• Larger Openings Mandated For TEDs
  
• Electronics Recyclers Pledge Greener Practices
  
• Most Threatened Scenic Landscapes Identified
  
• Indiana Schools Must Clean Out All Mercury
  
• Lawsuit Seeks Protection for White-Tailed Prairie Dogs
  
• Cement Company Fine Buys Hazmat Equipment
  
• Construction Corporation Fined for Water Pollution
  
• North Carolina Zoo Launches Conservation Website
  

Larger Openings Mandated For TEDs

Last week, NMFS officials published new rules requiring larger openings for turtle excluder devices (TEDs) used in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic shrimp fishery. Under the current rules, larger sea turtles cannot escape from shrimp nets, resulting in thousands of turtle deaths each year.

NMFS estimates that increasing the size of TEDs will reduce annual mortalities of leatherback sea turtles from about 2,300 to 80. Mortalities of loggerheads will decrease from 62,000 to 4000.

The new rules go into effect on April 15, 2003 in the Atlantic, but will be delayed by six months, until August 2003, in the Gulf of Mexico.

The larger openings are crucial to reducing shrimping related mortality in the southeast United States, from North Carolina to the Texas-Mexico border, particularly for leatherbacks and larger loggerhead and green turtles, but all turtles will benefit by being able to escape shrimp nets faster.

Although sea turtles are marine animals, they must come to the surface for air. Because shrimpers fish where sea turtles forage, turtles are often caught and become trapped in shrimp nets. If they are held under water too long, the turtles drown.

TED regulations were first issued in 1987 under the Endangered Species Act to protect the five species of threatened and endangered sea turtles found in U.S. waters, including leatherbacks, loggerheads, greens, hawksbills and Kemp's ridleys. The TED regulations have been refined over the years, with the last major changes made in 1992.

The new rules require TED openings that will release leatherback turtles, the largest of the species, in all offshore waters and in the inshore waters of South Carolina and Georgia. TEDs capable of releasing loggerheads will be required in all other inshore waters.

The rules require additional technical changes, such as prohibiting a device called the Jones TED, requiring a brace on the so called weedless TED, and mandating that bait shrimpers also use TEDs.

"Larger TED openings will save thousands of sea turtles that are critical to the breeding success of U.S. turtle populations," said Marydele Donnelly, The Ocean Conservancy's sea turtle research scientist.

"Although the need for larger TED openings has been recognized since the mid-1990s, delay upon delay has prevented issuance of the new rules as the body count has risen," Donnelly added. "While these delays have caused additional, unnecessary sea turtle deaths, we are grateful to shrimp fishermen in Georgia, and most recently in South Carolina, for modifying the size of their TED openings to exclude larger turtles prior to final promulgation of the federal regulations."

In recent decades, the nesting population of the northern loggerhead turtle, found in northern Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, has been reduced by half. During the last 10 years, more than 90 percent of the dead turtles on South Carolina beaches were too big to escape through the current TED opening.

New information from Florida, where loggerheads were once increasing, reveals that the southern population may also be declining. Scientists at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission attribute a major part of this problem to shrimping related mortality.

Gulf Coast politicians characterize the new TED regulations as burdensome and unnecessary for the industry. While the U.S. shrimp industry is in financial difficulty, environmental groups say its problems are the result of overcapitalization and a glut of imported shrimp, not regulations to protect endangered species.

In fact, TEDs may benefit the industry by reducing bycatch, drag in the nets and fuel consumption, excluding and saving valuable finfish, reducing sorting time on deck, and producing better looking shrimp that has not been squashed by bycatch.

The Caribbean Conservation Corporation (CCC), a Florida based non-profit group devoted to sea turtle conservation, said it has been working for more than two years with a coalition of environmental groups including the Ocean Conservancy, Oceana, Turtle Island Restoration Network, the Humane Society, and Defenders of Wildlife, to convince NMFS to require the larger TED openings.

"We are glad that NMFS responded to the overwhelming evidence and the support from the public for this new rule," said CCC's advocacy coordinator, Gary Appelson. "The new size rules will allow the larger turtles to escape, including the mature females that are critical for recovering sea turtle populations."

Electronics Recyclers Pledge Greener Practices

The criteria are contained in the "Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship" was developed in conjunction with members of the Computer TakeBack Campaign, including the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC).

The use of toxic substances such as lead, mercury, chlorine and bromine in electronic products has led to increasing concern about dumping e-waste into municipal solid waste systems, where the toxins can leach into groundwater from landfills, or be released by incinerator emissions or ash.

