Joshua Zaffos

One night last November, my friend Mark started explaining how his brother-in-law basically builds robots to mop up mistakes at nuclear weapons plants. Turns out he was onto something.

Matt Cole, in the lab (Photo: Leon Chew/Wired)

After I met Matt Cole I became pretty fascinated with his robotics work and his motivation to design robotics that scooch and roll through radioactive spaces to clean up old nuclear sites or help repair snafus at operating power plants.

Wired Magazine published my short profile of Cole and his work in May 2010. It was my first piece in Wired, and it just touches on the work that Cole and his company, S.A. Technology, do. The larger issue is how technology like this plays into the debate over nuclear energy and new nuke plants, since it eliminates some human risk but doesn’t directly address the problems over how to actually dispose of radioactive waste.

The federal program (known among environmental policy wonks as Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or CERCLA) is supposed to clean up the country’s most toxic and complex waste sites, using money from corporate petroleum, chemical and other industries that produce toxic pollution — and the hazardous sites that land on the Superfund priorities list. But Congress let the corporate polluter fee expire in 1995, which let companies off the hook for cleanup funding and started draining Superfund’s account from $1.5 billion to virtually nil.

Superfund cleanup of asbestos contamination in Libby, Montana (Photo: US EPA)

In 2003, Grist published an essay I wrote about the sorry state of Superfund and the silly funding choices at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (The piece was originally published through High Country News wire service, Writers on the Range.) At the time, the George W. Bush White House had announced plans to spend a quick $30,000 for enviro-friendly mentions on primetime TV, but had no plans to renew industry payments to Superfund. (more…)

The following article appears in the Summer 2010 issue of Nature Conservancy Magazine

Oil Alert

Digital Tool Helps Oil-Spill Responders Protect Alaska’s Coast

A snapshot of Sitka Shore, via Alaska ShoreZone (Photo: NOAA Fisheries)

In January 2009, fierce winds in southeastern Alaska tore loose a 181-foot ferry from a pier. The ferry ran aground on a small island, and the Coast Guard and volunteers headed to the scene to limit damage from a possible fuel spill. Before they arrived, the responders knew which sensitive tidelands and critical fisheries habitats were threatened, thanks to a set of new high-tech digital maps that provide a bird’s-eye view of Alaska’s coast.

The mapping project, Alaska ShoreZone, currently covers 17,000 miles of the state’s roughly 47,000-mile coastline, including areas such as Bristol Bay and Prince William Sound—the site of the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. More than 30 organizations, including The Nature Conservancy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and state and tribal agencies, have worked together on the program since 2001, sharing $5.5 million in funds and plenty of expertise. (more…)

Colorado, with all its sun and wind and geothermal hot springs, has gotten particularly excited about the creation of green jobs. The state expects to have 600,000 new jobs relating to renewable energy technology and energy efficiency development over the next 20 years. Sounds great, but a major component to the sustainable future becoming a reality is the emergence of a capable workforce.

The sun shines on solar-panel installers (image via Swords to Ploughshares)

In northern Colorado, community colleges and major universities are reaching out to potential students and tailoring programs to train for a range of green jobs, from smart-grid engineers to hybrid-vehicle manufacturing to solar-panel installation and maintenance. In the April 9, 2010 issue of the Northern Colorado Business Report, my column, “School’s in session for green job seekers,” covers the cresting wave of new programs, including an initiative at Colorado State University meant to attract returning military veterans to green jobs. (more…)

The first new U.S. uranium mill in three decades could be coming to Colorado and the rugged valley of the Dolores River in the southwestern corner of the state. The river — originally named Río de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, or River of Our Lady of Sorrows, by Spanish priests in 1776 — and the surrounding Paradox Valley is a stunning landscape of mesas and vistas to explore (and one of my favorite drives in the country). Its ecological importance and popularity with boaters and hikers has led state environmentalists to push for national wilderness designation for parts of the valley.

A February 11 article in The Telluride Watch covers some local environmentalists’ concerns about the plans of the milling company, Energy Fuels Resources Corp., which has applied for a permit, and the potential impacts to the Dolores River and its flows should the project receive approval.

