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St. LOUIS — The nation’s rivers and streams remain stubbornly polluted with nutrients that contaminate drinking water and fuel a gigantic dead zone for aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a recently released Environmental Protection Agency assessment.

It’s a difficult problem that’s concentrated in agricultural regions that drain into the Mississippi River. More than half of the basin’s miles of rivers and streams were in poor condition for nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer that drains into waterways, the agency found. For decades, federal and state officials have struggled to control farm runoff, the biggest source of nutrient pollution that is not typically federally regulated.

It’s a problem only expected to get harder to control as climate change produces more intense storms that dump rain on the Midwest and South. Those heavy rains flood farm fields, pick up commercial fertilizers and carry them into nearby rivers.

“It’s really worrying that we are clearly not meeting the goals that we’ve set for ourselves,” said Olivia Dorothy, director of river restoration with the conservation group American Rivers.

The assessment is based on samples collected in 2018 and 2019 and it allows experts to compare river conditions from previous rounds of sampling, although different sampling sites were used. It takes years for the agency to compile the results and release the report, which is the most comprehensive assessment of the nation’s river and stream health. Phosphorus levels dipped slightly while nitrogen levels remained almost exactly the same.

About half of all river miles were found to be in poor condition for snails, worms, beetles and other bottom-dwelling species that are an important indicator of biological health of the river. About a third were also rated as having poor conditions for fish based on species diversity.

“Controlling pollution is a big job. It is hard work,” said Tom Wall, director of watershed restoration, assessment and protection division at EPA. “Things are not getting worse, despite the tremendous pressures on our waterways. And we would like to see more progress.”

Water pollution from factories and industry is typically federally regulated. The Biden administration recently proposed toughening regulations on meat and poultry processing plants to reduce pollution, Wall said.

When nutrient pollution flows into the Gulf of Mexico, it spurs growth of bacteria that consume oxygen. That creates a so-called “dead zone,” a vast area where it’s difficult or impossible for marine animals to survive, fluctuating from about the size of Rhode Island to the size of New Jersey, according to Nancy Rabalais, professor of oceanography and wetland studies at Louisiana State University.

That affects the productivity of commercial fisheries and marine life in general, but nutrient pollution is also damaging upstream. Too much nitrate in drinking water can affect how blood carries oxygen, causing human health problems like headaches, nausea and abdominal cramps. It can especially affect infants, sometimes inducing “blue baby syndrome,” which causes the skin to take on a bluish hue.

The EPA established the hypoxia task force in the late 1990s to reduce nutrient pollution and shrink the dead zone, but it relies on voluntary efforts to reduce farm runoff and hasn’t significantly reduced the dead zone.

Anne Schechinger, Midwest director with the Environmental Working Group, said new regulations are needed, not voluntary efforts. She said the Biden administration has done a lot to improve drinking water, but not enough to reduce agricultural runoff.

Methods to prevent runoff include building buffers between farmland and waterways, creating new wetlands to filter pollutants and applying less fertilizer.

It’s a politically fraught issue, especially in major Midwest farming states that significantly contribute to the problem. Many of those states cite their voluntary conservation programs as evidence they’re taking on the problem, yet the new EPA data shows little progress.

Minnesota is one of the few states that has a so-called “buffer law” that requires vegetation to be planted along rivers, streams and public drainage ditches. But because groundwater and surface water are closely connected in much of the Upper Midwest, nutrient pollution can end up leaching underground through farm fields and eventually bypass those buffers, ending up in streams anyway, said Gregory Klinger, who works for the Olmsted County, Minnesota soil and water conservation district.

There should also be a focus on preventing over-fertilizing – about 30% of farmers are still using more than the recommended amounts of fertilizer on their fields, said Brad Carlson, an extension educator with the University of Minnesota who communicates with farmers about nutrient pollution issues.

Martin Larsen, a farmer and conservation technician in southeast Minnesota, said he and other farmers are interested in practices that reduce their nutrient pollution. He’s broken up his typical corn and soybean rotation with oats and medium red clover, the latter a kind of plant that can increase nitrogen levels in the soil naturally. He’s been able to get by with about half as much fertilizer for a corn crop that follows a clover planting as compared to a corn-corn rotation.

