Endangered species’ top 10 list: Save these ecosystems
January 6, 2011 by admin
Filed under Protecting Habitats
Oceana, an international ocean conservation group, yesterday released a new report that identifies vital habitats in need of protection, if key endangered species are to have a chance to survive climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 20 to 30 percent of the world’s species will be at increased risk of extinction if global temperature increases exceed 1.5 to 2.5 C (3 to 5 F) above pre-industrial levels. The climate threats to species include increased disease, diminished reproduction, habitat loss, and declining food supply.
For species that are already struggling on the brink of extinction, global climate change threatens to push them over the edge, said Huta. We certainly need to reduce global warming pollution, but we also need to act now to prioritize and protect some of the most important ecosystems for imperiled wildlife. Endangered species don’t have the luxury of waiting for political leaders to act to slow the pace of climate change.
List of top 10 ecosystems to save for endangered species featured in the report:
1. Arctic sea ice, home to the polar bear, Pacific walrus and at least six species of seal
2. Shallow water coral reefs, home to the critically endangered elkhorn and staghorn corals
3. The Hawaiian Islands, home to more than a dozen imperiled birds, and 319 threatened and endangered plants
4. Southwest deserts, home to numerous imperiled plants, fish and mammals
5. The San Francisco Bay-Delta, home to the imperiled Pacific salmon, Swainsons hawk, tiger salamander and Delta smelt
6. California Sierra Mountains, home to 30 native amphibian species, including the Yellow-legged frog
7. The Snake River Basin, home to four imperiled runs of salmon and steelhead
8. Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, home to the imperiled Whitebark pine, an important food source for the threatened Grizzly bear and other animals
9. The Gulf Coasts flatlands and wetlands, home to the Piping and Snowy plovers, Mississippi sandhill crane, and numerous species of sea turtles
10. The Greater Everglades, home to 67 threatened and endangered species, including the manatee and the red cockcaded woodpecker
Climate change is no longer a distant threat on the horizon, said Leda Huta, executive director of the Endangered Species Coalition. It has arrived and is threatening ecosystems that we all depend upon, and our endangered species are particularly vulnerable.
Seven additional ecosystems were nominated but did not make the Top 10. They nonetheless contain important habitat for imperiled species. These ecosystems include Glacier National Park, the Jemez Mountains, Sagebrush Steppe, U.S. West Coast, the Maine Woods, the Grasslands of the Great Plains and the Southern Rocky Mountains.
The new report, which includes information about each ecosystem, as well as recommended conservation measures, is available online at www.StopExtinction.org.
Scientists ranked Arctic sea ice and shallow water corals as two of the highest priority ecosystems threatened by climate change in an Endangered Species Coalition report demonstrating the urgency of saving habitat for endangered species. The report, entitled Its Getting Hot Out There: Top 10 Places to Save for Endangered Species in a Warming World was released January 5th, and examines how the changing climate is increasing extinction risk for imperiled fish, plants and wildlife.
Have your say: Is the reality of climate change still in question?
Article source: http://www.examiner.com/green-living-in-national/endangered-species-top-10-list-save-these-ecosystems
Oregon poised to adopt the strictest standard for toxic water pollution in the US
January 6, 2011 by admin
Filed under Water Quality
Published: Thursday, January 06, 2011, 7:53 PM Updated: Thursday, January 06, 2011, 9:43 PM
By
Oregon is poised to adopt the strictest standard for toxic water pollution in the United States, driven by concerns about tribal members and others who eat large amounts of contaminated fish.
The Department of Environmental Quality proposed the new standard Thursday, nearly two decades after concerns about contamination in fish prompted studies that showed tribal members along the Columbia River eat far more fish than the general population.
The new rule, scheduled for approval in June, would dramatically tighten human health criteria for a host of pollutants, including mercury, flame retardants, PCBs, dioxins, plasticizers and pesticides.
Industry and cities worry about the costs of complying with the new rules and controlling pollution, likely to run in the millions.
“There are potentially a lot of manufacturing jobs being put at risk,” said John Ledger, an Associated Oregon Industries vice president. “It could put (businesses) in a terrible position, where they can’t locate here or expand.”
Environmental groups say the change is long overdue, but exceptions built into the proposed rules and a lack of focus on pollution from farms, timberlands and urban stormwater mean they might not reduce pollution significantly.
