Department of the Interior Reverses George W. Bush-Era Wilderness Polic

From Denverpost.com

Denver and the west

Interior reverses Bush-era wilderness policy

By Kevin Vaughan
The Denver Post
Posted: 12/24/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 12/24/2010 09:09:37 AM MST

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar watches geese fly overhead Thursday outside REI's flagship Denver store as BLM Director Bob Abbey speaks about a new policy that will allow the agency to protect pristine areas as "wild lands." (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Thursday gave the Bureau of Land Management the power to designate tens of millions of acres as "wild lands" — a new categorization that could dramatically alter future decisions on everything from mining and drilling to off-roading.

Salazar, who announced his order in Denver's Central Platte Valley, said the new policy will supersede a 2003 out-of-court settlement that came to be known as "no more wilderness." Agreed to by then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton, that settlement removed federal protections on 2.6 million acres of public land in Utah, and the resulting policy left millions of other backcountry acres vulnerable to development, Salazar said.

"That is simply unacceptable," Salazar said, flanked outside the REI flagship store in Denver by members of his staff, conservationists and even an executive from a leading outdoor-gear manufacturer.

Salazar insisted his new policy, which should be in place within 60 days, does not mean that any of the 245 million acres controlled by the BLM land will be "locked up" and barred from development. Instead, he said, the "wilderness characteristics" of each parcel will be among the factors considered as the federal government determines the best use of a particular piece of land.

He said it would protect pristine wildlands while allowing a "common sense" approach to decisions on such matters as oil and gas drilling.

"There will be oil and gas that will continue to be developed," Salazar said.

He and supporters framed the argument in simple terms: as a policy needed to protect backcountry areas and to consider their unique wilderness characteristics as land-use plans are formulated.

"These landscapes are our Sistine Chapel, our Mona Lisa, our David," said Peter Metcalf, head of Black Diamond Equipment.

He and others touted the policy as a way to preserve jobs in hunting, fishing, hiking and climbing.

Whit Fosburgh, head of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said 13 million Americans hunt and 33 million fish, and the result is 900,000 jobs.

"These are jobs that are here forever," Fosburgh said.

Representatives of the oil and gas industry and the Colorado Oil & Gas Association had no immediate comment on the new order and did not return phone calls seeking reaction. However, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, head of the Congressional Western Caucus, denounced the action as "little more than an early Christmas present to the far left extremists who oppose the multiple use of our nation's public lands."

Salazar's order will not create new wilderness areas — a designation that can be approved or changed only by Congress under the 1964 Wilderness Act. The new policy also will not affect the management of lands being considered for wilderness designation.

Instead, it will call for the BLM to update its existing inventory of federal land and designate areas that have "wilderness characteristics" as "wild lands."

The Wilderness Act outlines the specific characteristics that can be considered, including the size of an area, opportunities for solitude, and ecological or geological features.

Salazar said the BLM can institute the new policy under existing federal law.

The designation of a particular area as a "wild land" would mean that the wilderness considerations would be "on the same platform" as other factors when decisions are made about what uses to allow, Salazar said.

"The bottom line is land with wilderness characteristics will have a significant place at the table," Salazar said.

Kevin Vaughan: 303-954-5019 or kvaughan@denverpost.com


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Time to Quench Landscape's Thirst on Colorado's Dry Front Range

From the Denver Post

Denver and the west

It wasn't frosty in Denver, but that's still a snowman that Harper Grace Elmini, 2 1/2, has her hands on Thursday. Harper and her parents traveled from Florida to Denver to visit her grandfather, Vin Elmini, for Christmas, and he was determined that it would be a white one. So he went to great lengths to find some snow for his front yard. Harper accessorized the snowman they made and up with a name: Joe. Read Bill Johnson's column on how Vin brought a snowman to snow-starved Denver. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

Travis Ireland of Denver Parks and Recreation waters trees Thursday at Observatory Park. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

Although mountains are blanketed in heavy snow, the Front Range is bone dry, suffering through what the Federal Climate Center designates as a moderate drought. So while you're planning your holiday fêtes, serve up one of your drinks with a hose, instead of a glass.

"In my memory, this is as dry as I've ever seen between October and mid-December," says Carl Wilson, Colorado State University Extension horticulturist. "It's been pitiful. I've dug down 12 inches in several places without finding moisture."

Denver has received 1 inch of precipitation since October, making it one of the driest fall seasons on record. That, coupled with warm temperatures and wind, has created conditions that have experts urging us to water landscapes.

"Basically, all landscape plants need water to keep them from drying out," says Kelly Gouge, manager with Swingle Lawn, Tree & Landscape Care. "A lack of moisture means twigs or branches die and trees get brittle. Instead of bending or being flexible, they break."

