Science Friday - Infrastructure Package, Covid News, Line3 Pipeline. August 6, 2021, Part 1

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

President Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Sees The End Of The Road President Biden’s huge infrastructure bill is finally seeing the end of the road. The nearly 2,000 page bill covers infrastructure improvements—everything from roads to broadband. The package also includes funding for projects that would build up the country’s climate change resilience. Some climate change experts say the budget doesn’t go far enough and other analysis says the bill would not pay for itself. Umair Irfan, staff writer at Vox, walks us through the bill, new fuel economy rules for electric vehicles, a Tesla lithium-ion battery fire, and more science news from the week.          Wait, Am I Going To Need A Booster Shot? Just this week, health officials announced that New York City will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for some indoor activities, like dining and exercise. It’s the first city to institute this type of policy, and it’s all in an effort to get more people vaccinated, as the Delta coronavirus variant has forestalled efforts to curb the pandemic. Spikes in cases are happening all around the country, just as kids are getting ready to go back to the classroom. This is renewing debates about masks, and prompting lots of questions: Are we going to need booster shots? How much should we worry about breakthrough infections? And is full FDA approval of vaccines going to make a difference for those hesitant to get vaccinated? Joining Ira to break down the latest pandemic quandaries is Céline Gounder, epidemiologist and professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine in New York City.     Local Communities Spar Over Minnesota Oil Pipeline After months of lawsuits, protests, and arrests in northern Minnesota, a controversial oil pipeline is still under construction. Candian energy company Enbridge, Inc., says the Line 3 replacement pipeline, necessary to improve the safety of an aging pipeline.  In 1991, Line 3 ruptured, causing the largest inland oil spill in the United States. The new pipeline will be both higher capacity, and follow a different route past lakes, rivers, and other state waters. But in the midst of a severe state-wide drought, the pipeline’s construction process requires the company to temporarily pump tens of millions of gallons of groundwater. Meanwhile, drilling fluids have been spilled at least once into a nearby river. Science Friday news director John Dankosky talks to two reporters, Minnesota Public Radio’s Kirsti Marohn and Indian Country Today’s Mary Annette Pember, about the water impacts of the pipeline construction, and why communities along the route remain divided about its value. Visit here to read a statement provided by Enbridge Energy.   Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

This is Science Friday. I'm I Refleto. Later in the hour, we'll talk about the latest COVID-19 stories. We'll check in on the controversial Line 3 oil pipeline project in northern Minnesota. But first, President Biden's huge infrastructure bill is finally nearing the end of the road. It's over 2,000 pages covers wide-ranging infrastructure improvements from roads to broadband. The package also includes funding for projects that would build up the country's climate change, resilience. Some climate change experts say the budget doesn't go far enough, and other analysis says the bill would not pay for itself. Here to unpack the highlights on this and other stories is Umer Irfan, staff writer at Vox based out of Washington, D.C. Welcome back, Umair. Thanks for

having me back. You're welcome. Let's talk about the infrastructure bill. First proposed in March. How is it different from what Biden laid out, oh, five months ago? What has changed? Well, the big top line thing is that it's much smaller than what Joe Biden actually wanted. When he presented his American Jobs Plan, that rounded out to about $2.1 trillion. And this bipartisan bill that's being worked on by 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, this is valued at about $1 trillion with only $550 billion in new spending. So there were a lot of concessions made. And some of those concessions were on things that were related to climate change, particularly

on mitigating and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Although it does contain a fair enough. of provisions for dealing with the impacts of climate change like adaptation. And so it has about $500 million to protect homes against wildfires, about $11.6 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to improve flood control and about $73 billion for power infrastructure. But there were a lot of cuts on the things that would actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So there was basically a compromise. Biden did not get everything he wanted here. That's right. You know, Biden wanted about $363 billion in tax credits for clean energy that would

boost the deployment of wind and solar power. And he wanted about $157 billion for electric vehicles and infrastructure. And that was shrunk to about $15 billion in this version of the bill. And there was also $556 billion in research and development funding that was also removed. But there is one key provision that does reduce greenhouse gas emissions that's still here. And that's the provision to deal with orphan oil and gas wells. These are, you know, wells that have been abandoned that are still leaking methane, which is a very potent greenhouse gas. And so by closing them off, they can actually get some outsized reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. And so there's still some money there to do that. Yeah, they don't talk about this in general when we hear about

some important little things that are in the bill, but that certainly is one of them. Yeah, that's right. And all hope isn't lost here. You know, Democrats are taking a two-track approach. This is the bill that's going to pass with ideally bipartisan support, but there's also the reconciliation bill that, you know, Democrats can pass with just Democratic votes. And the thinking is that a lot of what was cut out of the bipartisan bill will end up in the reconciliation bill. But there are some Democrats that are starting to get a little bit wary about the size of that bill. And there's a question of whether, you know, the Senate parliamentarian will approve all the provisions in it. So that's not entirely a sure thing either. And politically, you know, a lot of