Growing oats and red clover as cover crops improves soil, too. But Larsen said it’s difficult for many farmers to plant them when they often rely on an immediate payback for anything they grow. Cover crops are planted on just 5.1% of harvested farmland, according to 2017 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Larsen said since regulations are so unpopular, more should be done to incentivize better practices. For example, he said that could include companies shifting the makeup of feed they use for animals, giving farmers an opening to plant some crops that use less fertilizer. Or government programs that do more to subsidize things like cover crops.

He said that many farmers in his community acknowledge the need to do things differently. “But we also feel very trapped in the system,” he said.
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Arctic weather brought more misery to much of the U.S. on Saturday, especially for people unaccustomed to such bitter cold in places like Memphis, Tennessee, where residents were urged to boil water and some had no water at all after freezing temperatures broke water mains across the city. Temperatures weren’t expected to rise until after the weekend.

The bracing cold followed a week of storms blamed for at least 67 deaths around the U.S., many involving hypothermia or road accidents. 

At the Four Way Grill in Memphis, owner Patrice Bates Thompson said the water problems have closed their soul food kitchen for days.

“This is our staple, and this is what basically drives the force of my family financially,” Thompson told Fox-13 Memphis. “We depend on business, and we have been at home.”

So many pipes broke in Memphis that water pressure fell throughout the city. Concerned about possible contamination, Memphis Light, Gas & Water urged its more than 400,000 customers to boil water for drinking or teeth-brushing or use bottled supplies on Saturday while crews worked around the clock to make repairs.

“Our production and treatment of water is working well,” the utility said in an email. “We cannot give restoration estimates until all leaks are identified.”

The utility said more than 100 employees volunteered Saturday to identify breaks, and residents were urged to report leaks in the street, at homes and in unoccupied buildings.

Without water since Thursday morning, Pamela Wells was visited Saturday by a worker who asked whether they had a leak.

“My husband said, ‘How can we have a leak, if we don’t have any water?’” she said.

They had filled a bathtub with water to flush toilets with when they noticed the pressure dropping, Wells said. For everything else they were using a dwindling supply of bottled water until their street became passable on Saturday and friends brought in fresh supplies.

“It’s been a struggle,” she said, recalling how they lost water for a 10-day stretch in December 2022. “You don’t know how long it’ll be out.”

Meanwhile, the Memphis City Council opened seven bottled water distribution stations on Saturday, one in each council district. Two others were operating at fire stations. One had 300 cars lined up when it opened on Saturday, Shelby County Emergency Management Director Brenda Jones said in a telephone interview.

“You have people with absolutely no water, people with low water pressure, and you have the boil water advisory,” she said.

A huge swath of the U.S. was under wind chill advisories, from Montana into central Florida. It was particularly harsh in the Midwest. The wind made it feel like minus 16 degrees (minus 26 Celsius) in Iowa City on Saturday, and overnight wind chills hovered around zero in Oklahoma City, where David Overholser sought shelter at the non-profit Homeless Alliance.

“Being 63 and from Florida originally, I don’t like cold. I can’t handle it,” Overholser told The Oklahoman. “It’s been very, very rough and painful and I just, you know, try to hang on one day, one hour at a time … it’s definitely scary.”

Wind chills dipped to minus 20 Fahrenheit (minus 28 Celsius) early Saturday in Vermont, where the Stowe Mountain Resort urged hardy skiers to “bust out all the stuff you need to hang on the mountain safely, take frequent warm up breaks inside, and keep a close eye on each other for signs of frostbite.”

Ravens fans unaccustomed to such cold in Baltimore bundled up for wind chills near zero (minus 17 Celsius) for Saturday’s playoff against the Houston Texans, but the weekend weather was business as usual in Buffalo, where the Bills called out for more shovelers to finish clearing snow from the stands before Sunday’s big game. Highmark Stadium got smothered by five feet of lake-effect snow in five days. 