“We can change standards on paper, but how it plays out on the ground and whether we’re really ratcheting down pollution is what matters,” said Brett VandenHeuvel, Columbia Riverkeeper’s executive director.
The proposal presses some big hot buttons: regulating industry in a down economy; DEQ’s authority over farms and forests; protecting tribal members who have seen their health compromised and their traditional diet degraded by pollution.
Oregon’s current water quality standard is built on an assumption that people eat 17.5 grams of fish a day, about a cracker’s worth. The proposed standard boosts that to 175 grams a day, just shy of an 8-ounce meal.
That could boost cost for industry such as paper mills and for sewage treatment plants, increasing rates.
It could also lower the health risks for those who eat a lot of local fish — an estimated 100,000 Oregonians, including 20,000 children, according to a committee set up to consider the health effects of the new standard.
Two years ago, sewage treatment and business groups predicted millions in costs for industry and potentially billions for sewage treatment plants if they had to install state-of-the-art treatment systems.
A more recent study commissioned by DEQ came up with much lower estimates, about $400,000 a year in incremental compliance costs statewide. DEQ officials say they’ve built in a variance to make sure polluters can cut releases over time at a reasonable cost.
Measures could include public education campaigns, implementing “best management practices” to reduce pollution and pursuing sewer users who put pollution into sewer systems.
Janet Gillaspie, executive director of the Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies, said she thinks DEQ has underestimated the impact of the changes, including the costs and paperwork necessary to comply with the new rule.
Kathryn VanNatta, governmental affairs manager for the Northwest Pulp and Paper Association, said variances are likely to be hard to get: “Oregon has never issued a variance,” she said, “and this proposal does not make a variance any easier.”
The variance provision could also be modified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has to approve the new standard, or challenged in court, business advocates warn.
Environmental groups, including some that have filed lawsuits over implementation of the federal Clean Water Act in Oregon, say the proposal doesn’t go far enough.
Variances and other exemptions could water down the rules to the point “there may not be much there,” said Nina Bell, executive director of Northwest Environmental Advocates.
The proposal is out for public comment through Feb. 18, with seven hearings scheduled statewide Feb. 1-10. Oregon’s Environmental Quality Commission is scheduled to approve a final standard in June.
The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation led the move for a tougher standard. Carl Merkle, acting manager of the tribes’ environmental rights and protection program, said he’s still evaluating the draft.
“We don’t want to see exceptions swallowing up the rule,” Merkle said. “But we also understand that, for some dischargers, meeting these heightened standards is not going to happen overnight.”
– Scott Learn
Article source: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/01/oregon_poised_to_adopt_the_str.html
Wave energy ‘could create 52000 jobs’
January 5, 2011 by admin
Filed under Ocean Energy
Nearly 70,000 jobs could be created if Ireland’s ocean energy sector is fully developed and meets the government’s 2020 renewable targets, a new report says.
According to SQW Energy’s Economic Study for Ocean Energy Development in Ireland, which was commissioned by the government’s Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and Invest Northern Ireland, wave energy could generate up to 52,000 employment positions, while tidal energy could result in 17,000 jobs, the Irish Times reported.
The all-Ireland ocean energy sector could be worth about EUR9 billion, the report suggests.
An “appropriate level of investment” in the sector could provide “long-term sustainable growth and wealth creation”, it added.
In November last year, An tSl Ghlas - The Green Way, which is composed of green industry firms, third level institutions and local authorities, predicted that Ireland’s green sector will create about 10,000 jobs over the next five years.
An tSl Ghlas, the country’s first green economic zone, is based in Dublin.
Squaxin Island Tribe Further Testing Mushrooms as Water Quality Solution
January 5, 2011 by admin
Filed under Water Quality
Targeted News Service
January 5, 2011
The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission issued the following news release:
Mushrooms might help treat one of the most widespread causes of water pollution — fecal bacteria from human and livestock waste in stormwater runoff. And if it works, the system can be used to protect the rich shellfish heritage of Puget Sound.
The Squaxin Island Tribe is teaming up with Mason Conservation District and Fungi Perfecti to test how well the vegetative growth (mycelia) of fungi filters fecal coliform bacteria out of running water.
“Several field studies have demonstrated that mushroom mycelia can capture and remove bacteria in running water,” said John Konovsky, environmental program manager for the Squaxin Island Tribe. “The Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe worked with Battelle Labratories on a large treatment system and found that fungi mycelia can reduce bacteria concentrations. We’re trying to figure out just how well it works on a smaller scale.”
