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The bugs are already out in New York and the West is in for ”a very bad spring.” Here’s what experts say is in store for the U.S. this year.
It got me in March.
Maybe it happened while I was on a run, enjoying one of the first warm days of spring. Maybe I’d been waiting unsuspectingly for the train on an open-air platform. Maybe it happened in my own apartment. Regardless, at some point last month, I hesitated too long before brushing away a soft, fleeting sensation on my cheek. In the ongoing, 10,000-year-long game of tag between mosquitoes and humans, I’d taken another L.
Though it’s only early April, many New Yorkers have already gotten their first bites of the year: interviewer Isaac Fitzgerald and interviewee James Hannaham were driven out of a backyard by the bugs in Brooklyn; the city’s Department of Health has officially declared “it’s mosquito season in NYC!” and started tweeting out standing-water advisories; and CBS’ local affiliate recently ran a segment about how “it’s going to be a bad summer” for biting insects. Other metropolitan areas are also bracing for a buggy season ahead: “It’s looking like it’s going to be worse than it has [been in] the past two years,” Minnesota’s MPR News reports. “Epic rains expected to take one more swat at California, with masses of mosquitoes,” adds the Los Angeles Times. “We could possibly see more mosquitoes than we wanted to see,” a biologist warned the Ohio area.
Predicting the severity of mosquito season is a bit of an imprecise science, like trying to nail down a long-range weather forecast. Actually, it’s a lot like trying to nail down a long-range weather forecast, since mosquito populations fluctuate based on immediate and unreliable conditions, like spring rainfall and small changes in temperature. Generally speaking, more rain tends to precede “a greater prevalence of mosquitoes within the same month,” while “hotter temperatures [are] associated with increases in mosquitoes one to two months later,” reports one study, which focused on Dengue-carrying Aedes mosquitoes in Sri Lanka. (Invasive Aedes mosquitoes are also found on both U.S. coasts and throughout the South, with their habitats shifting north toward Chicago due to climate change.)
Mosquitos require standing water and temperatures steadily above 50 degrees Fahrenheit in order to start their breeding cycles. In the western United States, in addition to spring rainfall, natural occurrences of standing water are created by snowmelt, which causes floods that dry into perfect mosquito-breeding pools. Snowpack in the West, then, is one of the best early determinants of the coming mosquito season — unfortunate news for Californians, since their state broke a 40-year snowfall record over the winter. “Many places out west where they’ve received record rainfall and snowfall, they’re likely to have a very bad spring,” Daniel Markowski, the technical director of the American Mosquito Control Association, told Heatmap.
Snowmelt can also be a determining factor in the Midwest and East, where fears of spring flooding are already high. That said, their spring mosquito seasons are “less dependent upon the snow” than the West since they “always get at least some snow in many of the same areas,” Markowski went on. The bigger variable for the region is spring rainfall and how early it gets warm.
Mixed news on that front: NOAA expects the East Coast to be warmer than usual from April through June, with above-average precipitation concentrated around the Great Lakes region and potentially stretching south and seaward, through Pennsylvania, New York City, and the D.C.-area. Though the severity of the coming mosquito season is thus still a bit of an unknown, the stakes are high: Last year saw the largest number of ever recorded West Nile virus-positive mosquito pools in New York City, resulting in four deaths. There’s every indication that could happen again in 2023: “We expect mosquito and tick activity in NYC to be at similarly high levels,” M&M Pest Control, a Long Island City-based exterminator, writes on their website.
Warmer temperatures in the south and east could mean earlier emergences of mosquitoes.NOAA
Rainfall in most of the United States is expected to be normal this spring, but potential damp conditions around the Great Lakes and southern Acela Corridor could increase mosquito populations.NOAA
In the South, mosquito populations are “almost all rainfall- and temperature-driven” because snow is not the primary cause of standing water in the region, according to Markowski. While temperatures might not yet be high enough in the region for a major larvae boom, recent storms have authorities “concerned right now in southeast Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee about mosquito populations,” Markowski said. Not to mention another reason for the South to be on high alert: Culex lactator, a species of mosquito native to South and Central America, has been discovered spreading throughout southwest Florida. Though it hasn’t been extensively studied, we do know Culex is a potential vector for West Nile and St. Louis Encephalitis.
Of especially high concern for infectious disease experts this year will be a place not usually thought of for its mosquitoes: Phoenix’s Maricopa County. Back in 2021, the region experienced the largest single outbreak of West Nile virus in U.S. history, likely due to a wetter-than-average monsoonal season; statewide, 127 people died. This year, winter snowmelt and spring rains have pulled the region out of its drought, but once the floodwaters start to recede, they’ll create major mosquito breeding grounds, NBC’s 12 News reports. The wetter desert environment will also attract more birds — the natural hosts of West Nile virus.
