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World

How do you lose a radioactive capsule? Australian investigators are wondering too

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Brisbane, Australia
CNN
 — 

The discovery of a tiny lost radioactive capsule beside a remote highway in Western Australia raises many questions – not least how it escaped layers of radiation-proof packaging loaded onto a moving truck.

It’s one of the many puzzling aspects of a case investigators will examine in the coming weeks as they try to piece together the timeline of the capsule’s movements from January 12, when it was packaged for transport, to February 1, when a recovery team found it by the side of the road.

The capsule – just 8 millimeters by 6 millimeters – was used in a density gauge fitted to a pipe at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri iron ore mine to measure the flow of material through the feeder.

Rio Tinto said in a statement Monday the capsule was packaged for transit to Perth, 1,400 kilometers (870 miles away), with its presence inside the package confirmed by a Geiger counter before it was transported by a third-party contractor.

Normally, the trip would take more than 12 hours by road, but roughly two hours in, the capsule exited the vehicle as it traveled south, and somehow crossed one lane of traffic, to end up two meters (6.5 feet) from the northbound side of the two-lane highway.

Lauren Steen, general manager of Radiation Services WA, a consultancy that writes radiation management plans, said industry insiders were just as baffled as the public when they heard the capsule was missing.

“The whole team were scratching our head. We couldn’t figure out what had happened,” said Steen, whose company was not involved in its disappearance.

“If the source had been placed in a certified package and transported under all of the requirements of the code of practice, then it’s an extremely unlikely event – one-in-a-million,” she said.

The truck thought to be carrying the capsule arrived in Perth on January 16, four days after its departure from the Gudai-Darri iron ore mine. But it wasn’t until January 25, when workers from SGS Australia went to unpack the gauge for inspection, that it was discovered missing.

In a statement, SGS Australia said it had been hired by Rio Tinto to package the capsule but it had nothing to do with its transportation, which was carried out by a “specialist transporter.”

“We performed the contracted service to package the equipment at the mine site and unpackage it following transportation using qualified personnel for our customer in accordance with all standards and regulations,” it said.

“The transportation of the package, organized by our client and delegated to a specialist transporter, was not within the scope of SGS services. Our personnel noticed the loss of the source at our Perth laboratory when opening the package and reported this incident immediately.”

The name of the company contracted to transport the package has not been released.

The missing capsule triggered a six-day search along a stretch of the Great Northern Highway. Then on Wednesday morning, a car fitted with special equipment traveling south of the small town of Newman detected a higher radiation reading. Handheld devices were then used to hone in on the capsule nestled in the dirt.

In Australia, each state has its own laws regarding the handling of radioactive substances and codes of practice that comply with guidelines set by the Australian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), a government body that works closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO).

In Western Australia, the rules are governed by the Radiation Safety Act 1975, which Steen says is well overdue for review. “It hasn’t been rewritten since the 70s, so I think that kind of speaks for itself,” she said.

Steen said over the decades technological advancements had made the use of radiation sources within mining equipment much safer – and because it was safer, devices were being used more frequently. As of 2021, over 150 projects were operating in Western Australia, the hub of the country’s mining exports, according to the state’s Chamber of Minerals and Energy.

Under the Radiation Safety Act 1975, only specially trained and licensed operators can package radioactive substances, but different rules apply to contractors hired to transport it, Steen said.

“Any transport company can transport radioactive material provided they have got the license to do so,” she said.

Under the act that license can be obtained by attending a one-day course and passing a test certified and approved by the regulator.

The licensee must have oversight of a transportation plan submitted to the regulator but does not have to supervise the journey in person. There are no rules about the type of vehicles used for transport.

Steen says clearly something went wrong – and she hopes the results of the investigation will be shared with the radiation community so they can avoid such issues in future.

Discussion has already started about the need for tougher penalties – in WA, mishandling radioactive substances carries a fine of just 1,000 Australian dollars ($714) – a figure described as “ridiculously low” by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to reporters on Wednesday.

The rules around packaging radiation sources depend on how much radiation they emit. In some cases, the device could be encased in three layers. In the case of the capsule, the gauge could be considered one layer of protection before it was placed into an “overpack,” a container that was likely bolted shut.

In a statement, DFES said when the package was opened the gauge was found to be broken, with one of the four mounting bolts missing. Referring to the capsule, the statement added, “the source itself and all screws on the gauge were also missing.”

One theory investigators may examine is if the gauge broke and the capsule fell out of the overpack through a hole used to secure the lid.

