• U.S. Energy Department Sues Washington State
  
• EPA Encourages Hazardous Waste Site Reuse
  
• Court Orders Action on Pacific Fisher Petition
  
• Critical Habitat for Hawaiian Invertebrates Set Aside
  
• Washington Welcomes a Soggy Spring
  
• Wisconsin Warns of Viruses in Well Water
  
• Invasive Species Find Florida to Their Liking
  
• Iron Link to CO2 Reductions Weakened
  

U.S. Energy Department Sues Washington State

The Department of Energy filed suit, according to officials, because Washington state officials with the Ecology Department imposed deadlines on some of the cleanup of the site's transuranic waste. It is the latest salvo in a battle between state and federal officials who disagree about the progress being made to clean up the waste.

Decisions by officials within the Washington Department of Ecology "could have a chilling effect on cleanup operations at Hanford and elsewhere," explained Jessie Roberson, assistant secretary of environmental management at the U.S. Department of Energy.

"Washington was the first state to sign-up to the [Energy Department's] accelerated clean up program," Roberson said. " But we are not sure the state understands the unintended consequences of its recent actions, which could call shipments of transuranic waste around the country into question, not just shipments of waste into Washington, but also shipments of waste out of Washington."

The government filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington and in state court.

The state of Washington sued the Department of Energy at the end of February, challenging its shipments of radioactive waste to the site. State officials contend the federal government should be moving forward with disposal of the site's existing waste before accepting more.

A coalition of public interest groups have also filed suit to prevent further shipments to Hanford, which holds 60 percent of the nation's radioactive waste.

Additional shipments have been temporarily suspended by a court order.

"We believe we can work with the state of this issue to an eventual agreement, but in light of Washington's actions, we felt we had to file this lawsuit to protect out interests," Roberson said.

EPA Encourages Hazardous Waste Site Reuse

EPA Administrator Christie Whitman announced the "Land Revitalization Agenda" today at a former RCRA site at Harbor Point in Baltimore, Maryland. The site was successfully cleaned up in February 2000 under RCRA's Corrective Action Program and plans for its redevelopment call for 1.8 million square feet of mixed-used space, representing up to $400 million in new investment and creating as many as 5,000 jobs.

"President Bush and the Congress are working together to strengthen our federal commitment to cleanup Brownfields and it is working," Whitman said. "But cleanup, in and of itself, is not enough. To get the most benefit from these programs, we have to help communities take the next step - making good use of the now-clean land."

The voluntary initiative is a comprehensive plan to build partnerships that can fuel redevelopment, Whitman explained.

It outlines 60 items that the EPA can use to integrate land reuse into its cleanup program, including review of policies and practices concerning liability issues and the leveraging of grant resources across multiple federal cleanup programs to facilitate area wide cleanup.

The agency will also consider the use of written determinations of site reuse safety. What teeth this initiative have remains unclear, but Whitman said that through the program the EPA will "work with community and business leaders, entrepreneurs and visionaries to make dreams become realities."

Environmentalists have said the Bush administration has underfunded clean up efforts at the nation's hazardous waste sites and its decision not to ask polluters to pay for clean up has outraged some. A legislative move to revive the "polluter pays" fees failed in Congress earlier this month.

Court Orders Action on Pacific Fisher Petition

The judge ordered Norton to decide within 90 days whether listing the fisher may be warranted. Many believe the Pacific fisher, a member of the weasel family, should be considered endangered because of population decline and decreasing habitat.

The decision ends 28 months of legal wrangling by conservationists to force the Interior Department to determine what protection the species warrants.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service eventually admitted that their decision for the fisher was long past due, but they wanted permission to put things off for another year," explained Greg Loarie, an attorney with Earthjustice, who argued the case on behalf of conservation groups.

"At that rate, it is doubtful that the fisher would survive to see the end of the listing process," Loarie said. "Fortunately, the court saw through the Service's excuses and ordered the agency to make its decision within 90 days."