The tribe will put polluted water at Mason County’s Allyn wastewater treatment plant through a series of tests, and track how well the water cleans up over time. If the mushroom technique works on this small scale, it might become a very cost-effective method for removing fecal coliform from running water.
The theory is that mycelia act as biological filters. As they grow, they capture and consume bacteria from contaminated water eliminating them from the environment.
Polluted upland runoff washing into Puget Sound each winter is a common cause for closing shellfish harvest. “Shellfish growers fear this yearly cycle of pollution,” Konovsky said. “We need innovative and cost effective solutions to solve the problem.”
“Our benchmark for cleaning up Puget Sound is whether we can eat its shellfish and harvest healthy populations of salmon,” said Andy Whitener, natural resources director for the tribe. “Mushrooms might be able to help us do that. They could be another valuable weapon in our fight to clean up Puget Sound.
Copyright Targeted News Services
TNS rd43-JF78 110106-3173885 StaffFurigay
Article source: http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/news_display/1334593686.html
ReThink Review: Gasland — Is Your Tap Water Flammable?
January 4, 2011 by admin
Filed under Toxic Spills
A man holds a lighter up to a running faucet, only to have the water burst into a fireball that comes perilously close to engulfing the man’s torso in flames. This has become the iconic image of Josh Fox’s documentary examining the dangers of natural gas extraction, Gasland, and for good reason — it’s such a stark, dramatic illustration of the damage energy companies are willing to inflict on both the environment and human lives as they attempt to extract natural gas using the controversial method known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” See the trailer for Gasland below.
Fracking, which was first developed by Halliburton (who else?) over 50 years ago, involves drilling a deep, L-shaped well (in the case of horizontal fracking) into an area believed to contain natural gas, then pumping in millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals (known as fracking fluid) to crack the earth around the gas deposit, allowing the gas to escape so it can be captured closer to the surface. However, natural gas as well as the toxic chemicals found in fracking fluid can make their way into aquifers used to supply drinking water, effectively poisoning wells and making tap water combustible.
See my ReThink Review of Gasland below, as well as my conversation with Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks (and MSNBC!) about the dangerous chemicals found in fracking fluid, the energy industry’s response to Gasland, and the connections between fracking, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and peak oil.
As I mentioned in my review, the natural gas industry has responded to Gasland by launching a website called Energy In Depth to debunk its claims. But what’s interesting is what is admitted through this website if one actually reads it, like the fact that fracking has never been regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act — something which might have happened in 2004 if a study by Bush’s EPA hadn’t concluded that there was no evidence that fracking polluted water supplies, yet conducted no water tests that would have found such evidence. Or if Dick Cheney’s 2005 energy policy had re-classified fracked wells as injection wells.
It also may be true that only 1% of fracking fluid contains the dozens of dangerous chemicals — like arsenic, asbestos, barium, cadmium, chromium, cyanide, lead, mercury, chlorobenzene, dichlorobenzene, dioxin, polychlorinated biphenyls, toluene, trichloroethylene, xylene, radium 226-228, uranium, etc. — that can be found on energyindepth.org (if you look hard enough, like on page 2-13 through 2-16). But when you consider the fact that each frack uses 3-8 million gallons of fracking fluid, and that wells are commonly fracked dozens of times (and maybe even upwards of 300 times), that 1% adds up to millions of gallons of chemicals, much of which is never recovered for treatment.
In an interview with the New York Times, Fox promised a response to Energy in Depth’s attacks on Gasland, which you can find here. But perhaps the clearest response by the energy industry is their reluctance to respond to what would seem like a simple request by Fox:
I’ve been asking the industry since the movie has been out there, “If you’ve got a town where there’s more than 100 wells, and everything’s going fine, and you don’t have these issues, take me there.”
Gasland is now available on DVD and Netflix. To find out more about Gasland, visit gaslandthemovie.com.
You can also find out more about the FRAC Act and efforts to prevent fracking in the Marcellus Shale formation that runs under parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee by visiting MarcellusProtest.org.
For more ReThink Reviews, visit ReThinkReviews.net
To subscribe to ReThink Reviews on YouTube, go here.