It’s expected to be several weeks before the Radiological Council submits its report to the WA health minister. Meanwhile, Rio Tinto is carrying out its own investigation.

CEO Simon Trott said the company would be willing to reimburse the government for costs associated with the search – if requested.

WA Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson said the offer was appreciated but the government would wait for the outcome of the investigation to apportion blame.

He said he didn’t know how much the search had cost but at least 100 people were involved including police, firefighters, health department and defence force personnel.

Staff from the National Emergency Management Agency, the Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organization and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency also took part.

On Thursday, relieved DFES officials released new images of the capsule being taken to Perth where it will be safely held in a facility.

This time, it traveled in a convoy of enclosed white vehicles – with big stickers warning of the presence of a radioactive substance.

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World

From China to Japan, deadly cold is gripping East Asia. Experts say it’s the ‘new norm’

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Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

A deadly cold snap that is gripping East Asia has killed at least four people in Japan after subzero temperatures and heavy snow brought travel chaos during the Lunar New Year holiday, with climate experts warning that such extreme weather events had become the “new norm.”

Japanese officials said all four of those who died on Wednesday and Thursday had been working to clear snow amid what Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno has called a “once-in-a-decade cold snap.”

Two of the deaths were reported in the western Niigata prefecture, with one in southwestern Oita prefecture and one in southern Okayama prefecture – where the victim had a heart attack.

In neighboring South Korea, heavy snow warnings were issued this week as temperatures in the capital Seoul fell as low as minus 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) and plummeted to record lows in other cities, officials said. Residents said it began snowing heavily overnight late Wednesday into Thursday.

On the popular tourist island of Jeju, harsh weather this week led to the cancellation of hundreds of flights while passenger ships were forced to stay in port due to huge waves, according to the Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasure Headquarters.

“Cold air from the North Pole has reached South Korea directly,” after traveling through Russia and China, Korea Meteorological Administration spokesperson Woo Jin-kyu told CNN.

– Source:
CNN
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See what life is like inside one of the world’s coldest places

Woo said that while scientists took a long-term view of climate change, “we can consider this extreme weather – extremely hot weather in summer and extremely cold weather in winter – as one of the signals of climate change.”

Across the border in Pyongyang, North Korean authorities warned of extreme weather conditions as the cold wave swept through the Korean Peninsula. Temperatures in parts of North Korea were expected to dip below minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit), state media reported.

In Japan, hundreds of domestic flights were canceled on Tuesday and Wednesday due to heavy snow and strong winds that hampered visibility. Major carriers Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways canceled a combined total of 229 flights.

Meanwhile, high-speed trains were suspended between the northern Fukushima and Shinjo stations, Japan Railway Group said.

China’s meteorological authority has also forecast big temperature drops in parts of the country and on Monday issued a blue alert for a cold wave – the lowest level in a four-tier warning system.

Mohe, China’s northernmost city, on Sunday saw temperatures drop to minus 53 degrees Celsius (minus 63.4 degrees Fahrenheit) – its coldest ever recorded, meteorologists said. Ice fog – a weather phenomenon that occurs only in extreme cold when water droplets in air remain in liquid form – is also expected in the city this week, local authorities said.

Other parts of Asia also felt the impacts of harsh cold weather.

Earlier this month in Russian Siberia, temperatures in the city of Yakutsk stood at minus 62.7 degrees Celsius (minus 80.9 degrees Fahrenheit) – a record for a place widely known as the world’s coldest city.

The cold was also felt in Afghanistan, where Taliban officials reported the deaths of at least 157 people as the country experiences one of its coldest ever winters with minimal humanitarian aid. Officials said temperatures in early January had plummeted to as low as minus 28 degrees Celsius (minus 18 Fahrenheit).

Yeh Sang-wook, a climate professor at Hanyang University in Seoul, attributed the extreme cold wave on the Korean Peninsula to Arctic winds from Siberia, adding that the cold wave in South Korea this year was partly due to the melting of Arctic ice caps from a warming climate.

“There has been a record melting last year and this year,” he said. “When sea ice is melted, the sea opens up, sending up more vapor into air, leading to more snow in the north.”

As climate change worsens, the region would face more severe cold weather in the future, he said.

“There is no other (explanation),” he said. “Climate change is indeed deepening and there is a consensus among global scientists that this kind of cold phenomenon will worsen going forward.”

Kevin Trenberth, from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), agreed that “extreme weather events are the new norm,” adding, “we certainly can expect that weather extremes are going to be worse than they were before.”

He also pointed to the El Niño and La Niña climate pattern cycles in the Pacific Ocean that affect weather worldwide.