environmental advocates are concerned that, you know, this may be the best opportunity we have in the Biden administration to get these things done, because after this, then, you know, we'll be entering the midterm election season and a lot of other things could come up. And so they're saying that this is an opportunity we need to seize right now to do as much as possible. Another announcement coming from the Biden administration is a new rule for electric cars. This seems to be a big step. Yeah, that's right. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. And cars and light duty trucks are about 60 percent of the share of transportation greenhouse gas emissions. And this week, President Biden said that he wants

half of all cars and trucks in the U.S. sold to be electric or hybrid electric vehicles. And so that's a pretty significant goalpost. You know, this is a target. It's not necessarily binding, but it tells the automotive industry, but also battery suppliers and infrastructure developers that the U.S. really wants to invest in electric vehicles. And the idea is that these industries will take that as a signal and start running forward. And in addition to that, They also announced new fuel economy rules that would undo some of the rollbacks that were done under the previous Trump administration. But the idea is between the two of these provisions that, you know, with both the fuel economy rules and a goal post of electrification, that will give a significant boost to EVs going forward. Yeah, you just can't make more EVs.

You have to build the infrastructure to charge them, too. That's right. And you also have to build the demand for them. You know, you also have to convince people to buy them. And, you know, that's been one of the other challenges. The auto industry has not invested a lot of money in developing them and in marketing them right now. About 2% of new cars sold in the U.S. are electric. So they need to do a much better sales job of trying to convince people to buy them and also need to pour a lot more money into research and development. And there are indications that they're starting to do that.

You know, President Biden was joined by leaders from General Motors and Ford, and they're saying that they're going to be pouring more money into coming up with better designs, more efficient batteries and so on. And now they just have to convince Americans. that these are just as good, if not better, than the cars they're used to driving. Yeah. A few weeks ago on the show, we talked about the future of batteries, and there was a recent fire at a big Tesla battery factory. Where was it in Australia? Yeah, that's right. This is a grid battery facility in Geelong, Australia. It caught fire this weekend, and it just this week was put out. It took about four days to contain the blaze and more than 150

firefighters. And when they looked at it, they found, out that, you know, this was just one battery unit inside a shipping container. So this is a 13-ton lithium ion battery. But it's part of a larger facility that can store about 450 megawatt hours of electricity from the grid. There's 210 of these battery packs. And so the concern here is, you know, how do firefighters and other first responders deal with batteries? You know, batteries are not necessarily more dangerous than other types of energy storage. You know, if you compare them to things like fuel or other ways where condense energy into a small space. But You know, when they catch fire like this, you can't necessarily just use water.

You have to use other kinds of firefighting techniques because, you know, these are electrical fires. And so that's going to be a challenge because this is a new technology and a lot of fire departments around the world. As they're seeing these grid scale batteries systems being installed in their jurisdictions are going to have to come up with ways to how to deal with them in case they deal with these emergencies. Yeah, because batteries are certainly going to be part of our future and the old firefighting methods are not working. Yeah, that's right. And you know, that's kind of like one of the things that we don't always appreciate when we incorporate new technology. We've dealt with gasoline fires and, you know, pipeline ruptures and things like that and power lines being dropped. And, you know, those risks are generally grandfathered in. But when you talk about these new kinds of technologies having these kind of new kinds of problems, you know, it's not necessarily, again, that they're worse. It's just that they're different. And oftentimes people can be caught off guard. Does Tesla and does the industry also view this as a setback for Tesla or just something as a bump in the road toward the future? I think this is a bump in the road. You know, it's not the first battery fire we've seen at a grid scale energy storage facility.

You know, we've seen them in other parts of the world before. There was one in Hawaii a few years ago. And firefighters learned from that and also the managers and so forth, they develop better emergency responses and precautions to deal with these kinds of issues. but it's certainly going to be a learning experience. And, you know, the fact that this didn't really blow up into something huge and catastrophic, you know, shows that, you know, this is something that can be weathered, that this is a fault that could eventually be contained. And I do anticipate that this facility will be back up and running soon.

Your next story looks at an important upcoming environmental report from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It's not out yet, but do we know what the focus will be? We do. this is the next installment of the big reports that the IPCC puts out on climate change. You know, these reports don't necessarily present new information, but they gather all the best available climate science, and they basically evaluate how strong the evidence is.