Snow tapered in the Northeast after blanketing a large area including Washington and New York City. In New York, aid groups distributed food and clothes near an elementary school Saturday to migrants who bundled up in thick coats and knit caps to ward off the freezing temperatures. 

More snow was coming to West Virginia, where the weather service predicted up to 4 more inches (10 centimeters) Saturday, along with winds gusting to 40 mph (64 kph), driving wind chills down to 20 below zero (minus 29 Celsius).

More lake-effect snow pounded northwestern Indiana Friday into Saturday, creating near white-out conditions near Lake Michigan and making the busy highway corridor in and out of Chicago treacherous. 

“We’re kind of taking a chance — rolling the dice,” Frank Finney told WBBM-TV. Finney and his family were navigating Interstate 94 through Michigan City to La Porte, Indiana.

Tennessee alone recorded 26 deaths, including a 25-year-old man found dead on the floor of a mobile home in Lewisburg after a space heater overturned and turned off, said Bob Johnson, chief deputy for the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office.

“There was ice on the walls in there,” Johnson said.

On the West Coast, more freezing rain was forecast Saturday in the Columbia River Gorge and the area was expected to remain near or below freezing through at least Sunday night. Trees and power lines already coated with ice could topple if they get more, the National Weather Service warned.

“Stay safe out there over the next several days as our region tries to thaw out,” the weather service said. “Chunks of falling ice will remain a hazard as well.”

Thousands have been without power since last weekend in parts of Oregon’s Willamette Valley because of storm damage. Despite work by repair crews, about 25,000 customers were without electricity in Oregon on Saturday, according to the website poweroutage.us.

The weather service forecast above-average temperatures across most of the country next week. Meanwhile, not everyone hated the white stuff. 

“It’s fun right now,” Michigan City resident Andrew Smith told WBBM-TV. “We haven’t had this much snow in a minute, and Christmas wasn’t snowy, so it’s fun to do this. I can play with the kids, make snowballs, make a snowman.” 
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washington — A politically treacherous dynamic is taking hold as negotiators in the U.S. Congress work to strike a bipartisan deal on the border and immigration with vocal opposition from the hard right and former U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to topple the carefully negotiated compromise.

Senators are closing in on the details of an agreement on border measures that could unlock Republican support for Ukraine aid. Though they hope to unveil it as soon as next week, the deal is already wobbling, as House Speaker Mike Johnson faces intense pressure from Trump and his House allies to demand more sweeping concessions from Democrats and the White House.

“I do not think we should do a Border Deal, at all, unless we get EVERYTHING needed to shut down the INVASION of Millions & Millions of people,” Trump posted on social media this week.

It’s a familiar political dynamic, one that has repeatedly thwarted attempts to reform U.S. immigration law, including in 2013 when House Republicans sought to pin illegal immigration on a Democratic president and in 2018 when Trump helped sink another bipartisan effort. The path for legislation this time around is further clouded by an election year in which Trump has once again made railing against illegal immigration a central focus of his campaign.

Even though the terms of the policy negotiations have shifted significantly in the Republicans’ direction, skepticism is running high among conservatives, creating a precarious moment that could determine not only the contours of U.S. immigration and border law for years, but the future of Ukraine as it faces dwindling U.S. supplies in its fight against Russia.

U.S. President Joe Biden is pressing lawmakers to say “yes.” During a White House meeting this week with congressional leaders that was meant to underscore how desperately Ukraine needs funding, the president said he was ready for a “big deal on the border.”

The president has reason to want an agreement. The historic number of migrants who have come to the U.S. border with Mexico during Biden’s term is seen as one of the largest political vulnerabilities in his re-election campaign.

During Iowa’s Republican caucuses last week, which Trump won, immigration was a top issue. An AP VoteCast survey found about 9 in 10 caucus-goers backed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, with about 7 in 10 expressing strong support for the idea.

As asylum seekers have made their way across the country, often by the busloads to Democratic-leaning cities as part of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s program, they have strained the resources and political tolerance of areas that will be vital to Biden’s re-election chances.

