• Public Input Sought on Outer Continental Shelf Energy Development
  
• Carrier, United Technologies Pay $27 Million in Groundwater Cleanup
  
• Three Year Litigation Over Colorado's Lowry Landfill Resolved
  
• Lake Tahoe Environmental Problems Addressed at Planning Summit
  
• $1.4 Million Awarded to Cut Diesel Pollution on West Coast
  
• New York Funds Distributed Generation, Combined Heat and Power
  
• Public Offered a Role in Newark Bay, Passaic River Cleanups
  

Public Input Sought on Outer Continental Shelf Energy Development

Comments responding to this request are due by October 11, 2005, and may be submitted electronically through the Public Connect online commenting system at: www.mms.gov/5-year/2007-2012main.htm.

Comments can be submitted by postal mail to: 5-Year Program Manager, Minerals Management Service (MS-4010), Room 3120 Elden Street, Herndon, Virginia 20170.

Carrier, United Technologies Pay $27 Million in Groundwater Cleanup

The companies must remediate shallow groundwater contamination at the Puente Valley Operable Unit of the Superfund site, located in Southern California. The area of contaminated groundwater at issue is located beneath the City of Industry, California and portions of the cities of La Puente and Walnut.

The groundwater was contaminated by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) used by the companies for degreasing and metal cleaning.

Carrier Corp. and United Technologies will spend an estimated $26.5 million to build a groundwater cleanup system that will involve the installation of wells to pump out contaminated groundwater and prevent it from continuing to migrate.

Carrier and United will construct a treatment plant, or series of treatment plants, to remove the contaminants from the groundwater. The treated water may be provided to a local water supply distribution system or discharged to surface water.

Under the terms of the consent decree lodged Wednesday with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Carrier and United Technologies, Inc. will reimburse the EPA $800,000 in past response costs and pay future oversight costs incurred by the agency.

The companies will pay a $125,000 civil penalty for failing to comply with an EPA cleanup order issued to Carrier and monitor upgradient contamination for eight years.

As part of the settlement, Carrier and United will spend $468,750 on an environmental project at a former duck farm overlying a portion of the contaminated groundwater at the site.

The companies will use plants to clean up low level soil contamination, groundwater recharge, and wetlands at the former duck farm.

"This settlement requires the cleanup of the shallow groundwater at the Puente Valley Operable Unit Superfund Site, which is an important step toward restoring this valuable drinking water source," said Keith Takata, director of the Superfund program of the U.S. EPA's Pacific Southwest Office. "The duck pond project will benefit the area's families and wildlife."

The duck farm was purchased by the Trust for Public Land in 2001 and sold in 2004 to the Watershed Conservation Authority, which plans to use the property for the benefit of the local community.

The Watershed Conservation Authority works to improve open space opportunities for the conservation, restoration, and environmental enhancement of the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers Watershed area.

The EPA listed several sections of the San Gabriel Valley as Superfund sites in 1984, including multiple areas of groundwater contaminated by VOCs.

The work to be performed by Carrier and United implements part of the EPA's interim site cleanup plan. Other portions of the cleanup plan are being addressed by other responsible parties. The EPA will ultimately develop a final cleanup plan for the site after the interim remedy has operated for a number of years.

The contaminated groundwater associated with all of the San Gabriel Valley sites lies under parts of Alhambra, Irwindale, La Puente, Rosemead, Azusa, Baldwin Park, City of Industry, El Monte, South El Monte, West Covina, and other areas of the San Gabriel Valley.

There are 45 water suppliers in the Valley that use the San Gabriel Basin groundwater aquifer to provide 90 percent of the drinking water for over one million people.

Carrier Corporation, headquartered in Farmington, Connecticut, is the world’s largest company providing heating, air conditioning and refrigeration, with operations in 172 countries. It is part of United Technologies, a Hartford, Connecticut based provider of a broad range of high-technology products and support services to the aerospace and building systems industries.

Three Year Litigation Over Colorado's Lowry Landfill Resolved

A copy of the consent decree is available on the Department of Justice website at: http://www.usdoj.gov/enrd/open.html .

Lake Tahoe Environmental Problems Addressed at Planning Summit

“The threat of catastrophic fire is real, and we must put as many resources as possible into protecting this beautiful national treasure," Ensign said. "Senator Feinstein did a tremendous job working to pass the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, and I’m proud to join her in this effort.”

