• Freshwater Fishery Hotspots Identified
  
• Casmalia Settlement Brings $31.9 Million for Cleanup
  
• Climate and Cholera Link Growing Stronger
  
• Viagra Not a Panacea for Wildlife
  
• Coalition Opposes Logging in Tillamook Rainforest
  
• Texas Partnership Will Restore Wetlands
  
• Animal Manure Could Mop Up Pollutants
  
• Florida Town Opts for Dark Sky Lighting
  

Freshwater Fishery Hotspots Identified

A symposium held today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science focused on "the hottest of the biodiversity hotspots": the world's lakes, streams and wetlands. Hotspots are areas that are threatened by human activity and that also harbor a high number of native species that occur nowhere else.

Speaking at that symposium today, Gerald Smith, a professor in the departments of Geological Sciences and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan, described the methods he used to pinpoint three regions where North American freshwater fishes are at greatest risk.

The regions he identified include the southern Appalachian region, where fish species diversity is highest, the species have very restricted ranges, and their habitats are threatened by dams, strip mining and mining wastes.

The Klamath River Basin of southern Oregon and northern California, where controversy has raged over the effects of diverting water for irrigation, is also a freshwater hotspot, Smith said.

"What has been lost in the controversy is that the whole fish community there is really quite remarkable compared to the rest of the continent," said Smith.

Another hotspot is the Caribbean coastal drainages of eastern and southern Mexico, where high numbers of endemic species are confined to very small ranges and threatened by habitat destruction.

Smith used a two-step method to locate the hotspots. Using a grid system developed by paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, he divided Canada, the United States and Mexico into 350 equal-sized squares or quadrats, each 150 miles on a side, and assembled a database on the presence or absence of about 1,080 fish species in the quadrats.

"The highest diversity quadrat for the whole continent is a spot in eastern Tennessee/Western Virginia that has 226 fish species," Smith said. "In the whole Great Lakes region we have only 175 or so species, so this one little spot has more fish species than the entire Great Lakes region."

In the second part of the analysis, he again used the grid system to look only at native species with highly restricted ranges.

"These species are especially at risk, because there's no way for them to replenish themselves after a local extinction," Smith said. "Local is all they've got."

The regions with the highest numbers of these native species turned out to be the same areas that showed the highest diversity in the first part of his analysis.

"What this means is that a huge proportion of the diversity represented here is made up by species that are found nowhere else," Smith said. "In all three of the areas I identified, habitat destruction by water diversion, agriculture, deforestation, coal mining, mine wastes and barrier dams is causing extinction and endangerment of aquatic organisms. I hope this analysis will help show where conservation activities and public education about rich fish biodiversity at risk should be concentrated."

At a time when conservation budgets are tight but species continue to be threatened with extinction, Smith said his study could help resource managers to set priorities. Targeting these hotspots helps insure that conservation efforts have the greatest payoff.

Casmalia Settlement Brings $31.9 Million for Cleanup

The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced settlements with the companies last Friday as part of four separate consent decrees involving 46 private parties and four federal agencies. Each of the settling parties is considered a major contributor to the contamination of the site, because they each sent large volumes of waste to the dump.

The settlements require all of the parties to pay their pro rata share of cleanup costs at the site, based on the volume they discarded at the dump, plus a premium for future costs.

"The resolution of these 50 claims along with the significant settlements that we have entered into in the past with the other liable parties will help to ensure that the responsible parties pay for work at this site," said Tom Sansonetti, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's environment and natural resources division. "I am pleased with the continued success of the Department's work to negotiate fair settlements bringing necessary funding to the Casmalia site, which has been described as one of the largest hazardous waste disposal facilities on the national priorities list."

The Casmalia site was a commercial hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility located 10 miles from Santa Maria, California. It consisted of more than 40 surface impoundments, two waste treatment systems and numerous landfills, including facilities for the treatment and disposal of solvents, pesticides, metals, PCBs, caustics and acids.

Between 1972 and 1989, the site accepted more than 5.5 billion pounds of liquid and solid hazardous waste, including seven million drums of disposed waste material. This massive volume of waste disposal is attributable to over 10,000 separate private and governmental entities.

By the summer of 1992, the site's condition had deteriorated and was in need of certain short term response actions to control the spread of pollutants at the site, particularly as the rainy season approached. The EPA took action to secure the site and limit the migration of pollutants based on its authority under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

In 1996, EPA ordered a group of potentially responsible parties to perform a portion of the response action at the site, first through a unilateral administrative order and later through a partial work settlement embodied in a judicial settlement. The agency has also been engaged in a series of settlements with other parties to raise money to fund other portions of the response action, including the settlements announced Friday.

