RICHMOND, Va. -- Following Virginia's landmark passage of the Clean Economy Act last year, four bills advancing to the state Senate would help make the Commonwealth more environmentally friendly by electrifying its transportation sector.

Studies show cars and trucks are the leading cause of air pollution in Virginia, and House Bill 1965 would establish stricter clean-car emissions standards.

Harry Godfrey, executive director for the group Advanced Energy Economy, said the bill also would require carmakers to send more electric vehicles, or EVs, to Virginia's auto dealers to encourage folks to buy electric.

"Low-emission vehicle standards and zero emission vehicle standards are an important aspect of making certain folks actually have access to these vehicles when they go out to buy a new or used vehicle," Godfrey explained. "So this is about making certain those vehicles are actually coming to Virginia."

He noted General Motors' announcement it will only produce electric cars and trucks by 2035 sends a clear message that manufacturers are behind bills such as Virginia's, that tackle emissions pollution.

All four bills have passed the House and face a Senate vote by the end of February, with most Democrats in favor.

With more clean-car policies, tailpipe emissions from cars and light trucks in Virginia could be reduced from 5% to 15% by 2040, according to a Georgetown Climate Center study.

James Bradbury, mitigation program director at the Center, said passing clean-car standards would result in an economic boon with thousands of additional jobs for Virginians.

"That comes from a range of different things," Bradbury observed. "You have more people installing electric charging infrastructure. You have more people at electric utilities building out the grid needed to supply the electricity."

The three other bills that passed from the House to the Senate would provide an EV rebate program, a grant fund to encourage Virginia schools to replace diesel school buses with electric ones, and one to expand the state's EV charging infrastructure.


get more stories like this via email

The University of Nebraska's High Plains Regional Climate Center in Lincoln is working with weather experts in nearby states to collect and use climate data to predict the weather and potentially save lives. And it's the collaboration that allows the forecasters to provide critical information.

Weather in the Midwest can be volatile. Iowa, Nebraska's neighbor to the east, set a record for tornadoes last summer. Climate centers such as this one help forecasters predict deadly weather. Climatologist Gannon Rush said one in the northeastern United States worked with the High Plains center in Lincoln to take on a non-lethal yet big problem in South Dakota.

"It's up there with snow removal and that kind of stuff," he said. "One of the biggest issues within the state is mosquitoes, how many millions of dollars they have to spend each year to prevent mosquitoes and kind of keep the population down because it's such an issue."

The High Plains center used a data-based approach from its colleagues in the Northeast, who forecast the mosquito population based on climate - and provided that information to local health managers. Climate experts in the Midwest used the same approach to take aim at the mosquito population and the potential health problems it causes in South Dakota.

Beyond making critical health information available, the Nebraska climate center also makes data available to farmers and ranchers to help make decisions on planting their crops, for example.

"So, if it's super-duper dry and all signs are pointing towards drought, say in spring or early summer, they may decide to not plant corn," he said, "or they may plant something else, like milo or sorghum."

Rush said ranchers across the region make decisions about managing the size of their cattle herds based on how much moisture they can expect in the coming year - information they get from the High Plains Climate Center in Lincoln.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Forest Service announced it would not be following through with the National Old Growth Amendment, which would have protected some of Oregon's iconic old-growth trees.

The amendment was the result of a Biden administration order to tally old-growth forests on federal lands and make a plan to protect them from climate-based threats.

For Brenna Bell, forest climate manager at 350PDX, pulling the plug may have been for the best. While acknowledging the amendment offered protections, Bell said there were too many loopholes.

"Old trees still would have been logged, except people might have believed that it was protected," she said. "So, not having it, so people don't have that false sense of protection, might be a good thing."

The amendment would have prohibited commercial logging on about 25 million acres of old-growth forests. Bell added that since the amendment would most likely have been repealed under the Trump administration, withdrawing now allows for the possibility of stronger legislation down the road.

Contrary to what many people may believe, Bell said, old-growth forests in the Northwest continue to be logged. She explained that federal timber targets drive logging on national forest land, pushing forests to meet volume quotas. While most logged trees are smaller second growth, she added, there's always pressure to cut large trees to meet targets faster.

Bell suggested eliminating timber targets to better protect old-growth forests.

"If we could just make it so trees could be logged a.) to meet the local timber demand or b.) to have restoration purposes," she said, "but not because of some arbitrary target that is set in Washington, D.C., and then just distributed to all of the different forests."

The Trump administration will most likely increase timber targets, said Bell, regardless of whether there is local demand. Reports show the Biden administration allowed the Bureau of Land Management to cut old-growth trees at a faster rate than the previous decade.

Old-growth forests in Oregon's Coast Range absorb and store more carbon per acre than almost any other forest in the world.


get more stories like this via email

By Amy Felegy for Arts Midwest.
Broadcast version by Terri Dee for Ohio News Connection reporting for the Arts Midwest-Public News Service Collaboration

Each eight-by-eight feet, two giant paintings look almost like sun eclipses. Chunks of coal fill a circle in one; pigments smear the canvas.

You wouldn't know just by looking at them, but those paintings created by John Sabraw contain paint sourced from longstanding pollution in a nearby stream.

"Iron oxide sludge," says Sabraw an art professor at Ohio University. "All orange and crusty."

Gross ... for a water body. But, beautiful for oil paint.

Sabraw is part of a network of researchers, scientists, and artists cleaning up Sunday Creek in southeastern Ohio, reworking that sludge into usable paint.

The area is part of more than 6,000 miles of streams throughout Central Appalachia that are far from crystal clear, caused by historic acid mine drainage.

Though much of the mining happened more than a century ago, Michelle Shivley says Ohio is still dealing with their environmental legacies. She's a director at True Pigments, a 2018-founded company working to restore seven miles of clean water and welfare along Sunday Creek.

"We still have streams that run orange, coming out of these holes in the ground that are connected to abandoned coal mines," Shivley says.

This particular Sunday Creek segment sees more than two million pounds of iron each year (that's around 13,500 five-gallon buckets every month!), causing high amounts of acidity and metal content in the water.

"The fish, the bugs, all those things that are typically in a stream or river, those things just can't survive in those kinds of conditions."

A branch of the U.S. Department of the Interior partially funds the project, which starts with extracting stream pollution and ends with filling paint tubes.

In between, Sabraw tests pigment for quality and consistency, and frequently takes his students out to the creek. The pigments are a huge part of his art practice.

"As I'm working with these pigments ... I just feel more connected to these kind of primal materials that make up our earth."

Pollution into Solution

Still, Shivley says all this effort hasn't meaningfully improved Sunday Creek water quality. It's why her team is designing a full-scale acid mine drainage treatment facility-and a bonus pigment production facility-expected to open next year.

The goal: Increase jobs in the area and help local stream life thrive.

"How can we use these abandoned mine land spaces and reclaim them," Shivley says. "And then transform them into something that can help with the transition for coal communities from a very extractive industry, energy driven economy, to something different that will carry them into the future in a meaningful way?"

She thinks her team has the answer.

The Process

• Pump water from underground mine pool (some stretching as large as 23 miles)


• Aerate water/remove carbon dioxide at treatment facility


• Use hydrogen peroxide to oxidize the iron, iron falls off


• Clarify water and stabilize pH


• Discharge clean water back into Sunday Creek


• Bring iron sludge to pigment production facility to de-water and dry it


• Sell the pigment! Works just the same as any pigment you pick up in any art store