National News

Leaked Memo: Pruitt Taking Control of Clean Water Act Determinations. “Key provisions in the Clean Water Act are now under the control of one person at the US Environmental Protection Agency -- Administrator Scott Pruitt, according to a leaked memo obtained by CNN. In the new directive, Pruitt states he will make final critical decisions about preservation of streams, ponds and wetlands. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility provided CNN with a copy of the memo dated March 30, 2018. In the memo calling for ‘regulatory certainty,’ Pruitt directed EPA regional offices to ‘cede their Clean Water Act determinations’ to him, said Kyla Bennett, the New England director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. The memo states: ‘With this revised delegation, authority previously delegated to regional administrators to make final determinations of geographic jurisdiction shall be retained by the Administrator…As part of effectuating this revision, I ask that you involve the Administrator's Office early on in the process of developing geographic determinations.’ The move appears to change the approval process to lessen the role of EPA employees and scientists when it comes to evaluating whether a project has a significant negative environmental impact on waterways or wetlands These projects could be anything from transportation projects to new residential housing, coal mining, oil projects, even President Donald Trump's border wall or ‘any other project that discharges…fill material into a wetland or waterway,’ according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.” [CNN, 4/4/18 (=)]

Algae Impurities Darken Greenland Ice Sheet and Intensify Melting. “The Dark Zone of Greenland ice sheet is a large continuous region on the western flank of the ice sheet; it is some 400 kilometers wide stretching about 100 kilometres up from the margin of the ice. Some previous theories have attributed this darkening to water on top of the ice sheet -- often seen as strikingly sapphire blue ponds, rivers and lakes. But a new study in Nature Communications provides a new hypothesis based on the character of the impurities on the ice surface itself. ‘What we show is that the Dark Zone is covered in a finely distributed layer of dust, and black carbon, which provide nutrition for dark coloured algae. These are the main cause of the darkening.’ says professor Alun Hubbard, the co-author of the study and professor at CAGE.” [Science Daily, 4/4/18 (=)]