And they tend to be very comprehensive. A lot of scientists and also policymakers take these reports very seriously. This next installment looks at what we know about the physical sciences of climate change. And there have been some changes since the last report, which came out in about 2014. You know, there's a lot more emphasis this time around on things like attribution. You know, there's this cliche around extreme weather events, for instance, that, you know, you can't attribute any individual event to climate change or tease out the elements of climate

change in those events. But scientists say, actually, these days you can. You can look at things like severe flooding or heat waves and tease out just how much more likely they were due to climate change or how much sea level rise because of climate change worsened flooding and disasters like that. So that's one big thing. You know, and another big thing is also they're talking about the future estimates of warming. They've now narrowed those estimates quite a bit that essentially some of the more grim scenario,

some of the more worst case scenarios, they've narrowed them down. But also they've also narrowed it down some of the best case scenario, some of the more optimistic outcomes with warming. And so we have a better sense of what the future holds as average temperatures continue to rise. But there's still a fair amount of uncertainty there as well. Yeah, and in related other clapping news, kind of scary news, there's been a change in a big ocean current, and if that's true, that has great implications. Yeah, that's right. This is what's known as the Atlantic Maradonal overturning circulation, the Amok. It's part of the Gulf Stream. And this is sort of like a giant conveyor belt in the ocean. It moves heat and salty water from the Gulf of Mexico towards Europe. And it has influence on weather patterns all over the world like monsoon. and over Asia and things like that. And there was a study that just came out this week that looked at some of the key indicators

of this amok and they found that they're slowing down. This circulation pattern is slowing. And the concern is once it reaches a tipping point, it could collapse entirely. And this would have global consequences for weather, for the climate and for just how we understand the world as we know it. And what is the cause of this circulation changing? Well, this circulation, you know, it happens at, with a very very, delicate gradient. You know, there needs to be a subtle change in temperature across the ocean,

but also a subtle change in salinity. And as ice is melting in the Arctic, that's putting more cold water into the northern latitudes. And also as sea surface temperatures are rising, that's throwing off that balancing act and is causing that conveyor to slow down. And so the concern is that as that disruption grows, you know, we will see more, more of a collapse as time goes on. Yeah, and we've heard over the years when they talk about this happening, it would change possibly the whole weather of Europe

because it's bringing warm water to Europe that would no longer be there. You know, that's right. You know, if you look at a map, you look at places like, you know, southern Spain and southern France, and they're further north than cities like, you know, New York and Boston,

and somehow they still have warmer, sunnier climates than those cities. And that's because of this mechanism. You know, it's transporting a lot of warm weather from the equatorial regions there. And so the things that we kind of take for granted about the climate in Europe, particularly in Western and Southern Europe,

that could change pretty dramatically if this circulation pattern were to halt entirely. Well, always good to have you, Amir. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you for taking time to be with us today. Have a good weekend. You too.

Omer Erfahn is a staff writer at Vox based out of Washington, D.C. We have to take a break, and when we come back, we'll break down the latest head-scratching COVID-19 series from variants to vaccines. Stay with us. This is Science Friday. I'm Irafledo. It was announced this week that New York City will require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for some indoor activities like dining and exercise. It is the first city to announce this kind of policy, and this is all in an effort to get more people vaccinated,

as the Delta variant has shaken up efforts to curb the pandemic. Spikes and cases are happening all around the country, just as kids are getting ready to get back into the classroom. And debates on masks are rearing their heads again. This is prompting lots of questions. Are we going to need booster shots? How much should we worry about breakthrough infections? And what on earth has happened with the infection rates in the UK? They have plummeted.

Joining me today to help us break down these questions and more is my guest, Dr. Saline. Gounder infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at NYU and Bellevue Hospital and host of the epidemic podcast in New York City. Welcome back to the show, Dr. Gounder. It's great to be here, Ira. Nice to have you. Okay, let's get right into this. Let's talk the proof of vaccination, New York, will require for some activities from a public health perspective. Do you think this is going to encourage more people to get vaccinated? We certainly hope so. So this, new system, what we're calling key to New York City pass, we're going to be requiring in New York City that people be vaccinated against COVID have received at least one dose of vaccine in order

to go back to indoor dining, indoor fitness, indoor entertainment and performances. So the fun stuff that you would do in New York City, it's not going to prevent people from going to work or going to the drugstore getting food. But if you want to engage in New York City to its fullest and really enjoy all that the city has to offer. There is going to be a requirement starting mid-September that you be vaccinated. Vaccinations have been picking up back in the U.S. Is this because of concern for the Delta variant, do you think? Public health officials and other government officials are very concerned about what we're seeing with the Delta variant. The Delta variant is different. It is at least twice as infectious or contagious as early strains of the virus. And that means that one

person who's infected today could go on to infect twice as many people as they might have infected if their infection had been early in the pandemic. And this is because people who get infected with the Delta variant have a thousand times as high the level of virus in their nose and throat as they would have had with earlier strains of the virus. So there's just a lot more virus in their upper airways that they can spread around, not to mention that if you got more virus in your body, there's more virus to make you sick as well. That's really interesting. It is shocking every time you hear about that thousand times figure. It's amazing. This week, Delta Airlines CEO said the company wasn't planning to require vaccines for

