Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025
Good morning! We start today with look at why the Savannah harbor is on oxygen. We then turn to an upcoming meeting about the future of a hazardous waste site in Brunswick. Finally, we examine how well early climate models predicted the world as we find it today.
Questions, tips or concerns? Send me a note at mary.landers@thecurrentga.org
NEWS: ENVIRONMENT
The river’s life support
After Savannah suffered a major sewage spill in the harbor last week the city responded by injecting oxygen into the water, a fix on which the river is increasingly reliant, as The Current GA‘s Mary Landers reports. The use of oxygen injection points to the heavy burdens placed one of Georgia’s largest rivers, said Savannah Riverkeeper Tonya Bonitatibus.
“We’re still asking too much of the river in general,” she said. “And especially as we get ready for another deepening, as we get ready for this huge new intake in Effingham — you have all of these like continual hits –not to even mention data centers and the huge impact they’re going to start having on the watershed.”
PUBLIC MEETING: ENVIRONMENT
Hercules/Pinova meeting
Hercules and Pinova are hosting a public meeting to present and discuss progress on cleanup activities at the 321-acre former Hercules/Pinova site in Brunswick. The 321-acre property is a state-designated hazardous waste site located adjacent to the intersection of US 17 and the Torres Causeway. Pinova was the most recently operating business on site, but it shut down after suffering a massive fire in April 2023. The Goodyear, Urbana and Midtown neighborhoods surround the site.
“It’s really important for the residents the community to participate and be involved,” said Glynn Environmental Coalition Executive Director Rachael Thompson. “This is the first opportunity since the fire that Hercules and Pinova representatives as well as members of the state of Georgia Environmental Protection Division will all be in a room to say ‘This is what we’ve been working on.’ And they’ll also provide some responses to community concerns about what’s happening next.”
The meeting will be from 6-7:30 p.m. Oct. 16 at the Brunswick-Glynn County Library, 208 Gloucester St., Brunswick. For more information see the Glynn Environmental Coalition.
EXPLAINER: ENVIRONMENT
Early climate models got a lot right
Climate models have been successful in predicting where warming would occur, including Arctic amplification, land-ocean contrast, and delayed Southern Ocean warming, Nadir Jeevanjee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration writes in The Conversation. The earliest climate models made specific forecasts about global warming decades before those forecasts could be proved or disproved, and the forecasts were right. Despite the complexity of climate models, their track record of success gives confidence in interpreting current changes, as well as predicting changes to come.
Global warming science is widely embraced in Georgia. According to the Yale Climate Survey, most Georgians (68%) say global warming is happening, they’re worried about it (61%) and they want the U.S. economy to transition from fossil fuels to 100% clean energy by 2050 (69%).
Also noted
The health departments in Bryan, Camden, Chatham, Effingham, Glynn, Liberty, Long, and McIntosh Counties are now offering the Pfizer brand of COVID vaccine without a prescription, the Coastal Health District announced Tuesday. COVD vaccines are also available without a prescription at pharmacies, Healthbeat Atlanta reports.
Big yellow and black Joro spiders are an invasive species that’s been found as far south in Georgia as the Augusta area, reports the Georgia Recorder’s Ross Williams. Coastal residents are unlikely to encounter Joros, but those who do can help researchers track the spiders’ spread at jorowatch.org, developed by the University of Georgia.
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Sewage spill shows Savannah River’s dependence on oxygen injection
Savannah mitigated for a major sewage spill in the harbor with oxygen injection, a fix on which the river is increasingly reliant.
5 forecasts early climate models got right
Climate models are complex, just like the world they mirror. They simultaneously simulate the interacting, chaotic flow of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, and they run on the world’s largest supercomputers. This story also appeared in The Conversation Critiques of climate science, such as the report written for the Department of Energy by a […]
Ga. Supreme Court upholds citizens’ right to vote to repeal Sapelo zoning
The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the right of McIntosh County residents to vote directly to repeal a controversial zoning decision that would allow larger houses in a traditional Gullah-Geechee enclave on Sapelo Island.
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