Hurricane season is here, and conservationists are shining a light on the role salt marshes play in protecting coastal North Carolina communities.
Studies find that salt marshes absorb flood waters and wave energy, reducing property damage in nearby areas by an average 20%.
Charlie Deaton, a habitat protection biologist at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, explained what salt marshes do to help areas build climate resilience.
"They're good at helping us actually mitigate some of the carbon we've released into the atmosphere, and they are good for community resilience, too," he said. "They protect landward shorelines from erosion, and salt marshes' larger scales can actually reduce the impacts of storm surge and reduce flooding from that."
North Carolina has about 220,000 acres of salt marshes, but the protections they offer are dependent on their health and preservation. Coastal development, pollution and climate change all pose threats to these ecosystems. Deaton said plans are in place to help restore them. The South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative aims to save 1 million salt-marsh acres, from North Carolina to Florida.
As hurricane activity is projected to increase in frequency and intensity, the role of salt marshes in protecting coastal communities becomes even more critical. Deaton said the evidence is clear that restoring these landscapes is urgent if we want to keep them.
"And if we start to lose our salt marshes," he said, "we're going to start to lose our nursery areas, and that's going to have negative impacts on our fish stocks and our fishing communities that depend on them, not to mention the direct community resilience benefits of preventing erosion and reducing storm surge."
At the state level, North Carolina also has a Salt Marsh Action plan to enhance and rejuvenate salt marshes. Deaton emphasized the importance of coupling these efforts with others that reduce pollution to safeguard coastal communities.
Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
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By Grace Hussain for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for Georgia News Connection reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration
In April 2019, Chris Eubanks, head of the animal rights group Apex Advocacy, chanted along with a group of other activists in front of the city government building in Lithonia, Georgia. The local activists had been campaigning to shut down Bradford’s Livestock — a backyard slaughterhouse operated in the center of their small, predominantly Black community — since 2014. Eubanks joined in 2021, lending Apex’s resources and giving the campaign a highly needed energy boost. Right down the street from the public school and around the block from a church, the facility killed roughly 100 animals every month.
Though local to the area, Eubanks had been completely unaware of the campaign. “I’ve been doing this for years,” he tells Sentient. Yet the presence of the backyard slaughterhouse in the small Atlanta suburb caught even Eubanks by surprise. “I didn’t realize that there was a slaughterhouse five minutes from where I live[d].”
Late last year, the coalition finally accomplished their goal, thanks in part to Apex Advocacy. For Eubanks, his prior lack of awareness that there was a slaughterhouse in his backyard is indicative of a larger issue within the animal rights movement: not paying close enough attention to Black and Brown communities, and the issues they face.
By the time Eubanks entered the picture, community activists like Jan Costello had already been campaigning for years. In addition to her activism, Costello was working with the community development corporation at the time, encouraging new businesses to move to the area. Despite activists’ dedication, they struggled to overcome the numerous roadblocks they faced, largely due to a lack of time and resources to dedicate toward their campaign — the two things Apex Advocacy was poised to provide.
Grassroots Activists Working in Tandem With Community Members
In the years before Eubanks got involved, local activists attended council meetings, maintained an email list of more than 1,000 community members, kept meticulous records of exactly what the facility was doing and spoke to neighbors about the slaughterhouse operating in their backyards, says Costello. Their tactics relied heavily on the fact that the slaughterhouse was violating zoning laws by being located in a residential neighborhood.
Their efforts helped get the facility slapped with a cease and desist order from the county’s Department of Planning in 2019, but because the facility had a license from the state’s Department of Agriculture, it continued to operate, killing thousands more animals.
Problematic Optics
When Eubanks saw coverage of the situation on a local news channel, he knew he had to help. The news segment made it look like locals were “trying to take advantage of a small, Black business owner,” says Eubanks, and there was much more going on. “The news coverage didn’t help as much as the advocates in the community thought it would.”
What it did do was grab Eubanks’ attention, leading him to reach out to Costello.
“He brought in so much energy and advocacy at a point when we were just basically doing the same old thing,” Costello says. By leveraging Apex Advocacy’s network, the activists were able to flood officials’ emails with thousands of messages. “Although we got support from the outside, the foundation was community-based,” says Eubanks.
Focusing on Zoning Violations, Not Animal Rights
Despite most of the core group of advocates being animal rights activists, “we were just focusing on the zoning aspect of the law,” says Costello. “We were very careful not to turn this into an argument about the slaughtering of animals for consumption,” she continues, “because that wasn’t the law. [Bradford] could do that business, but just not there in the neighborhood.”
