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Global Warming Predicted to Hit California Hard BERKELEY, California, August 18, 2004 (ENS) – Global warming will bring California a dramatic increase in extreme heat and heat-related mortality and significant reductions in Sierra snowpack, with cascading impacts on water supply, according to a new study by 19 scientists.The study finds the severity of climate change impacts on California will depend on the amount of future greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other human activities. "These new predictions illustrate more than ever the urgent need to control greenhouse gas emissions now," said study co-author W. Michael Hanemann, professor of agricultural and resource economics and director of the California Climate Change Center at the University of California at Berkeley. "Because of lags in the natural system, what we do today will affect climate 30 years from now." The findings were published Monday in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The researchers chose to focus on California because of its diverse climate and limited water supply. One scenario assumes a business as usual approach to the use of fossil fuels, while the other factors in lower emissions when switching to alternative energy and more fuel efficient technology. Under the study's lower emissions scenario, summer temperatures in California will rise four to five degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, with the length of the heat wave season extending from an average of 115 days in a year to 149 to 162 days If nothing is done to curb the use of fossil fuels, summer temperatures rise a dramatic 7.5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the study, with the length of the heat wave season increasing to 178 to 204 days. Those figures are several degrees higher than previous models had predicted, particularly in the summer months. This rise in temperature corresponds to a projected increase in heat-related mortality in Los Angeles, according to the study. The region now averages 165 heat-related deaths per year, but that would increase two to three fold if emissions are controlled, or a stunning five to seven fold if emissions are left unchecked. The researchers also find that hotter weather triggers reductions in the Sierra Nevada Mountains snowpack, which feeds into California's streams and reservoirs. By mid-century, the snowpack decline translates into a loss of 2.6 to 4 million acre-feet of water storage. By the end of the century, the snowpack could decline by as much as 30 to 90 percent, depending upon whether emissions are controlled, the study finds. The decrease in snowpack could have dire consequences for California's agricultural industry, including its wine producing regions. "The models show that even if we take action now to reduce emissions, we will still face serious stresses to water supply in California," said Hanemann. "Increases in temperature both decreases water availability while increasing demand. It will no longer just be a battle among the farming industry, the environmental groups and the cities, but those within each interest group will be competing with each other for water."
Bush Officials Tout Potential of Earth Observing System WASHINGTON, DC, August 18, 2004 (ENS) - A 10 year project to collect and share scientific data on the Earth will provide policymakers and scientists a "full body scan" of the planet, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher told reporters Tuesday.The project aims to link thousands of individual satellites, aircraft and land-based data collection to create a comprehensive global observing system over the next decade to address environmental and economic concerns. Lautenbacher, along with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Leavitt, said information from the project would help predict natural disasters and energy needs, and provide farmers with new tools to help boost agricultural yields. Once operational, the system - known as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) - would be capable of continuously monitoring the land, sea and air by linking data from satellites, ocean buoys, and air and water quality monitors. More than 45 nations have agreed to work together to create the system. Leavitt acknowledged that getting "people to work together" is the major challenge of the system. The benefits of the project appear abundant, but it is still some way from reality. The United States is scheduled to outline its draft plan by the end of August. In February 2005, the project's international coalition plans to meet in Brussels, Belgium, with the goal of finalizing a 10 year plan to accomplish its mission. Lautenbacher and Leavitt held the briefing to tout the benefits to U.S. states. They said the system could help states better manage watersheds, improve drinking water quality, protect the food supply, and make transportation systems safer. The Bush officials noted that some 30 percent of the U.S. Gross National Product is dependent on atmosphere, weather and water data and said GEOSS would expand the ability to track and model natural disasters, such as tornados, hurricanes and severe storms. They added that the system would offer states near real-time monitoring that would improve storm and hurricane forecasts and reduce the cost of damage to property and human life.
Interior Official Says BLM Will Balance Drilling and Wildlife WASHINGTON, DC, August 18, 2004 (ENS) - The Bush administration has told U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials that agency state directors and regional offices have the discretion to delay new oil and natural gas drilling projects while new land management plans are being developed.The new policy guidance, announced over the weekend by Assistant Interior Secretary Rebecca Watson, affects some 162 land management plans that are currently being rewritten by the BLM, which manages some 262 million acres of federal land. Under the policy guidance, all BLM state offices are to consider temporarily deferring oil, gas and geothermal leasing on federal lands with land-use plans that are currently being revised or amended. "The use of this discretion will preserve flexibility in the new land-use plan and avoid leasing in lands that may later be closed or restricted to protect wildlife in the new plan," Watson said in a speech at the American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP) annual meeting on Saturday. The AWCP is a coalition of 35 wildlife organizations, including the National Rifle Association, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Alliance, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and Ducks Unlimited. Watson said the policy reflects steps the administration is taking to address issues the coalition has raised about the oil and gas leasing process. "You and your members are the experts on wildlife," Watson said. "When you speak, we listen … we need your expert input when these planning decisions are being addressed." Bob Model, president of the Boone and Crockett Club and chairman of the AWCP, praised the announcement. "The Bush administration listened to the resource and wildlife community's concerns, the hunter and sportsmen's community, and the administration is responding by making important moves toward addressing and mitigating the concerns of our community," Model said. But many environmentalists are skeptical of the Bush administration's intentions, noting that during its tenure the BLM has pushed through many controversial oil and gas drilling projects. "This new policy is largely cosmetic, maintains BLM’s strong presumption in favor of oil and gas leasing, and will do little to protect the West’s last wild landscapes or the wildlife they harbor," said Nada Culver of The Wilderness Society. "The new guidance reiterates BLM’s legal authority to exercise discretion in deferring leasing, but in actuality, it does not remove the significant barriers to actually exercising that discretion which have been raised by current policy." A report issued this month by The Wilderness Society details new draft and final plans issued by the BLM for more than six million acres of environmentally sensitive lands in Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and New Mexico. The plans would open up more than 80 percent of those lands to oil and gas development.
