Latest news with #KatieZimmerman
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Yahoo
Folly Beach City Council to vote on new transportation and traffic safety action plan
FOLLY BEACH, S.C. (WCBD) – Officials are expected to present the Folly Beach safety action plan to city council, after a year in the making. The city has been working with consultants at Kimley-Horn since June 2024, to address growing safety concerns on the island. The transportation and traffic safety action plan highlights four main goals – encourage safer speeds, maintain the city's culture, improve communication and coordination, and serve a diverse population. 'This is the first time we've had a comprehensive plan that shows the areas we need to target on the entire island – to make the island safer,' Jenna Stephens, zoning administrator of Folly Beach, said. The engineers analyzed data from 2017-2023 and found the city averages around 85 crashes per year. According to the study, a majority of the crashes included pedestrians and bicyclists. Though most of them were non-fatal, the city plans to address this issue. Folly Beach held two public input meetings open to residents and people who visit the island regularly. Around 250 people participated, with many saying they felt uncomfortable traveling around by foot or on a bike. Transportation advocacy groups like the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments (BCDCOG) and Charleston Moves also attended. In a support letter sent to the city, Katie Zimmerman, executive director of Charleston Moves, said the organization supports the plan and two resolutions to adopt it. 'Charleston Moves has appreciated the opportunities to participate in both the development of the City's Safety Action Plan, as well as the stakeholder meetings and data collection for the Arctic Avenue Plan,' Zimmerman wrote. 'Our region is one of the deadliest in the nation for vulnerable road users, with disproportionate impacts to senior citizens and Black communities. We support your efforts towards a safe and healthy city with a goal of eliminating fatalities and severe injuries from traffic collisions.' City council will vote to approve the safety action plan and to amend a contract to scope out the Arctic Avenue project. The next steps will include applying for the federal 'Safe Streets For All' grant. 'The problems is funding – this plan allows us to qualify for some federal grants and that is the plan right now. To use the safety action plan to apply for the 'Safe Streets For All' grant and to help fund some of our Arctic Avenue infrastructure proposals,' said Stephens. City council will meet at 7 p.m. on June 10. They are expected to vote on two resolutions involving the safety action plan. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Yahoo
Charleston County to propose new plan of Main Road Segment A pedestrian bridge
JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD) – Charleston County councilmembers are expected to consider the approval of a new design to improve mobility between West Ashley and Johns Island. Leaders will discuss connectivity access for bicyclists and pedestrians across the Limehouse Bridge in the committee meeting. It comes from the Main Road Segment A project which initially had a standalone bridge in its plans, but was removed as the South Carolina Department of Transportation said they cannot maintain it. 'On the Sept. 10 council meeting, public works discussed with council continuing to pursue bike and pedestrian access of the project over the Stono River. Since that time, we've met with SCDOT at the headquarters in Columbia, discussed options in getting pedestrians at minimum on the existing Limehouse Bridge,' Herbert Nimz, engineering manager of the county's public works said. The public works staff will present four designs to council. Two of them are pedestrian only and the others are multi-use, which would provide access to both those traveling on foot and cycling. Charleston Moves, a transportation safety advocacy group, has re-opened a petition from 2019 in support of the project. The bicycle and pedestrian path would also connect to the West Ashley Greenway, expanding the ongoing network of transportation. 'We ended up – a total of 640 signatures from folks who live within Charleston County. We had approximately 100 additional signatures from folks who live outside the county, but come to the Charleston region specifically to bike,' Katie Zimmerman, executive director of Charleston Moves, said. 'They understood the value of getting across the river as well.' Zimmerman added she has met with several council members and sent over the signatures ahead of the committee meeting. This project will finally connect West Ashley and Johns Island, as other current projects like the Ashley River Crossing will connect the peninsula to all the way to Johns Island as well. The public works department plans to recommend a multi-use path, which would widen the existing structure and add concrete barriers. The path would be around nine to ten feet with four 11-foot travel lanes on the Limehouse Bridge. 'I think connectivity in Charleston County is important to all of us. It's been part of our TST projects since the inception of the half-cent sales tax and have currently five to eight miles of multi-use path that this project would connect to. So, I think it's an important aspect,' said Nimz. The bridge would be integrated with the current Main Road Segment A project, meaning it will be completed at once. The committee meeting is expected to begin at 5 pm. on April 3. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why oil and gas companies want state oversight for carbon dioxide injection