The major roadblock to their success came via the very legal system they relied upon to shutter the slaughterhouse due to zoning violations. Part of the problem was that the state issued the facility a license to operate as a custom exempt processing facility — meaning they couldn’t sell meat. “The slaughterhouse owner was able to use the loophole that he wasn’t selling meat, but selling the service of killing animals,” says Eubanks.
As critics pointed out, the facility was in fact offering entire animals for sale via Facebook. While the license didn’t remedy the local zoning problem, it did lend some legitimacy to the slaughterhouse’s operations — a fact the facility took full advantage of.
In response to the 2019 cease and desist order from the county, Bradford’s Livestock sued in 2020, arguing they had the right to use the land the way they saw fit. The legal team did their best to drag the case out as long as possible by repeatedly filing for extensions — an effort made easier by COVID. Dekalb county filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit in June 2020.
While the case was decided, the slaughterhouse continued to operate, killing thousands more animals, according to the activists’ records. “When you’re trying to advocate for something that’s right, and it takes that long to get action, you create and breed cynicism in your group of supporters,” says Costello.
Activists Believe Race Drew the Closure Out
Eubanks suspects his joining the campaign leant it additional legitimacy within the community. “I think it was an opportunity to show that this isn’t a group of white people attacking a Black business, because that was the narrative beforehand,” he says.
Still, one factor that Eubanks believes heavily influenced the lack of urgency to get the slaughterhouse closed was race. Lithonia is “a small, Black community,” says Eubanks. “We really do believe that if this had been another community, a more affluent community, it would have definitely been shut down,” he says. “If this had been a more powerful community this would have been an issue that was shut down immediately.”
The lack of attention paid to Black and Brown communities has been an issue for social movements for generations. Environmental groups often ignore Indigenous communities, feminists often ignore Black women and animal rights advocates often overlook slaughterhouses in majority-Black neighborhoods.
“The animal rights community needs to make sure that we are not operating in a bubble and that we are pulling in the people,” Eubanks says. In recent years, the animal rights movement has shifted toward paying more attention to inclusion, with many organizations being more intentional about issues of equity and justice in how they allocate their resources.
Meanwhile, recent research suggests that animal-centered protests may actually backfire, leading some activists to shift towards putting the emphasis on arguments other than animal rights — such as zoning laws.
Part of the evolving movement is also about increasing buy-in from Black and Brown communities. Apex recently launched a movement guide on why food systems issues are specifically important to marginalized racial groups, and if animal rights groups want to be more effective, they’d be wise to take note.
Grace Hussain wrote this article for Sentient.
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The Environmental Protection Agency has banned the pesticide dacthal, frequently used on farms in West Virginia and other states.
Mounting evidence shows the chemical affects the thyroid system of pregnant women, and is linked to babies born with low birth weight, bone problems, and reduced IQ.
The EPA first issued a warning about the pesticide earlier this year, and temporarily suspended its use over the summer. The agency became concerned about Dacthal, also known as DCPA, around 2013.
The EPA instructed the company that produces it to study its impact on human health.
Bill Jordan volunteers with the Environmental Protection Network, and is former deputy director of the EPA's Office of Pesticide Programs.
"The action EPA took, with regard to DCPA, is really bold and really aggressive," said Jordan. "This is the first time in nearly 40 years that EPA has issued an emergency suspension order."
Dacthal is commonly used to kill weeds on crops like cabbage, onions, broccoli, and brussels sprouts. Farmworkers, particularly those who are pregnant, are at high risk.
First registered for use as a pesticide in 1958, people also spray Dacthal on parks, athletic fields, and other public spaces.
Jordan said he expects Dacthal to be out of the nation's food system by the end of next year, but said regulators have their work cut out for them when it comes to investigating pesticide safety.
"They've got a huge amount of work to do, to re-examine - as the law requires - all registered pesticides within a 15 year period," said Jordan. "And every year, Congress is cutting back on the resources that EPA has to do that."
Research shows widespread pesticide use is linked to the rise in cancer rates, and the decline in soil health and biodiversity.
Dacthal is just one active ingredient among thousands, in more than 17,000 pesticide products in the U.S. according to the group Beyond Pesticides.
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By Isabelle Atkins for Grady Newsource.
Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for Georgia News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
When Hunt Revell and Tyler Leslie worked at Seabear Oyster Bar in Athens, they were struck by how many oyster shells they threw in the trash each day. The duo didn't yet know that these shells could be tools for coastal restoration, but they knew throwing them away seemed wasteful.
Through the help of industry professionals, Revell and Leslie discovered that oysters play a vital role in marine ecosystems. They are what's called a keystone species, an organism that other marine life depends on. Oysters filter water, reduce carbon, combat rising sea levels and foster biodiversity. All those oyster shells discarded by restaurants are the perfect material for baby oysters to attach onto to build more oyster reefs.
Three years ago, their curiosity and a grant from the Nature Conservancy led to the creation of Shell to Shore, a nonprofit organization based in Athens that is dedicated to oyster shell recycling.
Soon after Shell to Shore was established, Revell and Leslie brought on University of Georgia Distinguished Research Professor Nik Heynen as a board member, and Malcolm Provost as the recycling coordinator.
"One fun fact that we like to throw at people is that one full-grown oyster can filter 50 gallons of water per day," Provost said. So imagine what an entire oyster reef can do.
The nonprofit started out very grassroots-oriented, collecting from Seabear Oyster Bar and then expanding to restaurants like Five and Ten and, most recently, Square One. While they have continued to diligently work with Athens' restaurants, their reach has expanded to other cities, including Augusta, Savannah and Atlanta.
Thomas Bliss, director of UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant's Shellfish Research Laboratory, has been collecting and recycling oyster shells on Skidaway Island for about 20 years.
"It's really great to see a group like Shell to Shore start up because we've been collecting on the coast, but we're very coastal-centric," Bliss said. "It's nice to see a group start to reach those inland areas where we don't have the capacity to always get to."
According to Noah Brendel, co-owner of Seabear Oyster Bar, this relationship is not only benefiting Georgia's coastline but also the restaurants themselves.
"The fact that we can say that we don't throw our shells into the landfill and we actually send them back to the coast to help with different initiatives that are all sustainable, I think bodes well for us. It is good PR," Brendel said.
Shell to Shore also provides opportunities for local restaurants to meet. Fausto Zamorano, chef de cuisine at Five and Ten, has enjoyed ShellFest, an annual fundraising event put on by Shell to Shore with live music, local drinks, and of course, oysters.
"It has been a really good networking opportunity. When they did their first ShellFest festival in 2022...it was a chance to meet other chefs and local restaurants," Zamorano said. "We all love to be a part of it."
According to Seabear Oyster Bar and Five and Ten staff, the act of putting the shells into a separate bin for Shell to Shore to collect adds a mere five minutes to their routine. As long as the shells don't accumulate for too long, which could cause an odor, the protocol creates little to no inconvenience.
In 2023, Shell to Shore recycled more than 72,000 pounds of oyster shells, bringing their three-year total to about 130,000 pounds of recycled shells.
After collecting the shells from the restaurants, they are brought to UGArden, a community farm, where they are dumped into blue and green bins. Just as the shellfish lab that Bliss directs, the shells are then cured by exposure to six months of sun and rain. This process promotes bacterial degradation of the soft tissue and after, Georgia law says the shells can be safely introduced into water systems without fear of microbial contamination.
Shell to Shore takes the shells to Sapelo Island, about 70 miles south of Savannah. However, finding the exact site to situate the shells has posed challenges. The primary sites the team identified were not viable to place incoming shells because there weren't enough oyster larvae.
Shell to Shore continues to work with Marine Extension and the Department of Natural Resources to find areas along the coast that have high enough oyster larvae levels to create more oyster reefs in places most affected by erosion, storm surges and more.
"There are lots of areas along the Georgia coast that are being impacted negatively by sea level rise and climate change in general, so it is just a matter of identifying a good starting point," Provost assured.
Once these sites are identified, volunteers will bag the shells and put them into the water where they will act as wave breaks, flood mitigation barriers and areas for oyster larvae to attach onto.
"In turn, it will build up oyster reefs, living shorelines, keep the soil where it needs to be, clean the water and generally make Georgia's coasts much healthier," Provost said.
As Shell to Shore continues to make waves in coastal conservation, their initiative is prompting a fresh perspective on the life cycle of an oyster. The journey of an oyster shell doesn't have to end at the dinner table, but could begin a new journey in preserving our coastlines.
Isabelle Atkins wrote this article for Grady Newsource.
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