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www.twitter.com/ReThinkReviews
Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/rethink-review-emgaslande_b_803961.html
Atlantic currents have seen ‘drastic’ changes: study
January 4, 2011 by admin
Filed under Global Warming
GENEVA Scientists have found evidence of a “drastic” shift since the 1970s in north Atlantic Ocean currents that usually influence weather in the northern hemisphere, Swiss researchers said on Tuesday.
The team of biochemists and oceanographers from Switzerland, Canada and the United States detected changes in deep sea Atlantic corals that indicated the declining influence of the cold northern Labrador Current.
They said in the US National Academy of Science journal PNAS that the change “since the early 1970s is largely unique in the context of the last approximately 1,800 years,” and raised the prospect of a direct link with global warming.
The Labrador Current interacts with the warmer Gulfstream from the south.
They in turn have a complex interaction with a climate pattern, the North Atlantic Oscillation, which has a dominant impact on weather in Europe and North America.
Scientists have pointed to a disruption or shifts in the oscillation as an explanation for moist or harsh winters in Europe, or severe summer droughts such as in Russia, in recent years.
One of the five scientists, Carsten Schubert, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Acquatic Sciences and Technology (EAWAG), underlined that for nearly 2,000 years the sub polar Labrador current off northern Canada and Newfoundland was the dominant force.
However that pattern appeared to have only been repeated occasionally in recent decades.
“Now the southern current has taken over, it’s really a drastic change,” Schubert told AFP, pointing to the evidence of the shift towards warmer water in the northwest Atlantic.
The research was based on nitrogen isotope signatures in 700 year old coral reefs on the ocean floor, which feed on sinking organic particles.
While water pushed by the Gulfstream is salty and rich in nutrients, the colder Arctic waters carried by the Labrador current contain fewer nutrients.
Changes could be dated because of the natural growth rings seen in corals.
“The researchers suspect there is a direct connection between the changes in oceanic currents in the North Atlantic and global warming caused by human activities,” said EAWAG in a statement.
Copyright 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.
Article source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gTLiYHMTvCUgc976bcTsbW_dJxpg?docId=CNG.88503c7d39403d2c80d23e83925d2832.501
Opening US Areas for Oil More Lucrative Than Taxes, Group Say
January 4, 2011 by admin
Filed under Protecting Habitats
Opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean to oil exploration would generate more revenue for the U.S. than increasing taxes on the energy industry, a trade group said.
Offshore production from areas closed to development would generate $149 billion for government through 2025, while higher taxes would cut output and reduce employment and investment, trimming revenue by $128 billion, the American Petroleum Institute said today in a report.
The Obama administration last year excluded the waters west of Florida and the Atlantic coast south of Delaware from
drilling after BP Plcs well ruptured in the Gulf of Mexico. These areas hold about 7.6 billion barrels of oil, according to API, which represents more than 450 energy companies.
Our leaders must pursue a thoughtful, common-sense energy agenda that promotes U.S. job creation, economic growth and energy security, the Washington-based group said in the report. We encourage policy makers to increase energy production.
Among APIs members are the largest U.S. oil companies, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips.
The National Wildlife Federation, based in Reston, Virginia, and the Washington-based Ocean Conservancy said regions such as Floridas Gulf Coast or Alaska have qualities that should preclude them from being exposed to an oil-drilling catastrophe such as BPs spill, which spewed crude for 87 days and closed a third of the Gulf to fishing.
Drill or Import
Our nation will require more oil and natural gas for decades to come, API President Jack Gerard said today at a conference in Washington. A lot of it will come from deep-sea wells. And if it doesn’t come from here, then well import it.
Opening the eastern Gulf, Atlantic coastline, the Rocky Mountains and Alaska to more drilling would create 160,000 jobs by 2030, according to API.
The American people sent a message last November, Gerard said. They want lawmakers focused on an agenda that promotes growth. And they want job creation at the forefront.
API failed to note the growing U.S. supplies of natural gas from shale developments, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said today in an e-mailed statement. Natural gas should be used to reduce the nations dependence on imported diesel, Pickens said.
This is, after all, a group that includes and represents foreign oil companies, Pickens said about API. No one should be fooled by this report.
API members include London-based BP and the U.S. subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the worlds largest state-owned oil company.