ODESSA — Texas oil companies and regulators have waited years for federal permits that would allow those companies to suck carbon dioxide — the largest contributor to climate change — from the atmosphere and inject it underground. After sweeping environmental reviews and public hearings, the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to approve any of those 17 proposals. Occidental Petroleum Corporation, a Houston-based energy company that introduced one of the most ambitious projects, reached the stage where the public can testify for or against the proposal — one of the last steps before final review. The delay has prompted more calls from the oil and gas industry to transfer the authority — known as primacy — to grant permits to inject carbon from the air into the ground. If granted, primacy would give the Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency regulating oil and gas, the ability to review, approve, or deny permits companies need to inject carbon dioxide underground without federal input. 'We want to regulate our own state business,' said Katie Zimmerman, decarbonization director at Wood, an energy consulting firm in Houston. 'The EPA has a lot of permits, and they don't have enough people with the right experience to be able to process the request as quickly as we would like to see these projects get off the ground.' Environmental group leaders have also expressed concerns about the adequacy of regulatory oversight for carbon dioxide injection projects in Texas. The commission already manages wastewater injections. In the worst cases, unplugged wells have contributed to seismic activity, sinkholes and leaks or blowouts from unplugged wells. Erandi Treviño, a longtime environmentalist who co-founded the nonprofit Raices Collab Project, said the commission must prove it can regulate such permits effectively. 'All these projects would come with large investments in infrastructure, large investments in projects. It's adding to a responsibility list of the Texas Railroad Commission that they haven't exactly proven to be capable of (handling),' Treviño said. 'We don't have trust in the agency to do that role.' The commission applied in December 2022. The EPA, evaluating the state's application, said it is still in the first of four phases of the review. Within that time, other states obtained the necessary authorization, some of which submitted their application after Texas — Wyoming, Louisiana, North Dakota and West Virginia. Here's what you need to know. Carbon dioxide acts like a blanket, trapping heat in the atmosphere. While that's a natural process that helps maintain the earth's temperature, excessive carbon dioxide contributes to a warming planet. Rising temperatures can lead to extreme weather events such as heatwaves, droughts, floods, and wildfires — all posing serious threats to human health and safety, particularly in vulnerable regions. Carbon capture is a technology designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from large industrial sources such as power plants, steel manufacturing, cement production, and other industrial facilities that emit greenhouse gases in their processes. The primary intent of carbon capture is to prevent carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. One of many ways this can be done is through what's called direct air capture. Carbon dioxide is separated from other gases produced at industrial facilities through a chemical process. Once captured, the gas is compressed and transported, usually through pipelines, to a storage location, which is later injected into deep underground rock formations where it can be permanently stored. Primacy is a term under the Safe Drinking Water Act, a federal law. If granted to a state, they can review, approve, or deny permits that allow companies to inject fluids underground. The Environmental Protection Agency administers six underground injection control programs, including oil and gas industry wastewater, industrial, municipal and agricultural waste, and fluids to extract more crude oil and natural gas. The state must submit the set of rules it intends to implement. The EPA meets with the state, in this case, the Texas Railroad Commission, to ensure the rules they set match the federal government's. The EPA then reviews the rules before asking the public to comment. Texas has been in the first phase of its application for more than two years. Industry-backed groups said Texas should lead decarbonizing efforts as much as it does production — and that there's land and eagerness from companies to do it, but federal oversight has hampered that. A spokesperson for the Houston Carbon Capture Sequestration Alliance, a group comprised of some of the biggest energy companies, including Chevron and ExxonMobil, said transferring oversight to the commission could shorten the review process from years to months. 