Report: Banned waste filling state landfills, incinerators

Sam Drysdale | WBUR

"A coalition of environmental organizations under the name Zero Waste Massachusetts released a report Thursday morning that examines the effectiveness of waste bans, and calls on officials in Massachusetts to demand stricter enforcement of existing rules. The state Department of Environmental Protection implemented waste ban rules in 1990, prohibiting materials such as paper, cardboard, glass, metal and wood from being deposited into landfills and incinerators, which can lead to pollution and public health problems. But the coalition's new report claims that banned materials account for about 40% of the waste burned and buried in Massachusetts. The state disposed of 5.5 million tons of waste in 2019, and the report says more than 2 million tons of waste could have been recycled instead.

Massachusetts has only six landfills — and almost all are due to reach capacity by 2030, according to Keep Massachusetts Beautiful, a Keep America Beautiful affiliate focused on waste reduction and recycling. "The bottom line is: this should not be hard," said Elizabeth Saunders of Clean Water Action, which is one of the Zero Waste Massachusetts organizations. 'There are many environmental problems that are incredibly complicated to solve, but this is straightforward. We could drastically reduce waste in Massachusetts by doing the basics – enforcing the long-established DEP waste bans.' [...] In each of the four areas explored in the study, officials implemented separated waste streams and education programs either for the public or for waste haulers. Based on the study results, Zero Waste Massachusetts recommended that MassDEP better enforce the state's ban.The coalition called on the state agency to require waste haulers to inspect trash bins and issue warnings and financial penalties for noncompliance. The state should also devote more resources to waste ban inspections by hiring additional inspectors whose sole job is to enforce the bans, according to another recommendation. The coalition also recommends mandating the use of clear trash bags and instituting waste stream separation. Another important piece of their strategy is a multilingual public education campaign, which the report says will help all residents understand the MassDEP regulations. [...] Additionally, she said the timing of November's upcoming election provides the coalition with the opportunity to 'reach the next group of decision makers in Massachusetts and make sure they pay attention to this issue.' 'The next governor of Massachusetts needs to make reducing waste a top priority,' said Janet Domenitz of MASSPIRG. 'Disposing of waste that could be reused or recycled harms our environment and health, adds to climate change, and is literally throwing away our tax dollars which subsidize disposal. We need enforcement of these bans, and we need a more ambitious plan to make Massachusetts a zero waste state." Read More

Common Green Darners Migrating South

Mary Holland |Naturally Curious

"Monarchs aren’t the only insect that are seasonal migrants. The Common Green Darner dragonfly and a few other dragonfly species are as well. However, where Monarchs move northward in the spring over several generations, one generation of Common Green Darners flies all the way from southern U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean in the spring to New England and Canada. Here they lay eggs which give rise to a second generation that migrates south in September and October. Upon reaching their destination they then breed. A third generation emerges around November and lives entirely in the south during winter. It’s their offspring that start the cycle again by swarming northward as temperatures warm in the spring." Read More

Railroad company bulldozes thousands of trees, enraging residents worried about the impact on water supply