Climate-Change Rules
The trade group, which also represents oil refineries, said Congress should take a thoughtful and balanced approach to climate-change polices, rather than proceeding with Environmental Protection Agency rules. The EPA began regulating carbon-dioxide pollution from electric power plants and refineries on Jan. 2.
The oil and gas industries spent over $135 million on lobbying and campaign contributions last year, Jeremy Symons, National Wildlife Federation senior vice president for conservation and education, said in an e-mail. Now theyre clearly sending a message to Congress that its time to cash in.
To contact the reporters on this story:
Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington at
kklimasinska@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net.
Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-04/opening-u-s-areas-for-oil-more-lucrative-than-taxes-group-say.html
Water quality, coal jobs at issue in mountains
January 3, 2011 by admin
Filed under Water Quality
HUEYSVILLE Every Sunday, Rick Handshoe strolls from his mobile home across the two-lane paved highway, down the hill to Raccoon Creek, which is sometimes orange, sometimes silty, sometimes clear.
He notes whether any frogs or crawdads can be found, dead or alive, and he notes how much water is flowing from the pond built at the head of the Floyd County creek by a coal company about five years ago.
Handshoe has been watching his creek ebb and flow, die and come alive and die again, as the cycle of blasting, mining and reclamation has continued on land surrounding his retirement home. Until a year ago, his observations were just that; he couldn’t afford to send periodic water samples away to a laboratory to find out what minerals were leeching into his creek.
But for the past year, Handshoe has been armed with a new weapon: a conductivity meter given to him by the Sierra Club.
The small beige instrument, which looks like an oversized digital thermometer, measures the amount of dissolved minerals and ions by sending an electrical current through the water. It is cheap, compared to lab testing, and it can be used over and over.
And Handshoe has been using it every Sunday for a year, measuring the microSiemens of electricity passing through his water at 500, 600, 1,200, 1,600, and marking them on a calendar.
Since April, when the Environmental Protection Agency issued guidance that suggested that the target specific conductivity for Appalachian streams like Raccoon Creek should be 200 or less and began objecting to state-issued mine permits, Handshoe’s handheld meter has become a symbol of the Kentucky coal industry’s biggest environmental headache.
Since the guidance, two Kentucky mine operators have been issued an Army Corps of Engineers water-pollution permit. Both companies rejected the permits and are appealing their conditions. It’s taking 18 months or more to receive mine permits when 10 years ago, the worst case was six months, operators say.
A conductivity meter won’t tell you what’s in the water, just that there’s stuff in it.
Coal industry advocates say that’s the problem. They perform extensive tests and report monthly averages to the state over the life of their permits. They know how much manganese, iron and other minerals they’re discharging. They know how alkaline their water is, and they adjust additives every month to try to keep the water pollution within permitted levels.
But they say the conductivity benchmark of 200 to 500 microSiemens is impossible to meet by a coal mine or any other industry. Even runoff from building a house or salting a road in winter can raise the conductivity of nearby streams.
“I would like to think that you’ve got more than a guy rolling around with a handheld conductivity meter calling that real science,” said Paul Jackson of Perry County Coal, a subsidiary of TECO Coal.
Handshoe recognizes the strangeness of the situation.
He says he’s not pretending to know anything about water chemistry and biology, but he is learning. He has a GED and retired with disability after a back injury from the Kentucky State Police as a radio technician. He worked on transmission towers.
Handshoe says his goal is simply to know what’s in Raccoon Creek’s water, and he hopes to use that information to make sure it is safe and healthy for his neighbor’s kids to play in and for fish to swim in.
Environmental scientists consider conductivity measurements “a good first-cut test” to determine where to spend money on more expensive testing, said Rick Clewett, political director for the Cumberland Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Industry representatives say their regulators haven’t provided any options short of shutting down mines to solve the conductivity problem.
Conductivity is an important measure when it applies to the right kind of shallow, intermittent or headwater stream common in Appalachia, said Kentucky Environmental Protection Commissioner Bruce Scott. But it must be taken in context of other measures.
Jackson, of Perry County Coal, said streams are in better shape than they were years ago.
“I’ve seen streams clear up. I fish constantly, year-round, and I know there’s no significant impact to what we’re doing. I defy some of these people to say that streams aren’t better than what they were” decades ago before so-called “shoot-and-shove” mining was stopped, Jackson said.
Coal executives have taken to testing city tap water in Hazard (855 microSiemens on a dry November day), bottled drinking water (350 microSiemens), even Budweiser (1,250 microSiemens), to show that conductivity on its own isn’t a good measure of the ability of liquids to support life.
