus the Services’ energies on petitions that merit further analysis.”

Speaking about the rule, Ryan Yates, Chairman of the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition and Director of Congressional Relations at the American Farm Bureau, claimed, “While we are still reviewing the substance of the proposed rule, NESARC is pleased to see the Services recognize and take action to deter abusive petitioning practices. Requiring more detailed information as part of the submission of petitions and consultation with states will ensure that a more robust record is placed before the services.”

However, Rob Bishop, the House Natural Resources Committee Chairman, was more suspicious of the rule. He said, “The Obama administration admitted today that the process by which Endangered Species Act listing determinations are made is insufficient, and then asked the American people to trust them to fix the problem. I don’t buy it.”

Bishop’s concern was mirrored by Brian Seasholes, who directs the endangered species project at the libertarian Reason Foundation in Los Angeles. He said that the rule was “an extremely marginal step in the right direction. But the larger problem still remains that the Endangered Species Act harms conservation through its punitive approach.” He is concerned that the rule leaves federal wildlife managers with too much discretion, and fails to address the hundreds of species for which FWS is already issuing listing determinations.

While the step may not be all that is needed, it is an important step that all involved parties are happy to see be taken.