• USAID Funds Watershed Management for Honduras
  
• Knoxville Must Spend Half a Billion for Clean Water Violations
  
• Colorado Buys Open Space With $60 Million in Lottery Funds
  
• Educators Learn How to Beat Polluted School Air
  
• Residents Near Vermont Yankee Need Better Alert System
  
• Delaware River Oil Spill Will Take Months to Clean
  
• Wolf Advocates Howl to Wake Alaska Governor
  
• Florida's Rare Birds Get 75 Acres of Marshy Habitat
  

USAID Funds Watershed Management for Honduras

The program will be carried out by the International Resources Group (IRG), an international professional services firm. The program is known as Manejo Integrado de Recursos Ambientales, or MIRA, in Spanish.

The performance based contract for the $23 million program was awarded to IRG through full and open competition on September 24, USAID said.

The company will work with USAID/Honduras' Office of Trade, Environment and Agriculture to help municipalities, communities and private organizations improve watershed resources management and increase economic growth.

The program is part of USAID/Honduras' five year strategy to help the country achieve increased economic growth and poverty reduction.

Alex Dickie, deputy mission director at USAID/Honduras, said, "Honduras' economic future depends on the application of sound natural resources management policies and practices. Through the MIRA Program, the Mission is addressing these issues by linking land use and environmental policy with good governance, disaster preparedness and sustainable enterprise initiatives."

IRG said it has assembled an experienced team of Honduran and Central American companies to support the project, including Escuela Agrícola Panamericana-Zamorano, RARE, Fundación Hondureña de Investigación Agrícola, Fundación VIDA, Atilio García y Asociados and AMAGAVI.

U.S. companies are involved as subcontractors including Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a $100 million, employee owned international consulting firm that specializes in economic development and has reconstruction contracts in Iraq.

DAI has a $4 million contract to restore marshlands in southern Iraq and has been refurbishing schools and government buildings with furniture and equipment; providing grants for various social services; identifying water, electricity and recreational needs of specific communities; and supporting a youth soccer league in the central Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Since 2002, USAID has repeatedly selected DAI to restore irrigated agriculture systems in Afghanistan, according to company website and information obtained by The Center for Public Integrity under the Freedom of Information Act. Several of DAI's management executives are former employees of the USAID. Find out more by clicking here.

One of the other two companies, Winrock International, works in 40 countries around the world, but not in Afghanistan or Iraq. It is headed by President and CEO Frank Tugwell, who most recently served as executive director of the Heinz Endowments of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the foundation headed by Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry.

Knoxville Must Spend Half a Billion for Clean Water Violations

A consent decree, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Knoxville, represents the combined efforts of the United States and the state of Tennessee as well as the Tennessee Clean Water Network and the City of Knoxville, which have also entered into this settlement as plaintiffs.

With the goal of eliminating sewage overflows and maintaining compliance with its Clean Water Act permits, the consent decree will require KUB to continuously analyze the causes of overflows and propose specific corrective action plans to abate the causes.

The KUB must implement management, operation and maintenance programs to prevent future overflows; ensure that the sewer system has adequate capacity before allowing new connections to add flow; comprehensively review the performance of its treatment plants; respond to overflows when they occur, including cleaning up building backups; and institute a comprehensive water quality monitoring program.

All this work is estimated to cost about $530 million and is expected to eliminate approximately 3.5 million gallons of sewage overflows annually.

The consent decree also requires KUB to pay a civil penalty which will be split between the United States and Tennessee. The United States and the state will each receive $167,000 for a total penalty of $334,000.

The state penalty will be paid in the form of an environmental project to provide funds for the acquisition of real property interests in the Williams Creek watershed. The purpose of this state environmental project is to protect, restore and enhance water quality, wetlands areas and riparian areas within the Williams Creek watershed and to prevent any use of these properties that will impair or interfere with the restoration and preservation of the property to its natural condition.

KUB also will perform a $2 million Supplemental Environmental Project by providing funding to moderate, low and very low income level residential property owners to repair their privately owned sewer pipes that connect into KUB’s sewer system. These privately owned sewer pipes may have defects that allow excessive inflow of rain water into KUB’s sewer system and contribute to sewage overflows.

Repairs will bring defective privately owned sewer pipes into compliance with the current plumbing code and decrease rain water inflow into KUB’s sewer system.

The proposed consent decree with KUB is subject to a public comment period and final court approval before becoming effective.

“The environment is far better protected and the public is far better served when cooperative effort and agreement prevail. All the parties are to be commended for the work they did to resolve this controversy in a positive manner,” said Betsy Child, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Colorado Buys Open Space With $60 Million in Lottery Funds

Educators Learn How to Beat Polluted School Air

The rate of asthma in young children has risen by 160 percent in the last 15 years, and today one out of every 13 school age children has asthma.

To find out how best to combat these assaults on the health of schoolchildren, at least 500 school representatives and health, technical, and environmental experts are in Washington for the 5th Annual Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools National Symposium.

Hosted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the three day symposium opened Thursday at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Sessions focus on how to identify and resolve indoor environmental problems in schools.

At a national awards ceremony, the EPA will recognize schools and individuals from 13 states for efforts to protect indoor air quality for kids at school.

The top school is the Burlington School District of Burlington, Vermont. With 3,648 students in 12 schools, the Burlington district has had to cope with problems facing schools across the country - a tight budget and aging facilities.

The district implemented an anti-idling policy for school buses, which resulted in cleaner air. District officials communicated and cooperated with vendors to solve exhaust problems created their trucks idling near air intakes located next to the loading docks for two schools.

Burlington utilized multiple grants to purchase vacuum cleaners with High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters and to make improvements in several school heating, air conditioning, and cooling systems.

