IN THE NEWS

Week of November 16

Dams to come down on Oregon’s Klamath River

Resurrection of one of the West Coast's great salmon rivers leapt ahead last week with a tentative deal to remove four Klamath River dams blocking fish from their richest habitat in southern Oregon.

Gov. Ted Kulongoski was the first to sign the agreement. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the governor of California and the president of PacifiCorp's corporate parent were expected to sign the agreement.

It signals a potential resolution of the Klamath Basin's water struggles, which erupted in 2001 with a federal shutoff of water to farms to help imperiled salmon and other fish. The following year, with irrigation water restored, tens of thousands of salmon died in a warm, shrunken Klamath River downstream of the dams.

Several hurdles remain: Studies must show the benefits outweigh costs, and significant federal and state legislation are required

EPA urged to delay perchlorate standard

The Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisers have warned the agency that it should delay final action on its decision not to set a federal drinking-water standard for perchlorate , a chemical in rocket fuel, because the computer model underlying the decision may have flaws.

In a letter last week, the heads of EPA's Science Advisory Board and its drinking water committee urged EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson to extend the public comment period on its preliminary determination to not regulate perchlorate. That decision is set to become final next month.

Perchlorate, which is present in the water systems of 35 states, accumulates in the body from consuming water, milk, lettuce and other common products and has been linked in scientific studies to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns and infants.

--The Washington Post

Minnehaha Falls restoration planned

Minnehaha Falls remains a vision, a steady stream of water falling 53 feet over a limestone ledge.

But look downstream, beneath the historic retaining walls along Minnehaha Creek, at worn hiking trails, at crib barriers sliding down slopes and at the stream's eroded banks, and you see problems. Sometimes, big problems.

Erosion, much of it from flooding several years ago, has caused damage throughout the glen just downstream from the falls made famous a century and a half ago in "The Song of Hiawatha'' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Park structures giving people access to the falls and nearby Mississippi River also are falling apart.

But help is at hand. Next month, construction workers will move into the Minneapolis park and begin repairs. The $6.3 million project, endorsed earlier this year by the Minnesota Legislature, should be finished in fall 2009.

--St. Paul Pioneer Press

Florida revises Everglades purchase

Saluting the spirit of late Everglades icon Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist hailed the $1.34 billion deal for a chunk of Big Sugar as ``nothing short of miraculous.''

It would, the governor declared outside Douglas' quaint Coconut Grove cottage, help save not just the Everglades but farming jobs and taxpayer dollars -- shaving 20-plus percent off what had been a $1.75 billion bid for the U.S. Sugar Corp.

But a few hours later and 65 miles north, South Florida water managers digging into the deal's details for the first time were not so gushing.

They questioned whether it really was a better bargain for taxpayers and how well it would protect agricultural jobs. Like Crist, they also invoked the past -- but as a warning, citing previous problematic deals to buy tracts for Everglades restoration and then lease them back to farmers.

The revised deal includes lease-back restrictions that would make almost all the land off-limits to the state for at least six years.

--The Miami Herald

NASA device filters astronauts’ urine, sweat

NASA plans to take ``going green'' to new heights by delivering a device to the space station that recycles astronauts' urine and sweat into drinking water .

The distiller is part of a home-improvement mission to double the station's living capacity to six.

The $250 million water processor, built by NASA, will be the first in orbit. It scrubs urine and perspiration and returns more than 90 percent of it as potable water. That will save about 7 tons of water that now is rocketed to orbit each year.

--Bloomberg.com

Supreme Court favors Navy over whales

Courts must be wary of second-guessing the military’s considered judgments, the Supreme Court said Wednesday in lifting judicial restrictions on submarine training exercises off the coast of Southern California that may harm marine mammals .

“The lower courts failed properly to defer to senior Navy officers’ specific, predictive judgments,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., joined by four other justices, wrote for the court in the first decision of the term.

--The New York Times

California fire retardant damages water quality

The red clouds of fire retardant dropped onto the flames near Santa Barbara, Calif., were a welcome sight for owners of the hillside homes there.

Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said of the retardant’s role in helping to steer the fire away from populated areas, including the exclusive enclave of Montecito. “I mean, this is almost downtown Santa Barbara we’re talking about. We’re trying to keep it away from the town. We’re trying to herd it back into the forest.”