“Setting concrete goals for fuel reduction in the Lake Tahoe basin is critical. We cannot wait any longer to make this commitment,” he said.

The Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, authored by Ensign, has provided funding for fuel reduction by auctioning disposable land in the Las Vegas Valley. The most recent round of recommended expenditures included $10 million for fuel reduction at Lake Tahoe, and in remarks at the Summit, Ensign pledged to secure additional funding for fuel reduction.

“Fuel reduction is a priority and will require a team approach,” Ensign said. “In the coming months, the Nevada and California Congressional delegations, along with interested groups and community leaders, will work together to develop legislation that will help us reach the common goal of protecting Lake Tahoe through an aggressive fuel reduction plan. We have several options when it comes to funding this project, and I am committed to securing the necessary resources to make this a reality.”

At the Summit, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson today reaffirmed the agency's pledge to help protect and restore Lake Tahoe.

The weekend events included a signing of an agreement between the EPA and other federal and state partners to establish a science consortium. The new consortium will work to better integrate advances in science and research into plans to address natural and human impacts on the lake.

Johnson said strong science is needed to support regional water quality planning efforts. "We are promoting the utilization of sound science while using collaborative, innovative approaches to solving environmental problems here at the Lake," he said. "This regional collaboration will help us achieve our goals for a beautiful lake, a healthy forest and a vital economy in this area."

Lake Tahoe, one of the deepest lakes in the world, is a popular recreation area in the Sierra Nevada mountains on the California-Nevada border. The lake attracts 53 million visitors from around the world each year for winter and summer recreation.

But the popularity of this once pristine region has led to increased urbanization and environmental degradation.

The lake is more than one quarter of a mile deep and known for its deep blue color and clarity. During the past 20 years, the lake's clarity has been decreasing at a rate of nearly one foot per year. The decreasing clarity is due to storm water runoff, urban development, air pollution, and erosion.

This year, EPA will award three million dollars in grants for projects that will gather data to assist the agencies in addressing Lake Tahoe environmental concerns.

Projects will be funded to complete Lake Tahoe's water pollution control plan, evaluate trends and patterns in water quality, evaluate nutrients and sediment loading into Lake Tahoe from urban runoff, monitor and model air pollution sources, including mobile emissions and create the Tahoe Integrated Information Management System.

$1.4 Million Awarded to Cut Diesel Pollution on West Coast

The EPA grants will help leverage over $5.8 million in matching funds to curb diesel pollution as part of the West Coast Collaborative. Together these grants will fund 16 new collaborative projects in California, Oregon and Washington.

"For 35 years, EPA has been providing the American people with cleaner air. However, we would not be where we are today without the help of our partners," said Johnson. "The public-private partnership of the West Coast Collaborative will yield immediate reductions in existing diesel fleet emissions and advance our progress toward cleaner air in our cities, ports and farmland."

The first of these grants, $211,000, was presented to the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District (SMAQMD) for a construction equipment retrofit demonstration project.

Another $774,000 in matching funds is being provided from public and industry Collaborative partners, SMAQMD, Cleaire Advanced Emission Controls, a division of Cummins West, Inc.

This joint funding will be used to reduce diesel air pollution from five pieces of heavy duty equipment such as loaders, backhoes and excavators. The old exhaust stacks will be removed and replaced with the Cleaire emission reducing stack.

"We appreciate our partnership with the EPA to reduce diesel emissions in the Sacramento region through this demonstration project," said Jeff Starsky, Board chair of the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.

The project will evaluate and report on the success of the retrofit technology and the amount of reductions of particulate matter and other air pollution emissions. Once emissions reductions data are verified, this technology will be eligible under other grant and retrofit programs to be installed on a wide variety of diesel fueled vehicles.

The Sacramento region is currently designated as serious for ozone or smog pollution. Each day in the Sacramento Valley air basin, diesel engines in construction equipment emit into the city's air with nearly 23 tons of nitrogen oxide pollution and 1.4 tons of particulate matter pollution.

Reducing diesel pollution will reduce the amount of asthma cases and other upper respiratory illnesses in the greater Sacramento area. It has been demonstrated that health benefits from diesel emissions reductions outweigh the costs by a ratio of 13-1.