A new emergency response system enables school or community members to report indoor air quality concerns by writing a simple ticket, establishing a detailed tracking system and allowing the district to respond quickly to concerns.

The EPA called the effects "remarkable." In one school the annual absenteeism rate among asthmatic students fell from 31 days to two days in just one year.

EPA Assistant Administrator Jeff Holmstead said, “We want to ensure that our nation’s schools are free of indoor environmental pollutants and irritants that may affect the health and productivity of students and staff. Schools that have implemented Indoor Air Quality improvements as recommended by our Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Program continue to see positive results.”

Read about the Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Award Winners at: http://www.epa.gov/iaq/schools/tfsawards2004.html

Residents Near Vermont Yankee Need Better Alert System

The inspectors concluded that the operator, Entergy, was not making a "best effort" attempt of distributing and maintaining tone alert radios in areas of the emergency planning zone that are outside of siren coverage.

Tone alert radios are integral to the Alert Notification System in case of an emergency at the plant. They complement the pole-mounted siren system in areas where there is inadequate "sound" siren coverage such as in a mountainous terrain, the NRC said.

In its efforts to advertise the availability of the tone alert radios, Entergy ultimately placed the onus on these individuals who needed or had them and not on Entergy.

This is contrary to the NRC’s view of a "best effort" as denoted in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) design guidance and for what was accepted by FEMA and the NRC.

Contributing to this finding was the fact that an accurate listing or registry of those residents who had or needed tone alert radios was not current; thus, because of the lack of an updated registry, it could not be determined to what extent tone alert radios are needed in the emergency planning zone and, therefore, uncertainty results on how the system was to be maintained.

This finding was classed as one "with some increased importance to safety, which may require additional NRC inspection."

"A majority of the population remained protected by the sirens and a large percentage of tone alert radios remained functional throughout the emergency planning zone," the agency said.

Entergy has put in route alerting when sirens are actuated for areas covered by tone alert radios, and so the finding does not present a safety concern. Entergy is continuing with longer-term corrective measures including making the offers of radios to local citizens and re-establishing a current registry by the end of the year.

A second report contains the results of a special inspection to look into two spent fuel segments that were reported missing at the facility. The team concluded the pieces found in July 2004 are the pieces misplaced in January 1980. One apparent violation was also identified: Entergy did not adequately account for the two fuel rod pieces from 1980 through 2004.

Both final inspection reports and the earlier preliminary findings are posted on the NRC website at: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/vermont-yankee-issues.html.

The findings of both inspections will be discussed publicly at a meeting of the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel (V-SNAP) on December 16 at Brattleboro Union High School, beginning at 6 pm.

This meeting replaces NRC meetings that had been scheduled for November 9, but were postponed because of concerns that the expected high attendance would exceed the capacity of the facilities.

“We appreciate V-SNAP’s agreement to moderate a meeting on a topic of great interest to many citizens in Vermont. We believe they will provide structure to the meeting process and help us hold a constructive meeting,” said Wayne Lanning, NRC Region I Director of Reactor Safety.

Delaware River Oil Spill Will Take Months to Clean

The 750 foot Cyprus flagged vessel lost an estimated 30,000 gallons of heavy crude oil as it was enroute to the Citgo Facility in Paulsboro, on November 26.

Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell said it will take six months to eradicate all residual effects of the oil spill.

Acting Governor Richard Codey said, "We have close to 20 DEP staff members on site helping in the cleanup effort and rescuing wildlife. An estimated 3,000 birds live in the area of the spill, so we have a daunting job ahead of us." About 50 birds died as a result of the spill and several hundred more are oiled.

The Port of Philadelphia is still closed to most ships, although a few have gotten through.

"The port will be open on a case-by-case basis to ensure that as ships move about they do not spread the contamination," said Codey. "This is good news, and I’m hopeful the immediate cleanup continues to proceed quickly in order to avoid suffering the economic hardship that occurs when commerce is interrupted.

"While restoration of the river and the shoreline will likely be a months-long process," said Codey, "I recognize the Delaware and its banks are part of the fabric of South Jersey and reiterate that we will do all we can to clean up and recover from this spill so the river may be enjoyed once again.”

People wishing to report wildlife affected by the spill may call the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge at 215-356-1558.

Wolf Advocates Howl to Wake Alaska Governor

The New York protest is one of more than 43 new Howl-Ins planned for cities across the country and designed to impact Alaska's summer 2005 tourism season.

Since November of 2003, pilots have obtained permits from state officials. One by one, with the assistance of low, slow-flying aircraft, airborne hunters have traced, tracked, chased, and killed over 150 wolves.

Although we oppose all killing methods, we note that this method of killing wolves had not been used since the late 1980s and is normally illegal in Alaska. But in spite of votes in which Alaskans opted to end same-day use of aircraft for public wolf hunting and trapping, the killing permits have Governor Frank Murkowski's approval.

Last year, when the state began this wolf-killing plan, more than 200,000 people pledged to boycott Alaska’s $2 billion a year tourism industry. But this winter, Alaska’s aerial wolf shooting has started up again, with a current target of up to 580 wolves.

“Frank Murkowski has a personal responsibility for each and every wolf killed,” said Edita Birnkrant, campaign coordinator for Friends of Animals in New York City. “And we'll howl until Murkowski wakes up.”

Volunteers in the effort to stop this killing will collect New Yorkers' signatures on postcards to send Murkowski. Each card, deposited into a mailbox marked "Special Delivery for: Governor Frank Murkowski, Alaska," is a pledge to boycott travel to Alaska until the state-sponsored wolf killing ends.

Florida's Rare Birds Get 75 Acres of Marshy Habitat