“It’s gotten to the point where, in a way, everybody’s back is against the wall,” said Senator Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat. “I’m not talking about politically, I mean, substantively, these are challenges that the country can’t ignore.”

Bennet was joined at the Capitol on Thursday by Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat who told reporters that the recent influx of migrants has caused “a humanitarian crisis and a fiscal crisis unlike anything we’ve seen in the last 25 years.”

Democrats in Congress are split on the merits of the Senate package. Progressive and Hispanic lawmakers decry changes that would toughen the process for claiming asylum in the United States. Still, many Democrats say that Johnson’s resistance to bipartisan compromise shows that Republicans aren’t serious about solving the problems at the border.

“They basically want to make sure that the situation is as chaotic as possible so that they can win elections in November,” said Representative Joaquin Castro, a Democrat. “That is their strategy. It’s not a sincere attempt to do something about what’s going on at the border.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, has been strongly making the case for the deal. He’s told fellow Republicans that the border package, which he insisted be paired with Biden’s $110 billion request for war aid for Ukraine, Israel and other national security priorities, is a rare opportunity to get stronger policies through Congress.

The proposal crafted by the Senate would toughen the asylum process with a goal of cutting the number of migrants who come to the southern border to make an asylum claim.

Negotiators have worked on some policies intended to aid immigrants. The plan could include a pathway to citizenship for Afghans who came during the U.S. withdrawal from their country, along with work permits for migrants who enter the asylum system, according to two people familiar with the talks who were granted anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.

But the package will mostly leave out broad immigration changes — such as protections for immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children — that have been foundational in previous Senate bills.

“It will be by far the most conservative border security bill in four decades,” said Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, the lead Republican negotiator.

Lankford and other Senate Republicans have urged their House colleagues to remain open-minded. They argue that the changes would actually pave the way for Trump to implement his border agenda if he wins the election. Lankford has also said that the legislation would not dramatically reduce the number of migrants at the border for months — a tacit signal that border security could remain a top issue through the election.

Still, Johnson has argued that a hardline House bill, H.R. 2 which passed the chamber in May without a single Democratic vote, is the solution to America’s border woes. It would create a sweeping system intended to bottle up illegal immigration.

Johnson also has made clear that he has been speaking regularly with Trump.

“We’re not playing politics with this,” Johnson said this week. “We’re demanding real, transformative policy change.” 

Even beyond Trump, Johnson is dealing with far-right House members who are furious over his willingness to work with Democrats to pass legislation. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a close Trump ally, has threatened to trigger a motion to oust Johnson if he brings a border bill with Ukraine aid to the House floor.

Greene this week said Trump is backing the House conservatives’ plan because “it brings back all of his strong border policies.” In December, she said that passing bipartisan border legislation would only give Biden an opportunity to tout the legislation on the campaign trail.

“I’ve been telling everyone that President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party,” Greene said. “That decisive victory in Iowa should be the shot across the bow to every single Republican that’s elected.”

Despite the pressure, Johnson signaled some support for the legislative push after a meeting this week at the White House, calling the talks “productive.” But what he does next remains to be seen.
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PORTLAND, Ore. — Two weeks of storms that have turned roads icy, frozen people to death from Oregon to Tennessee and caused power outages that could take weeks to fix continued to sock both coasts on Friday with another round of weather chaos.

The rain, snow, wind and bitterly cold temperatures have been blamed for at least 55 deaths in the U.S. in the past two weeks as a series of storms moved across the country. Schools and roads have closed, and air traffic has been snarled.

There is hope. The forecast for next week calls for above average temperatures across almost the whole country, according to the National Weather Service.

Heavier-than-forecast snow fell in New York City, Baltimore and Washington on Friday and Michigan City, Indiana, received 43 centimeters of lake-effect snow. But the biggest problems remained in places hit hard by storms earlier in the week.

On the West Coast, Oregon’s governor declared a statewide emergency Thursday night, nearly a week after the start of a crippling ice storm.