Mills process uranium once it is removed from the ground in order to make it usable for nuclear power plants, but the operation involves using lots of water and leaving behind tailings that can contaminate air and water. Western towns, including Cañon City, Colorado and Moab, Utah, are both still cleaning up from older mills and dealing with the toxic results; a 2006 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory fact sheet details the cleanups and regulations surrounding mill tailings.

I wrote a feature article (“CWCB’s Instream Flow Program matures”) about the Dolores and the ongoing process to protect streamflows within the river for biological, recreational and agricultural needs in the Fall 2009 issue of Headwaters Magazine, put out by the nonprofit Colorado Foundation for Water Education. The story covers the progress of the state board in charge of protecting these instream flows in rivers across the state, using the Dolores as a key example of Colorado’s evolution in considering river health.

Federal regulators will review the uranium mill application, but a decision is likely a ways off and highly dependent on other factors, namely the development of the domestic nuclear power industry. And regardless of regulators’ decision, it will undoubtedly face legal challenges.

The following article appears in the Winter 2009 issue of Nature Conservancy Magazine

Bivalve Blues

Report Reveals Global Risks for Oyster Reefs

Exposed oyster reef in the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia (NOAA)

Baymen harvest an average of roughly 99,000 tons of oysters each year from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. But that kind of bounty is now uncommon: Around the world, 85 percent of shellfish reefs have been lost to overfishing and habitat destruction, according to a new Nature Conservancy report, Shellfish Reefs at Risk.

“Shellfish reefs are the single most impacted marine habitat globally,” says Mike Beck, a Conservancy marine scientist and lead author of the report. Beck and his team of scientists compiled status reports from more than 144 estuaries and found that reefs were in significant decline worldwide. (more…)

Howard Zinn

Among the many recorded moments of American history impacted by Howard Zinn, who died at age 87 in late January, one of the most significant is the Ludlow Massacre, a 1914 labor skirmish between Colorado’s militia and the families of striking coal miners.

Calling Ludlow a skirmish is putting it gently: In April 1914, the Colorado National Guard, called in by the mining companies, opened fire on women and children at the Ludlow tent camp, killing fourteen, and then set fire to the settlement. The incident ignited seven months of gunfights and bombings around southern Colorado’s coal fields, but the history of Ludlow remained in the shadows, partly because neither embittered families nor mining executives much wanted to remember the massacre, albeit for different reasons.

Zinn first heard about Ludlow through a Woody Guthrie song, which inspired him to learn more about the labor wars in Colorado. Here is Zinn, in his own words, talking about Guthrie’s influence and Ludlow:

Zinn later included his own telling of Ludlow in his seminal work, A People’s History of the United States (Disclosure: I’ve never read the complete tome, but have read his section on the coal labor struggle).

Before Zinn’s scholarship, the labor struggles surrounding Ludlow were “taboo,” according to Thomas G. Andrews, a history professor at University of Colorado, Denver. Andrews wrote an environmental history of the Colorado coalfield wars, Killing for Coal, America’s Deadliest Labor War, which I reviewed for Earth Magazine in July 2009. (more…)

Winter Diversions

“Between Two Ferns” with Zach Galifianakis
Nice to see a fellow Greek getting ahead with his very own talk show
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The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
In the spirit of Garcia Márquez…probably one of my favorite fiction reads in a long time
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Errol Morris on the New York Times Opinionator blog
His series on photojournalism are provocative, and a reminder that we are always framing history
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Pasta with Fried Peppers and Bread Crumbs (via Saveur)
Fry the peppers to a crisp and ye shall be rewarded
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Blues for Cannibals by Charles Bowden
So far, Bowden at his crankiest, which is saying something
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Residente o Visitante and Los De Atrás Vienen Conmigo – Calle 13
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The Biz of Baseball
A blog tracking the financial churnings of baseball
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“Party Down” Season 1
“Are we having fun yet?”
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The Sun
Writing best appreciated while drinking morning coffee or an evening cocktail in a melancholy yet pensive mood
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Louis C.K.: Chewed Up
Ever since his appearance on Conan when he riffed on how “we live in an amazing, amazing world, and it’s wasted on the crappiest generation of, just, spoiled idiots,” I’ve been a big fan and this video didn’t disappoint
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11:11 – Rodrigo y Gabriela
I’m not sure if I like their music more for the flamenco or heavy metal influences
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Lady Bug
Lesser known, old-school arcade game – maybe my best worst habit