Three conservation groups - the Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign and the Natural Resources Defense Council - sued Norton in July 2001 to force action on their petition. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, by law, must decide the merit of a listing petition within 90 days of receiving it.

If listing is warranted, the agency has a year to decide whether to actually follow through with an ESA listing.

Logging of old growth forests and historic trapping have "decimated" the species, according to Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity and primary author of the petition to list the species.

"The fisher requires immediate protection under the Endangered Species Act to avoid extinction," Greenwald said.

The fisher once inhabited old growth forests throughout the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California and in western Oregon and Washington. The species is gone from all but 50 percent of its historic range in California.

And ESA listing is even more warranted, conservationists say, because of new federal policies.

"Pending proposals by the U.S. Forest Service to weaken forest protection throughout the Sierra Nevada and to open up the Giant Sequoia National Monument to increased logging would seriously threaten this imperiled furbearer," said Craig Thomas, director of the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign.

"Given the court's ruling and the fisher's imperiled status, the Forest Service should reconsider its aggressive rollback of environmental protection in the Sierra Nevada's national forests," Thomas said.

Critical Habitat for Hawaiian Invertebrates Set Aside

The decision reduced the amount of critical habitat for these two species from an early proposal, a move that federal officials said was the result of new information gathered during the public comment process.

The final rule designates 272 acres in southern Kauai as critical habitat - a 94 percent reduction from the 4,193-acre proposal published in March 2002. Kauai is the only place in the world either species exists.

During the public comment period the agency was provided with a "significant amount of new scientific information regarding site-specific conditions on lands that were part of the proposed critical habitat," said Paul Henson, field supervisor for the Pacific islands fish and wildlife office.

"Based on this information and our field visits, we were able to eliminate areas that do not provide the habitat needed by these cave animals or are not essential for their conservation."

Both species are troglobites, which means they require cave environments to survive.

The Kauai cave wolf spider is a 1.5 inch hunting spider that does not build webs, instead it chases and grabs its prey. It is the world's only eyeless wolf spider, having lost its eyes as the species has evolved to life in lava tubes.

The Kauai cave amphipod is important prey for the spider and is described as an eyeless shrimplike creature.

According to Fish and Wildlife officials, the public comment period on the rule brought information that the Kauai cave wolf spider is found in two additional caves, bringing its known occurrence to six caves in the Koloa area of the island. Additional sightings of the amphipod brought that species' known number of occupied caves to seven.

"I want to thank the private landowners in the area who shared so much new information with us," Henson said. "Due to their assistance, we have a much better knowledge base about these two cave species and their habitats, and we were able to better refine the critical habitat rule."

Washington Welcomes a Soggy Spring

They had worried that an unusually warm, dry winter was certain to bring drought to parts of the state this year, in particular the west side of the Cascades Mountains.

"It appears Washington probably will avoid any serious drought this year," said Department of Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons. "We are extremely fortunate because most of the West is still facing moderate to extreme drought conditions."

Fitzsimmons' department is the state agency that offers the governor recommendations on whether to declare a drought. Its favorable assessment, Fitzsimmons explained, came after consultation with federal agencies that that forecast weather and water-supply conditions as well as the state departments of Agriculture, Fish and Wildlife, and Health.

"We were concerned because the fall and early winter months of 2002-03 were even drier than the same period in 2000-01 - and that weather pattern resulted in the second-worst drought in state history," Fitzsimmons said.

The decision follows Monday's announcement by the U.S. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that irrigators who depend on water from the Yakima Basin Project will receive at least 91 percent of a full supply.

This is a significant increase over the Bureau's March prediction of 71 percent of full supply and officials said projections show that, even if remaining rainfall is only half of normal, water supplies should still hold steady at about 80 percent.

There are still pockets across the state that will experience abnormally dry conditions, according to state officials, who urged citizens to continue conservation efforts. For areas that do suffer the effects of drought, the Department of Health will coordinate efforts to sustain the quality and quantity of drinking water.