U.S. flights because COVID shots are not fully approved. What is the difference between the emergency approval we have now for the vaccines on the market versus full approval? What, Where does that get us full approval? More time is the biggest difference. So to get the emergency use authorizations, the companies had to submit two months of follow-up data on participants in their late-phase clinical trials. And to be clear, that's actually quite a lot of data. There were tens of thousands of people in those phase three clinical trials. And anytime we've seen an adverse reaction, a side effect from a vaccine, any vaccine in the history of all

vaccines, going back to smallpox, those side effects have occurred in the first two months after vaccination. So that was a very sensible, logical cutoff to get emergency use authorization. With full approval, companies have to submit six months of data. The FDA is currently reviewing tens of thousands of pages of data. And then they also have to do extra stuff, like going to visit the manufacturing plants, making sure those are up to snuff. So there are some differences, but we really do think these vaccines are safe and effective. Four billion doses of vaccine have been given around the world, over 350 million here in the U.S., and we haven't seen any real safety signals. Well, my question is, do you think that once these vaccines are fully approved, it's going to be

easier to mandate them? Do you think more people will be willing to get vaccinated once there is full approval? I think the real power of the FDA full approval is going to be around mandates. Now, I've spoken to a lot of public health legal experts about whether you can mandate even with just the emergency use authorization. And you can legally do so. But I think many companies, state health departments and others are waiting for that full FDA approval to give them additional legal cover. Do I think people will be convinced that the vaccines are safe because the FDA provides full approval? Based on surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation, maybe, but From those same surveys, it also seems like people don't really understand the distinction. I mean, these are kind of technical regulatory distinctions. And having participated in focus groups around this question, my sense is when people say they want the full approval or they want more data, it's really just a polite way of saying, I don't want to get vaccinated. It has very little to do with actual safety concerns. Yeah, that's a very interesting point. I want to talk about the dramatic increase in infections we've seen this summer.

due to the Delta variant. I mean, last year, at this time, infections went down. What's the difference between this summer's cases and last summer? Is it just that the Delta variant is so much more aggressive? I think it's a combination of things. So first of all, the Delta variant is far, far more infectious than the earlier strains of the virus. So it does spread much more effectively from person to person. But if you'll remember, we did have a second wave last summer in the southeast, and other parts of the south across the country. And that's really because the seasonality of their respiratory infections is different. If you think about it, when do people go indoors in different parts of the country?

Well, in the south, it's really hot and humid during the summer. And so it makes sense that you would see more respiratory virus transmission in the summer. And that's precisely what we're seeing is that places like Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, places in the south, which also have low vaccination rates. we are seeing a big spike in Delta cases, hospitalizations and deaths in those parts of the country. Yeah, that's what it must be because I've always been told that viruses are vulnerable to high temperature, certainly above 90 degrees. They can't survive very well. So I guess going indoors answers that question. Yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot that we still don't fully understand about the seasonality of COVID. I think India was really unscathed for a long time and then had this massive surge a

couple months ago, much of that driven by the Delta variant. So we don't fully understand this, but there's no question when people are spending more time indoors, regardless of the time of year, that there is more transmission of this virus. I want to get to this question in Great Britain showing a mysterious drop in cases recently. They were expected to rise significantly, and they just sort of petered out. Do we know why that is? This is one of the many mysteries of COVID. And we've seen a similar pattern. India had this huge surge and then a very steep declining cases. And we don't entirely understand why that is. There are differences between the UK and India. The UK has vaccinated much more of its population. In India, they've barely really started vaccinating.

So you can't really attribute that to just vaccination. Some people think it may be related to genetic differences in the innate immune system. So we have two main branches of the immune system. You have what we call the innate immune system and the adaptive immune system. So adaptive, you know, it adapts, it evolves, it learns over time. And that's where things like your antibodies come in. But even before antibodies come into play, you have the innate immune system. So these are cells, chemicals, responses that will defend you against infection, even before your body has really learned what that invader is.

And we think there may be some genetic differences in that innate immune immune. community that could potentially explain why we saw a big surge and then a steep fall. I want to move on to this question of a third dose of vaccine because Israel recently started giving some citizens a third dose as a booster shot. Should we be taking cues from the Israelis? Well, it's not just Israel, Ira. You also have the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, Russia. There's country after country that's been announcing this. The WHO has played with the world that we really focus on vaccinating the unvaccinated before we give folks extra doses. And I really do agree with that. We get very, very good protection against severe disease,

hospitalization, and death with our currently available vaccine regimens here in this country. And it's really about optimizing your protection for the individual that you would give extra doses. The couple groups in which I might consider an extra dose where there is good data to support that it would give them extra protection against severe disease hospitalization and death would be highly immunocompromised people. So people, for example, who've had a lung transplant or a kidney transplant, people who have HIV-AIDS, people who have certain cancers or are on certain drugs for autoimmune disease.