Thousands have been without power since last weekend in parts of Oregon’s Willamette Valley thanks to freezing rain.

“We lost power on Saturday, and we were told yesterday that it would be over two weeks before it’s back on,” said Jamie Kenworthy, a real estate broker in Jasper in Lane County.

About 90,000 customers remained without electricity Friday afternoon in the state after back-to-back storms, according to poweroutage.us.

Portland Public Schools canceled classes for the fourth straight day amid concerns about icy roads and water damage to buildings, and state offices in the city were also ordered closed.

Ice was also a problem in the South. Snow and freezing rain on Thursday added another coat of ice in Tennessee. More than 22.8 centimeters of snow has fallen around Nashville since Sunday, nearly twice the yearly average.

Authorities blamed at least 17 deaths in Tennessee on the weather. Several were from traffic wrecks. In Washington County, a patient in an ambulance and a person in a pickup were killed in a head-on crash when the truck lost control on a snowy road.

Exposure to cold was deadly, too. A 25-year-old man was found dead in a mobile home in Lewisburg after a space heater fell over and turned off.

“There was ice on the walls in there,” Marshall County Chief Deputy Bob Johnson said.

Kentucky reported five deaths from the freezing weather. A statement from Governor Andy Beshear didn’t provide details.

The cold in Washington state was blamed for five deaths. The people — most of them presumed homeless — died from exposure to cold last week in Seattle as temperatures plummeted to well below freezing, the medical examiner’s office said.

Two people died from exposure as far south as Louisiana, where temperatures in part of the state remained below freezing for more than two days.

The cold broke so many water mains in Memphis that the entire city was placed on a boil water notice because the water pressure was so low, Memphis Light, Gas and Water said. Bottled water was being given out Friday in at least two locations.

In Jackson, Mississippi, law enforcement agencies are investigating whether social media rumors about a potential water outage during the cold snap prompted people to fill bathtubs with tap water. The water system in Mississippi’s capital experienced a drop in pressure that temporarily made faucets run dry for thousands of customers Wednesday and Thursday, though service was restored by Friday.

A significant drop in blood donations led Chattanooga, Tennessee-based Blood Assurance to recommend that more than 70 hospitals in five states halt elective surgeries until Wednesday to let the organization rebuild its inventory. In a news release Thursday, the group cited the weather and several massive blood transfusions in the previous 24 hours in its plea to the hospitals in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Tennessee.

On Friday, more bitterly cold air was spilling into the Midwest from Canada. Several states were under an advisory as forecasters warned of wind chills dipping to minus 34 degrees Celsius could be common through Sunday morning.

Since extreme cold weather set in last week, more than 60 oil spills and other environmental incidents have been reported in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. Wind chills as low as minus 56.6 C have strained workers and equipment, increasing the likelihood of accidents.

Lake-enhanced snow finally moved out of Buffalo, New York, late Thursday after burying parts of the city and some suburbs in five feet of snow in five days. The Buffalo Bills renewed their call for snow shovelers on Friday, offering $20 an hour for help digging out Highmark Stadium before Sunday’s divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

In Washington, snow fell softly and the streets around the U.S. Capitol were silent. Schools closed for the second time in a week, and the government was on a two-hour delay. 
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washington — U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration said Friday it was launching the most major reforms to disaster management relief in two decades as climate change-driven extreme weather events, such as floods and fires, increase.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reforms of its federal assistance policies and expanded benefits for disaster survivors aim to cut red tape that victims have said makes it difficult for them to access resources after a disaster.

“We are on the verge of making the most significant update to survivor assistance in the last 20 years to reach more survivors and deliver assistance faster,” said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell in a statement.

FEMA said the reforms follow feedback from disaster survivors. They are designed to make the agency better able to respond to the threats caused by climate change, which last year caused more “billion-dollar” floods, fires and other disasters than ever before.

In 2023, the U.S. experienced a wildfire on Maui, the nation’s deadliest in more than a century, severe floods in California, two tornado outbreaks in the central states, a winter storm in the northeast and Hurricane Idalia.

