Equilibrium/Sustainability — Genetic testing used to crack elephant cartels

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Scientists have used a genetic investigation technique used to catch serial killers — most famously, the Golden State Killer — to assemble a detailed network of how elephant poaching cartels operate, The New York Times reported.  

By genetically sampling hundreds of tusks seized from disparate ports and shipping containers between 2002 and 2019, researchers found hundreds of tusks from close elephant relatives, according to a recent study in Nature Human Behavior.  

This allowed law enforcement to retroactively trace the movements of the cartels that poached those elephants as they moved their export operations across East and Central Africa — leading to the arrest of two Congolese wildlife smugglers last November, as reported by the Justice Department. 

“We have the opportunity to take out the big guys once and for all,” University of Washington conservation biologist Sam Wasser told the Times.  

Today we’ll look at more sweeping, if less immediate threats: the plague of pharmaceuticals polluting the planet’s rivers, as well as one way “forever chemicals” are seeping into the Great Lakes. Then we’ll turn to the danger that sea level rise poses to coastal infrastructure — and moves by the federal government to protect U.S. shorelines. 

For Equilibrium, we are Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Please send tips or comments to Saul at selbein@digital-release.thehill.com or Sharon at sudasin@digital-release.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @saul_elbein and @sharonudasin.   

Let’s get to it. 

 

Pharmaceutical pollution plaguing global rivers

Pharmaceuticals are polluting waterways on all five continents — and doing so at potentially toxic concentrations in more than a quarter of the 258 global rivers sampled in a new, multi-institutional study. 

Sites with the most contamination were located in low- to middle-income countries in areas with poor waste management infrastructure and robust pharmaceutical manufacturing, according to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 

Scientists found the highest cumulative concentrations for the 61 pharmaceuticals surveyed in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South America. 

First words: “We’ve known for over two decades now that pharmaceuticals make their way into the aquatic environment where they may affect the biology of living organisms,” project co-leader John Wilkinson, from the University of York, said in a statement.  

But a big problem scientists have faced, according to Wilkinson, is that data has not been globally representative — focusing thus far on North America, Western Europe and China. 

A global river phenomenon: An expansive, international research team — the University of York-led Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals Project — obtained samples from 1,052 sites along 258 of the world’s rivers in 104 countries. These samples represented the environmental impact of 471.4 million people, according to the study.   

The scientists said they included noteworthy waterways like the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Thames and the Mekong — as well as those that pass through the most populated cities and others that weave through areas of political instability. 

Sewage discharge coupled with industrial production: The factors linked to the highest concentrations included dumping trash and septic tanks into rivers, insufficient wastewater infrastructure and pharmaceutical production, the authors found. 

What were some of the most frequently identified drugs? The anti-seizure drug carbamazepine, the anti-diabetic metformin and caffeine were detected at more than half the locations sampled, according to the study.  

And those most often identified at dangerous levels? Concentrations of at least one pharmaceutical surpassed levels deemed safe for aquatic organisms at 25.7 percent of the sites, the authors found. 

Some such pharmaceuticals included beta-blocker propranolol, antihistamine loratadine and antimicrobials sulfamethoxazole and ciprofloxacin, the research showed. 

“A global threat to human health:” Due to the widespread nature of such contamination in waterways across the world, the authors concluded that “pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to human health.” 

 

‘FOREVER CHEMICALS’ FLOWING THROUGH RIVERS TOO

Tributary rivers that feed into Lake Michigan play a critical role in shuttling cancer-linked “forever chemicals” into the Great Lakes system, a second new study has found.  

Scientists quantified the presence of 10 types of perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) in water and sediment of 41 tributaries to Green Bay of Lake Michigan, according to the study, published recently in the American Chemical Society’s ES&T Water journal. 

The Great Lakes are the world’s largest source of fresh water, providing drinking water to more than 40 million people in the U.S. and Canada, according to the study.   

What are PFAAs? They are members of the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) umbrella group — which contains thousands of compounds known to linger in the human body. 

“Understandably, there is a heightened interest in the levels of PFAS in drinking water,” co-author Sarah Balgooyen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, said in a statement. “PFAS have been linked to a number of ill human health effects, including cancer.”   

While studying the water and sediment samples, the researchers found that the Fox, Menominee and Peshtigo Rivers contribute two-thirds of the total tributary PFAA release into Green Bay. 

Firefighting foam, industrial discharge: The sources of these chemicals, the scientists conjectured, are probably linked to a firefighting foam manufacturer, industrial activity and airports that use the foam on their runways.  

The scientists also determined that tributary sediments could contribute PFAA through a release process called “desorption” — when a riverbed becomes a contamination source even when the water above it is clean.   

Christy Remucal, study co-author and University of Wisconsin professor, said in a statement that their research could bring critical information “to all of the Great Lakes communities because it’s an interconnected water system.”  

Last words: “These findings could also be extrapolated to understand the conditions surrounding thousands of other tributaries that flow into the five lakes,” Remucal added. 

