Fate of the World: A Climate Change Quest

Superfund



Summary: EPA is in the planning stages of remedial design sampling. Baseline sampling is complete. The following remedial design planning tasks remain: Sediment Management Area Identification, Buried Contamination Stability Assessment, Site-Specific Data Management Strategy Development and Site-Specific Technology Assignment and Planning.

Working Parties: Currently EPA.

Informal Feedback: Conceptual design review (schedule and formal review process under development).


Summary: Remedial design work has begun. Pre-Design Investigation (PDI) work plan has been developed.

Working Parties: Currently EPA, BP Products North America Inc.

Informal Public Feedback Opportunity: Review completed remedial design plan.


Summary: Remedial design work ongoing. All areas have completed Pre Design Investigation (PDI) sampling and are awaiting results. Currently working on Sufficiency Assessment report and Basis of Design report.

Working Parties: EPA, NW Natural


Summary: Remedial design work ongoing. Pre-Design Investigation work plan complete and submitted, awaiting approval from City of Portland and State of Oregon.

Working Parties: EPA, Bayer Crop Science, Inc.


Summary: Remedial design work ongoing, currently working on Pre-Design Investigation (PDI) work plan.

Working Parties: EPA, Bayer Crop Science, Inc.


Summary: Remedial design work ongoing. Pre-Design Investigation work plan complete and submitted, awaiting approval from City of Portland and State of Oregon.

Working Parties: EPA, FMC Corporation.


Summary: Remedial design work ongoing. Pre-Design Investigation work plan complete and approved. Phase 1 PDI sampling complete. Phase 1 PDI evaluation report submitted.

Working Parties: EPA, Port of Portland.

EPA Point of Contact: Jack Richfield, EPA Assistant Project Manager. Contact: Phone: See Appendix I.

All other unassigned zones have completed baseline sampling and site assessment, awaiting working party assignment from corporate stakeholders.

Status of Project: Upriver Reach Dioxin/Furan Sampling: The Upriver Reach is an approximately 12-mile stretch of the Willamette River upstream of the Portland Harbor Superfund Site, extending from roughly RM 16.6 to RM 28.4 (from about the Sellwood Bridge to above the Willamette Falls). The purpose of this sampling is to gather additional information about the background concentration of dioxins and furans in the Upriver Reach. EPA Region 10 and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality are partnering to perform this sampling work. Sampling will start in Fall 2001 at the earliest, awaiting allocation of personnel, funding and sampling equipment.

Pick one stage to do next:

[]Dioxin/Furan Sampling and Decontamination: Decontamination of the upper reaches of the Willamette isn't something that one can do in a few months, but enough setup work can be done to leave the rest of it to Oregon DEQ. Of course, that means federal funding isn't heading for the cleanup of the Willamette Superfund site proper, and said funding isn't heading towards signing on the corporate and local stakeholders in the area.

[]Local Stakeholder Working Parties: Focus project resources on remediation design and pre-design assessment involving corporate and local stakeholders, staking enough funding and federal attention on this area to get the locals to move fast. This means your personnel aren't going to be available to sample and assay the upper Willamette, though.

---

Washington D.C.
February, 2001

The EPA Director's office isn't as comfortable as some of the others, and you're damn sure it's because you're heading the EPA and not something like Defense or State with their antique office rooms and their antique furniture. Or Treasury. Damn, but Treasury has a nice office indeed.

You tap your fingers on what looks like some sort of IKEA armrest and stare the report, the project manager who brought it in, and tell her to take a seat. You shake your head looking at the stack of reports from across the Rust Belt that sit on your desk, "So tell me, Jolene. What does that-" You point at the stack, "-mean. In short. I've got a meeting at the White House in two hours. I need to know how the Rust Belt is going."

Jolene Russell nods briskly, expecting the request and sliding a sheet of paper across your desk to you. "The bottom line, Director, is that we're halfway done. If that. The area's too damn big for the personnel we were assigned. We need more decon teams, we need more specialists, and the state agencies are underfunded."

"And uncooperative." You finish the unstated other half of the statement with a wry grin, "I know what some of those states think about cleanup."

Russell shifts a little, doesn't say anything with the practiced ease of a federal civil servant, and sends you a reproachful look. In lieu of stating the obvious about the competence of, say, the Ohio EPA, she opens the folder she's carrying. Presumably the briefing itself. "In particular, we're stuck on soil decon and assessment, dealing with property owners, and having major issues with corporate stakeholders who can't afford to send in working parties and liaisons. That doesn't cover the other companies that don't exist anymore, meaning we have to work through county governments and state agencies. All in all, Director, we're barely halfway done with the first stages of cleaning this up."