"The West Coast Collaborative is a true success using federal funds to leverage more than $15 million in the last year for diesel pollution reduction projects," said Wayne Nastri, the EPA's administrator for the Pacific Southwest region. "Working together, government, industries and public interest groups, we are proving that shared ideas, shared funding and shared technologies can make a difference in reducing diesel pollution."

The West Coast Collaborative, part of the National Clean Diesel Campaign, is a partnership between leaders from federal, state and local government, private sector and environmental groups in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Alaska, Idaho, Canada and Mexico. This group has joined together and made reducing emissions from diesel engines a priority along the West Coast.

Find the West Coast Collaborative online at: http://www.westcoastcollaborative.org

New York Funds Distributed Generation, Combined Heat and Power

ALBANY, New York, August 22, 2005 (ENS) - Governor George Pataki today announced $15.5 million in funding awarded to support 32 distributed generation and combined heat and power projects throughout the state.

One million dollar awardee is the New York Presbyterian hospital in Manhattan, which will use the funds to help install a highly efficient and reliable onsite combined heat and power generation system that would help the hospital lower its energy costs while improving the energy security.

The projects support the administration's energy goals by augmenting the availability of clean and efficient generation capacity and the development of technologies for use in combined heat and power applications.

"New York State is leading the nation in deploying and demonstrating on-site distributed generation technologies," Pataki said. "This technology enables energy users to take control of their energy costs while benefitting the state's environment, economic development, and energy security. This funding will help reduce costs for energy consumers and enhance the quality of the environment today and for future generations."

The 32 projects being funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) represent a total investment of more than $90 million in distributed generation technologies and combined heat and power applications when co-funding is factored in.

Collectively, the projects should create approximately 29 MW of new generating capacity with over one-half of that fueled by renewable fuels such as landfill or anaerobic digester gases.

These projects will allow commercial, agricultural, and industrial energy users to generate their own electricity and use their waste heat from electricity generation in more productive ways.

Combined heat and power applications provide much greater overall efficiency than centralized power plants by taking advantage of the waste heat generated and turning it into usable energy.

The efficiency of a typical combined heat and power system approaches 70 percent, while the overall efficiency of centralized power plants is about 35 percent due to generator heat losses at centralized plants, and transmission losses in delivering power from the plant to the customer.

Since 2001, NYSERDA's distributed generation (DG) and combined heat and power (CHP) program has funded more than 100 CHP demonstration projects, and 50 product development projects.

Today, 34 CHP demonstration projects are operational, producing more than 13 MW of electricity. It is expected that nearly 40 MW of electricity will be produced by the end of 2005.

NYSERDA President Peter Smith said, "Since the program began four years ago, there has been a surging interest in the deployment of combined heat and power technologies from industrial and commercial energy users. We have seen a tremendous amount of interest and an increase in the quality of proposals received under this program."

Public Service Commission Chairman William Flynn said, "New York's competitive energy markets are creating opportunities for customers to meet their energy needs with innovative and efficient approaches such as on-site combined heat and power units."

"With demand for electricity reaching record levels throughout the state this summer, these types of systems become an important component in our efforts to maintain system reliability and mitigate the effects of price spikes by reducing demand from the grid during peak demand periods," Flynn said.

Global Common, LLC, in Union Springs will receive $1 million in assistance for a digester and gasifier will produce about 5.25 MW of electricity from biogas at the beginning of the project. That amount of electricity is projected to increase to about 15 MW over the 20 year life of the project.

Public Offered a Role in Newark Bay, Passaic River Cleanups

TRENTON, New Jersey, August 22, 2005 (ENS) - Federal and state agencies are seeking public input on a draft plan to involve the public in the Lower Passaic River Restoration Project and in the study of Newark Bay.

Together, the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) are conducting a comprehensive study of the Lower Passaic River watershed to determine how best to clean and restore it.

Also underway is the Newark Bay Study, which is being performed under EPA oversight to investigate contamination in the Newark Bay watershed and to evaluate potential options to address this contamination.

The draft community involvement plan (CIP) outlines 31 community involvement tools and activities, identifies how they will be used to address community concerns, and advocates public involvement in cleanup, natural resource injury assessment, and restoration activities.