COMING SOON FROM THE HILL

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Issues at coastal wastewater plant a harbinger of climate danger

Rising seas are threatening to a coastal Maine water treatment plant — raising the risk that storm could send sewage pouring into nearby rivers, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Michael Regan warned in a visit to the state Monday.   

The danger to the Saco, Maine, plant is just one aspect of a sweeping national problem facing the Biden administration — the dangers that sea level rise poses to key coastal infrastructure and housing. It’s also one that last year’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan is intended to help solve.   

First words: “The risk of raw sewage overflowing in the Saco River is a threat to the community,” Regan told reporters, according to the Bangor Daily News.   

While the Biden administration struggles to cut emissions from burning fossil fuels, Regan added, it’s also focused on the changes that can’t be stopped. 

“His eyes are also focused on resiliency,” Regan said of Biden, according to the Daily News. “And what we need to do to live with some of the things that we are currently seeing now.” 

Behind the lines: Regan was touring Saco’s wastewater treatment plant, which — like much New England infrastructure — wasn’t built to handle the heightened water levels brought by rising seas, heavier rainfalls and more powerful weather. 

Put together in a bad enough storm, these vulnerabilities threaten to back up the Saco wastewater treatment facility — which serves 12,000 residents — potentially shutting it down and leading to the uncontrolled release of sewage into the nearby Saco River. 

“It’s quite easy to imagine a recipe for financial and environmental disaster,” Howard Carter, director of the wastewater facility, told the Daily News. 

It’s not just Maine: Though South Carolina has experienced only one degree Fahrenheit of warming since 1900 — half that of the Earth as a whole — it has still experienced four of its 10 wettest years on record since 2013, state climatologist Hope Mizell told our colleagues at Nexstar station WBTW news on Monday. 

While acknowledging that the timing of the impact from climate change remains uncertain, Mizell stressed that “we certainly are already seeing things here in South Carolina, as well as across the globe [that] can’t wait until 2050.”  

A NEW PUSH FOR COASTAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Floods, hurricanes and other storms threaten more than 60,000 miles of U.S. roads and bridges that pass through floodplains, with annual upkeep costs in the billions, according to the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, an interagency initiative run under the United States Global Change Research Program.  

Damage to such infrastructure also threatens communities far from the ocean, as the entire country relies on seaports — which handle 99 percent of foreign trade — and on oil and gas refineries located near the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, according to the Toolkit. 

Infrastructure money on the way: Saco, Maine will get some portion of a $70 million disbursement from last year’s infrastructure bill to build a new wastewater facility — in addition to $50 million in bonds that the city voted to raise back in November, the Daily News reported. 

The infrastructure bill provided a total of $50 billion for climate resilience, from wildfires to floods — amounting to “the largest investment in the resilience of physical and natural infrastructure in American history,” according to a White House fact sheet.  

More may be coming: Last week, a bipartisan group of Louisiana Republicans and Delaware Democrats introduced joint bills that would give the Army Corps of Engineers broader authority to carry out projects that build coastal resilience, as our colleague Rachel Frazin reported. 

The bill would also give the Corps authority to carry out projects in National Parks, Seashores, Recreation Areas and Wildlife Refuges, and increase the amount of money the federal government pays for projects involving natural climate solutions, Frazin explained.  

“We have to use all the resources at our disposal to safeguard coastal communities from worsening climate threats like extreme weather and rising sea level,” Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said in a statement. 

Last words: “We’re going to flood no matter what,” South Carolina organizer April O’Leary told WBTW.   

“We can’t change that, but we can make sure when we do flood it’s not a catastrophic event.” 

Tech Tuesday 

Mining riches from coal waste, running desalination on solar and swapping toxic surfactants with sustainable solutions. 

DOE wants to sift coal ash for high-tech minerals 

• The Department of Energy (DOE) wants to build a recycling facility that would pull critical minerals from an unconventional source: fossil fuel wastes like coal ash, according to CNN. “Since we get fossil fuels from the earth, there’s a lot of other components other than just the carbons,” like cobalt, nickel and rare-earth elements Jennifer Wilcox of the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management told CNN. 

MIT team unlocks key to solar-powered desalination 

• A Massachusetts Institute of Technology research team has devised a solution to desalinate seawater using solar heat, by eliminating the salt accumulation that has previously prevented such technology from advancing, a news release from MIT said. Their study, published in Nature Communications, showed how replacing “wicks” — typically used to convey saline water, but vulnerable to salt buildup — with tiny drilled holes can enable a natural convective circulation that achieves efficient performance.  

Biosurfactants, biobased microgels show promise as sustainable solutions   

• Both biosurfactants — microbial-sourced alternatives for detergents used in shampoos — and biobased microgel containers used to store crops protection agents “are highly promising candidates for use in a future bioeconomy,” a new study from Goethe University Frankfurt has found. Such an economy includes products that are sustainably produced while not harming humans or the environment, according to the study.  

 

Please visit The Hill’s sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you on Tuesday.