You sigh and massage your temples, "Alright. Alright. So what do I tell Gore? More time?"

"Yessir." She smiles slightly when you groan a little, "Look at it this way, Director. We'll have a lot of the work done just in time for the midterms."

Well. That's something, at least.

---

Education


Report to the Director: Publicity Program and Outreach Initiative

This is an executive summary of the Publicity Program and Outreach Initiative that was begun under the Gore Administration in February 2001 to inform the public about the tasks undertaken by the Environmental Protection Agency, and to regularly inform the public on the status of the various major projects undertaken by the Agency. We note that the support staff and infrastructure for the Publicity Program draw mainly from Agency personnel who have conducted this task in the past for the EPA under the Clinton, Bush, and Reagan Administrations.
Publicity outreach was conducted along the same channels used for public information and feedback established under the Bush Administration, prioritizing local news channels and publications to inform local stakeholders of progress on projects close to home rather than a coordinated (and expensive) nationwide public information campaign. This unfortunately was insufficient to provide an unbiased viewpoint of the EPA's activities to the nation's public due to an adverse reaction from national radio broadcasters and talk shows, focusing on criticism of the EPA's research-heavy budget allocation and demanding more attention to cleanup of the Superfund site backlog…

---

Energy/Environmental


Des Moines, Iowa
April, 2001

Iowa is a land of cornfields and farmland first and foremost, with the few tall buildings of Des Moines, Iowa, poking out above the rippling fields of corn almost apologetically as if interlopers in an alien landscape. The town – it can't really be called a city, not Des Moines, not to Will Jensen's mind – is similarly not the bustle and the glamor of New York or San Francisco. Not anything like that at all.
It's a place that the EPA's point man for renewable energy didn't expect to be, but needs must when Gore wants to win Iowa in 2002 for the midterms.

Unfortunately, it also means talking to a representative from DuPont, the old-fashioned suit and tie almost an anachronism for someone come from the West Coast and the dotcom boom. And the bust. Jensen grimaces a little when he remembers the bust.

The DuPont man's meeting room is a plain conference room with a smiling corncob on a wall poster talking about the environment just behind Jensen's seat. The representative from America's largest chemical company rises, smiles professionally and shakes the EPA representative by the hand. "A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Jensen. I'm Rupert Ames from DuPont. Sit down, let's talk. There was something to be decided about the biofuel processing program, I think?"

"Yes." Jensen eyes up the chemical company's representative for a minute, Ames' older lined face the sort of friendly senior-exec that one might expect from flyover country. "Now that the federal-level mechanism for disbursing the grants for corn biofuels is set up, we can start sending out funding. In response to deserving applications."

Ames nods once, gray eyes not betraying his thoughts. For a brief wild moment Jensen thinks the exec would make a hell of a poker player, before the DuPont man begins to speak. "We at DuPont would like to propose a partnership. To enhance the efficiency of the grant program. Given, of course, that state EPAs are underfunded and tend to be inefficient."

"I cannot comment on that." Jensen would like to keep his job, thank you very much.

Rupert just grins at that, "Well, doctor, we both know what the facts are on the ground. At the state level you'll have to rebuild things for regional EPAs, which means federal legislation. Or you can work through us. Through the Department of Agriculture's program, that is. Where major processors are already easily tapped."

"Agriculture isn't an easy area to tap. More cash into the farm programs ignores the small producers." Jensen's irritated now, the big processor's representative sitting before him all satisfied and smiling. "It might be more efficient for the EPA to cut out the middleman, so to speak. Auditing our grants with the sheer volume of cash that Agriculture pumps through the farm subsidies and the processors' subsidies would be harder, Mr. Ames."

"That's fair, doctor." Ames nods lugubriously, taking out a small stiff white rectangle from his pocket and leaving it on the table. "I can say, though, that DuPont as well as other food processors are sincere in this. We can lobby for the EPA to take advantage of the current farm subsidy system instead of having to build up something on its own. We already have the expertise for ethanol production. It's the rational, cost-effective approach."

The veiled threat also doesn't go unnoticed, the mention of cost-effectiveness for a department that's come under fire before as being unneeded.

Will Jensen nods curtly at the DuPont executive, and tells him to continue. He might as well hear the man out. It can't hurt to do that much, at least.

Pick one stage to begin next:

[]Use the Agriculture System: This routes the ethanol production grants and subsidies through the Department of Agriculture's farm subsidy system, thereby potentially allocating a disproportionate share to large agriculture producers and processors and ignoring those smaller or out-of-the-way producers to focus on scale. It's also somewhat more vulnerable to misallocation of funds than a fresh network.