David Abel | The Boston Globe

"Last spring, as legal wrangling mounted and town officials sought control over forestlands critical to the local water supply, the new property owner spurned their pleas and cleared 100 acres above the sole aquifer, bulldozing thousands of mature trees to make way for new development. Residents were aghast to learn the owner, a local railroad company, asserted its right under an arcane federal law that allowed it to ignore local and state environmental rules. [...] The woods were bought from a private realty trust two years ago by the Grafton and Upton Railroad Co., which operates a 149-year-old freight line between Grafton and Franklin that runs through the property. [...] The railroad bought nearly 200 acres of forested land in this town southwest of Boston near Rhode Island and plans to build 1.5 million square feet of warehouses — more than 20 buildings — and a network of roads and other paved surfaces. The track-side location is ideal for the company, near two interstate highways. [...] But it’s unclear whether the company can develop the land, which it hopes to complete next year. Local residents and Hopedale officials, enraged about the environmental threats and what they consider bullying by the company, have filed multiple lawsuits. They claim the company violated state and federal laws and that the town should have had the option to buy the land first. [...] Meanwhile, newly elected selectmen have taken a less-accommodating position than their predecessors, who had approved a settlement with the company that allowed it to develop a smaller portion of the land. The agreement required the company to sell the remaining undeveloped land to the town. Last year, after residents sued the town to block the settlement and Hopedale’s Town Meeting rejected it, a state superior court judge effectively nullified the agreement. Over the summer, the new Select Board approved using the town’s eminent domain powers to take nearly two-thirds of the land, claiming Hopedale is the rightful owner. [...] The company has challenged the town’s authority to assert eminent domain over the property and insists it shouldn’t be subject to state environmental laws. [...] The company, which has been sued for asserting similar privileges in other communities, called the land 'irreplaceable real estate' and 'a once in a lifetime railroad development opportunity.' [...] Milanoski insisted the company is doing everything it can to protect the environment. 'This is one of the most benign locations from a community impact that one could find,' he said in a telephone interview. He also said the company is abiding by federal environmental laws and plans to filter storm water, build drainage basins, and take other steps to protect the local water supply. 'It’s bogus to say that we’re going to contaminate the watershed,' Milanoski said. 'The town is trying to deflect its own problems.' In fact, he argued, the project would ultimately be good for the environment. Allowing for more freight to be delivered by rail, rather than on trucks, would make a significant difference in reducing emissions, he said." Read More

Why electricity prices are rising unevenly across New England

Mirian Wasser - WBUR, Mara Hoplamazian | NHPR

"You may have noticed that your most recent electric bill is higher than usual — and if that change hasn’t happened yet, it’s probably coming this fall. These price spikes are occurring across New England, but bills are rising more in some places than others. Some ratepayers in New Hampshire saw the price of electricity double this summer, resulting in bills up to $70 higher, while many in Massachusetts are only paying an extra $11 per month. If it seems unfair, blame the energy markets. And if it’s confusing because everyone in New England shares an electricity grid, read on. What’s happening is complicated and poses a disproportionate burden on those who can least afford higher monthly bills. But it also opens up some interesting conversations about what a future powered primarily by renewable energy sources like wind and solar could mean for your electric bill. ...everyone who gets their electricity from the power lines that run down the streets is seeing rates rise. (People with solar panels on their roof, or who are part of a municipal aggregation or 'community power' program, are a different story.) The primary reason for the spike is our reliance on fossil fuels. Specifically, natural gas. Natural gas accounts for about 38% of the country’s electricity, though here in New England, it’s more like 53%. And the price of our main source of energy is anything but stable. [...] Let’s start with a look at your electric bill. You’ll see that there are a lot of charges that go into what you pay: Energy charges, customer charges and transmission charges, to name a few. All of those line items can be lumped into one of two categories: supply or delivery. Today’s focus is on the 'supply charge.' This is the cost of the actual electricity you used in the last month. It tends to be about half of your monthly bill and it’s what has been rising in odd and unequal ways across the region. For example, in September 2022, the supply charge for a Unitil customer in one part of New Hampshire is 10.11 cents per kilowatt hour, while an Eversource customer living a few miles away is paying 22.57 cents. The variation, to be clear, is not just about which utility you have. A different Eversource customer just across the border in Massachusetts is paying 17.87 cents per kilowatt-hour, while a third in Connecticut is paying 12.05. As a bit of background, the six New England states are part of the same regional electricity grid, which means that an electron produced by a power plant in Connecticut could theoretically travel through the wires and end up helping to illuminate a light bulb in Maine. But while the electrons flow freely, it’s the utilities — whether investor-owned or municipally-run — that act as the all-important middleman. They procure electricity from power generators and energy wholesalers on your behalf and make sure it gets to your house. In most New England states, utilities change the supply rate twice a year after holding competitive auctions. Their experts calculate how much power they think their customers will need over the next six-month period and go about signing contracts for it from various suppliers. The results of this procurement directly affect the monthly supply rate you pay, since utilities do not make a profit on the electricity they provide you. (They make money on other things they do.)" Read More

