This weekly newsletter, focused on environmental issues, highlights relevant analysis done by the John Locke Foundation and other think tanks, as well as items in the news.
1. N.C. towns unite to oppose monopoly control
Unless you live under a rock, you know that North Carolina’s two government-created and -perpetuated electric utility monopolies, Duke Power and Progress Energy, are proposing to merge into one company. Combined, the merger will make the single company the largest utility monopoly in the country. Right now, approval of the merger is being considered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Standing in opposition to the merger is a group of relatively small eastern N.C. towns whose citizens may face considerable harm if it is ultimately approved.
According to The News & Observer, the affected 32 towns have joined together claiming that they will be harmed by a lack of competition between the two companies. Here’s how the N&O explains it:
The towns obtain their power from the N.C. Eastern Municipal Power Agency, which receives its share of power from the towns’ minority ownership in the Progress plants. However, about a third of the towns’ power needs are not met by the ownership stake in the plants, so the agency makes up the gap by buying wholesale power.
The agency’s current wholesale contract, which expires in 2017, is with Progress.
The merger will mean that the agency’s two likeliest suppliers of wholesale power, Duke and Progress, will become one company and the agency will not be able to shop around.
2. Lies, damned lies, and NOAA’s drought statistics reporting
From the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
The largest national footprint of D4 ("exceptional drought") in the 12-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor occurred in July. In Texas "exceptional drought" covers more than 75 percent (201,436 sq mi) of the state. This area is larger than the entire Northeast climate region (196,224 sq mi). Drought conditions are so harsh in some locations that it would take as much as 20 inches of precipitation in one month to end the drought. Conditions in Oklahoma are also dire, with 100 percent of the state suffering from D1-D4 (Moderate-Exceptional) drought. At the beginning of the water year (9/28/2010), drought conditions (D1-D4) covered only four percent of the state.
What the NOAA is not pointing out is that it has drought data going back not 12 years, but 112 years. Real Science.com took at look at NOAA’s own data a little more expansively and noted the following:
Compare July, 2011 to July, 1934. In 1934, 80% of the US was under moderate to extreme drought. In 2011, more of the country is wetter than normal than is drier than normal.
The flashing map at the Real Science web site makes the comparison quite strikingly.
For a much clearer picture of drought and excessive rainfall over time, take a look at these graphs — NOAA’s own.
3. Weekly Ozone Report
Each week during the summer ozone season this newsletter will report how many, if any, high-ozone days had been experienced throughout the state during the previous week, where they were experienced, and how many have been recorded during the entire season to date. While many environmental groups express concern about air quality, the John Locke Foundation is the only organization that keeps up-to-date track of the actual ozone data and reports it in an unfiltered manner on a regular basis.
The ozone season began on April 1 and ends October 31. All reported data are from the North Carolina Division of Air Quality, which is part of the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
During the period from September 26 through October 2 there were no reported high-ozone readings on monitors across the state of North Carolina. So far this season there have been 99 readings on various North Carolina monitors that have exceeded federal standards of 0.75 parts per billion. These have occurred over a period of 26 days.
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