"The EPA's highest priority at the Casmalia site is to protect public health and the environment," said Keith Takata, director of the Superfund Program for the Pacific Southwest region of EPA. "Today's settlement ensures money will be available for the EPA to continue making progress."

Climate and Cholera Link Growing Stronger

Mercedes Pascual, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, discussed her work during a symposium on the ecology of infectious diseases at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Pascual is known for her ecological approach to understanding disease patterns.

In work published over the past three years, Pascual and coworkers at the University of Barcelona and the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh found evidence that El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a major source of climate variability from year to year, influences cycles of cholera.

They first looked at climate and disease data from Bangladesh for the past two decades. Then they compared those results with data from Bangladesh for the periods 1893-1920 and 1920-1940 to see whether the coupling between climate variability and cholera cycles has become stronger in recent decades.

Their examination of the data, which relied on a suite of techniques called time series analysis, suggests that it has.

"We had known that ENSO plays a role in the variability of cholera, but our work revealed that the role of ENSO has intensified," said Pascual, who was named one of "The 50 Most Important Women in Science" by "Discover" magazine in November 2002.

"What's more, the link is strongest during ENSO events, with cholera increasing after warm events and decreasing after cold events," Pascual added. "In the years between events, the climate cholera link breaks down."

With predictions that ENSO will become stronger and more variable in coming years under a global warming scenario, understanding how its connection to human disease changes will become more important, said Pascual. It can be difficult to tell whether disease cycles are driven by environmental factors or by processes intrinsic to disease transmission. Pascual and coworkers have developed a method that makes it possible to distinguish between the two possibilities.

Pascual said her work is an example of how the principles and tools of ecology and evolutionary biology can aid understanding of disease patterns. For example, using techniques developed to study the movement of species or populations, researchers are now studying the spread of diseases such as rabies.

"When you have diseases that share hosts, it's similar to having species that compete for a resource," she said. "One big question is how do they coexist?"

Interactions among diseases can be analyzed similarly to interactions among species, and classic ecological subjects as competition have applications to disease, Pascual added.

Viagra Not a Panacea for Wildlife

An assessment by experts at TRAFFIC, the global wildlife trade monitoring network of World Wildlife Fund and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), discounted the premise of an article in the quarterly journal "Environmental Conservation." The article, arguing that Viagra's arrival on the market has reduced demand for some wildlife products, has been characterized as a boon for endangered species.

"Viagra may be a quick fix for many people, but it isn't the long term conservation answer for endangered species," said Craig Hoover, deputy director of TRAFFIC North America.

The "Environmental Conservation" article was written by Frank and William von Hippel, college professors who maintain that Viagra is replacing two traditional Chinese medicine products to treat impotence: seal penises and reindeer antlers. The von Hippels' research found that North American sales in both have dropped since 1998, the same year that Viagra came on the market. The two species studied are not endangered.

"The von Hippels have used two small snapshots to interpret a very broad landscape," Hoover said. "While they note that sales of Canadian seal penises and Alaskan reindeer antler have declined since 1998, their research is not convincing that there is any connection to the introduction of Viagra."

Hoover said the Canadian seal hunt is not driven by demand for penises, but by demand for skins and meat. Fluctuations in that harvest are caused by factors such as weather during hunting season.

The decline in seal penis sales is a result of reduced overall harvest, likely driven by difficulty marketing the meat and skins, Hoover said. And the trade in deer antler from Alaska is not an accurate measure of global demand.

An assessment of international trade in other species used to treat erectile dysfunction, such as seahorses and sea cucumbers, or even a wider assessment of the antler trade, fails to support the Viagra argument, said Hoover.

Demand for wildlife based remedies in traditional Chinese medicine has been a major factor in the decline of some species, including tigers and rhinos. Though often reported to be used as aphrodisiacs, tiger bone and rhino horn are also used to treat pain, arthritis and fever.

Traditional medicine consumers place great faith in such products and are very hesitant to switch to Western medicines, said Cao Dan, head of WWF's traditional Chinese medicine outreach program.

"If it were true that we could save endangered species simply by handing out Viagra, World Wildlife Fund would be first in line at the pharmacy," Dan said. "We could give up the difficult work of anti-poaching efforts and public education and just hand out little blue pills. But TRAFFIC's assessment shows that, unfortunately, the evidence isn't there."

Coalition Opposes Logging in Tillamook Rainforest

The coalition, which includes businesses, organizations and individuals, said the plan balances economic diversity with sound environmental stewardship.