Wildlife Service Proposes Critical Habitat for Imperiled Shrew SACRAMENTO, California, August 18, 2004 (ENS) - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed 4,649 acres of critical habitat for the endangered Buena Vista Lake shrew, a small mammal. The agency's proposal comes in response to a court order that mandates final determination of critical habitat for the species by January 12, 2005.The Bush administration, which is keen to revise the Endangered Species Act and has little faith in the existing law, has only proposed or designated critical habitat for listed species when forced to do so by court orders. The proposed critical habitat for the shrew is within five areas of Kern County, which lies in California's southern San Joaquin Valley. The Fish and Wildlife Service has determined the areas proposed are essential for the species' survival. Activities on public lands designated as critical habitat cannot proceed unless the Fish and Wildlife Service determines they will not adversely affect the listed species. Private lands are not affected unless an activity on those lands requires a federal permit or funding. Conservationists first petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the Buena Vista Lake shrew in 1988. It was listed as an endangered species in March 2002. The Buena Vista Lake shrew historically occupied a wide range of the wetlands that once covered the valley, but have been drained for agricultural use. Biologists estimate the mouse-sized mammal, which survives on insects, has lost 95 percent of its historic habitat. The critical habitat proposed by the Fish and Wildlife Service areas include the five locations biologists currently know the shrew can be found - the former Kern Lake Preserve, Cole Levee Ecological Preserve, the Kern Fan recharge area, the Goose Lake Bottoms Wetland project, and the Kern National Wildlife Refuge. Surveys in the past decade have found only about 50 of these rare mammals spread across these areas. The species remains threatened by water diversion, agricultural expansion, pesticide spraying, selenium poisoning, and drought. Water is a vital component of the shrew's environment because of the moisture required to support the variety of insects that are its primary food source. The proposal is expected to draw opposition from local officials representing the region's powerful agricultural interests, whose legal bid to block listing of the species was denied in court. The agency says little, if any, land now under cultivation is included in the proposal because the species does not live on regularly tilled land. The Fish and Wildlife Service will accept comments on the proposal for 60 days.
Coalition Appeals California Dioxin Dumping Permit SAN FRANCISCO, California, August 18, 2004 (ENS) - A coalition of environmental and public health groups filed an appeal Monday in the California Court of Appeals challenging a state permit that allows a refinery to discharge dioxins into San Francisco Bay.Dioxins, which can cause cancer and birth defects, are the most toxic synthetic chemicals known. The permit, issued in June 2000 by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, allows the Tesoro Petroleum Corporation's refinery in Avon, California, to discharge dioxins into San Francisco Bay at five times the amount previously deemed safe by the board. The appeal challenges a decision of the San Francisco Superior Court upholding the refinery's dioxin limit. "If our water quality agencies are going to let known dioxin sources continue to dump dioxin into the Bay, while the agencies never get to work on a serious dioxin cleanup plan, then dioxin contamination of San Francisco Bay is going to continue to worsen," said Earthjustice attorney Mike Lozeau. "We are hoping the Court of Appeal will restore the Clean Water Act's requirements to continually ratchet down toxic pollution in our bays and rivers." The coalition includes Communities for a Better Environment, Waterkeepers Northern California, and Earthjustice. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the general population in the Bay Area is exposed to dioxins at unsafe levels and has ruled that dioxin health threats to Bay anglers are a "high priority." "The regional board has put refinery's profits ahead of the health of local anglers eating fish from San Francisco Bay," said Adrienne Bloch staff attorney with Communities for a Better Environment. "This public environmental agency should require, rather than delay, every pollution control effort possible to reduce releases of our most toxic pollutants." In 2002, Earthjustice, representing Communities for a Better Environment and Waterkeepers Northern California, filed a suit to challenge the permit and won in San Francisco Superior Court. That decision, however, was reversed on appeal. On remand, the Superior Court upheld the permits, resulting in the groups' second visit to the Court of Appeal.