Drought conditions have landscapers scrambling to give trees a drink. City of Denver forestry workers have quenched nearly 800 trees with 37,500 gallons of water over the past two weeks.

"Trees need watering, but because most of their roots are in the top 6 to 12 inches of the soil, you don't have to water to China," said Gouge, a member of the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado, adding that efficient watering starts in the grass.

"Water your lawn, and you're watering trees too," says Tony Koski, Colorado State University Extension turf specialist. "Lawns will come out of winter healthier, with fewer weed problems. But the critical ones needing moisture are those that are new. If it was sodded or seeded-in after early September, water it."

Yards with lawn mites also need water, says Koski, especially now. "On these warm days, mites get active and pretty frisky. This means their populations start rising. Watering now helps break that reproduction cycle, preventing disaster later."

Water monthly through March if the weather stays dry. In general, landscapes need an inch of water per month, so people should record snowfall at their residence and add it up every four weeks. Anything less than 12 inches of snow means extra water is required.

Tips for winter watering

• Water when temperatures are above 45 degrees and there's no snow on the ground.

• Apply water slowly. Use a timer to remind you when to move the hose. To water shrubs and trees, using a 5-gallon bucket with holes punched near the bottom can help you gauge the amount of water.

• Give trees 10 gallons of water per inch of trunk diameter. To determine diameter, measure across the trunk at about chest height.

• Soak an area 2 to 3 feet wide on either side of the dripline of trees.

• Shrubs planted less than a year ago need 5 gallons twice monthly; established shrubs need less.

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Environmental news from California and beyond - Greywater Report looks at Wastewater's Potential

LA Times

Environment

Environmental news from California and beyond

Greywater Report looks at Wastewater's Potential

November 23, 2010

About 50% of the water used inside U.S. homes can be reused to irrigate landscapes and flush toilets, according to a greywater report released by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute last week. The Overview of Greywater Reuse examined the application of greywater systems worldwide to determine how the wastewater generated from sinks, baths, showers and clothes washers could be reused to reduce demand for more costly, high-quality drinking water.

"In California, there are a lot of reasons why we're looking for new and innovative water sources, including the legal restrictions that are coming to bear on our ability to move water around the state," said Juliet Christian-Smith, senior research associate at the Oakland-based research institute. "Climactic changes are occurring.... We are looking at a future with less of a natural reservoir in our snow in the Sierras and less water available from the Colorado River system."
In 2009, California modified its plumbing code to allow the reuse of certain types of gray water. The Pacific Institute was interested in examining how that change might affect the state and aid its development of a "soft path of water management."
"The 20th century was dominated by a paradigm of water supply and water extraction which focused on large-scale centralized resources like reservoirs, canals and pipelines that have been very successful at moving water and providing a higher standard of living but also come with social, environmental, energy and economic costs that weren't apparent from the beginning," said Christian-Smith. "As we move into the 21st century, we're starting to think about other options ... such as demand management -- conservation and efficiency -- and to look at new technologies that reuse water."

Australia is the most progressive country in terms of gray water policy. The government for this drought-prone continent not only promotes gray water reuse but provides monetary incentives for systems that recycle wastewater from showers and sinks to flush toilets and irrigate outdoor plants. Korea, Cyprus, Japan and Germany are also at the forefront of gray water technology implementation.
While there is no national policy in the U.S. regarding gray water, about 30 of the 50 states have some sort of gray water regulation, some of which require treatment of the wastewater before its reuse. Other states, including Arizona and California, use a landscape's soil as a natural filter to reduce potential contaminants.

According to the report, which cited a study conducted in Barcelona, Spain, this year, factors determining public acceptance of gray water include a perceived health risk, perceived cost, operation regime and environmental awareness.
The Overview of Greywater Reuse is a starting point, Christian-Smith said, to "a larger project that will start to outline supportive and protective instruments" for understanding the long-term impacts of gray water reuse.

LA Times Editorial: Don't Drill, Baby!

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-anwr-20101124,0,2720419.story


Los Angeles Times.com

Editorial

Don't drill, baby!

President Obama should designate the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as a national monument, ending the battle over oil exploration there.
November 24, 2010
Right about now in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, dozens of pregnant female polar bears are preparing to give birth in dens they dug into the snowdrifts last month, unaware that the fate of their home, and possibly their species, hinges on the price of gasoline. The Obama administration can and should change that.

Big Oil and its congressional allies have been mounting attempts to open the refuge to oil and gas development since the 1970s. There is no immediate danger that they'll succeed. Although the GOP electoral landslide this month ended Democratic control of the House and produced an incoming class of congressional freshman who are ardently pro-drilling, the Senate is still controlled by Democrats who oppose opening the refuge. More important, gas prices have been stable for more than a year. But should they spike — which is likely to happen if the economy significantly improves — the false perception that we could drill our way out of the problem would increase public support for opening the refuge, pressuring centrist Democrats to change their stance.