In January 2001, the Oregon Board of Forestry approved a plan that is expected to result in extensive logging over 85 percent of the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forest. In response, a broad coalition formed in 2002 to seek broad public support for a revised forest management plan that specifies protecting 50 percent of the forest for the first purpose of protection of drinking water, salmon, wildlife and recreation, while dedicating the other 50 percent to maintaining a sustainable timber harvest from the forest.

"The state's current plan would log 85 percent of this rainforest. No areas are dedicated to drinking water, salmon, or wildlife conservation," said Guido Rahr, chair of the Tillamook Rainforest Campaign. "We are proposing a fifty-fifty approach that balances drinking water protection and increased tourism, fishing and recreation with traditional logging and forest management."

The coalition has released a report showing that many communities from Washington County to the Oregon Coast get some or all of their drinking water from streams and rivers that flow through the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forest. Many of the public watersheds that supply this drinking water are targeted for logging under the state's current plan.

"The Tillamook rainforest currently provides hundreds of thousands of people in Washington County with fresh clean drinking water," said Washington County commissioner Dick Schouten. "But the state plans to build more roads and log right in these municipal watersheds."

"As Washington County grows and municipalities look to new sources of drinking water, we have to ask the question - do we want to drink polluted water or fresh clean water from the Tillamook Rainforest?" added Schouten. "I think the choice is clear."

Oregon State Senator Charlie Ringo and Representative Jackie Dingfelder plan to introduce a bill enacting the Tillamook Rainforest proposal in the state legislature. Senate Bill 430 "Directs State Forester to manage 50 percent of Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests with goal of protecting nonconsumptive uses. Allows State Forester to increase timber harvest to prevent losses in funding to county governments and schools if reductions in forest revenue occur."

The coalition's plan is backed by many in the sport fishing and tourism industry, because of the wild salmon and steelhead rivers that flow from the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests. Timber harvest, particularly clear cutting, results in damage to fish habitats and a reduction in fish production that will affect an already struggling fishing industry.

"Wild salmon and their importance to our recreational and commercial industries have always received least consideration in our coastal communities," said Bob Rees, president of the Tillamook Guides Association. "The Tillamook Rainforest Coalition's plan for timber harvest in our state forest addresses our industry's needs while having no negative impact to the important funding base Tillamook County has come to rely on."

The Tillamook Rainforest Coalition has released an economic study which concludes that a 50/50 approach to managing the Tillamook Rainforest is "more likely to lead to increased economic growth than the ODF's [Oregon Department of Forestry's] current plan."

"The Tillamook Rainforest Coalition's plan promotes new sources of employment and income while supporting the historically important wood product and forestry sectors," said economist Thomas Power, author of the report. "Under this proposal, traditional logging economies would continue to see state forest harvests at levels well above the average over the last decade. At the same time, recreation potential and other natural amenities associated with these state forests would continue to draw new residents and businesses to the region and tourism and fishing would continue to support local economic vitality."

"Our study shows that timber revenues to local counties have fluctuated widely over the past few decades," said Power. "The Tillamook Rainforest Coalition's proposal would support a more diverse economy that would provide a stable and growing stream of revenues over time."

The report, titled "Economic Realities in the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests: Possibilities for Economic Expansion and Diversification," is available at: http://www.TillamookRainforest.org

Texas Partnership Will Restore Wetlands

Future visitors to the San Jacinto monument and surrounding grounds will see restored prairie grasses, groves of trees and marshes, looking much as they appeared when the Texas Army defeated the Mexican Army and won Texas independence some 166 years ago.

The work will be sponsored by the Texas Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership (Texas CWRP), a public private partnership headed by Duke Energy, a multinational energy company, and ENSR International, a worldwide provider of environmental and energy development services. The two companies are recruiting other entities to join forces with federal and state agencies and others committed to preserving the environment.

"The San Jacinto marsh restoration and project to develop an interpretive boardwalk for visitors is the Texas chapter's inaugural effort," said Emilio de Cardenas, a vice president of environment, health and safety at Duke Energy and chair of the Texas CWRP. "It will include marsh improvement, restoration, the extension of the boardwalk and creation of an observation deck for visitors to better understand one of the state's more popular attractions."

"Last year, about one million people visited the monument, battlefield and/or the nearby Battleship Texas," de Cardenas said. "Our project should enhance the experience for years to come."

A key purpose of the Texas CWRP is to identify and remove unnecessary policy or regulatory barriers to wetlands, aquatic habitat/coastal restoration and protection. Monetary donations from corporations are matched with federal/state grants, increasing the financial support of Texas CWRP supported projects.