Europe is Sacrificing Its Ancient Forests for Energy

Sarah Hurtes & Weiyi Cai | The New York Time

"Burning wood was never supposed to be the cornerstone of the European Union’s green energy strategy. When the bloc began subsidizing wood burning over a decade ago, it was seen as a quick boost for renewable fuel and an incentive to move homes and power plants away from coal and gas. Chips and pellets were marketed as a way to turn sawdust waste into green power. Those subsidies gave rise to a booming market, to the point that wood is now Europe’s largest renewable energy source, far ahead of wind and solar. But today, as demand surges amid a Russian energy crunch, whole trees are being harvested for power. And evidence is mounting that Europe’s bet on wood to address climate change has not paid off. Forests in Finland and Estonia, for example, once seen as key assets for reducing carbon from the air, are now the source of so much logging that government scientists consider them carbon emitters. In Hungary, the government waived conservation rules last month to allow increased logging in old-growth forests. And while European nations can count wood power toward their clean-energy targets, the E.U. scientific research agency said last year that burning wood released more carbon dioxide than would have been emitted had that energy come from fossil fuels. [...] The industry has become so big that researchers cannot keep track of it. E.U. official research could not identify the source of 120 million metric tons of wood used across the continent last year — a gap bigger than the size of Finland’s entire timber industry. Researchers say most of that probably was burned for heating and electricity. Next week, the European Parliament is scheduled to vote on a bill that would eliminate most industry subsidies and prohibit countries from burning whole trees to meet their clean energy targets. Only energy from wood waste like sawdust would qualify as renewable, and thus be eligible for subsidies. But several European governments say that now is no time to meddle with an important energy industry, with supplies of Russian gas and oil in jeopardy. In the Czech Republic, protesters have mobbed the streets, furious with rising energy costs, and the French authorities have warned of rolling blackouts this winter. Internal documents show that Central European and Nordic countries, in particular, are pushing hard to keep the wood subsidies alive. [...] The European Union has required countries to meet aggressive renewable-energy targets. Wood qualifies as renewable energy, on the logic that trees ultimately grow back. In 2018, the last time the subsidies came up for a vote, nearly 800 scientists signed a letter urging lawmakers to stop treating logged trees as a green source of energy. [...] 'Using wood deliberately harvested for burning will increase carbon in the atmosphere and warming for decades to centuries,' the scientists wrote. [...] Experts with the Environmental Investigation Agency, working with a loose network of forestry conservationists, have spent nearly a year hiking into some of the continent’s oldest forests and attaching tracking devices to trees. They have scraped government truck-location data and tracked trees from natural parks and conservation areas to wood mills. They have linked loggers to companies marketing wood pellets as carbon-neutral fuel. They found that pillaging Europe’s last standing wild forests to make pellets has become a widespread practice in Central Europe. The New York Times supplemented the group’s data with publicly available records. A reporter and photographer spent four days hiking through Romania’s forests, which represent two-thirds of the European Union’s virgin woodlands. There, they documented clearcutting and followed trucks from ecologically sensitive forests. [...] After a 2,200-foot hike up Ceahlau Mountain in Romania, a trail of wooden carcasses is visible below, a scar across one of Europe’s last old-growth forests where 200-year-old trees once stood.

Further down the mountain, logs were loaded on a truck branded for Ameco, one of Romania’s biggest pellet producers. 'Pellet production offers the possibility to use waste from agriculture and forestry,' the company says on its website. Its pellet bags are labeled as coming exclusively from sawdust and wood chips. Times journalists saw trees from Romania’s protected forests being fed into Ameco grinders. The company also says its product does not emit greenhouse gas when burned. Scientists have calculated that, per unit of energy, burning wood actually releases more greenhouse gas emissions than burning gas, oil, or even coal." Read More