They say the EPA, in holding up permits based largely on data from what’s called the Pond-Passmore study of mayflies, is choosing one insect over the jobs of hundreds or thousands of Eastern Kentucky mine workers. The study found that conductivity of water in a particular kind of headwater stream in West Virginia correlated with the presence of certain species of mayflies that are low on the food chain and generally considered indicators of overall stream health.
“The argument was very broad” initially, said Gene Kitts, vice president of operations for ICG, Kentucky’s largest surface-mine coal producer. “They finally narrowed it down to an argument that they apparently thought had a chance of sticking, which was conductivity and its alleged effects on stream quality.
“They seemed to emphasize that any change to the stream itself is impairment.”
West Virginia and Kentucky, along with the National Mining Association, the Kentucky Coal Association and others, have sued the EPA over permits that it allowed one day and objected to the next, after the conductivity benchmark was issued.
If the conductivity benchmark continues to hold up mining permits, TECO Coal, a Florida power company subsidiary, will have to start laying off workers within a year, said Bob Zik, vice president of operations for TECO Coal.
“It’s not going to go boom,” he said. “As people run out of permits, it’s going to slowly start decreasing.”
Because of uncertainty of regulations, companies aren’t investing the capital in machines and equipment to maintain production and hiring levels that they’ve had over the past few years, Zik said.
Black Mountain Resources, bought this year by Massey Energy of Virginia, is waiting for a revision to a permit governing its Harlan County processing plant, which serves the company’s underground coal mines.
If it is required to stop working because it can’t meet conductivity benchmarks, said vice president of operations Ross Kegan, stoppages could affect the entire company in five to six years.
ICG has withdrawn two Eastern Kentucky permit applications that the EPA commented on, Kitts said. A third, in southern West Virginia, has been resubmitted in an attempt to comply with EPA directives, and a fourth, a modification of an existing fill in Knott County, Ky., is still in process, he said.
“We have had situations where we have cut back on production, laid people off and idled equipment due to delays” in getting Army Corps of Engineers pollution permits that have been delayed by the EPA, Kitts said. “We have changed mining plans, scaled back plans to a certain extent, to work around the permitting situation.”
Mines can sometimes use existing permitted fills to accept spoil from newly mined areas, he said.
Two Kentucky companies have been offered Army Corps of Engineers water impact permits since the April conductivity guidelines, but the companies have not accepted them.
The two companies, Czar Coal Corp. and Sapphire Mining, a subsidiary of United Coal, did not return phone calls seeking comment, but Army Corps of Engineers regulator Lee Ann Devine said the companies are appealing the permit requirements partly based on issues surrounding conductivity. It’s not that the permit requirements can’t be met, Devine said, but that the companies think that achieving the requirements isn’t economically feasible.
Research, by the University of Kentucky and others, shows promising results in reducing the conductivity of runoff from rebuilt surface mines. Using “weeping berms” that allow waters to seep through loose soil instead of spilling out of a sediment holding pond, for example, shows promise, said Scott, the state environmental protection commissioner. The problem is that permits must be approved before such methods can be tested in the real world, he said.
Many permits last for a given number of years and then must be renewed. The EPA has objected to 21 that the state approved in the past year, Scott said. Last month, the state sent the EPA a revised permit for Laurel Mountain Resources (formerly Miller Brothers Coal), which wants to add a sediment pond and several other ponds to its land around Handshoe’s Raccoon Creek. Last month, the state was revising 11 more permits to accommodate the conductivity benchmark, among other EPA objections, Scott said.
The Sierra Club provided Handshoe’s conductivity meter a year ago, before EPA benchmarks were handed down in April, and the club itself has tested water in Eastern Kentucky.
The club’s tests of Raccoon Creek in November, done as a favor to Handshoe, found high levels of aluminum, manganese and zinc, and high alkalinity and the presence of caustic soda, or lye, added to the water by the coal company to lower the acidity of the water.
Sierra Club Water Sentinels head Tim Guilfoile said he was glad not to find high levels of mercury or selenium, which can cause deformities and reproductive problems in aquatic life.
Clewett said the legal realm of conductivity isn’t a sure thing yet, so it’s unclear whether benchmarks set in April will stick.
“Things haven’t really shaken out there yet,” he said.