This is why half the members of the Senate (all of them Democrats except Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut) sent a letter to President Obama last week urging him to grant the "strongest possible" federal protection to the refuge, thus ending the perennial battles over drilling. Several environmental groups have joined in, urging Obama to designate the land as a national monument, which would prohibit most forms of development.


The refuge is a diverse and extremely fragile ecosystem that teems with animals, such as the Porcupine caribou and muskoxen, that would be seriously harmed by drilling activities. It is thought to be the most important onshore denning habitat for polar bears, a threatened species, in the United States. Oil development would bring road and pipeline construction, noise and pollution, and spills would be deadly to local wildlife. And drilling would have little impact on oil prices. The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that output from the refuge could reduce the world oil price by just 75 cents a barrel in 2025 (crude is currently trading at about $81 a barrel, and such a small decrease would be next to meaningless at the pump). Moreover, OPEC would be able to wipe out any savings simply by restricting its supplies. Oil companies would certainly profit from the opportunity to drill, but consumers probably would not.

A monument designation by Obama would most likely lead to a legal battle, because it's not clear whether federal lands available for state use in Alaska can be withdrawn without congressional approval. But that's a fight well worth having. The refuge is a threatened treasure that must be guarded.

Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

BBC: India's Global Warming Fears Floods in West Bengal Was This Caused by Global Warming?

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1037114.stm
India's global warming fears: Floods in West Bengal
Was this caused by global warming?

By Jill McGivering in Delhi

In India, weather-related natural disasters already cause annual chaos.

Two months ago, whole regions of West Bengal disappeared under water - rescue workers had to use boats to give emergency help to more than 16 million affected people.

These were the worst floods for more than 20 years.


One of the problems is that these models are sometimes converted into scary stories which is something we shouldn't fall for

Dr RR Kelkar
Several factors were blamed - from silted riverbeds to mismanagement of resources. But could global warming also have played a part?

Journalist Nirmal Ghosh firmly believes global warming is going to cause far more chaos across India in the future.

"Global warming is going to make other small local environmental issues... seem like peanuts, because it is the big one which is going to come and completely change the face of the Earth.

"We're talking about mass migrations because of changing weather. That will have implications on politics. There are states in India which are fighting court cases over water," Mr Ghosh says.

Shrinking glaciers

As well as floods, India also suffers acute water shortages - earlier this year the western state of Rajasthan was struck by drought.

Nirmal Ghosh says the steady shrinking of Himalayan glaciers means the entire water system is being disrupted - global warming, he says, will cause even greater extremes.

Himalayas
The Himalayan glaciers are said to be shrinking
"Statistically, it is proven that the Himalayan glaciers are actually shrinking, and within 50 to 60 years they will virtually run out of producing the water levels that we are seeing now.

"This will cut down drastically the water available downstream, and in agricultural economies like the plains of UP (Uttar Pradesh) and Bihar, which are poor places to begin with. This is probably going to, over a short period of time, cause tremendous social upheaval," he says.

Not everyone agrees. Some scientists say the glaciers have been shrinking for decades and other factors are to blame.

Certainly, India has a long history of extreme weather patterns - and extremes of temperature across the continent. So is it too simplistic to blame global warming just because recent floods and droughts have been acute?

West blamed

Dr RR Kelkar, the director general of the Indian meteorological department, says it is too early for accurate data to be available yet.

"India is a tropical country, we must remember that. We are used to hot environments, we are used to heavy rains, we are used to cyclones, and really there is no clear statistically significant trend that things are going to change drastically.

Drought-hit Rajasthan
India suffers acute water shortages
"There is a need now for scientists to probe into them and find out how they will be affecting us - but one of the problems is that these models are sometimes converted into scary stories which is something we shouldn't fall for," Dr Kelkar says.

Scary stories or not, there are also concerns that knowledge being gathered about the impact of global warming is controlled by the West.

Scientists in the subcontinent do not always have the resources available to challenge data being compiled by developed countries.

Professor SK Sinha is a specialist at the water technology centre at the Pusa Institute. He accuses the West, and in particular the United States, of manipulating the debate.

"They make the rules. In fact, they even lure people from the developing countries to substantiate or to confirm that data, not necessarily always with very valid equipments and arguments," he says.

Cyclones, floods and droughts aren't in themselves new - but how much is global warming likely to worsen them, and how far will countries like India be able to influence the global debate?

BBC Reports that Beer Technology Used to Monitor Water Quality in Water Treatment Plants.

From the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3753162.stm

Beer Technology used to check for diluted beer in kegs returned to breweries could soon be used to monitor water quality in water treatment plants.

A new technique developed by an Irish firm determines how "dirty" water is by analysing the colours in the light reflected from it.

The AquaPod could save money by cutting the chemicals needed to clean up water.