Retardant, whether released by small planes that sweep low through smoky canyons or by DC-10s in 12,000-gallon bursts, has become an increasingly common tool for fighting wildfires. Yet while many residents praise — and even demand — the use of retardant to protect their homes and neighborhoods, the potent mix of chemicals in the most common type can leave scars of its own, hurting watersheds and the fish and other animals that live in them.

--The New York Times

One-third of Irish rivers polluted, study says

Almost a third of rivers and streams in the Republic are polluted, a study revealed.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on water quality said run-off from waste treatment plants and farms was the main cause of pollution in rivers, lakes and coastal seas.

It also found human or animal effluent was detected in more than half of the groundwater locations, such as springs, sampled around the country.

It found 29 per cent of river length is polluted to varying degrees, a slight improvement on previous years, and that 66 lakes and 15 estuarine bodies were deemed to be of unsatisfactory quality.

--The Irish Times

DNR report documents input on shoreline standards

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has released a report documenting public input that will aid in the creation of new standards for lake and river conservation. The Issue Identification Report, a compilation of issues discovered through public open houses, advisory committees, and other feedback, is on the DNR Web site at www.mndnr.gov .

“Attendees said they were very concerned about water quality impacts from stormwater, impaired waters, and on-site sewage,” said Project Manager Peder Otterson. “Other key issues included rule administration, rule philosophy, lake/stream habitat, and density of shoreland developments. All this feedback will certainly help us review and develop alternatives for current shoreland standards.”

Those wishing to provide additional feedback can do so on the project Web site, and they can sign up for a listserve to receive project updates.

Among the critical water quality issues is stormwater management, according to Paul Radomski, research scientist for the project. The solution is getting the water into the ground near where it falls, reducing the chance for pollutants and nutrients to enter lakes and rivers through runoff. He said effective approaches include infiltration basins, rain gardens, grass overflow parking areas, grass swales, porous pavers, parking lot infiltration islands, and the overall reduction of hard or “impervious” surfaces.

--Minnesota DNR news release

Canadian water conservation urged

Canada should ban the commercial export of water and adopt a new water act, Maude Barlow told a Chatham audience recently.

Barlow is founding member and national chairperson of Council of Canadians and senior water adviser to the United Nations.

She said there is an urgent need for Canadians, and all people around the world, to conserve water. "We can easily cut our water consumption in half by taking several small steps including spending less time in the shower,'' she said.

--Chatham Daily News

DNR assigns invasive species specialists

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources recently added three new invasive species specialists, including two in northwestern Minnesota. The new staff will act as primary contacts for local invasive species issues.

They are responsible for prevention and management of invasive species of aquaticplants and wild animals in their respective areas. Howard Fullhart is the new invasive species specialist in Fergus Falls. Formerly a DNR fisheries specialist, Fullhart has a bachelor’s degree in fish and wildlife management and a master’s in fisheries management from South Dakota State University. Fullhart, who has been with the DNR since 2000, assumed his new duties in September.

--Minnesota DNR

Washington U phases out bottled water

Two friends, both freshmen at Washington University , grabbed a late lunch at the student union. Jeff Abboud drank water from a Dasani bottle. Alex Pinkerton sipped his for free from a cafeteria cup.

By his frugality, Pinkerton was closer to the cutting edge of environmentally minded campus policy. This fall, Washington U. is phasing out almost all of its sales of bottled water.

It costs society a lot more in energy and expense to bottle water than to have students head for the nearest hallway drinking fountain, said Matt Malten, the university's assistant vice chancellor for sustainability .

--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Week of November 9

Bush plan for ocean reserves hits opposition

President Bush’s vision for protecting two vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from fishing and mineral exploitation, a move that would constitute a major expansion of his environmental legacy, is running into dogged resistance both inside and outside the White House and has placed his wife and his vice president on opposite sides of the issue.

With less than three months before Bush's term ends, his top deputies are scrambling to try to execute a plan that would shield some of the world's most diverse underwater ecosystems. The original plan, which included four potential "marine monuments" and was well received by environmentalists, has already been scaled back.

Vice President Cheney and some officials in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands have argued that the plan could hurt the region's economy by barring fishing and energy exploration. First lady Laura Bush, along with a number of scientists and environmental advocates, has countered that preserving the region's natural attributes would attract tourism and burnish the president's record for history.

--The Washington Post

Survey of world oceans updated

A city of brittle stars off the coast of New Zealand, an Antarctic expressway where octopuses ride along in a flow of extra-salty water, and a carpet of tiny crustaceans on the Gulf of Mexico sea floor are among the wonders discovered by researchers compiling a massive census of marine life .