La Niña, which typically has a cooling effect on global temperatures, is one of the reasons for the current cold snap, he said.

“There’s certainly a large natural variability that occurs in the weather but … we often hear about the El Nino phenomenon and at the moment we’re in the La Niña phase. And that certainly influences the kinds of patterns that tend to occur. And so that’s a player as well,” he said.

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World

Iceberg roughly the size of London breaks off in Antarctica

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CNN
 — 

An iceberg nearly the size of Greater London broke off the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica on Sunday according to the British Antarctic Survey.

Scientists first discovered significant cracks in the ice shelf a decade ago, but in the last two years there have been two major breaks. The BAS Halley Research Station is located on the Brunt Ice Shelf and glaciologists say the research station is safe.

The iceberg is around 600 square miles, or 1550 square kilometers. The researchers say this event was expected and not a result of climate change.

“This calving event has been expected and is part of the natural behavior of the Brunt Ice Shelf. It is not linked to climate change. Our science and operational teams continue to monitor the ice shelf in real-time to ensure it is safe, and to maintain the delivery of the science we undertake at Halley,” Professor Dominic Hodgson a BAS glaciologist said in a news release.

The calving comes amid record-low sea ice extent in Antarctica, where it is summer.

“While the decline in Antarctic sea ice extent is always steep at this time of year, it has been unusually rapid this year,” scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported in early January, “and at the end of December, Antarctic sea ice extent stood at the lowest in the 45-year satellite record.”

Researchers at the data center say the low sea ice has been due in part to a large band of warmer-than-normal air temperatures, which climbed to 2 degrees Celsius above average over the Ross Sea in November and December. Strong winds have also hastened the sea ice decline, they reported.

Recent data shows the sea ice has not since recovered, suggesting the continent could end the summer with a new record on the books for the second year in a row.

Antarctica has experienced a roller-coaster of sea ice extent over the past couple of decades, swinging wildly from record highs to record lows. Unlike the Arctic, where scientists say climate change is accelerating its impacts, Antarctica’s sea ice extent is highly variable.

“There’s a link between what’s going on in Antarctica and the general warming trend around the rest of the world, but it’s different from what we see in mountain glaciers and what we see in the Arctic,” Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder and lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, previously told CNN.

Satellite data that stretches back to 1978 shows that the region was still producing record-high sea ice extent as recently as 2014 and 2015. Then it suddenly plunged in 2016 and has stayed lower than average since.

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World

The Doomsday Clock reveals how close we are to total annihilation

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Sign up for CNN’s Life, But Greener newsletter. Our limited newsletter series guides you on how to minimize your personal role in the climate crisis — and reduce your eco-anxiety.



CNN
 — 

The Doomsday Clock has been ticking for 76 years. But it’s no ordinary clock.

It attempts to gauge how close humanity is to destroying the world.

On Tuesday, the clock was set at 90 seconds until midnight — the closest to the hour it has ever been, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which created the clock in 1947. Midnight represents the moment at which we will have made Earth uninhabitable for humanity. From 2020 to 2022, the clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight.

The clock isn’t designed to definitively measure existential threats, but rather to spark conversations about difficult scientific topics such as climate change, according to the Bulletin.

The decision to move the clock 10 seconds forward this year is largely due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the increased risk of nuclear escalation, the Bulletin said in a news release. The continuing threats posed by the climate crisis, as well as the breakdown of norms and institutions needed to reduce risks associated with biological threats like Covid-19, also played a role.

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality,” Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin, said in the release. “It’s a decision our experts do not take lightly. The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the Clock.”

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded by a group of atomic scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project, the code name for the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Originally, the organization was conceived to measure nuclear threats, but in 2007 the Bulletin made the decision to include climate change in its calculations.

Over the last three-quarters of a century, the clock’s time has changed according to how close the scientists believe the human race is to total destruction. Some years the time changes, and some years it doesn’t.

The Doomsday Clock is set every year by the experts on the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 11 Nobel laureates.

Although the clock has been an effective wake-up call when it comes to reminding people about the cascading crises the planet is facing, some have questioned the 75-year-old clock’s usefulness.

“It’s an imperfect metaphor,” Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Earth and environmental science department at the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN in 2022, highlighting that the clock’s framing combines different types of risk that have different characteristics and occur in different timescales. Still, he adds it “remains an important rhetorical device that reminds us, year after year, of the tenuousness of our current existence on this planet.”

Every model has constraints, Eryn MacDonald, analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program, told CNN in 2022, adding that the Bulletin has made thoughtful decisions each year on how to get the people’s attention about existential threats and the required action.