If they do stick, then environmentalists might have a cheaper tool in their box, but time will tell.
Article source: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/03/1585946/water-quality-coal-jobs-at-issue.html
First US Commercial Tidal Power Plant Proposed for New York City’s East River
January 3, 2011 by admin
Filed under Ocean Energy
January 3, 2011
We are extremely excited about the submission of this license application, stated Ron Smith, CEO of Verdant Power. It represents the culmination of nearly a decade of work undertaken by Verdant Power and a variety of project stakeholders to add tidal power to the US clean energy mix.
Entitled the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project, the initiative has been Verdant Powers signature effort to commercialize its Free Flow kinetic hydropower system, which utilizes three-bladed turbines deployed in fast-moving tides and rivers to generate clean energy. During 2006-08, Verdant Power successfully demonstrated a Free Flow System comprised of six full-scale turbines, delivering energy to businesses in New York City with no power quality problems.
Verdant Power would install an advanced, 5th Generation Free Flow System through the proposed pilot project an updated design enhanced for system reliability, cost-effective manufacturing and environmental compatibility. The US Department of Energy (DOE) provided partial funding for this advancement, specifically the design and testing of a new composite turbine blade in partnership with the DOEs National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and the University of Minnesotas St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. Major funding for the development of the RITE Project has been provided by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the New York City Economic Development Corporation.
The license application has been submitted under FERCs Hydrokinetic Pilot Project Licensing Procedures, established to allow for the advancement of US hydrokinetic technologies (tidal, river, wave power), while maintaining FERC oversight and agency input. The application was prepared by Verdant Power with support from Kleinschmidt Associates and outlines the companys plans to meet FERC requirements for installation and operation, including environmental monitoring and public safeguarding. Verdant Power conducted environmental monitoring of the Free Flow System during the six-turbine demonstration at the RITE Project, developing significant environmental data on the technology that showed no evidence of increased fish injury or mortality in the demonstration area. Verdant Power would continue environmental monitoring plans, developed in conjunction with federal and state resource agencies, during the proposed pilot project to study any impacts of the larger field, which is planned for incremental installation beginning in late 2011, pending approvals.
Verdant Power
Verdant Power was established in 2000 and is headquartered in New York, NY, with international subsidiaries in Canada and the United Kingdom. Verdant Power is a world leader in the design and application of marine renewable energy systems, which utilize underwater turbines to generate clean energy from the currents of tides, rivers and manmade channels all highly predictable energy resources. Simple and modular in design, Verdant Power systems can be scaled to operate in a wide range of water settings worldwide.
Verdant Powers leadership position is demonstrated by its Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project in the East River of New York City. Through this groundbreaking initiative, the Company installed and operated the worlds first array of grid-connected tidal turbines.
“Ocean Defenders Tour” Greenpeace ship arrives in Taiwan
January 2, 2011 by admin
Filed under Global Warming
Taipei, Jan. 2 (CNA) The Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the Greenpeace environmental protection group, arrived in Keelung Harbor, northern Taiwan, on Sunday, the first port call of its “Ocean Defenders Tour of East Asia.”The crew from 13 countries aboard the vessel were greeted by a traditional drum-beating and lion-dancing performance on shore.
A Greenpeace representative said the visit was aimed at spreading the message of ocean conservation and salvaging depleted marine resources.
He called on governments to support the establishment of an ocean conservation zone to protect the ocean with substantive action and prevent the depletion of ocean resources.
According to the activist, the ocean is facing serious threats, including industrial fishing, pollution and global warming, and he warned that the number of tuna was depleting rapidly and even on the verge of extinction.
During the Greenpeace ship’s month-long journey around Taiwan, it will also dock at Suao, Green Island, Kenting, Siaoliouciou and Kaohsiung harbor, and members of the public will be invited to visit the vessel.
Greenpeace representatives will conduct related research on Taiwan’s ecosystem, especially its coral reefs and green turtle population.
The ship will then head for Hong Kong and South Korea after winding up its visit in Taiwan on Jan. 30.
The trip coincides with the 40th anniversary of the founding of Greenpeace, an independent international organization dedicated to using non-violent and creative confrontations to expose environmental problems and force solutions, according to the Greenpeace website. (By Lin Szu-yu and Lilian Wu) enditem/ls
Article source: http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?ID=201101020019&Type=aSOC