[]Set Something Up: To keep control over the funding streams and give the Midwestern state agencies as well as regional EPA commands something to do, you might as well build up a separate subsidy apparatus. Of course, this means ensuring that farmers and producers are aware of the subsidy's availability, ensuring that the red tape is manageable, ensuring that the grant system is sane and that the big processors are on board with it. It won't be easy at all. But...while an integrated system with DoA is easier for the small applicant, this allows you to build up EPA branches and state agencies by throwing them a popular funding stream.

---

Idaho National Labs and the EPA's own Office of Technological Development have reported that the grant system for solar and wind projects has been set up and already seen applicants. Some of the smaller dollar-amounts have been awarded already, a few hundreds of thousands apiece for pilot solar and wind schemes in the West and the Southwest. Some more applications are being scrutinized, mainly academic and university-related ones for speculative research and building scale demonstrators. All in all, it's a small-scale success that won't be changing the world anytime soon, but will pay dividends down the line.
Hopefully.

---

Report to the Director's Office
Environmental Protection Agency: Grid Modernization Initiative

Abstract: This report aims to examine the results of the assessments conducted on the electricity grid for the United States and the potential methods for enhancing its performance while reducing environmental impact. The Grid Modernization Initiative has so far been conducted with the assent and cooperation of the U.S. Department of Energy as well as the assent and cooperation of local corporate stakeholders (detailed in full in Appendix-I). The grid examination is detailed in the report, with the finding in brief being the revelation of an urgent need for modernization of the US power grid. The majority of the power transmission infrastructure has been examined and found to date back to federally-funded grid improvements in the Carter and Reagan Administrations, and is showing its age. Wear and tear on transformers, transmission substations, generation stations, and urban power grids have meant a longer downtime for repairs and more exposure to extreme weather events such as tornadoes, wildfires and hurricanes. We also note the state of repair and upkeep for high-tension power lines in areas of high-wildfire prevalence potentially necessitating a federally funded improvement and hardening program. In addition to the previous, we see that the grid interlinks for the United States act as bottlenecks for load balancing, preventing the quick restoration of power balance in the event of a large blackout in either the eastern or the western integrated electrical grids. With less than 1GW of high-voltage DC transmission interlinks between the US Eastern and Western power grids, load balancing is difficult to contemplate. Especially in the circumstances of the current grid hardware setup and the current best practices of training and protocol. We therefore urge the Director to lobby the Department of Energy in modernizing the American power grid not simply to allow for a more flexible, ecologically friendly network but also to ensure that the United States does not risk a mass blackout or electrically triggered wildfire in the near future…

---

R&D


Research on engine efficiency in partnership with the EPA's automotive corporate stakeholders initialy focused on conventional emissions control measures as well as catalytic converters that were intended to show improved performance against the market baseline. This was to allow domestic carmakers – regarded as the EPA's automotive corporate stakeholders – to take advantage of the temporary lead and carve out a niche with the backing of US emissions regulations come 2002. The EPA's research teams at Idaho National Laboratory's Environmental Research Center, however, managed to pitch something entirely different to a skeptical audience at Ford Motor Company. The other corporate stakeholders in the program declined to fund it, but with the hinted entry of a Toyota hybrid into the US market, Ford was minded to listen to the researchers' proposal to develop a prototype hybrid drivetrain for a domestic hybrid.

The hybrid drivetrain's development was to be an improvement on existing Ford models and achieve comparable performance to the Japan release of the Toyota Prius, thereby allowing Ford with the aid of U.S. vehicle subsidies to compete in what many executives refer to as the 'hippie car' market. Research proceeded ahead of schedule with more than a little aid from other EPA-funded teams at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor as well as Ford Motor Company's R&D cell at Dearborn, and culminated in a prototype being scheduled for fabrication and test in August of 2001. Ford has in the meantime proceeded to design a vehicle around the drivetrain, at least in concept and simulation, and is prepared to rush the design through what process remains once the prototype proves itself in September.

General Motors has claimed that this research avenue is unfeasible in the long run and has requested EPA funding to develop a more efficient drivetrain and fuel injection system for the Hummer H.2 in order to 'conserve fuel and save the environment'. The EPA has yet to respond to this request.

---

Administration Actions

The Department of Energy is noncommittal when approached by the Director, by liaisons from the EPA, and stonewalls a request for information and cooperation when sent through the Gore Administration. Repeated requests for cooperation have been stonewalled by the Department of Energy with the reply being that grid modernization studies have been proceeding ahead of schedule and cooperation is not needed at the moment on other programs. Informally, some of the senior civil servants and the Secretary at the DoE have hinted at the Department of Justice having a 'stake' in power grid modernization and investment at the moment due to price fluctuations in the Californian energy markets, and requested the EPA bide its time until the DoJ has 'cleared' its 'stake'.