“While I wish we could go back to talking about minutes to midnight instead of seconds, unfortunately that no longer reflects reality,” she said.

The clock has never reached midnight, and Bronson hopes it never will.

“When the clock is at midnight, that means there’s been some sort of nuclear exchange or catastrophic climate change that’s wiped out humanity,” she said. “We never really want to get there and we won’t know it when we do.”

The clock’s time isn’t meant to measure threats, but rather to spark conversation and encourage public engagement in scientific topics like climate change and nuclear disarmament.

If the clock is able to do that, then Bronson views it as a success.

When a new time is set on the clock, people listen, she said. At the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, UK, in 2021, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson cited the Doomsday Clock when talking about the climate crisis the world is facing, Bronson noted.

Bronson said she hopes people will discuss whether they agree with the Bulletin’s decision and have fruitful talks about what the driving forces of the change are.

Moving the clock back with bold, concrete actions is still possible. In fact, the hand moved the farthest away from midnight — a whopping 17 minutes before the hour — in 1991, when then President George H.W. Bush’s administration signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Soviet Union. In 2016, the clock was at three minutes before midnight as a result of the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accord.

“We at the Bulletin believe that because humans created these threats, we can reduce them,” Bronson said. “But doing so is not easy, nor has it ever been. And it requires serious work and global engagement at all levels of society.”

Don’t underestimate the power of talking about these important issues with your peers, Bronson said.

“You might not feel it because you’re not doing anything, but we know that public engagement moves (a) leader to do things,” she said.

To make a positive impact on climate change, look at your daily habits and see if there are small changes you can make in your life such as how often you walk versus drive and how your home is heated, Bronson explained.

Eating seasonally and locally, reducing food waste, and recycling properly are other ways to help mitigate, or deal with the effects of, the climate crisis.

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Health

Grizzly bears test positive for bird flu in Montana, officials say

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CNN
 — 

Three grizzly bears were euthanized in Montana after they became ill and tested positive for the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus, according to the state’s Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks.

These were the first documented cases of bird flu in a grizzly in Montana and the first nationwide for this outbreak of HPAI, according to Dr. Jennifer Ramsey, the department’s wildlife veterinarian.

The juvenile bears were in three separate locations in the western part of the state during the fall, the Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks said in a statement.

The bears “were observed to be in poor condition and exhibited disorientation and partial blindness, among other neurological issues,” the statement said. “They were euthanized due to their sickness and poor condition.”

Avian influenza – commonly called bird flu – is a naturally occurring virus that spreads quickly in birds. There were documented cases of HPAI in a skunk and a fox in Montana last year, and the virus has been seen in raccoons, black bears and a coyote in other states and countries, according to the Montana agency.

“The virus is spread from one bird to another,” Dr. Ramsey told CNN via email. “These mammals likely got infected from consuming carcasses of HPAI infected birds.”

“Fortunately, unlike avian cases, generally small numbers of mammal cases have been reported in North America,” Ramsey said. “For now, we are continuing to test any bears that demonstrate neurologic symptoms or for which a cause of death is unknown.”

While finding three grizzlies with bird flu in a short period of time may raise concerns, Ramsey said it may well be that there have been more cases that haven’t been detected.

“When wildlife mortalities occur in such small numbers or individuals, and in species like skunks, foxes and bears that don’t spend a lot of time in situations where they are highly visible to the public, they can be hard to detect,” the wildlife veterinarian said.

“When you get that first detection you tend to start looking harder, and you’re more likely to find new cases,” she said. “When a large number of birds are found dead on a body of water, it gets noticed and reported… when someone sees a dead skunk, they may think nothing of it and not report it.”

While it’s unknown just how prevalent the virus is in wild birds, “we know that the virus is active basically across the entire state due to the wide distribution of cases of HPAI mortality in some species of wild birds,” Ramsey said.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in November the country was approaching “a record number of birds affected compared to previous bird flu outbreaks,” with more than 49 million birds in 46 states dying or being killed due to exposure to infected birds.

Human infections with bird flu are rare but are possible, “usually after close contact with infected birds. The current risk to the general public from bird flu viruses is low,” the CDC says on its website.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks is asking people to report any birds or animals acting “unusual or unexplained cases of sickness and/or death.”

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Science

Temperatures on Greenland haven’t been this warm in at least 1,000 years, scientists report

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CNN
 — 

As humans fiddle with the planet’s thermostat, scientists are piecing together Greenland’s history by drilling ice cores to analyze how the climate crisis has impacted the island country over the years. The further down they drilled, the further they went back in time, allowing them to separate which temperature fluctuations were natural and which were human-caused.