"We are still making discoveries," but researchers also are busy assembling data already collected into the big picture of life in the oceans, senior scientist Ron O'Dor said.

The fourth update of the census was released Nov. 9, ahead of a meeting of hundreds of researchers in Valencia, Spain. More than 2,000 scientists from 82 nations are taking part in the project, to be completed in 2010.

--The Associated Press

Debating the flush toilet

To flush or not to flush. That was the question that designers and ecologists were asking each other last week as hundreds of people — who spend a lot of time thinking about these things — convened for the annual World Toilet Summit and Expo in Macau.

The World Toilet Summit and Expo is like the Star Trek Convention of the waste management and sanitation world. Toilets on show run the gamut from a cardboard box complete with a hole, plastic bag and pouch of waterless magic pathogen-busting dust ($50), to a high-tech 'uber-toilet,' featuring an in-seat warmer/cooler, male and female water jets, an in-bowl light (why? why?) and a USB port so you can connect your mp3 player for your soothing tune of choice ($1,200).

But figuring out how to wean the world off the flush handle took center stage. Though the common flush toilet has remained largely the same since it's invention in 1596, the world it inhabits has changed drastically. City populations have mushroomed, sewers have become overburdened and water has become scarcer. Now, the flushing loo — that human innovation that lifted the industrialized world out of its own dirt, cholera and dysentery — is quickly becoming one of the more egregious instruments of waste in this time of acutely finite resources.

--Time Magazine

Clean water, conservation amendment passes

Now that Minnesotans have approved a sales tax increase to fund the outdoors, clean water and the arts, state officials are turning to the job of deciding who -- exactly -- will get to decide how to spend the $275 million in annual revenue.

The Legislature has overall responsibility for determining how the state tax dollars will be spent, but councils or committees that include citizen members will provide advice.

The new constitutional amendment will raise about $275 million a year by increasing the sales tax by 3/8 of a percent, or 38 cents on a $100 purchase. It becomes effective in July, and will continue for 25 years.

Of the new tax revenue, 33 percent, or about $90 million, will fund outdoors and wildlife habitat projects; another 33 percent will go to clean water programs; 19.75 percent, or $54 million, will be directed to statewide arts and cultural groups; and 14.25 percent, or $39 million, will be used for parks and trails.

--The Star Tribune

Spanish farmers sell water for golf courses

Manuel Vicente Piriz has turned farming on its head.

After tilling corn for 20 years on the banks of the Tagus River in central Spain, he didn't plant this spring. Piriz instead sold his water to arid towns in the south for 216,000 euros ($275,000), more than he would have earned on the crop.

``This is a great harvest for farmers,'' the 43-year-old said after plowing under 150 acres. He's one of 200 farmers in Aranjuez, 30 miles south of Madrid, who were paid to shut irrigation canals from the Tagus. This year they let their water meander south through 250 miles of rivers and pipelines to the buyer, a utility supplying 43 towns in parched Murcia.

Demand for water on Spain's southern Mediterranean coast has become so intense that the Murcia region, home to more than 17 golf courses and a resort boom, has begun importing billions of gallons from farmers up north. That helps keep local taps running, swimming pools full and the grass green at three Jack Nicklaus-designed courses owned by Polaris World.

--Bloomberg.com

New York plans sewage upgrad e

New York City and the state have struck an agreement that is expected to finally bring the city’s 14 sewage treatment plants into compliance with environmental laws, speed the upgrade of the largest — at Newtown Creek in Brooklyn — and offer some restitution to neighbors who have put up for years with bad smells and polluted waterways.

The commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, Pete Grannis, called the deal “a landmark agreement” that puts an end to a dispute that goes back 20 years.

--The New York Times

EPA seeks clean-up at Cass Lake Superfund site

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 has reached agreement with two companies on developing options to permanently reduce health risks at the St. Regis Paper Superfund site in Cass Lake, Minn.

A public meeting will be held Thursday, Nov. 13, 6:30 p.m., at Cass Lake-Bena Elementary School, 15 4th St., N.W.

Under the terms of a recently signed consent order, International Paper Co. and BNSF will produce a series of documents that address remaining health and ecological risks associated with the site. Once EPA approves the feasibility study report, it will conduct a public hearing in Cass Lake to present cleanup options and EPA's recommended approach. There will be opportunities for public comment. EPA expects the hearing to be scheduled in November 2009.