"The newly established Texas CWRP will help restore wetlands, rivers, and fish and wildlife habitat in the state," said James Connaughton, the chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the chair of the Coastal America Principals Group. "The partnership builds on the success of similar ventures in other states. It will help fund priority habitat restoration projects."

The Texas CWRP operates as a private sector initiative, working with the Coastal America Partnership and state agencies. An advisory board has been formed to oversee the Texas CWRP, select projects to support, and disperse funds to the appropriate organization.

Coastal America is a partnership among federal, state and local governments and private alliances to address environmental problems affecting our nation's coasts, waterways and wetlands. The federal partners are: the Departments of Agriculture, Air Force, Army, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Navy, State, Transportation; the Environmental Protection Agency; and The Executive Office of the President.

"The corporate partnership is an excellent example of how federal and state agencies can communicate, consult and cooperate toward the goal of conservation," said J. Steven Griles, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

More information about the new state organization can be found at: http://www.texascwrp.org

Animal Manure Could Mop Up Pollutants

Animal waste is now valued at between $3 and $10 per ton, and most of it is sold as fertilizer. But using these wastes as fertilizer can introduce a glut of nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, to the soil.

When irrigation and rainwater run off fertilized acres, these nutrients can enter waterways, leading to algae blooms that consume all the oxygen from the water. Nitrogen can also leach into shallow groundwater tables, which has led some states to introduce legislation that would limit applications of animal wastes as fertilizer.

Isabel Lima, a chemist in the Commodity Utilization Research Unit at ARS' Southern Regional Research Center, has discovered another way to use animal waste that might be less environmentally harmful. She has found a way to convert the wastes into activated carbons, which soak up unwanted pollutants and can be used for environmental remediation.

Right now, bituminous coal and coconut shells are the two materials most often used by U.S. manufacturers to make activated carbons. But coal is an expensive and nonrenewable resource, costing between $60 and $80 per ton, and coconut shells are not readily available in the U.S.

So far, Lima has focused her studies on poultry litter, which is inexpensive and readily available. When pelletized and activated under specific conditions, the litter becomes a porous material with a large surface area.

In early tests, these carbons performed very well in adsorbing copper, which suggests they may do well as a wastewater filter for other metal ions. Their adsorption rate may also make them more cost effective than other activated carbons now on the market.

This technology could provide farmers with a way to use their animal manure in environmentally sensitive areas with dense poultry populations, such as Maryland's eastern shore.

Lima will present her findings at the WEF/AWWA/CWEA Joint Residuals and Biosolids Management Conference and Exhibition in Baltimore, Maryland later this week.

Florida Town Opts for Dark Sky Lighting

Harmony is installing special light fixtures on all streets and public parks that will help curb light pollution.

"Excessive urban lighting isn't just a nuisance for those of us who still enjoy gazing at the stars in the night sky," said Greg Golgowski, conservation director of the Florida development that is now taking root within 11,000 acres of pristine land in Central Florida's Osceola County. "It also has grave environmental consequences for animals."

Light pollution from parking lots, street lamps and other sources is devastating to certain bird species, disorienting them during nighttime migrations. A lack of darkness at night also has been linked to chronic fatigue and depression in humans.

These are some of the reasons why Harmony is dedicated to the notion of Dark Sky lighting. That means that lighting in all public areas will be directed downward. Energy efficient low wattage bulbs will help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that escapes into the air. Dark Sky friendly street lamps and other outdoor lighting fixtures will be installed throughout Harmony.

While Harmony's commitment to Dark Sky lighting will cost a bit more than if the town had opted for typical lighting fixtures, the community's stewards believe this feature will result in higher real estate values for homeowners.

"We could have settled on using cheaper lighting," Golgowski said. "But what we're building at Harmony is our own home town, a place where you can sit on your front porch and point out the Big Dipper in the night sky to your children. We want to do our part to make sure this development showcases the natural world, which is already full of wonder and beauty."

When completed, Harmony will be home to some 18,000 people. It is designed to be among the nation's most environmentally intelligent communities, with 70 percent of its lands set aside for wilderness. The community's two 500 acre lakes will not have homes on their shores and will not allow powered boats.

All homes will be Energy Star rated, and neighborhoods will be a mix of affordable, smaller homes and larger, more expensive homes.

The town will also be home to The Harmony Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes human health and well being through interactions with nature and animals. The Institute's Campus Advisory Board (HICAB) advises the community about animal and environmental issues, including its lighting.

For more information, visit: http://www.harmonyfl.com