So while there is no guarantee that 2023 is going to be another “monster mosquito season” for the U.S. like 2021, there is no guarantee it won’t be, either. We know the West is unusually wet, which will almost certainly mean more bugs, while the Midwest and East are likewise tracking warm and damp. In the South, where storms are one of the biggest causes of standing water, there are fears that this year’s record number of early-season tornadoes is only a “prelude” of what’s to come.
That makes it all the more important to minimize mosquitoes where we do have some control: “What I try to get people to understand is, just as nature — rainfall, snowfall amounts; temperatures — impact mosquito problems, we have a lot of control over what bites us in our backyards,” Markowski said. “If we’re over-watering our property, or we’re allowing water to stand on our property, you’re making mosquitoes right there that bite you.”
Meanwhile, in New York City, the warmest days of the year so far are expected this week. Short-sleeved, sun-starved urbanites will be out in droves.
As will be mosquitoes.
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Today’s conversation is with Chris Moyer of Echo Communications, a D.C.-based communications firm that focuses on defending zero- and low-carbon energy and federal investments in climate action. Moyer, a veteran communications adviser who previously worked on Capitol Hill, has some hot takes as of late about how he believes industry and political leaders have in his view failed to properly rebut attacks on solar and wind energy, in addition to the Inflation Reduction Act. On Tuesday he sent an email blast out to his listserv – which I am on – that boldly declared: “The Wind Industry’s Strategy is Failing.”
Of course after getting that email, it shouldn’t surprise readers of The Fight to hear I had to understand what he meant by that, and share it with all of you. So here goes. The following conversation has been abridged and lightly edited for clarity.
What are you referencing when you say, ‘the wind industry’s strategy is failing’?
Anyone in the climate space, in the clean energy space, the worst thing you can do is go silent and pretend that this is just going to go away. Even if it’s the president and the administration delivering the attacks, I think there’s an important strategy that’s been lacking in the wind and other sectors that I don’t think has been effective. There was a recent E&E News story that noted a couple of wind developers when asked for comment just say, “No comment.” This to me misses a really big opportunity to not get in a fight with people but talk about the benefits of wind.
Not taking advantage of milestones like ground breaking or construction starting is a missed opportunity to drive public opinion. If you lose support in public opinion, you’re going to lose support from public officials, because they largely follow public opinion.
And there’s no way that’s going to change if you don’t take the opportunities to talk about the benefits that wind can provide, in terms of good-paying local jobs or supplying more electrons to the grid. By almost any measure the strategy employed so far has not really worked.
Okay, but what is the wind industry strategy that isn’t working? What are they doing to rebut attacks on the technology, on property values, on the environment?
We’re not hearing them. We’re not hearing those arguments.
You can’t let criticisms go unanswered.It would better serve the industry and these companies to push back against criticisms. It’s not like you can’t anticipate what they are. And what do you have to lose? You’re in the worst position of any energy sector in this political moment. It would be nice to see some fight and sharp campaign skills and strategic effort in terms of communication. And there’s no strategic value from what I can tell in [being silent].
I understand not wanting to pick a fight with folks who hold your fate in their hands, but there’s a way to thread a needle that isn’t antagonizing anybody but also making sure the facts have been heard. And that’s been missing.
You’d specifically said the industry should stop ‘being paralyzed in fear and start going on offense.’ What does that look like to you?
Taking every opportunity to get your message out there. The lowest hanging fruit is when a reporter comes and asks you, What do you think about this criticism? You should definitely reply. It’s lifting up third-party voices that are benefiting from a specific project, talking about the economic impacts more broadly, talking about the benefits to the grid.
There’s a whole number of tools in the toolbox to put to use but the toolboxes remain shut thus far. Targeted paid media, elevating the different voices and communities that are going to resonate with different legislators, and certainly the facts are helpful. Also having materials prepared, like validators and frequently asked questions and answers.
You’re trying to win. You’re trying to get your project to be successful and deliver jobs and tax revenue. And I think it would be wise for companies to look at the playbooks of electoral campaigns, because there’s lots of tools that campaigns use.
How do renewable energy developers get around the problem of partisanship? How do you get outta that through a campaign approach?
These projects are decided locally. It’s deciding who the decision-makers are and not just letting opponents who are getting talking points through right-wing media show up and reiterate these talking points. Oftentimes, there’s no one on the pro side even showing up at all, and it makes it really easy for city councils to oppose projects. They’re losing by forfeit. We can’t keep doing that.
And more on this week’s most important conflicts around renewable energy.
1. Chautauqua, New York – More rural New York towns are banning renewable energy.
2. Virginia Beach, Virginia – Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project will learn its fate under the Trump administration by this fall, after a federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must come to a decision on how it’ll handle a court challenge against its permits by September.
3. Bedford County, Pennsylvania – Arena Renewables is trying to thread a needle through development in one of the riskiest Pennsylvania counties for development, with an agriculture-fueled opposition risk score of 89.
4. Knox County, Ohio – The Ohio Power Siting Board has given the green light to Open Road Renewables’ much-watched Frasier Solar project.