But that's a very select group of people. The other couple groups might be individuals over the age of 80 and folks living in nursing homes. But I really don't think it's the best use of our vans. vaccine supply at this time to be optimizing individual protection against milder forms of the disease. And frankly, we'll all be better protected if we focus on vaccinating the unvaccinated in this country than we will by getting individual extra protection with these additional doses. Yet on the other hand, I hear stories, and I've heard them personally, of some people quietly, almost secretly, getting third shots as boosters?

Would you advise? I imagine you would not advise this. Well, now you have San Francisco General Hospital and San Francisco's Department of Health. They have recently decided to allow some people to get extra doses of vaccine. I really don't think this should be a free-for-all, number one. I think number two, we really need to step back and think what makes sense from a public health perspective, particularly when this is a scarce commodity, an unlimited supply. And me as an individual, so I've gotten two doses of Pfizer.

I recognize, well, maybe I could boost my immunity a little bit more by getting a third dose of Pfizer, but I am actually better protected, me individually, if all of those people who are currently not vaccinated in my community, if we vaccinate them. And so I think that really needs to be emphasized. That is the better protection, even for you, if you think about your own individual, health. And there are some people who have gotten the Johnson and Johnson, the J&J vaccine, which is the one-shot deal, feeling that, well, you know, I've only got this one shot. It may not work. I'm going to go for the other two when they've gone out and got vaccinated. Yeah, this is a bit of the story that's

happening in San Francisco where they're giving extra doses. There is data that the Johnson and Johnson vaccine protects less well against infection than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. But when it comes to protecting against severe disease, hospitalization and death, which is after all why we vaccinate, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine remains quite good. And again, the very specific groups in which I might consider giving an extra dose would be highly immunosuppressed, people over the age of 80, and people in nursing homes. I know, because you've heard these stories where a German chancellor Angela Merkel got an AstraZeneca dose and then a Moderna shot and then our frequent sci-fi virologist, Angela Rasmussen, got Johnson & Johnson and now a Pfizer two months later. What's your take on mixing doses from different manufacturers?

So the AstraZeneca vaccine is a two-dose vaccine. So Chancellor Angela Merkel, when she got a second dose, it's not that she was getting an extra dose. She was mixing and matching vaccine types. And I think that's an important thing to note here. What we are seeing with these mix and match regimens, what the fancy terminology for that is heterologous prime boost, is that you actually get an even better immune response when you mix and match than when you stick to the same type of vaccine for both doses. So I do think, you know, that is something we're going to see more and more of in the future. This is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. Case you're just joining us. We're talking with Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at NYU and Bill View Hospital,

host of the epidemic podcast in New York City. Let's continue talking about this because there's been so much terrible news about the Delta variant lately. I've got a bit of a mindbender for you, something that I keep thinking about, and I'm going to run it past you. It may be kind of silly. Could a variant develop that spreads as strongly as Delta but is harmless? and out-competes the dangerous variant in the body. We always talk about a villain variant. Could there be a white knight variant possible? There could.

That's certainly possible. It's also possible that you could get something like Delta, but even more infectious, even more virulent and deadly, even more immunivating. It's very difficult to predict how the virus will mutate over time. The only thing we can say with certainty is that the way natural selection works is it will select for the virus that replicates most effectively

and transmits most effectively from person to person. Let's move on to schools ramping up to get started in the shadow of the Delta variant. Kids under 12 are still not able to be vaccinated. Is there, in your opinion, a safe way to go back to school in person? I think there's a lot that we've learned over the past year about how to make in-person schooling safe. vaccination is certainly part of that for kids 12 and up, but we need to continue layering all of the other things that work. And so that includes not just having everybody who is eligible get vaccinated, so kids 12 and up, adults, but also continuing masking indoors. And we really do need to up our game with masking. There's a lot that we've learned about which masks work better than others over time. Cloth masks do have value, but given that we don't have the supply constraints, we have.

early in the pandemic, I really would suggest switching to KN95 masks. Those are highly effective and are quite comfortable to wear during the entire day. So switching to that, improving ventilation. And again, that could just mean opening windows and doors. And then testing. We need to be testing on a regular basis so that people who are infected are not in the classroom. And we can really dramatically reduce risk and make the classroom a lot safer that way. One final question. We've also seen a lot of breakthrough cases. How concerned should we be about all these breakthroughs? I think the important news with the breakthrough infections is that they're mild. You know, maybe people feel a little fluy, tired, they might have a mild fever,

but they're not ending up with low oxygen levels. They're not ending up in the hospital. They're not dying. And I think oxygen levels is really, if you're going to simplify this as much as possible, if your oxygen levels are not dropping, you are protected against severe COVID. And we've heard a lot of coverage of this Provincetown outbreak in Massachusetts over the past couple of weeks here where they saw a number of breakthrough infections. To me, that's a success story. That is what the world could look like post-pandemic once most people are vaccinated. I think around 75 plus percent of people in that setting were vaccinated.