The St. Regis Paper Superfund site was a wood treatment facility that operated from about 1958 to 1985. The site was initially cleaned up in the 1980s by its former owner, Champion International. IP is the current property owner and continues to treat groundwater from the site.

More information about the St. Regis Superfund site is available at Cass Lake Library, Leech Lake Tribal College, the Bemidji State University Library and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Division of Resource Management. Documents are also online at www.epa.gov/region5/sites/stregis/ .

--U.S. EPA news release

Sea lampreys plague Lake Champlain

The ancient creature attaches itself to the body of its prey with the rasp-like teeth lining its jawless maw, punctures the skin with its chisel of a tongue, and then slowly sucks out the victim's blood.

This 20-inch monster, the sea lamprey, is the subject of endless fascination for scientists: an eel-like fish that evolved in the ocean tens of millions of years before the first dinosaurs, but is thriving today in freshwater Lake Champlain. It has become so abundant in these waters that it is wreaking havoc on the salmon and trout prized by people who fish the 120-mile long lake.

--The Boston Globe

Wisconsin DNR warns of algae threat to dogs

The state Department of Natural Resources is cautioning owners of pets and hunting dogs that the blue green algae toxin has been fatal.

The DNR says three dogs have died in late September and early October, the start of duck hunting season. They happened in Beaver Dam, Eau Claire County after hunting in Minnesota , and another unspecified location in the state.

DNR water management specialist James Vennie says the toxin is released when the algae die. It then turns colors, including green and purple. He warns if the water is pea soup green, don't go in.

--The Associated Press

Cloud seeding planned in California

On October 22, utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric posted a “Notice Of Intention” in the Mt. Shasta Area Newspapers outlining their plan to conduct a five-year “ weather modification ” program in southern Siskiyou County.

Many wondered, “Wait a second… Our weather is going to be controlled by PG&E?”

According to the notice, the answer is yes, at least partly. For some Siskiyou County residents, this is an unsettling thought, and many are demanding more information.

The program, called the “Pit-McCloud Cloud Seeding – Ground Water Enhancement Project,” is one of several projects of its kind throughout California. It is slated to begin on November 15 of this year and will involve “cloud seeding” over a target area “east of McCloud town, north of Burney town, south of Medicine Lake and bounded on the east by the White Horse and Big Valley mountains,” according to the NOI. The goal of the program, states PG&E, is to increase precipitation in the McCloud and Pit River watersheds in order to promote and protect the production of hydroelectric power.

--Mount Shasta Area Newspapers

Opinion: Momentum shifts in Eyota ethanol fight

Opponents of a proposed ethanol plant in Eyota probably shouldn't pop the cork on their champagne just yet, but they might have put a bottle or two into the fridge. On Oct. 28, a dramatic shift occurred in the struggle between MinnErgy, the company that wants to build the plant, and those who say the facility would threaten groundwater, fragile trout streams and the quality of life in Eyota.

At a meeting in St. Paul, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's Citizens Board was prepared -- some might say expected -- to remove one of the last major obstacles the plant faced. A motion was on the table that wouldn't have required MinnErgy to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement before beginning construction. Put simply, an EIS is such an expensive, time-consuming and onerous requirement that it often is seen as the kiss of death to a business proposal.

But a funny thing happened before the eight-member Citizens Board could give MinnErgy its good news. After hearing seven hours of comments from people on both sides of the issue, the board postponed its decision until Nov. 25. At that time, a new motion will be on the table, and Ralph Pribble, a communications specialist with the MPCA, suggested that the plant's foes have reason to be optimistic.

"It looks like we're being directed to draft a new motion, which includes a positive declaration for a limited-scope EIS on these specific issues: surface and groundwater interactions in the karst geological region, and the adequacy of a 30-day pump test to predict a water resource's quantity and quality as it affects surrounding wells," Pribble said.

--Rochester Post-Bulletin

Bhopal drinking water suit revived

A lawsuit contending that thousands of people in India were exposed to polluted drinking water after the 1984 Union Carbide toxic-gas disaster in Bhopal was reinstated last week by a U.S. appeals court, which said a lower court improperly threw out the case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York sent the lawsuit back to a Manhattan federal court judge for further proceedings.

