Climate Point: As deadly wildfires erupt, should power lines go underground?
Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate change, energy and the environment. I'm Janet Wilson, writing to you from Palm Springs, Calif., which, like the rest of the wind-blown Golden State, is keeping a nervous eye on wildfires and power lines. By midday Friday, two people had died in fast-moving blazes and one million people had their electricity shut off or had been warned it could be by skittish utilities whose power lines sparked devastating wildfires a year ago.
"Climate change is a major factor," said UC Berkeley professor Severin Borenstein. "Electric lines have been sparking and starting fires for years. But they're much bigger now, with much more vegetation."
Borenstein spoke to me Thursday through the crackly static of a cell phone in a darkened San Francisco suburb, for a story I wrote about why utilities don't just bury power lines underground. The Berkeley campus was shut down and his home had lost power too, after Pacific Gas & Electric instituted mandatory "de-energization" due to high fire threats. Borenstein's short answer on why there's no rush to bury lines: "Very, very expensive."
Here are some other things that may be of interest:
MUST-READ STORIES
Pull over. Using the drive-through lane is getting harder in some U.S. cities. Minneapolis recently became the latest to ban the construction of new drive-through windows. Similar legislation has passed in Creve Coeur, Mo.; Long Beach, Calif.; and Fair Haven, N.J., reports Jodi Helmer for NPR. Most bans focus on curbing harmful emissions from idling cars, reducing litter and improving pedestrian safety. The Minneapolis ordinance ties to a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050.
Not for the birds. Climate change is threatening two-thirds of U.S. avian species with extinction, according to a report Thursday from the National Audubon Society. Three billion birds have been lost since 1970, but the future looks even worse. "It's a bird emergency," said David Yarnold, CEO and president of Audubon. Doyle Rice with USA Today fills us in. The imperiled species include state birds such as Minnesota's common loon, New Jersey's goldfinch and California's quail.
Bad news in Jersey too. Hawks badly burned by landfill flame.
POLITICAL CLIMATE
Get the lead out. For the first time in decades, EPA is overhauling how communities must test for lead in water, and aiming to force quicker action when problems arise with elevated levels across 68,000 public water systems, per Brady Dennis with the Washington Post. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler called the proposal “a major milestone.” But critics said the proposal fails to require the steady removal of 6 million lead service lines that remain underground. “Everything else is small potatoes,” said Erik Olson with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Prickly situation. President Trump's border wall is going up between Arizona and Mexico, and bulldozers are toppling iconic saguaro cacti in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument as part of the project, as first reported by Brian Kahn with Gizmodo Earther.
Lands chief meets the press. Controversial acting Bureau of Land Management chief William Pendley headlined a panel at Friday's Society of Environmental Journalists conference, and he got an earful from — and gave an earful to — the media, including saying an effort to ban drilling on public lands is "absolutely insane." Chase Woodruff with Westword fills us in.
Water, water everywhere
Dead in the water. Angry fishermen and longtime residents want Florida to stop aggressively spraying pesticides on state waterways. They're showing up at public meetings to show video of young wildlife being sprayed and to talk about beloved fishing holes turned into dead zones. Ed Killer with Treasure Coast Newspapers tells us they want the state to let nonnative weeds grow for a few years, then use mechanical means to chop them out instead. What's at stake is the health of Florida's 31,978 lakes.
No retreat. A California town is refusing to move beachfront homes out of the projected path of rising seas, despite strong recommendations by the state's powerful Coastal Commission. The battle over how aggressively beach cities must plan for sea-level rise is headed for a major showdown, one that could send reverberations up and down the state’s coast, as E&E News' Anne Mulkern reports in a piece carried by Scientific American.
AND ANOTHER THING
Something to crow about. While the news is grim overall for feathered species, a rare Michigan songbird is back after decades of efforts to restore its young, jack pine forest habitat. The Kirtland's warbler is doing so well, it's been removed from the federal endangered species list, as the Detroit Free Press' Keith Matheny reports.
Scientists say to keep a livable planet, we need to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to 350 ppm. We're above 400 ppm and rising.
That's all for this week. For more climate, energy and environment news, follow me on Twitter @janetwilson66. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here.