After years of research on the Greenland ice sheet – which CNN visited when the cores were drilled – scientists reported Wednesday in the journal Nature that temperatures there have been the warmest in at least the last 1,000 years – the longest amount of time their ice cores could be analyzed to. And they found that between 2001 and 2011, it was on average 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than it was during the 20th century.

The report’s authors said human-caused climate change played a significant role in the dramatic rise in temperatures in the critical Arctic region, where melting ice has a considerable global impact.

“Greenland is the largest contributor currently to sea level rise,” Maria Hörhold, lead author of the study and a glaciologist with the Alfred Wegener Institute, told CNN. “And if we keep on going with the carbon emissions as we do right now, then by 2100, Greenland will have contributed up to 50 centimeters to sea level rise and this will affect millions of people who live in coastal areas.”

– Source:
CNN
” data-fave-thumbnails=”{“big”:{“uri”:”https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/121204121146-greenland-secrets-in-ice-e-00021413.jpg?q=x_75,y_77,h_622,w_1107,c_crop/h_540,w_960″},”small”:{“uri”:”https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/121204121146-greenland-secrets-in-ice-e-00021413.jpg?q=x_75,y_77,h_622,w_1107,c_crop/h_540,w_960″}}” data-vr-video=”” data-show-name=”” data-show-url=”” data-check-event-based-preview=”” data-network-id=”” data-details=””>

Greenland: Secrets in the Ice — Part 5


07:57

– Source:
CNN

Weather stations along the edge of the Greenland ice sheet have detected that its coastal regions are warming, but scientists’ understanding of the effects of rising temperatures there had been limited due to the lack of long-term observations.

Understanding the past, Hörhold said, is important to prepare for future consequences.

“If you want to state something is global warming, you need to know what the natural variation was before humans actually interacted with the atmosphere,” she said. “For that, you have to go to the past – to the pre-industrial era – when humans have not been emitting [carbon dioxide] into the atmosphere.”

During pre-industrial times, there were no weather stations in Greenland that gathered temperature data like today. That’s why the scientists relied on paleoclimate data, such as ice cores, to study the region’s warming patterns. The last robust ice core analysis in Greenland ended in 1995, and that data didn’t detect warming despite climate change already being apparent elsewhere, Hörhold said.

“With this extension to 2011, we can show that, ‘Well, there is actually warming,’” she added. “The warming trend has been there since 1800, but we had the strong natural variability that has been hiding this warming.”

Before humans began belching fossil fuel emissions into the atmosphere, temperatures near 32 degrees Fahrenheit in Greenland were unheard of. But recent research shows that the Arctic region has been warming four times faster than the rest of the planet.

Significant warming in Greenland’s ice sheet is nearing a tipping point, scientists say, which could trigger catastrophic melting. Greenland holds enough ice that if it all melted, it could lift global sea levels by roughly 24 feet, according to NASA.

Although the study only covered temperatures through 2011, Greenland has seen extreme events since then. In 2019, an unexpectedly hot spring and a July heat wave caused almost the entire ice sheet’s surface to begin melting, shedding roughly 532 billion tons of ice into the sea. Global sea level would rise by 1.5 millimeters as a result, scientists reported afterward.

Then in 2021, rain fell at the summit of Greenland – roughly two miles above sea level – for the first time on record. The warm air then fueled an extreme rain event, dumping 7 billion tons of water on the ice sheet, enough to fill the Reflecting Pool at Washington, DC’s National Mall nearly 250,000 times.

With these extreme events in Greenland happening more often, Hörhold said the team will continue to monitor the changes.

“Every degree matters,” Hörhold said. “At one point, we will go back to Greenland and we will keep on extending those records.”

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US

Locally caught fish are full of dangerous chemicals called PFAS

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CNN
 — 

Fish caught in the fresh waters of the nation’s streams and rivers and the Great Lakes contain dangerously high levels of PFOS, short for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, a known synthetic toxin phased out by the federal government, according to a study of data from the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The chemical PFOS is part of a family of manufactured additives known as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, widely used since the 1950s to make consumer products nonstick and resistant to stains, water and grease damage.

Called “forever chemicals” because they fail to break down easily in the environment, PFAS has leached into the nation’s drinking water via public water systems and private wells. The chemicals then accumulate in the bodies of fish, shellfish, livestock, dairy and game animals that people eat, experts say.