A three-judge panel of the appeals court found that the lower court had erred by granting the defendants' request for summary judgment in the case before giving the plaintiffs the opportunity to gain access to certain pretrial documents and other information they had sought.

--Reuters

EPA responds to nitrate contamination

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has begun bringing together local, state and federal agencies in an effort to solve groundwater contamination in Washington’s Lower Yakima Valley.

The EPA action was prompted by a series of Yakima Herald-Republic stories published last month about the failure to remedy -- or even examine -- long-standing problems of nitrates contaminating small private wells.

The stories showed how local, state and federal agencies virtually ignored a study six years ago that found one in five of 195 wells tested outside five Lower Valley communities contained nitrates in excess of federal safety limits. Until now, there has been no widespread effort to study the extent of contamination or its causes, measure health effects or warn tens of thousands of well users, including many low-income Latino farm workers living in rural communities.

--Yakima Herald-Republic

Carbon footprinting becomes marketing tool

In Britain, carbon footprinting – used initially to broadly measure environmental impact across a company's entire operations – is morphing into an eco-labeling tool.

Earlier this year, the British supermarket chain Tesco began labeling some of its 70,000 products to reflect the carbon released in the their production, transport, and consumption. The 3,729 store behemoth, the world's fourth-largest retailer, now has 20 carbon-labeled items on its shelves, core items such as orange juice and laundry detergent.

The intent, said Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy, is to educate and empower consumers to make informed decisions about their purchases.

--The Christian Science Monitor

Week of November 2

EPA sets feedlot standard; no federal permit required

The Environmental Protection Agency issued new pollution control requirements for large livestock feedlots last week that would allow farm operators to avoid having to get a permit if they claim the facility will not put harmful discharges into nearby waterways.

EPA officials said the new requirements call for a "zero discharge standard" and also will require farm operators to develop management plans that prevent the runoff of excessive environmentally damaging nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous into lakes and streams.

The new rules provide "a strong national standard for pollution prevention and environmental protection while maintaining our country's economic and agricultural competitiveness," said Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA's assistant administrator for water, in a statement.

--The Associated Press

Wisconsin considers water demand of 8,000-cow dairy

Most people know Rosendale as a village speed trap along Highway 26 near Oshkosh.

But it soon might be known for the proposed Rosendale Dairy, potentially the largest dairy farm in the state, with 8,000 dairy cows and 300 beef steers.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is considering a pollutant discharge permit application by James Ostrom of Kaukauna, whose company MilkSource currently owns and operates two other large dairy operations -- a 7,000-cow farm in Outagamie County and a 2,500-cow facility in Winnebago County.

Opponents, including residents of the Rosendale area and Midwest Environmental Advocates in Madison, say there should be no question that an operation that would produce 75 million gallons of manure and wastewater per year requires a thorough analysis.

"This would be in effect the third largest 'city' in Wisconsin in terms of biological waste production, after Milwaukee and Madison," said Jamie Saul, an attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates.

--Capital Times

Study absolves dams in decline of salmon

The first ever tracking of young Pacific salmon ocean migrations suggests the main barriers to their survival aren't river dams—but lethal obstacles at sea.

The controversial finding, which makes use of the latest in fish-tagging technology, investigated the seaward migration of Chinook salmon and steelhead—a type of trout—in North America's two largest West Coast rivers.

Juvenilefish equipped with tiny sound-emitting tags were released in 2006 in the headwaters of Columbia River, which has numerous hydropower dams on its system, and Canada's dam-free Fraser River.

A team tracked the fish during the "smolt" stage of their life cycle, when the juvenile fish begin to migrate—as they headed for the Pacific Ocean and distant feeding waters off Alaska.

Salmon reach maturity in the sea, then later swim back upstream to their hatching site to spawn.

Dramatic declines in Pacific salmon and steelhead in the Columbia system have been blamed in part on eight hydropower dams on the Snake.

But David Welch of Kintama Research, Nanaimo,British Columbia , reports in the journal PLoS Biology that the Columbia's young salmon and steelhead have as good or a better chance of survival as those in the Fraser River.

"This doesn't mean that dams are good for salmon, but it's a very different result than what the science community would have expected," Welch said.

--National Geographic News

Atrazine linked – in a new way – to decline in frogs

All over the world, frog populations are declining because of diseases and the destruction of wetlands. A new study suggests another reason for the drop: a cascade of environmental changes set off by farmers who spray crops with the weed killer atrazine.