'When we're talking about keeping large amounts of carbon dioxide out of our environment, we feel like it's important to move this forward as quickly as we can,' the spokesperson said. Zimmerman, the decarbonization director for Wood, said the state is in the best position to evaluate permits for the proposed projects. 'One thing that engineers can get a bit frustrated by at times is we will study these projects, and we put a lot of technical work into making sure that they are as safe as humanly possible,' she said. 'We've done all the analysis, but if you don't actually build, we're not actually reducing emissions.' There is disagreement among scientists, environmentalists and industry as to which regulatory agency should be tasked with carbon dioxide injection oversight. Susan Hovorka, a research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology who has studied carbon capture for decades, said the underground injection control program was designed so that states would eventually adopt it. Hovorka said it should be up to Texas, not Washington, D.C., to determine what proposals would benefit the state's efforts to reduce carbon emissions, adding that distrust of certain agencies should be separated from the state's efforts to gain primacy. 'That would be a political decision for the people of Texas,' Hovorka said. One of the primary concerns among environmentalists is the potential for increased seismic activity. Injecting wastewater underground has already been linked to earthquakes in some areas across the state. Others worry about the potential contamination of groundwater aquifers. In West Texas, residents rely on well water from aquifers like the Ogallala, Pecos Valley and Edwards-Trinity. Environmentalists and lawyers are concerned about the impact of carbon dioxide injections on the state's water supply — a fear playing out in Indiana. Last March, a leak was detected at a carbon dioxide injection site in Decatur, Illinois. The operator Archer Daniels Midland found corrosion in one of its deep monitoring wells and discovered a leak that allowed carbon dioxide and formation fluid to migrate deep underground. Months later, it happened again. This resulted in the company temporarily pausing injections into the well. 'The concern is that there will be a flood of permit applications that are coming in and are granted quickly without careful consideration of environmental concerns in these areas with these new and potentially dangerous injections, especially with all these drinking water sources,' said Allison Brouk, a senior attorney with the environmental nonprofit Earthjustice. The EPA stated that drinking water supplies in Illinois were not contaminated, but the incident raised concerns from residents about potential risks to the Mahomet Aquifer, which supplies water to around 850,000 people in Illinois. Brouk said that injecting carbon dioxide could also threaten abandoned wells. Carbon dioxide could escape through these wells, potentially harming soil, vegetation and even humans in the affected areas. Some experts worry that transferring permitting authority from the EPA to state agencies like the Railroad Commission of Texas could lead to less stringent environmental protections. 'Texas through the RRC hasn't proven itself a reliable manager as far as injection wells go in the past and adding the administration of the Class VI program to its plate raises alarm bells for the people and drinking water in Texas,' said Brouk. Both environmental and oil and gas industry leaders say it is too early to know whether the Trump administration will favor standards set under its predecessor, even if the energy industry wants it. The Biden administration set ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under its climate change agenda. Biden offered tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act to companies for every ton of carbon dioxide captured and permanently stored underground. The administration also set aside $12 billion for new carbon storage projects. Companies need permits to become eligible for those incentives and pollute the air less during oil and gas production. The Trump administration, on the other hand, has promoted fossil fuels and dismissed climate change concerns. 'It is not a priority of the current administration… so it will be interesting to see what is coming,' Brock, with Earthjustice, said. Before the EPA grants the Railroad Commission primacy, Texans will have a chance to share their opinions on the proposed change. Keith Hall, a Louisiana energy law professor, said people can learn more about carbon capture storage and ask if the agency has sufficient staffing to monitor the projects and enforce rules and regulations. Hall said that after the initial reviews of the commission's application are completed, the rest of the process tends to move faster. The EPA has not said when it plans to hear from the public. Disclosure: Exxon Mobil Corporation has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. 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