Siberian Forest Fires Harmed Seattle's Air Quality BOTHELL, Washington, August 18, 2004 (ENS) - Smoke from giant Siberian forest fires pushed ozone levels in Seattle past federal environmental limits on at least one day in 2003, new research shows.In the spring and summer of 2003, Siberian forest fires burned 46.7 million acres - an area slightly larger than the state of Washington and more than twice the annual average from 1996 until 2003. The fires burned most intensely during May and June. Satellites tracked the smoke plume, which was detected during a research flight off the Washington coast on June 2. Between May 27 and June 9, air quality monitors in British Columbia and Washington detected levels of ozone that were higher than average for that period - and researchers say virtually all of the excess could be attributed to the Siberian fires. "Would we have violated the EPA standard without the Siberian fires? It would have been really close," said Dan Jaffe, an environmental scientist at the University of Washington, Bothell. "I do not think we would have." Jaffe is the lead author of a paper detailing the work that has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of "Geophysical Research Letters" and will be published online August 20. The new research, Jaffe said, suggests a link between climate change, temperate zone forest fires, long range transportation of pollutants and human health. It has health implications throughout western North America, and shows that western U.S. cities might have a harder time in the future meeting air quality standards, he said. "Siberia has perhaps warmed more than anywhere else on the planet in the last 50 years," Jaffe said. "If there is increasing burning in Siberia, then we will see higher levels of ozone."
Ancient Ice May Yield Ancient Organic Material BOULDER, Colorado, August 18, 2004 (ENS) - An international team of researchers working on the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGICP) recently recovered what appear to be ancient plant remnants from a time when Greenland was actually green."Several of the pieces look very much like blades of grass or pine needles," said University of Colorado at Boulder geological sciences Professor James White, a NGRIP principal investigator. "If confirmed, this will be the first organic material ever recovered from a deep ice core drilling project." Thought to date to several million years ago before the last ice age during the Pleistocene epoch smothered Greenland, the material will be analyzed in several laboratories. The suspected plant material under about 10,400 feet of ice indicates the Greenland Ice Sheet "formed very fast," said NGRIP project leader Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute. "There is a big possibility that this material is several million years old - from a time when trees covered Greenland," she said. The ice cores in which the reddish material was found also contain a high content of trapped gas, which is expected to help researchers determine what the area's climate history was like on an annual basis during the past 123,000 years. Each yearly record of ice can reveal past temperatures and precipitation levels, the content of ancient atmospheres and even evidence for the timing, direction and magnitude of distant storms, fires and volcanic eruptions, said White. The NGRIP is an international project with participants from Denmark, Germany, Japan, the United States, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Belgium and Iceland. The cores from NGRIP are cylinders of ice four inches in diameter that were brought to the surface in 11.5 foot lengths. The NGRIP drilling site is located roughly in the middle of Greenland at an elevation of about 9,850 feet.
Energy Department Doles Out Oil and Gas Research Funding WASHINGTON, DC, August 18, 2004 (ENS) - The U.S. Energy Department has awarded some $10 million for nine projects designed to boost the development of domestic oil and gas resources.According to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, the new projects will address issues to further boost President Bush's emphasis on energy security. "The less dependent we are on foreign energy sources, the more secure we are at home," Abraham said. "We must increase domestic supplies of oil and gas while simultaneously protecting the environment. This new undertaking will meet both needs." The agency says the awards address issues that currently restrict domestic oil and gas production, support development of new technologies and explore more efficient and environmentally responsible oil and gas production. The nine projects concentrate on two primary areas - access to resources on federal lands and produced water management. Two projects - totaling $2.94 million - target energy production on federal lands and center on data exchange and analysis between federal, state and local government agencies. The last seven projects target "produced water," the largest waste stream associated with oil and gas production. This includes a $2.68 million project to address produced water management from production through treatment and beneficial use, as well as to study the hydrogeology and soil science of the Power River Basin. Production of water and natural gas from coal beds, coalbed methane, has increased dramatically over the past 10 years and the gas currently accounts for about six percent of the total produced in the United States. The Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana has emerged as one of the most active new areas of coalbed methane production since 1997. Estimates from state and federal officials and industry representatives of the total number of coalbed methane wells expected in the basin over the next 20 to 30 years vary from 15,000 to 70,000 wells. Water is also brought to the surface during production of coalbed methane. The water in coal beds contributes to pressure in the coal beds that keeps methane gas adsorbed to the coal. During production, this water is pumped to the ground surface to lower the pressure in the reservoir and stimulate release of methane from the coal. An example of the work being done is the use of carbon dioxide injection to minimize the amount of water produced with coal bed methane natural gas. The Bush administration has overseen a massive expansion of coalbed methane production in the Powder River Basin, but its plans have been beset with legal challenges and environmental concerns. The awards also include $877,000 for a project to identify, verify, and compile best management practices for produced water from conventional oil and gas operations, as well as $1.14 million for an effort to develop a new reverse osmosis technology to efficiently treat the high total dissolved salts in produced water.
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