Farmers have been using atrazine for 50 years; it's cheap and not very toxic to humans. But it's controversial because it stays in the environment for years.

Several years ago, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, reported that incredibly small amounts of atrazine kept frogs from reproducing. The Environmental Protection Agency commissioned one of the biggest studies in its history, but David Skelly, an ecologist at Yale University, says it didn't show the same damage to frogs.

Now some scientists are saying atrazine residue may hurt frogs in a different way.

There are little flatworms called larval trematodes that infect frogs. The scientists studied 18 ponds and wetlands in Minnesota, trying to find out why some ponds had lots of these worms and others didn't.

Jason Rohr, a biology professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, says the one thing that seemed to explain the difference best was the level of atrazine.

"The more atrazine that we had in ponds, the greater the abundance of the larval trematodes," Rohr says.

--National Public Radio

California water could be rationed next year

California said last week it plans to cut water deliveries to their second-lowest level ever next year, raising the prospect of rationing for cities and less planting by farmers.

The Department of Water Resources projects that it will deliver just 15 percent of the amount that local water agencies throughout California request every year.

Since the first State Water Project deliveries were made in 1962, the only time less water was promised was in 1993, but heavy precipitation that year ultimately allowed agencies to receive their full requests.

--Associated Press

Trout stream thrives in south suburbs

The suburbs south of the Twin Cities, towns like Farmington, Lakeville, and Hastings, are growing as fast as just about anywhere in the country. Housing projects and strip malls, with the roads to serve them are popping up everywhere.

But through all this development runs the Vermillion River -- with water cold and clean enough to carry trophy-sized trout. Local officials and the DNR say they've found ways to reconcile the competing needs of trout and suburban development.

--Minnesota Public Radio

Minneapolis looks to P.R. firm to tout its water

Expecting to be flush with water after completion of its second state-of-the-art water filtration plant, the city of Minneapolis has hired a local public relations firm to sell excess water to neighboring suburban cities.

Following a review of three finalists, a city staff committee picked Minneapolis public relations firm LaBreche LLC to help the City of Lakes market its river-drawn tap water to nearby municipalities.

LaBreche LLC is charged with increasing the nearly $20 million Minneapolis generated in 2007 from water sales to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) and seven suburban cities. City officials in July authorized spending up to $180,000 to expand sales of Minneapolis tap water.
--Finance and Commerce

Climate change shrinks Yosemite glacier

As melting water gushed off the ice in a tinseled maze of rivulets and tumbled through a gaping chasm, the hikers watched, wondered and worried.

Unlike most backcountry travelers who pitch their tents along the John Muir Trail in the upper reaches of the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, these visitors had not pushed on to scale the summit of Mount Lyell — Yosemite's highest peak.

Instead, they scrambled up a ridge of rose-tinted granite and over a mound of dark, unstable boulders to tromp across this less well-known corner of the national park, a silvery-white sheet of ice fast becoming one of the first California landmarks to succumb to climate change.

Later in the day, Pete Devine, a veteran glacier observer who manages educational programs for the nonprofit Yosemite Association, sat on a log and opened a notebook. "Gaunt remnant of what I saw 10, 20 years ago," he wrote in his journal. "Lots of large boulders dot the surface. Lots of melt water flow."

As signals of climate change begin to come into focus in the Sierra Nevada, its melting glaciers spell trouble in bold font. Not only are they in-your-face barometers of global warming, they also reflect what scientists are beginning to uncover: that the Sierra snowpack – the source of 65 percent of California's water – is dwindling, too.

--McClatchy News Service

Permeable asphalt gains ground

Joni Mitchell vilified builders in her 1970s hit song, "Big Yellow Taxi," knocking them for paving paradise to put up parking lots. The asphalt going in at 585 Middlesex St. in Lowell probably wouldn't have changed the singer-songwriter's message, but it might have given her pause with the lyrics.

The parking lot at the new headquarters of Nobis Engineering Inc. is being installed with an environmentally friendly asphalt called porous pavement. By letting rainwater seep through to filtration beds, porous pavement is correcting a pollution problem called road runoff, which is of particular concern in the densely populated, heavily traveled Merrimack Valley.

"More and more every day, porous pavement is proving itself to be an environmentally sound method of putting down paving material," said Scott Colby, environmental and estates manager for Saugus-based Aggregate Industries Inc., the paving company doing the work for Nobis. "Using porous pavement, you can recharge ground water much better, and in the winter it doesn't freeze up like regular pavement does. The material works quite well."