5. Clay County, Missouri – We’ll find out next week if rural Missouri can still take it easy on a large solar project.
6. Clark County, Nevada – President Trump’s Bureau of Land Management has pushed back the permitting process for EDF Renewables’ Bonanza solar project by at least two months and possibly longer .
7. Klickitat County, Washington – Washington State has now formally overridden local opposition to Cypress Creek’s Carriger solar project after teeing up the decision in May.
It’s governor versus secretary of state, with the fate of the local clean energy industry hanging in the balance.
I’m seeing signs that the fight over a hydrogen project in Wyoming is fracturing the state’s Republican political leadership over wind energy, threatening to trigger a war over the future of the sector in a historically friendly state for development.
At issue is the Pronghorn Clean Energy hydrogen project, proposed in the small town of Glenrock in rural Converse County, which would receive power from one wind farm nearby and another in neighboring Niobrara County. If completed, Pronghorn is expected to produce “green” hydrogen that would be transported to airports for commercial use in jet fuel. It is backed by a consortium of U.S. and international companies including Acconia and Nordex.
One can guess why investors thought this rural Wyoming expanse would be an easier place to build: it’s an energy community situated in the middle of the Powder River Basin and the state’s Republican governor Mark Gordon has supported wind projects in the state publicly, not just with rhetoric but votes in favor of them on the State Board of Land Commissioners.
Wind is also often proposed on private land in Wyoming, which is supposed to make things easier. You may remember the Lucky Star and Twin Rivers wind farms, a pair of projects whose progress I’ve watched like a hawk because they’re tied to the future of wind permitting at the national level. As we first reported, the Trump administration is proceeding with potentially approving the transmission line for Lucky Star, a project that would be sited entirely on private land, and Twin Rivers received its final environmental review in the last days of the Biden administration, making it difficult for anti-wind advocates to curtail.
Unlike those projects, Pronghorn has created a fork in the road for wind in Wyoming. It’s because the people in its host community don’t seem to want it, the wind projects were on state land, and there’s politics at play.
Despite being considered an energy community, Converse and Niobrara are both areas with especially high opposition risk, according to Heatmap Pro, largely due to its low support for renewable energy, its demographics, and concerns about impacts to the local ranching economy. After Gordon and other members of the state land use board approved two wind facilities for the hydrogen project, a rancher living nearby sued the board with public support from the mayor of Glenrock and the area’s legislators in the statehouse. A member of the Converse County zoning board even published a “manifesto” against the project, detailing local concerns that are myriad and rooted in fears of overburden, ranging from water use and property value woes to a general resentment toward an overall rise in wind turbines across the county and state.
What’s probably most concerning to wind supporters is that this local fight is bubbling up into a statewide political fracture between Gordon and his secretary of state Chuck Gray, who is believed to be a future candidate for governor. Grey was the lone dissenting vote against the two wind projects for Pronghorn, saying he did not support the projects because they would be assisted by federal tax credits Trump is trying to gut. Gray then took to mocking the governor on social media for his stance on wind while posting photos of broken wind turbines. Gordon wound up responding to his secretary of state accusing him of being the “only member of the state land board to vote against individual property rights and Wyoming schools.”
“That is his prerogative to be sure, but it demonstrates his disregard for the duties of his office and a determination to impose his personal preferences on others, no matter the cost,” Gordon stated.
I’ve been reaching out to Pronghorn and its founder Paul Martin to try and chat about what’s happening in Wyoming. I haven’t heard back, and if I do I’ll gladly follow this story up, but there’s a sign here of an issue in Wyoming whether Pronghorn gets built or not – areas of Wyoming may be on the verge of a breaking point on wind energy.
I heard about the Pronghorn project in conversations this week with folks who work on wind permitting issues in Wyoming and learned that the Gordon-Gray feud is emblematic of how the wind industry’s growth in the state is making local officials more wary of greenlighting projects. Whether Gordon’s position on private property wins out over Gray taking up the mantle of the anti-wind conservative critic may be the touchstone for the future of local planning decisions, too.
At least, that’s the sense I got talking to Sue Jones, a commissioner in Carbon County, directly southwest of Converse County. Jones admits she personally doesn’t care for wind farms and that it’s “no secret with the county, or the developers.” But so far, she hasn’t voted that way as a commissioner.
“If they meet all our rules and regs, then I’ve voted to give them a permit,” she told me. “You can’t just say no to anything. It’s a good thing that we value private property rights.”
Jones said the problem in Carbon County and other areas of Wyoming is “saturation level.” Areas of the state where only a handful of landowners hold thousands of acres? That’s probably fine for wind projects because there’s a low likelihood of a neighbor or two having a genuine grievance. But as wind has grown into population-denser areas of the state the dissent is becoming more frequent.
My gut feeling is that, as we’ve seen in many other instances, this resentment will bubble up and manifest as sweeping reform – unless the wind industry is able to properly address these growing concerns head on.