“The levels of PFOS found in freshwater fish often exceeded an astounding 8,000 parts per trillion,” said study coauthor David Andrews, a senior scientist at Environmental Working Group, the nonprofit environmental health organization that analyzed the data. The report was published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research.

In comparison, the EPA has allowed only 70 parts per trillion of PFOS in the nation’s drinking water. Due to growing health concerns, in 2022 the EPA recommended the allowable level of PFOS in drinking water be lowered from 70 to 0.02 parts per trillion.

“You’d have to drink an incredible amount of water — we estimate a month of contaminated water — to get the same exposure as you would from a single serving of freshwater fish,” Andrews said.

“Consuming even a single (locally caught freshwater) fish per year can measurably and significantly change the levels of PFOS in your blood,” Andrews said.

Chemicals in the PFAS family are linked to high cholesterol, cancer and various chronic diseases, as well as a limited antibody response to vaccines in both adults and children, according to a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

“This is an important paper,” said toxicologist Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program.

“To find this level of contamination in fish across the country, even in areas not close to industry where you might expect heavy contamination, is very concerning. These chemicals are everywhere,” she said.

Read more: Doctors should test levels of PFAS in people at high risk, report says

It’s nearly impossible to avoid PFAS, experts say. Manufacturers add the chemicals to thousands of products, including nonstick cookware, mobile phones, carpeting, clothing, makeup, furniture and food packaging.

A 2020 investigation found PFAS in the wrapping of many fast foods and “environmentally friendly” molded fiber bowls and containers.

A 2021 study found PFAS in 52% of tested cosmetics, with the highest levels in waterproof mascara (82%), foundations (63%) and long-lasting lipstick (62%). Polytetrafluoroethylene, the coating on nonstick pans, was the most common additive.

Read more: Makeup may contain potentially toxic chemicals called PFAS, study finds

In fact, PFAS chemicals have been found in the blood serum of 98% of Americans, according to a 2019 report using data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

“These chemicals are ubiquitous in the American environment. More than 2,800 communities in the US, including all 50 states and two territories, have documented PFAS contamination,” Dr. Ned Calonge, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health and chair of the Academies committee that wrote the report, told CNN previously.

Read more: Dangerous chemicals found in food wrappers at major fast-food restaurants and grocery chains, report says

Scientists at the Environmental Working Group used data from the EPA’s own monitoring programs — the National Rivers and Streams Assessment, which has been periodically testing stream conditions since 2008, and the Great Lakes Human Health Fish Fillet Tissue Study, which tests lake water every five years.

“The analysis focused on EPA wild-caught fish in rivers, streams and throughout the Great Lakes from 2013 to 2015 as that was the latest data available,” Andrews said.

The contamination was widespread, impacting “nearly every fish across the country,” he said. “I believe there was one sample without detected levels of PFOS.”

The EWG created an interactive map of the results with details for each state. Fish caught near urban areas contained nearly three times more PFOS and overall PFAS than those caught in nonurban locations, the study found. The highest levels were found in fish from the Great Lakes.

The analysis showed PFOS accounted for an average 74% of the contamination in the fish. The remaining 25% was a mixture of other PFAS known to be equally damaging to human health, Andrews said.

CNN reached out to the EPA for comment but did not hear back before this story published.

Based on the study’s findings, people who fish for sport might “strongly” consider releasing their catch instead of taking the fish home for a meal, Andrews said.

Yet many people in lower socioeconomic groups, indigenous peoples and immigrants in the US rely on eating freshly caught fish.

“They need it for food or because it’s their culture,” Birnbaum said. “There are Native American tribes and Burmese immigrants and others who fish because this is who they are. This is key to their culture. And you can’t just tell them not to fish.”

Read more: Water- and stain-resistant products contain toxic plastics, study says. Here’s what to do

The predominant chemical in the fish, PFOS, and its sister perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, are known as “long-chain” PFAS, made from an 8-carbon chain.

Read more: Plastics and pesticides: Health impacts of synthetic chemicals in US products doubled in last 5 years, study finds

Manufacturers agreed in the early 2000s to voluntarily stop using long-chain PFAS in US consumer products, although they can still be found in some imported items. Due to growing health concerns, the use of PFOS and PFOA in food packaging was phased out in 2016 by the US Food and Drug Administration.

However, industry reworked the chemicals by making them into 4- and 6-carbon chains — today over 9,000 different PFAS exist, according to the CDC. Experts say these newer versions appear to have many of the same dangerous health effects as the 8-chain PFAS, leaving consumers and the environment still at risk.