And no one died. That is a huge win for the vaccines. That's about all the time we have. We can keep going on. I want to thank you very much for taking time to be with us today, Dr. Gounder. It's my pleasure, Ira. Dr. Celine Gounder, infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at NYU and Bellevue Hospital and host of the Epidemic podcast in New York City.

We're going to take a break and when we come back as a new bigger replacement for an aging oil pipeline nears completion in Minnesota, we look at the concerns of impact communities. This is Science Friday. I'm Irafledo. And now it's time to check in on the state of science. This is KERR.A News. St. Louis Public Radio News. Iowa Public Radio News. Local science stories of national significance. Many environmental activists cheered earlier this year when the Biden administration officially put an end to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. That project was meant to carry crude oil from the Taras Sands of Alberta all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. But another big pipeline project that's been of concern to environmentalists

is now said to be 80% complete. It's called Line 3, and it goes through northern Minnesota and ends in Wisconsin on Lake Superior. The company that's building it says the construction could be finished by the end of this year. SciFRI News Director John Dan Koski has been following the story and joins us now. Hey, John. Hi, there, Ira.

Okay, so how is this pipeline different from the Keystone project that was canceled? Well, first of all, this isn't a brand new pipeline. It's a planned replacement for an older pipeline that the company that's building at Enbridge says is much needed. The terrain of northern Minnesota is also what makes this different. You know that state, Ira, as the land of 10,000 lakes. And because of that, the project has raised concerns about water quality during the construction and also the threat of oil spills if it's built. And then there's the fact that Minnesota right now is in a big drought, and projects like this use a lot of water.

You know, the last time we talked about this, there were protests by Native American tribes and other activists, and several legal challenges to the pipeline. Has anything changed? Honestly, it looks like not much. The Minnesota Supreme Court has turned down one legal challenge to the pipeline's permitting process, but others are still up in the air.

And to understand what's happening right now, I brought back Kirstie Morone. She's a water reporter for Minnesota Public Radio, and I asked her to remind us of some of the basics of the Line 3 project. This will replace the existing Line 3, which was built back in the 1960s, and it's aging and it's corroding and needs quite a bit of maintenance. So this new pipeline will follow a different route, and it cuts through a really water-rich part of northern Minnesota. There's lots of rivers and streams and wetlands in this area, and it actually will cross more than 200,000. water bodies, including some of Minnesota's major rivers, like the Mississippi, twice. And these rivers are sources of drinking water for Minnesotans. They're important for local economies, for recreation and fishing and tourism. For tribal communities, these lands and waters are

culturally and economically important. They harvest wild rice here and hunt and fish and gather. And, you know, water is what Minnesota is known for. This is the land of 10,000 lakes. It's the headwaters of the Mississippi. So opponents of this project feel like there's a lot at stake here if oil were to leak or spill. And Enbridge has been saying that this new pipeline is necessary for safety reasons. So are they basically saying that the existing pipeline, the one that carries oil right now is unsafe? Enbridge says that this new line is being built with stronger steel using modern construction methods. So they say it will be safer and will better protect the environment. Line 3 supporters also point out that, you know, society's demand for oil is still huge.

and they say that pipelines are a safer option for transporting crew than trains or trucks. One thing that has changed a bit since the last time you and I talked, Minnesota's been in the middle of a really bad drought. And that has a lot of implications for how people might approach this construction project, right? Yeah, that's right. About 75% of Minnesota right now is in a severe drought. So rivers and streams are at some of their lowest levels in decades. It's just really dry here. So that's raised some concerns about the impact of this pipeline construction. on sensitive wetlands and lakes and rivers that are already stressed because of the drought.

Enbridge has a permit to temporarily pump groundwater out of the construction area. This is a process that's called dewatering. It's used in a lot of construction projects where you're digging a hole or a trench that tends to fill up with water once you get below a certain depth. So earlier this summer, Enbridge asked the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for an amended permit to pump about 10 times more groundwater than it had to rich. originally asked for. So that raised a lot of eyebrows. The DNR and Enbridge say that this shouldn't have a lasting impact on the groundwater because the water that is discharged back into the same area relatively

quickly so it can soak back into the groundwater. But, you know, some people have questioned why Enbridge misjudge the amount so drastically. So I talked to Laura Triplett. She's an associate professor of geology and environmental studies at Gustavis Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. she's helped out with the line three opposition. And she argues that, you know, the company's statement that it encountered more groundwater than it expected kind of demonstrates a misunderstanding of this region where the pipeline's being built. I've read through all the documents and I understand what they are saying.