A similar device used in breweries is important because returned beer kegs can result in refunds for publicans.


It is put in a box, acts like a web server and can be controlled from an operator's desk
Eon O'Mongáin, Spectral Signatures
Breweries do not want to pay out for tap water that some unscrupulous landlord might have added to a barrel just to make its contents look greater than they really are.

In and out

Previously, examining if the beer inside was diluted or not would have required a painstaking chemical analysis of each sample.

But the Spectral Signatures instrument provided a quicker alternative that simply involved shining light on the dregs and measuring its spectral profile to decipher the contents.

Recently, the firm applied for a patent for a device it calls AquaPod, which is designed specifically to monitor water quality.

Its uses range from checking the incoming water quality at drinking water plants to examining the content of sewerage inflows or outflows.

The main advantage of having a remote instrument is that, regardless of how dirty the water is, the instrument will not be fouled up - a problem that can befall analytical instruments that need to be immersed in fluids.

Lower costs

The AquaPod is mounted above the water. It determines what is in the water by measuring the colour spectrum of light reflected.

Water molecules, H2O, show a peak in the spectrum in the infrared, just past where the eye can see.

This never changes, so the instrument is calibrated by the water molecules themselves. The change in the light due to other dissolved materials is seen by comparison with the water.

These materials include organic molecules, such as phosphates, nitrates and proteins.

They all produce the same colour, which is why many liquids look brown. It is these dissolved materials that give, for example, beer and urine their brownish colour.

Aquapod also looks for suspended matter in the water, which can be anything from sand and dirt to faeces. This material scatters the light and makes the water appear cloudy.

Measuring just how much dissolved and suspended material there is determines how dirty the water is and how much processing is required.

In water treatment plants, dirty water clogs up filters if there is too much suspended matter. Excess dissolved matter means the colour of the water will be brown and this colour needs to be removed to make it palatable.

This is done by adding chemicals such as aluminium or iron salts. Minimising the use of chemicals is better for the water drinkers and also for company costs. And knowing the colour of the incoming water and therefore the amount of dissolved material should cut these costs.

On trial

"AquaPod is essentially a laboratory spectrometer brought out into the open and made robust enough to keep working in all weathers," said Spectral Signatures director Dr Eon O'Mongáin.

"It is put in a box, acts like a web server and can be controlled from an operator's desk."

The company previously developed and patented a product called ChlorFlow which is used by the UK's Environment Agency for monitoring chlorophyll levels in English coastal waters.

A build-up of chlorophyll in the water, which is caused by too much nitrogen coming off the land, can kill off fish by depleting the oxygen in the water they need to breathe.

It can also lead to large, smelly algal blooms being deposited on beaches. It has been known for bulldozers to be called in to remove large piles of horrible gunge from a beach.

The accuracy of the AquaPod is now being tested against traditional sampling methods at a water treatment plant in Dublin.

International Environmental Threats

International environmental threats today are more problematic than those in the past, as a consequence of growing industrialization in the developing world. This growth has been responsible for increasing the standard of living for many of the world’s poor. However, it has also been accompanied by a concomitant swelling of population. These two factors have had many negative effects on the environment, including global warming, increased pressure on natural resources - consisting of the destruction of forests and increased waste from mining – as well as a concomitant expansion of water pollution, air pollution, water scarcity and desertification.
For example, the forests of tropical Asia are among the most threatened on earth. The relative rates of tropical deforestation have been about twice as high in Asia (0.8–0.9% per year) than in either Latin America or Africa (0.4–0.5% per year). Southeast Asia has also suffered higher rates of industrial logging than the other major tropical regions across the world. Dam building for hydropower generation, to provide electricity to those who heretofore have not had access to power, has also caused massive problems.
Due to their impact on human health and the environment these international problems today are more than ever critical issues within the legal academy, the political branches of many governments and society in general. These problems however do not stop at the borders of individual states, which of course, do not coincide with natural systems. Rather, they are a transboundary phenomena. Indeed, one expert recently observed that “[i]t is now recognized that the planet faces a diverse and growing range of environmental challenges which can only be addressed through international co-operation. Acid rain, ozone depletion, climate change, loss of biodiversity, toxic and hazardous products and wastes, pollution of rivers and depletion of fresh water resources, are some of the issues which international law is being called upon to address.”
Transboundary environmental problems pose unique difficulties for international law and international legal institutions. Some of these environmental problems include the technical and/or scientific complexity of pollution, water scarcity and allocation; lack of information regarding how natural systems work; and the impact on future generations. Moreover, the transnational environmental problematic incorporates the involvement or overtones of various and dissimilar domestic laws, political regimes, cultural features, and diverse priorities. Finally, one question that confronts national Supreme Courts and international courts and tribunals is how to be disciplined enough to develop a normative framework for adjudicating underground and surface water problems.