Among the new measures FEMA announced are a change to its cash relief program that will provide a payment of $750 to households for all disasters for shelter and evacuation to supplement other disaster aid. Previously, the payment was assessed on a disaster-to-disaster basis.

It also created a new “displacement assistance” benefit to give eligible survivors — who cannot return to their homes — up-front funds to help until they are able to secure housing.

FEMA will also make changes to help survivors who are under-insured by removing a requirement that they apply for a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) loan before being considered for certain types of financial assistance and make it easier to access repair loans for homes that were previously ineligible due to pre-existing leaks and damage.

FEMA said the changes will take effect for new disasters declared on or after March 22, 2024.
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Israel and the US appear to be on a collision course on how to deal with the Gaza Strip after the war ends. One-third of Israelis want Israel to maintain control over Gaza, and one-quarter want to rebuild Jewish settlements there. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem. Camera: Ricki Rosen
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Congress sent President Joe Biden a short-term spending bill on Thursday that would avert a looming partial government shutdown and fund federal agencies into March. 

The House approved the measure by a vote of 314-108, with opposition coming mostly from the more conservative members of the Republican conference. Shortly before the vote, the House Freedom Caucus announced it ‘strongly opposes’ the measure because it would facilitate more spending than they support. 

Nevertheless, about half of Republicans joined with Democrats in passing the third stopgap funding measure in recent months. The action came a few hours after the Senate had voted overwhelmingly to pass the bill by a vote of 77-18. 

The measure extends current spending levels and buys time for the two chambers to work out their differences over full-year spending bills for the fiscal year that began in October. 

The temporary measure will run to March 1 for some federal agencies. Their funds were set to run out Friday. It extends the remainder of government operations to March 8. 

Right wing pressures Johnson

Speaker Mike Johnson has been under pressure from his right flank to scrap a $1.66 trillion budget deal he reached with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier this month. Republican Representative Chip Roy said the continuing resolution passed Thursday will facilitate that agreement. 

“It’s Groundhog Day in the House chamber all the time, every day, yet again spending money we don’t have,” Roy said. 

Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal, and moderates in the party have stood behind him. They say that changing course now would be going back on his word and would weaken the speaker in future negotiations. 

Representative Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Americans expect Congress to govern and work in a bipartisan fashion. 

“Some of my colleagues would see that this government would shut down and don’t care how hurtful that would be,” DeLauro said. 

House Republicans have fought bitterly over budget levels and policy since taking the majority at the start of 2023. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his caucus in October after striking an agreement with Democrats to extend current spending the first time. Johnson also has come under criticism as he has wrestled with how to appease his members and avoid a government shutdown in an election year. 

“We just needed a little more time on the calendar to do it and now that’s where we are,” Johnson said Tuesday about the decision to extend federal funding yet again. “We’re not going to get everything we want.”

Most House Republicans have refrained so far from saying that Johnson’s job is in danger. But a revolt of even a handful of Republicans could endanger his position in the narrowly divided House. 

Representative Bob Good, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, has been pushing Johnson to reconsider the deal with Schumer. 

“If your opponent in negotiation knows that you fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement more than they fear the consequence of not reaching an agreement, you will lose every time,” Good said this week. 

Other Republicans acknowledge Johnson is in a tough spot. “The speaker was dealt with the hand he was dealt,” said Representative Andy Barr, noting the constraints imposed by the party’s slim majority. 

The short-term measure comes amid negotiations on a separate spending package that would provide wartime dollars to Ukraine and Israel and strengthen security at the U.S.-Mexico border. Johnson is also under pressure from the right not to accept a deal that is any weaker than a House-passed border measure that has no Democratic support. 

Johnson, Schumer and other congressional leaders and committee heads visited the White House on Wednesday to discuss spending legislation. Johnson used the meeting to push for stronger border security measures while Biden and Democrats detailed Ukraine’s security needs as it continues to fight Russia. 

Biden has requested a $110 billion package for the wartime spending and border security. 
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