The "Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship" was inspired by, and marks the one year anniversary of, the release of the report "Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia," by BAN and SVTC. That report sent shock waves throughout the electronics and electronics recycling industries with its revelation that 50 to 80 percent of electronic waste collected for recycling in North America was being sent to developing countries such as China, India and Pakistan.

There, the wastes were recycled in toxic and polluting operations resulting in a variety of occupational diseases, or just dumped into the environment.

The pledge also targets the increasing use of prison labor, which according to the environmentalists and recyclers, undercuts free market businesses and amounts to an inappropriate government subsidy.

Under the Banner of "No Export, No Dumping, No Prisons," the signatory companies have all agreed, among other requirements, to:

• prevent hazardous e-waste from going to municipal incinerators or landfills;
• prevent the export of hazardous e-waste to developing countries;
• use free market rather than prison labor to dismantle or recycle e-waste.

By calling for a closing off of what they call the "cheap and dirty" legal outlets for e-waste, the recyclers and their environmental allies hope to prod governments to legislate similar criteria, and at the same time, establish a market for "doing the right thing."

Most Threatened Scenic Landscapes Identified

Scenic America, the only national nonprofit organization dedicated solely to preserving the natural beauty and distinctive character of America's communities and countryside, released its annual list of threatened scenic landscapes on Monday.

Each Last Chance Landscape is a place of beauty or distinctive community character chosen because it faces imminent and potentially irrevocable harm. However, each of the winners also possesses a potential solution, a "last chance" for people at the local, state and national levels to step forward and preserve their scenic beauty before it is too late, the group said.

"Each of our Last Chance Landscapes has a story to tell," said Scenic America's president, Meg Maguire. "We hope that we can help write a much happier ending for each of them."

Some of the threats highlighted in this year's list include airport expansion affecting four historic New England towns; cell towers jutting into the Potomac River viewshed; forest clear cutting erasing the visual context of an historic 19th century southern plantation; and sprawling residential and commercial development stripping the Blue Ridge Parkway of its spectacular views.

Maguire emphasized that Scenic America does not seek to put an end to growth or development. The nominators for each winning landscape have also outlined ways to solve that community's problems.

"Development can be done in a way that doesn't destroy the character of a place or the natural beauty that drew people there to begin with," said Maguire.

This year's Last Chance Landscapes are:

1. Historic Towns of Concord, Lexington, Lincoln and Bedford, Massachusetts
2. Creole Nature Trail National Scenic Byway, Louisiana
3. Glen Mary Plantation Historic Site, Georgia
4. Schuylkill Marsh, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
5. Lower Marks Creek Rural Landscape, North Carolina
6. Jordan River Conservation Corridor, Utah
7. Middle Potomac Scenic Corridor, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
8. State Highway 99 Corridor, San Joaquin Valley, California
9. Blue Ridge Parkway Viewshed, Roanoke County, Virginia
10. Gaviota Coast, California

Maguire emphasized that each of the 10 landscapes chosen highlights a problem that may be occurring in dozens of communities across the country.

"Unfortunately, much of the natural beauty and distinctive character of America's cities, towns and natural areas is disappearing in a sea of uncontrolled, cookie cutter residential development and shopping malls," Maguire said. "Haphazard growth gobbles up open space at a frightening pace. Cell towers and enormous billboards - the "litter-on-a-stick" of the American highway - puncture scenic vistas. The threats posed to this year's landscapes are an illustration of what's happening to communities all over America, every day of the year."

For a detailed description of the threats faced by this year's Last Chance Landscapes, visit: http://www.scenic.org

Indiana Schools Must Clean Out All Mercury

A law passed in 2001, House Enrolled Act 1901, stipulates that on July 1, 2003, "no public or nonpublic Indiana school may use or purchase for use in a primary or secondary classroom a mercury commodity, mercury compounds or mercury-added instructional equipment and materials, except measuring devices and thermometers for which no adequate substitute exists for use in laboratories."

Mercury poisoning damages the human brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver. Long term exposure to mercury can result in personality changes, stupor and coma.

A large laboratory thermometer can contain up to three grams of mercury. While equivalent to only 1/25 of a teaspoon, this amount is enough to contaminate a 60 acre lake.

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is encouraging Indiana educators to conduct a mercury inventory in their schools, and address necessary recycling or disposal measures before the law goes into effect.

IDEM commissioner Lori Kaplan and Indiana superintendent of public instruction Suellen Reed recently sent letters to all Indiana schools outlining the hazards of mercury exposure in children, explaining the provisions of HEA 1901 and encouraging use of the state funded recycling and disposal programs.

"The time to think about recycling and disposal is not after a spill happens where students become unnecessarily exposed to mercury contamination, it's before that emergency situation develops," said Kaplan. "Unfortunately, it's all too common that our emergency responders are called to a school because mercury has been carelessly handled by teachers or by students."