"The partner agencies are committing to provide the community with meaningful involvement and accurate, timely and understandable information," said U.S. EPA Acting Regional Administrator Kathleen Callahan. "We are breaking new ground and providing efficiency with this comprehensive, one-stop shopping approach to providing opportunities for public input."

"This CIP signifies the commitment by all the partners to ensure community collaboration and input. More importantly, we encourage the public in the affected areas of the Lower Passaic to stay informed and involved in this integrated effort to clean and restore the watershed," said Col. Richard J. Polo Jr., U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District Engineer.

"The Lower Passaic River Restoration Project is critical for the vitality of this urbanized river and surrounding harbor system," said Richard Gimello, New Jersey Department of Transportation, executive director of intermodal services. "The CIP is our footprint to successfully gain consensus throughout the life of this project in order to achieve a meaningful, comprehensive watershed solution."

"NOAA and its co-trustees in the U.S. Department of the Interior and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection embrace this opportunity to expand public participation in the cleanup and restoration of the Passaic River ecosystem. In particular, we look forward to the public's input to identify options and opportunities for restoring the natural resources of this nationally important estuary," said Richard Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA assistant administrator for ocean services and coastal zone management.and Atmospheric Administration.

The Passaic River begins near Mendham where small streams come together to form a brook running along the edge of Mendham High School's athletic field and continues through open farm land and winding for 90 miles through seven counties, 45 municipalities and into the Newark Bay.

Over 30 species of fish have been identified in the river, and mink, otters and muskrats, foxes, raccoons, coyote, deer, opossum live along the river. Great blue herons, egrets and other wading birds are often seen.

But as New Jersey industry grew, oil, chemicals, paint, and other waste were dumped in the Passaic and its tributaries, flowing on into Newark Bay. Sewage from the large populations that had been drawn to the cities to work in the factories has also fouled the river and bay.

Scientists have called Newark Bay one of the world's worst sites for dioxin contamination, with layers of polluted sediment contributing to dangerous dioxin levels in blue crabs, fish, and fish-eating birds. The EPA believes concentrations of dioxin recorded in Passaic River and Newark Bay blue crabs may be the highest ever discovered in aquatic animals.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has banned crabbing in and around Newark Bay because of an "extremely high" cancer risk and recommends strict limits on consumption of fish caught in the area. Research has also uncovered high dioxin levels in certain marine fish species caught by anglers throughout the New York and New Jersey region.

The invitation for public involvement in the Newark Bay and Passaic River cleanups follows a decision in federal district court in New York City earlier this month in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups that halted a dredging project planned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open New York Harbor to larger container ships.

Singling out what she termed "disturbing" conduct by the Corps, Judge Shira Scheindlin's ruling establishes that the Corps cannot ignore how its dredging may interfere with EPA-led cleanup and containment efforts on a Superfund site beneath the Port of New York and New Jersey.

Known as the Diamond Alkali Superfund Site, the area at issue includes Newark Bay and portions of the adjacent Kill van Kull and Arthur Kill bordering Staten Island.

The sediment in the area planned for dredging is full of toxic dioxins and contains high levels of toxic chemicals that flowed downstream from industrial facilities on the Passaic River, including a closed plant that made Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

Without proper protections, the plaintiff groups successfully argued, dredging would spread the contamination into surrounding waterways. The August 5 court decision resulted from a January 2005 lawsuit filed by Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), NY/NJ Baykeeper, and GreenFaith.

"The court ruling sends a strong message to the Corps that it cannot ignore the health and safety of our waters. We all want the contaminated sediments removed, but simply plowing through a toxic waste dump won't solve the problem," said NRDC attorney Larry Levine. "Thanks to the court, the Corps now has another chance get this right."

After additional filings from the parties, the court will decide what steps the Corps must now take.

"The court's decision is an ethical, first step in the right direction," said Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith, a New Jersey interfaith group. "Now, the Corps needs to dredge Newark Bay and the Kills in a manner that protects human health and the marine environment. We're encouraging people of all faiths and concerned citizens to comment on the Corps' draft environmental assessment, which is not yet strong enough to accomplish this goal."

A public forum has been scheduled for September 14, 2005 at the Rutherford Public Library in Rutherford, New Jersey from 7 to 10 pm. Another public forum will be held on September 15, 2005 at the East Side High School in Newark, New Jersey from 7 to 10 pm