Continued in Interlude: The Devil come up from Dixie, Senior Senator from South Carolina

AN: Given that South Carolina came up in discussion, I might poke at that in the interlude somewhat. As well as have a vote on your character's motivation or background.

AN: Before you read: This was intended to show how some things have been rightly left in the ashes of history. Some people were made obsolete in their lifetime and lost the major battles they fought, and the world is better for that. Strom Thurmond is one such person. The intent is to show that the nation has left him behind.
If there is any offense taken to this snippet, let me know. I will rework the interlude with a less fraught topic.


[Trigger Warning: Mentions of lynching, racism, Strom Thurmond]

You're old. Your bones ache, just like they did on that Normandy morning back in '44. Normandy morning, back when the world made sense. Back before Truman. Before Lyndon's insanity cost the nation its sanity. It's been decades since then, more time than most can remember and far enough back that you've woven it into a personal legend. A veteran, a judge, a man of his word who stood for the south and all that was good in Dixie. Back before things stopped making sense. The world has changed, and one look at the color of Congress tells you that.
Once upon a time you were a terror, the arbiter of the Senate. You were Strom Thurmond, voice of the South, protector of a proud tradition.

Now? Now, as your knees ache and the chairs in the Senate's dining hall are too hard for you to sit comfortably on for a long time. Now, it takes a day for the President to even say a word if you send him a letter, and all you can do is pull in the head of Nixon's boondoggle for a talk.

Nixon….Nixon had some bright ideas. Some fire. He almost did the right thing. You can remember standing up for him, the same way he stood up for states' rights. The same way Ben Tillman stood up for you back when you were a stripling, ever since he taught you the value of a firm handshake among the right sort of person.

The waitress isn't the right sort. She takes your order slow, the way they all have since '68. Since Lyndon's insanity. She reminds you of Essie-
Not now. Not anymore.

What you did to Carrie Strom

You push the thoughts away. They buzz around you like flies. Like the nightmares, the same dreams of Willie Earle the noose the rope the flies and you sat there on the bench and acquitted that mob-
No.

Your hand is shaking. You force it down. You're tired, that's all. The Senate is tiring. It always has been.

You tell the waitress you'll just have water. You think there's a hint of pity in her eyes.
You hate it.

The boy from Georgia – Harper, the same one you made sure was ousted for someone better – comes in late. Ten minutes late, apologizing in the same goddamn D.C. accent that they all seem to pick up these days. You rasp out a reply. You remind him – your voice, the drawling tone of a Southern gentleman – reminds him of what he is and where he comes from.
His eyes are understanding. He seems to think this is some sort of formality. You're not sure if he's right or wrong. You hate him for it.

That's fine. You came prepared. You know the boy – Gore himself – all of them have plans for the South. The same federal government your grandfather told you about, that Tillman kept at arm's length, keeping the federal government away kept liberty alive.

You tell the boy Harper that this is what made America great. And you intend to keep it that way. There isn't the need for his Communist agency coming into the South. You'll make sure the Senate defunds it if he moves on drilling or on enforcing Carter's imbecility. Clean Air Act, as if American air wasn't clean enough already.

The waitress comes back with your order. It's the same goddamn mush you've always been having. For the last thirty years. Her eyes are carefully blank.

Maybe she heard you. You damn well hope so. Her hands are graceful as they arrange the table for you and for Harper, dark and elegant and young. You hate her for it.

Harper is the same. A fool, like all of them. He tells you what he has planned. All he wants is cleanup, he says. Keeping the South clean and healthy. You can live with that. Maybe.

You threaten him all the same. You would've called in more of Gore's cabinet if you could, what with this bullshit about corn fuel legislation coming in and threatening the South. Threatening Texas and Louisiana. Threatening South Carolina's petrochem plants. Your boys' jobs, potentially.

You tell Harper this and he smiles and nods. You get platitudes that taste like ash in your mouth. Your food doesn't taste of anything. The check comes late when you call for it, the waitress moving with careful self-control as if containing something. Always the same careful politeness and the same guarded eyes to your face.

As if you're not worth the effort anymore. Even Harper does it. Polite, noncommittal, always deferring to Gore. Who won't even meet you outside the Senate chamber. Who'll only deal with the Majority Leader.

It isn't your nation anymore. It left you behind.
Sometimes, you hate it for that.