Many of these longer-chain PFAS can be stored for years in different organs in the human body, according to the National Academies report. Scientists are examining the impact of newer versions.

“Some of these chemicals have half-lives in the range of five years,” National Academies report committee member Jane Hoppin, an environmental epidemiologist and director of the Center for Human Health and the Environment at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, told CNN previously.

Read more: FDA must do more to regulate thousands of chemicals added to your food, petitioners say

“Let’s say you have 10 nanograms of PFAS in your body right now. Even with no additional exposure, five years from now you would still have 5 nanograms,” she said. “Five years later, you would have 2.5 and then five years after that, you’d have one 1.25 nanograms. It would be about 25 years before all the PFAS leave your body.”

That’s why it’s “no surprise” to find such high levels of PFOA in freshwater fish, said the director of environmental pediatrics at NYU Langone Health, Dr. Leonardo Trasande, who was not involved in the new study.

“These truly are ‘forever chemicals,’” Trasande said. “This reinforces the reality that we need to get all PFAS out of consumer products and people’s lives.”

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Health

Highly pathogenic avian flu: New strain kills hundreds of snow geese in Colorado

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CNN
 — 

A new strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza – commonly called bird flu – has killed around 1,600 snow geese in two separate areas of Colorado since November, according to state wildlife officials.

Unlike prior strains of the disease in North America, this strain is “causing widespread mortality in some species of wild birds, particularly in snow geese, raptors, and vultures,” Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokesperson Bill Vogrin said in a statement to CNN on Monday.

The agency began receiving reports of sick and dead snow geese in northeastern Colorado in late 2022, the statement said. It documented over 1,000 deaths on several waterways in Morgan and Logan counties.

Then officials heard of “large-scale mortalities” in the southeastern portion of the state.

“There was a die-off of approximately 600 snow geese at John Martin Reservoir,” the statement said, noting lower die-offs at surrounding reservoirs.

After highly pathogenic avian influenza has been confirmed in a certain species and county, the wildlife department will not test additional birds of that species within that county until the next season – but additional deaths are still counted, the statement said.

Birds carrying the disease can carry it to new areas when migrating, potentially exposing domestic poultry to the virus, the US Department of Agriculture says.

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US

California weather: Monterey Peninsula could become an island as storms flood swaths of California

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CNN
 — 

Monterey Peninsula residents could soon be living on an island as mammoth flooding threatens to cut them off from the rest of California.

The state has been hammered by a cascade of atmospheric rivers – long, narrow regions in the atmosphere that can carry moisture thousands of miles.

At least 18 people have died, neighborhoods have turned into lakes, and countless homes have been destroyed as a string of storms toppled trees and paralyzed communities over the past two weeks.

California’s flooding, in pictures


But a sliver of good news emerged Thursday: The nearly relentless rainfall has lifted much of California out of “extreme drought” conditions.

And much of the state is getting a brief respite from brutal weather Thursday. But cities are still inundated – and more storms are on the way.

Just south of the San Francisco Bay Area, cities including Monterey, Carmel and Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula could soon be severed from the rest of California due to epic floodwater.

“If anyone was here in 1995, you know that during a large flooding event, the Monterey Peninsula became an island – people were either stuck on one side or the other,” Monterey County Sheriff Tina Nieto warned Wednesday evening.

“And we anticipate that we’re going to go into a similar situation, but not as bad. Some of the roadways are going to be closed, and you could be stuck on one side or the other.”

The sheriff’s office upgraded evacuation warnings to evacuation orders Wednesday in low-lying areas near the Salinas River.

“Monterey Peninsula may become an island again like it did in the ’95 floods, so please start preparing now,” the sheriff warned.

Nieto said it could be days before residents are allowed to return home, as crews need to make sure the area is safe.

According to the Storm Prediction Center, here’s what’s in store for California as another round of storms heads its way:

Thursday: Heavy rain will be confined along the northern California coast and into Oregon and Washington through Thursday night, with a slight risk of excessive rainfall in effect for northwestern California.


Friday: An atmospheric river will likely pummel the northern California and central California coast on Friday. Winter storm watches will likely begin across the Sierra Nevada range.

Heavy snowfall could lead to dangerous mountain travel conditions Friday and Saturday at elevations over 5,000 feet and in the northern and central California passes.


Saturday: A second system will move in on Saturday, and rainfall will spread south and begin to impact the whole state. Excessive rainfall threats will likely be issued for central California.

The recent storms have crippled travel and left dozens of highways inoperable.

At least 40 state routes were closed as of Wednesday night, state transportation spokesman Will Arnold said.