--Boston Globe

40 years ago, smog cloud killed 20 in Pa.

DONORA, Pa. — When the killer smog rolled into town here in October 1948, 12-year-old Joann Crow thought it was an adventure.

“Dad couldn’t drive us to school because it was so hard to see,” said Mrs. Crow, now 72. “He had to walk us to school that Wednesday with a flashlight, which we thought was fun.”

But the next day, Thursday, Oct. 28, her grandmother, Susan Gnora, 62, started coughing and experiencing chest pains. It was the same for a lot of older residents of this Monongahela River valley mill town 24 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

--The New York Times

Yellowstone amphibians in decline

Amphibian populations at Yellowstone - the world's oldest national park - are in steep decline, a major study shows.

The authors link this to the drying out of wetlands where the animals live and breed, which is in turn being driven by long-term climate change. The results, reported in the journal PNAS, suggest that climate warming has already disrupted one of the best-protected ecosystems on Earth.

Visitors flock to Yellowstone to see its geysers, hot springs and bubbling mud pots, fuelld by ongoing volcanism. The park's vast forests and grasslands are also home to grizzly bears, wolves and bison. But it is to much less conspicuous inhabitants - frogs, toads and salamanders - that scientists look for early indications of environmental degradation.

Four amphibian species are native to the park: the blotched tiger salamander ( Ambystoma tigrinum melanostictum), the boreal chorus frog ( Pseudacris triseriata maculata), the Columbia spotted frog ( Rana luteiventris) and the boreal toad ( Bufo boreas boreas).

The lower Lamar Valley in northern Yellowstone harbours countless small, fishless ponds - ideal for amphibian breeding and larval development.

Between 1992 and 1993, researchers surveyed 46 of these "kettle" ponds, which are re-filled in spring by groundwater and snow melt running down from the hills. When a team from Stanford University in California repeated this survey between 2006 and 2008, the number of permanently dry ponds had increased four-fold. Of the ponds that remained, the proportion supporting amphibians had declined significantly.

--BBC News

Week of October 26

Population growth spawns water-energy clash

In June the state of Florida made an unusual announcement: it would sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the corps’s plan to reduce water flow from reservoirs in Georgia into the Apalachicola River, which runs through Florida from the Georgia-Alabama border. Florida was concerned that the restricted flow would threaten certain endangered species. Alabama also objected, worried about another species: nuclear power plants, which use enormous quantities of water, usually drawn from rivers and lakes, to cool their big reactors. The reduced flow raised the specter that the Farley Nuclear Plant near Dothan, Ala., would need to shut down.

Georgia wanted to keep its water for good reason: a year earlier various rivers dropped so low that the drought-stricken state was within a few weeks of shutting down its own nuclear plants. Conditions had become so dire that by this past January one of the state’s legislators suggested that Georgia move its upper border a mile farther north to annex freshwater resources in Tennessee, pointing to an allegedly faulty border survey from 1818. Throughout 2008 Georgia, Alabama and Florida have continued to battle; the corps, which is tasked by Congress to manage water resources, has been caught in the middle. Drought is only one cause. A rapidly growing population, especially in Atlanta, as well as overdevelopment and a notorious lack of water planning, is running the region’s rivers dry.

Water and energy are the two most fundamental ingredients of modern civilization. Without water, people die. Without energy, we cannot grow food, run computers, or power homes, schools or offices. As the world’s population grows in number and affluence, the demands for both resources are increasing faster than ever.

--Scientific American

Vastly more dangerous greenhouse gas is widely found

Carbon dioxide is often pointed to as a major contributor to our warming global climate; however, nitrogen trifluoride (according to the NASA article “ Potent greenhouse gas more common in atmosphere than estimated is at least four times more abundant in the atmosphere that previously thought, based on more accurate measurements of the Earth’s atmosphere. ”)

The NASA article says nitrogen trifluoride “is thousands of times more effective at warming the atmosphere than an equal mass of carbon.”

You might be saying to yourself: What IS nitrogen trifluoride?

The answer is that nitrogen trifluoride is one of the gases that is used during the manufacturing of liquid crystal displays (LCD), also called flat-panel displays, along with thin-film solar cells and microcircuits.

The gas has been used as an alternative to perfluorocarbons in recent years because it was considered a dangerous greenhouse gas. During the manufacturing processes it was thought that very little of nitrogen trifluoride escapes into the atmosphere.