In the DNR's findings of fact, they state that Enbridge has encountered more groundwater than they expected. That statement to me demonstrates a massive misunderstanding, a fundamental misunderstanding of this part of the state. I think DNR should not have approved this without a much deeper inquiry into what else Enbridge doesn't understand about Minnesota's water. So, you know, state regulators say they're monitoring the drought situation and they have temporarily suspended Enbridge's use of surface water for some purposes like drilling and dust. control in watersheds where streams are low. But they say they don't plan to suspend or rescind the dewatering permit right now. And they actually say that the drought might mean that Embridge will have to pump less water than it originally thought. So there's this dewatering issue,

but then there's also problems around drilling materials that have been spilling into local waterways. Talk about how big a deal that is to water quality. Yeah, that's right. There have been a few cases of what's called a frackout. That's when this drilling mud, that's used during the drilling process when they're going under a river or a stream, it rises to the surface and sometimes can get into the waterway. So the Department of Natural Resources says there have been nine frackouts reported along the Line 3 construction route. Only one case, Enbridge says, actually got into a waterway.

That was the Willow River in northern Minnesota. About 80 to 100 gallons of this drilling fluid got into the river. Enbridge says it was quickly contained. And they say it's, you know, it's not a toxic substance. It's actually made of bentonite clay and some other materials, but, you know, not, shouldn't be toxic. But, of course, opponents of the pipeline say this is an example of what can happen if there is a spill. And they, they worry about the impacts to, like, aquatic life in those rivers and streams. I want to bring in my other guest now.

Mary Annette Pember is a national correspondent for Indian country today. She's been covering the tribal communities along the pipeline route and their experience of this project. Welcome to Science Friday, Mary. Hi, good to be here. The last time we talked about this pipeline was just after about 200 people have been arrested protesting it. I know that you've been talking to some of the tribal communities where that protest has been happening, both with tribal citizens and also supporters of the tribes from elsewhere. Can you tell us a bit about what you're hearing from people as you talk to them in this region?

So there isn't like a totally unified opposition among tribal communities, among the different bands of Ojibwe. It's primarily Ojibwe tribes in northern Minnesota there, and there are different bands that occupy various reservations. And actually, the Fondalak tribe, which is closest to the termination point of the pipeline, they elected to allow Emberidge to replace the pipeline through their reservation.

And there had been, Emberge had proposed rerouting it around the reservation, but Fondalak leaders found that the proposed route would, in fact, endanger. wild rice and some fragile wetlands more than the existing route. And so they elected to allow them to go through the reservation and have accepted an undisclosed amount of money, which we really don't know, but it's a lot, and I don't know how we can quantify a lot necessarily, but part of their agreement and accepting is that they not discuss the amount and that they not oppose

the project. So we don't have, you know, sort of this unified opposition. just like in many other communities. Additionally, Embridge is paying a lot of money. You know, the unemployment rate is high and also the poverty rate is high. So you're looking at basically people can make up to $90,000 a year working for the pipeline in various capacities, either as contractors or directly for Embridge. So it has served to split communities and even family members. It's been very difficult.

For instance, on the Fondelac Reservation, I met a young woman, Tisha Martineau, tribal citizen who really feels very strongly against the pipeline project. And she actually crowdfunded $30,000 to buy a piece of land immediately adjacent to an Embridge construction site and to serve as like a staging area for opposition to the pipeline. And, you know, she is concerned that, you know, her very public voice will put her at odds with tribal leaders. went door-to-door canvassing for anti-pipeline. We've handed out stickers, meals, we've raised money for the camps. And a lot of people, you know, they're willing to give us money, but they're too afraid to join us. Mary, we've touched on the importance of wild rice to the Ojibwe communities,

but could you tell us a bit more about why it's such a big part of the story? Well, wild rice is considered to be an indicator species. So it reflects the overall health of an ecosystem and because it requires abundant clean water in order to grow and it's especially vulnerable to things like oil spills. And wild rice is included in the Ojibwe migration story. I'm Red Cliff Ojibwe, so, you know, I'm familiar with the teachings. And it's told that our people migrated from places farther to the east, perhaps like Nova Scotia, about 800 to000 years ago, and were driven by visions of some of our leaders who saw a great meagis shell in the sky directing us to travel west to the place where food grows on the water. And that's also, of course, been interpreted to mean

wild rice. And wild rice is not actually rice. It's in aquatic grass. In addition to carbohydrates, it also has protein. So it actually has two less weight watchers points than brown rice per cup. So, I mean, it's a super nutritious food. And Ojibati people, even the actual process of harvesting the rice, it has to be done in community. It's not something you can do alone. So in that process, I mean, it also communicates very important, you know, cultural ways and teachings that can't be really, you know, they can't be taught in a classroom. I mean, these are things that have to be taught very organically. So it takes on far greater meanings than just sort of a quote unquote resource.