“We’re asking the public: If you don’t need to be on the roadways, please stay home and avoid any non-essential trips,” Arnold said.

Over 100 National Guard members were in San Luis Obispo County searching for missing 5-year-old Kyle Doan after he was swept away from a vehicle surrounded by floodwater on Monday.

Less than 1% of California is now under “extreme drought” – down from one-third of the state just two weeks ago, according to the latest US Drought Monitor report published Thursday.

“Intense precipitation in California the past few weeks – particularly late December and early January – has significantly reduced drought intensity in California,” according to the US Drought Monitor.

In 16 days, swaths of California received 50% to 70% of the amount of precipitation that they would usually get in a whole year, according to the National Weather Service.

Isolated areas, especially in the mountains near Santa Barbara, have recorded more than 90% of their annual precipitation.

But more than 95% of the state still faces some drought designation.

Large portions of the state remain in “moderate” or “severe” drought “since moisture deficits have been entrenched across some areas for the last 2-3 years,” the drought summary said.

The recent rains have “provided a generous boost” to key reservoirs in the state, but most are still below the long-term average for this time of the year.



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US

A US federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves

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New York
CNN
 — 

A federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves as concerns about indoor pollution linked to childhood asthma rise, Bloomberg first reported.

A US Consumer Product Safety commissioner told Bloomberg gas stove usage is a “hidden hazard.”

“Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned,” agency commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said in a Bloomberg interview. The report said the agency plans “to take action” to address the indoor pollution caused by stoves. CNN has reached out to the CPSC for comment.

The CPSC has been considering action on gas stoves for months.Trumka recommended in October that the CPSC seek public comment on the hazards associated with gas stoves. The pollutants have been linked to asthma and worsening respiratory conditions.

A December 2022 study in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that indoor gas stove usage is associated with an increased risk of current asthma among children. The study found that almost 13% of current childhood asthma in the US is attributable to gas stove use.

Trumka told Bloomberg the agency plans to open public comment on gas stove hazards. Options besides a ban include “setting standards on emissions from the appliances.”

Thirty-five percent of households in the United States use a gas stove, and the number approaches 70% in some states like California and New Jersey. Other studies have found these stoves emit significant levels of nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter – which without proper ventilation can raise the levels of indoor concentration levels to unsafe levels as deemed by the EPA.

“Short-term exposure to NO2 is linked to worsening asthma in children, and long-term exposure has been determined to likely cause the development of asthma,” a group of lawmakers said in a letter to chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric, adding it can also exacerbate cardiovascular illnesses.

The letter – Sen. Corey Booker and Sen. Elizabeth Warren among its signers – argued that Black, Latino and low-income households are more likely to be affected by these adverse reactions, because they are either more likely to live near a waste incinerator or coal ash site or are in a home with poor ventilation.

In a statement to CNN, the CPSC said the agency has not proposed any regulatory action on gas stoves at this time, and any regulatory action would “involve a lengthy process.”

“Agency staff plans to start gathering data and perspectives from the public on potential hazards associated with gas stoves, and proposed solutions to those hazards later this year,” the commission said in a statement. “Commission staff also continues to work with voluntary standards organizations to examine gas stove emissions and address potential hazards.”

Some cities across the US banned natural gas hookups in all new building construction to reduce greenhouse emissions – Berkeley in 2019, San Francisco in 2020, New York City in 2021. But as of last February, 20 states with GOP-controlled legislatures have passed so-called “preemption laws” that prohibit cities from banning natural gas.

“To me that’s what’s interesting about this new trend, it seems like states are trying to eliminate the possibility before cities try to catch onto this,” Sarah Fox, an associate law professor at Northern Illinois University School of Law, told CNN last year. “The natural gas industry… has been very aggressive in getting this passed.”

In a statement to CNN Business, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers said an improvement in ventilation is the solution to preventing indoor air pollution while cooking.

“A ban on gas cooking appliances would remove an affordable and preferred technology used in more than 40% of home across the country,” Jill Notini, industry spokesperson, said in a statement. ” A ban of gas cooking would fail to address the overall concern of indoor air quality while cooking, because all forms of cooking, regardless of heat source, generate air pollutants, especially at high temperatures.”

The American Gas Association pushed back against a natural gas ban in a blog post in December, saying it makes housing more expensive as “electric homes require expensive retrofits.”

However, Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act includes a rebate of up to $840 for an electric stove or other electric appliances, and up to an $500 to help cover the costs of converting to electric from gas.

– CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this report.

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