Frozen Federal Funding Wreaks Havoc on Key RI Climate Issues
PROVIDENCE — Funding for RI’s key climate initiatives remains illegally frozen by the Trump administration in defiance of a temporary restraining order issued by a federal judge last month. Specifically, funds awarded to state agencies from the Inflation Reduction Act, or the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, are inaccessible to the state Department of Environmental Management and the Office of Energy Resources (OER). At OER, at least $125 million in federal funds are frozen and unavailable. State energy officials quietly announced last week on the OER website that some of its programs would be temporarily halted due to recent executive orders issued by President Trump. Impacted programs at OER include the Solar for All program, funded by a nearly $50 million grant to overcome barriers to solar panel adoption in RI’s low-income communities, and phase two of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. The NEVI program, which gave OER $23 million in federal funds over a five-year period, boosts the state’s electric vehicle infrastructure. RI was a leader in the program, becoming the first state to reach its second phase, which provides up to 80% federal matching dollars for private entities and companies that install electric vehicle charging stations on their property.
The Ocean State’s Mussel Populations Are Declining
The presence of freshwater mussels indicates high water quality and a healthy ecosystem. Their absence tells a different story, and the latter is the more familiar tale in southern New England. Mussel populations in our three-state region have been degraded by a long history of damming and pollution.
University of Rhode Island research associate Elizabeth Herron has noted that these overlooked creatures are a critical part of the region’s aquatic systems. These bivalves are sometimes called “livers of the river,” because they filter particles such as algae, E.coli, and fungi out of the water. They also provide habitat for other invertebrates and fish, and deposit nutrients into the benthic layer for other creatures to eat.
Freshwater mussels are sensitive to changes in the environment, which puts them at substantial risk from pollutants or temperature change. Since they are sedentary filter feeders, they are unable to flee degraded environments caused by nutrient enrichment, sedimentation, pointsource pollution, alteration of natural flows, water withdrawal, development encroachment, invasive species, habitat fragmentation, alteration of waterways, etc. The mussels and the habitat they require are disappearing at a disturbing rate. “We tend to think we’ve got these keystone species and that without them everything collapses, and we kind of ignore everything else,” Herron said. “So many organisms have complex life cycles that we just don’t know what happens if we eliminate part of the system.”
“Just the Beginning of It”: Avian influenza comes to RI
PROVIDENCE — This time of year isn’t supposed to be busy for Sheida Soleimani, the powerhouse artist, professor, and animal rehabilitator. It’s not baby bird season, Soleimani explained, the time of year when worried good Samaritans swamp her clinic, Congress of the Birds, with calls about potentially failing fledgling flyers. But that rush is a few months away. Winter is a relatively quiet season, and Soleimani said she usually gets one or two calls on an average day. But this year, her phone is buzzing 15 to 20 times daily.
“The amount of birds that I’m getting calls about on a daily basis has really just gone up exponentially,” she said. Most of the calls are about cases of bird flu, Soleimani told ecoRI News. “What we are seeing is mass mortalities,” Soleimani said. “They’re falling out of the sky dying.”
H5N1, the most common strain of the avian influenza hitting the country right now, is a “highly pathogenic avian influenza” that popped up in the United States probably sometime in late 2021, according to Scott Marshall, the Department of Environmental Management’s state veterinarian and Division of Agriculture deputy chief. It’s hitting domestic birds, wild flocks, and some mammals. When H5N1 is suspected in a flock, DEM or the US Department of Agriculture tests the animals. If the virus is detected in commercial flocks, the entire flock must be euthanized, but Marshall said case-by-case exceptions can be made for non-commercial flocks, which would have to be quarantined for 120 days rather than depopulated.
‘Surprising’ Shark Species Found in Rhode Island
On the first day of September last year, Captain Carl Granquist was fishing just south of Charlestown when his catch landed on the deck of his boat, the F/V Estrella Domar. A small shark he was unfamiliar with was thrashing around. Granquist wasn’t sure of the species. He videoed the shark and measured the 24-inch species before releasing it. When Granquist shared the video with the RI-based shark research group the Atlantic Shark Institute to see whether it could make a positive identification, his unplanned catch kick-started a dive that culminated in a research paper published recently in the Journal of Fish Biology.
“Less than an hour after Granquist released the shark, I received the video and I was really surprised at the size and potential species of the shark,” said Jon Dodd, executive director of the Atlantic Shark Institute (ASI). “I knew it was one of two species of shark and either one would be a pretty unique find here in Rhode Island waters, particularly at only 24 inches in length.” Dodd knew he was looking at either a spinner shark or blacktip shark. Both species are well documented along the southeastern coast of the United States and can be difficult to tell apart. Ultimately, measurements along the snout were key for species distinction, and using frame-byframe analysis, it was confirmed that the shark in question was a spinner shark.
The waters of southern New England aren’t currently recognized as nursery habitat for juvenile spinner sharks. Most documented nursery habitats for spinners range from the Carolinas to Florida. Whether nursery habitat is shifting northward because of climate change or the shark in question is a rare stray, it’s too soon to tell, according to Dodd. He noted a single shark doesn’t constitute proof of a nursery. •
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