The Sponge: March 31-April 6
Welcome to The Sponge, the place to soak up a week’s worth of environmental news.
Biden’s Got a Brand New Bag
Last Wednesday, President Biden unveiled the American Jobs Plan (AJP). This ambitious proposal is Biden’s way of following through with campaign promises of revitalizing infrastructure and tackling climate change. The plan includes earmarks for important changes like: $85 billion to give public transit a makeover, $174 billion to get us into electric vehicles, and $100 billion to replace all lead pipes nationwide (which is conveniently very relevant to our work at Aquagenuity hehe). Large parts of Biden’s strategy focus specifically on addressing the racist decisions of previous federal infrastructure projects (cough, like highways built to deliberately dissect Black neighborhoods, cough). All in all, the American Jobs Plan would cost $2.4 trillion dollars.
“Trillion”… with a “t”? I’m guessing people have thoughts.
Let’s check the usual suspects. Mitch McConnell said, “the foot is down” and that the plan wouldn’t get Republican support, mostly because of its corporate tax increases. Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is supportive, although she wants to bump up the spending. Regardless of how anyone feels, the plan still needs to go to Congress to actually put things in motion. Nancy Pelosi wants to vote on the plan ASAP, and with a backdoor method of budget reconciliation, some Democrats think they can do it without any Republican support.
So can I stop worrying about climate change?
Nice try. The AJP is just one of many government initiatives we desperately need to curb greenhouse gas emissions and begin to cut fossil fuels out of our diet. Some are hopeful that plans like this will also encourage corporations to open their purses and invest in a greener future. As it stands right now, the American Jobs Plan the American Jobs Plan is still one step forward for our country as we continue to combat climate change.
In Other News…
Water Wars
After years of legal battles, the Supreme Court gave Georgia the victory in its most recent water war against Florida. Not to be confused with a fun field day activity, these water wars have been waged between Florida, Georgia, and Alabama since the 1990s (although Alabama decided to mind its business and stay out of this case).
The case focuses on the use of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin (sound it out, you can do this), which starts north of Atlanta and flows all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. After the oyster population collapsed in Florida’s Apalachicola Bay in 2013, Florida sued Georgia to limit its use of the river’s water, claiming that there was too little freshwater left for the delicate oyster population to thrive. Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that the evidence was not strong enough to justify limiting Georgia’s water usage, especially since the water is critical for irrigating the farms in the southwest corner of the state. Even though this is a big W for Georgia, there are thousands in Florida whose livelihoods depended on the oyster industry. Battles over resources are a lose-lose situation.
Phospho-what now?
This weekend, a leak was discovered in a phosphogypsum stack at the Piney Point phosphate plant in Florida, putting Tampa-area water at risk. Gov. DeSantis has called a state of emergency for all of Manatee county.
Phosphogypsum is the radioactive waste that is left over after the production of phosphorite, a rock used in fertilizer. It’s the kind of stuff you wouldn’t want to swim in, unless you want to come out with superpowers. Even though the Piney Point Plant has been closed since 2001, this toxic waste has just been chilling there in these stacks, and it has the potential to leak into the reservoir. Now, the plan is to pump the 300 million gallons of contaminated water into Tampa Bay so that it doesn’t drain into the reservoir. Although this might protect the drinking water, dumping toxic waste into the ocean is not a perfect plan. It could cause a red tide, a harmful algae bloom that is bad news for the ecosystem.
This is not the first time that phosphogypsum stacks have threatened drinking water in Florida, and with 26 more stacks in the state, it probably won’t be the last.
And also…
Big Meat and Big Dairy Have a Big Problem with Climate Action
Google Maps Will Give Eco-Friendly Directions Now, But Still Interrupt Best Part of the Song