Wisconsin Warns of Viruses in Well Water

The officials cited a new study conducted by researchers at the Marshfield Medical Research Foundation that found eight percent of wells tested were contaminated with viruses like hepatitis A, rotavirus, a Norwalk-like virus and enterovirus.

Children younger than three years old and persons older than 65 are believed to be most vulnerable to these viruses that commonly cause gastrointestinal illness, according to the study.

State drinking water and groundwater specialists are telling residential well owners that they can help prevent some contamination that could introduce the viruses.

"Pay attention to your own backyard," said Mark Putra, private water section chief with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). "All household water, should be going into the home's septic system.

Putra urged homeowners to take into account the land use and geology of the surrounding area.

The study, which was supported by a grant from the DNR Drinking Water and Groundwater Program, examined residential wells located near sites where untreated wastewater from septic systems was spread and at rural subdivisions served by individual septic systems.

State officials worry that many rural residents will attempt to save money on septic pumping and service by diverting their laundry water on to their lawn.

This illegal practice can expose families to pathogens, Putra said, because viruses can live for a period of time outside on the grass and soil, and can then be tracked into the home and around property by family members or pets.

There is also the possibility the viruses may also enter the residential well and contaminate its groundwater source.

Not all of Wisconsin's counties require permits for installation of a new residential drinking water well and there are 17,000 new residential drinking water wells drilled in Wisconsin each year.

The state does not have a mandatory residential well drilling inspection program and state officials only inspect about 2 percent of these new residential wells during the construction process.

"It is wise to use a well driller that is licensed, and that you feel has adequately explained their process before drilling begins," Putra said.

Invasive Species Find Florida to Their Liking

"The problem of invasive, non-native species grows exponentially worse each day," said Vicki Tschinkel, director of the Florida Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. "The time to act is now."

"There is a point in the proliferation of these invaders where intervention can be effective, but unfortunately it is a very small window of opportunity," Tschinkel said.

The organization is passing the booklet, titled "Stopping the Spread" to state legislators and agency heads in an attempt to get them to recognize the seriousness and scale of the issue. They recommend that environmental trust fund balances be maintained to ensure money is available to stem the crisis and suggest ways to stem the tide and reduce the destructive impacts caused by invasive species.

Florida spends more than $45 million every year to battle invasives such as predatory catfish and Australian melaleuca but new problems continue to arise. The state's agricultural industry is estimated to lose some $180 each year because of invasive species.

The organization cites the state's success in combating the pink hibiscus mealy bug in 2001 as a sign of hope. But this required careful planning and investment and this approach needs to be developed for many other invasive species.

At least one state official finds the organization's warning a good one.

"There is no doubt that the problem of non-native invasive species is an enormous one for Florida," said Charles Bronson, Florida's commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services. "We must act decisively and on several fronts to combat these invasions, and we must act soon if we want a chance to beat this problem."

Iron Link to CO2 Reductions Weakened

"The experiments enabled us to make an initial determination about the amount of iron that would be required and the size of the area to be fertilized," said study coauthor Ken Buesseler of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

"Based on the studies to date, the amount of iron needed and area of ocean that would be impacted is too large to support the commercial application of iron to the ocean as a solution to our greenhouse gas problem," he explained.

The idea of fertilizing the oceans with iron gathered momentum in the 1980s and there remains some commercial interest in the concept. Plankton take up carbon in surface waters during photosynthesis. Other animals feed on this bloom, and the carbon from the plankton is mixed with the waste of these animals and eventually settles on the ocean floor.

Additional iron increases plankton production, so in theory more carbon would be removed.

In the experiments observed by Buesseler and collaborator Philip Boyd of the University of Otago in New Zealand there was limited evidence that the particles carried large quantities of carbon to the deep ocean. The authors raise concerns over the space and time scales needed for commercial applications and the inefficiency of this process.

"It may not be an inexpensive or practical option if what we have seen to date is true in further experiments on larger scales over longer time spans," Buesseler said.

"The oceans are already naturally taking up human-produced carbon dioxide, so the changes to the system are already underway," he said. "We need to first ask will it work and then what are the environmental consequences?"