This research seems to indicate that assumption was wrong.

--itWire.com

Scientists seek less-thirsty crops

To satisfy the world’s growing demand for food, scientists are trying to pull off a genetic trick that nature itself has had trouble accomplishing in millions of years of evolution. They want to create varieties of corn, wheat and other crops that can thrive with little water.

As the world’s population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.

--The New York Times

Minnesota ballast water rule challenged

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy asked the state Court of Appeals last week to reject the ballast water discharge permit recently approved by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for commercial ships on Lake Superior, arguing the permit is not strict enough to protect the lake from the continuing threat posed by invasive species.

“The new permit is not protective enough,” said Henry VanOffelen, natural resources scientist for MCEA. “Frankly, the PCA didn’t ask the shipping industry to do anything with existing ships until 2016, and even then, the treatment requirements are so low that Lake Superior will remain at unacceptable risk.”

In late September, the agency’s citizen board unanimously approved the new ballast water regulations. The regulations require ships to obtain a general permit issued by the agency, and by 2016 to begin treating ballast water before dumping it into Lake Superior. But MCEA says that timeline is too lenient and fails to address the immediate threat invasive species pose.

Lake Superior's water quality is exceptionally good and the lake is considered an "outstanding resource value water" under state law, which requires the Pollution Control Agency to protect it from deteriorating. MCEA argues that in developing the permit, the agency did not provide the level of review and protection to which Lake Superior is entitled.

--Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy

African nations join water sustainability effort

East African countries are jointly developing a water management strategy to ensure sustainable supplies.

Dubbed the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM), the strategy focuses on better allocation of water to various competing user groups such as industry, agriculture, and domestic use in consultation with all involved consumers.

The conce pt is premised on the understanding that competing demand for water within and among the various user groups can cause conflict and hurt economic growth as has happened among pastoral communities in northeastern Uganda and northwesternKenya.

--The East African

Oregon allows ‘gray water’ systems

Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services’ Building Codes Division this month approved the use of wastewater conservation systems for commercial and industrial buildings.

The division, in July, approved two methods of water conservation for residential buildings that allow homeowners to harvest and reuse wastewater. Now, commercial and industrial building owners can install systems to reuse treated wastewater for the purpose of flushing toilets and urinals, which could reduce potable water consumption by 30 percent in commercial buildings.

Oregon is now on a short list of states – including California, Washington, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Hawaii – that allow builders and homeowners to install wastewater conservation systems.

--Daily Journal of Commerce

Texas wetlands restoration planned

The keepers of a 19,000-acre swath along the banks of the upper Neches River, long coveted by dam builders and municipal planners, are moving forward with an ambitious project to restore the river's wetlands to their pristine state.

The multimillion-dollar project of the Conservation Fund, which owns the former East Texas timber property, would be the largest of its kind in a state where virtually every major river is shackled by concrete and steel walls, straightened and channeled, and siphoned for use by distant cities.

The nonprofit organization would remove invasive, nonnative flora, reintroduce native pecan, oak and other hardwood trees, and stop erosion by replanting barren banks along the river for 30 miles between the Davy Crockett and Angelina national forests near Lufkin.

To pay for it, the Conservation Fund has established a so-called mitigation bank, which sells credits — each one equal to an acre of restored wetlands — to developers who are required to replace wetlands they destroy. Bankers set prices at whatever the market will bear.

--Houston Chronicle

Navajo Nation takes over water protection

The Navajo Nation is taking over a program from the federal government aimed at protecting groundwater on the tribe’s vast reservation in Arizona.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it has granted the tribe's application to administer an underground injection control program for oil and gas injection wells.

The EPA says the tribal program's regulations for monitoring the injection wells is as stringent as the federal program.

--The Associated Press

Week of October 19

Environmental group criticizes bottled water

Bottled water brands do not always maintain the consistency of quality touted in ads featuring alpine peaks and crystalline lakes and, in some cases, contain toxic byproducts that exceed state safety standards, tests show.

The Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization with offices in Oakland, Calif., tested 10 brands of bottled water and found that Wal-Mart's Sam's Choice contained chemical levels that exceeded legal limits in California and the voluntary standards adopted by the industry.

The tests discovered an average of eight contaminants in each brand. Four brands besides Wal-Mart's also were contaminated with bacteria.

--San Francisco Chronicle