I mean, it's also very spiritual for Ojibwe people. Kirstie, we've talked about many of the concerns about building a pipeline like this. The water rights, the drought, chemicals potentially getting into the water. But then there's the question of once this thing is up and running, people are really concerned about big spills on pipelines like this one. The original line three was the site of the largest inland oil spill in the country 30 years ago was in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. What happens if this pipeline is completed? and there's another spill. Yeah, that's one of the concerns that opponents have raised.

They like to point to this incident that happened in 1991. The Line 3, which was owned by Lakehead Pipeline Company back then, which is now Enbridge, it ruptured, it spilled over 1.7 million gallons of crude, and some of it got into the Prairie River, which is a tributary of the Mississippi. Because it was winter and that river was covered with ice, the crews were able to kind of keep that oil from reaching the Mississippi. Mississippi, which was like two miles away. But it did take years and millions of dollars to clean up that spill. And, you know, on this pipeline, line three has leaked a few other times, too. So that is a

major concern that pipeline opponents, you know, like to raise. Of course, Enbridge argues that this new pipeline will be more modern, safer, stronger steel. And they also say that there's systems in place now that would alert them to a spill or a leak more quickly than they had available to them 30 years ago. But then how exactly are people in Minnesota weighing these safety concerns, a new pipeline against the potential hazards of a corroding older pipeline which has spilled in the past? I mean, this is a really challenging conundrum, I think. Well, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the opponents are saying that the old pipeline is okay, you know, that Emberge is sort of is gaming the system. And I think opponents are alleging that Embridge just really wants a greater

financial return for their pipeline. I'm John. Ankosky, and this is Science Friday from WNYC Studios. I'm talking with reporters Kirstie Marone and Mary Annette Pember about Enbridge's Line 3 Pipeline Project and how it's been received in northern Minnesota. Are the people that you talk to essentially saying, this is inevitable, I mean, this is probably going to happen no matter how much opposition we have. You know, I think that is what's happening. And I think people from the very beginning, I think have sort of felt this way that there's nothing we can do. I think there are quite a number of people who disagree and would rather not see line three. I think there is more of a

sense of just sort of acquiescence and this is going to happen anyway. And Kirstie is the last thing. Minnesota officials are also taking a longer look at this beyond a drought right now or a pipeline being built at this moment. They're considering whether or not climate change might be a consideration in any sort of environmental impact assessments basically would determine whether or not projects like this pipeline even receive permits in the future. You've been reporting on this. What can you tell us about that? Yeah. So Minnesota's environmental review process right now for big projects like new pipelines or roads. It doesn't ask for a lot of specific detail about how that project might impact climate change or how much greenhouse gases it will be emitting or how some of those impacts might be mitigated. So that could be changing. There's this effort underway to incorporate climate change into the state's environmental review process.

So it would require projects to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions and then also plan for how to reduce or mitigate those. So that could impact projects like line three. You know, opponents argued that the new pipeline will exacerbate climate change, especially if you consider the full cycle of the oil that will be running through it, you know, from the pumping to transporting it to refining it and then burning it eventually. So there was an environmental review conducted for this project that found the societal cost of climate change. from line three could reach $287 billion over the next 30 years. But, you know, as long as there's this global demand for oil, state regulators said that not building this pipeline won't significantly reduce those emissions. This oil will just get transported by a different means like truck or rail. And that also has a carbon footprint. You know, and Enbridge also says that the actual pipeline

itself has relatively few emissions. So these kinds of considerations could become more important in decisions in future projects like this. Minnesota has set some pretty ambitious goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and right now we're not on track to meet those. I'd like to thank my guests this hour, Kirstie Marone, a reporter covering water issues for Minnesota Public Radio, and Mary Annette Pember, a national correspondent for Indian Country Today. Thanks so much for joining us on Science Friday. Thank you, John. Thanks so much for having me, John. And if you want to see more of their reporting on this story, we've got links on our website, along with a full statement from Enbridge.

It's all at ScienceFriday.com slash line three. That's line the number three. For Science Friday, I'm John Dankowski. Great story, John. Thank you for that. And that's about all the time we have for this week. Charles Berkwurst is our director. Our producers are Christy Taylor, Kathleen Davis.

Our intern is Emily Zhang. Senior producer is Alexa Lim. And of course, John Dancosky is our news director. BJ Leatherman composed our theme music. And if you missed any part of the program, or you'd like to hear it again. Yeah, subscribe to our podcasts or ask your smart speaker to play Science Friday. One more thing on our Science Friday Vox Pop app.

Is there an item or a sound or a smell? Yeah, a smell that makes you nostalgic. What does it make you nostalgic for? Tell us that's on the Science Friday Voxpop app wherever you get your apps. Have a great weekend. I'm Ira Flato.