Mercury containing items targeted for restriction in schools include thermometers, barometers and some laboratory and medicinal chemicals. While permitted in buildings where needed for structural functionality, other mercury added instruments such as thermostats and gauges, electrical switches and relays, mercury vapor lamps, fluorescent bulbs, batteries and paint could be considered unlawful if used as instructional aids where exposure of mercury to students is possible.

The most common areas for mercury products in schools are science classrooms and labs and nursing stations. Because eliminating mercury from schools can prevent spills and save thousands of dollars in cleanup costs, IDEM is offering to help schools beat the ban.

Last month, IDEM awarded more than $140,000 in grants to five Indiana solid waste management districts (SWMD) and to the city of Indianapolis. The six recipients are to serve as mercury collection and storage hubs for all solid waste districts throughout the state.

The facilities are required by state law to ensure proper recycling or final disposal by a qualified contractor, as sufficient quantities of mercury are gathered. Schools who participate in IDEM's Mercury Reduction and Recycling for Schools Pledge Program are eligible for a 75 percent reduction in costs associated with packing, transporting and recycling mercury through SWMD grant dollars.

The department also highlights participating schools in its public outreach materials and through the IDEM Web site as positive environmental contributors. To date, just 90 of Indiana's 2,841 schools have taken the mercury pledge.

IDEM will be encouraging more schools to take the pledge as the new law's effective date draws near

For more information on mercury and IDEM's assistance programs, visit: http://www.in.gov/idem/mercury

Lawsuit Seeks Protection for White-Tailed Prairie Dogs

Already, these sociable mammals have vanished from 92 percent of their historical habitat in the "Sagebrush Sea" of central and western Wyoming, northwestern Colorado, northeastern Utah, and south-central Montana. White-tailed prairie dogs are considered critical to the health of the sagebrush ecosystem.

"Prairie dogs are absolutely essential to maintaining a healthy balance in nature that supports many species of native wildlife," said Gene Byrne, a recently retired biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. "Some species such as black footed ferrets cannot survive without prairie dogs. Prairie dogs supply nearly 100 percent of the ferrets' habitat - food and shelter."

A white-tailed prairie dog. (Photo by Ted Zukowski, courtesy Earthjustice)

"If the prairie dog goes, so goes an entire ecosystem," said author and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams. "Prairie dogs create diversity. Destroy them and you destroy a varied world."

Sylvatic plague, a disease accidentally introduced to North America around 1900, is now present throughout the range of the white-tailed prairie dog. Prairie dogs are very susceptible to this disease, and the white-tailed prairie dog has suffered large scale population declines as a result.

Oil and gas drilling, suburban sprawl, and conversion of the land to agriculture have destroyed prairie dog habitat. Most white-tailed prairie dogs live in small, isolated colonies that can be wiped out by plague outbreaks, poisoning or recreational shooting. Because their habitat has been fragmented and colony size has dwindled, populations are also more vulnerable to extinction from natural events, like drought or wildfire.

But rather than protect the prairie dog, federal and state agencies continue to allow recreational target shooting and subsidized poisoning. Recreational target shooters killed more than 15,000 white-tailed prairie dogs on federal lands in Colorado alone last year.

All prairie dog species are now disappearing across the West. Utah prairie dogs are so imperiled, numbering about 4,200, that the same conservation groups three weeks ago requested that the species be reclassified as "endangered" from its current status as "threatened," and filed a notice of intent to sue the USFWS for failing to protect and recover the Utah prairie dog.

In July 2002, the coalition filed a petition to protect white-tailed prairie dogs under the Endangered Species Act. The USFWS has long since missed its 90 day deadline to respond with an initial determination about the status of the species.

The coalition argues that land managers - including the federal Bureau of Land Management, responsible for the bulk of the white-tailed prairie dog's habitat - should take proactive steps to recover the species now before more drastic steps are required to avert extinction. The coalition, led by the Center for Native Ecosystems, includes Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, American Lands Alliance, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, Forest Guardians, the Ecology Center, Sinapu, and Terry Tempest Williams. Attorneys with Earthjustice and attorney Jack Tuholske of Missoula, Montana are representing the coalition.

For more information, visit: http://www.nativeecosystems.org/wtpd

Cement Company Fine Buys Hazmat Equipment

According to the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), the violations included multiple releases of nitrogen oxides (NOx), carbon oxides (CO), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and particulate matter (PM) that exceeded allowable levels.

Holcim Limited Partnership's plant exceeded the allowable hourly rate for NOx more than 800 times in less than one year at two different stacks, TNRCC said.

Other alleged violations included failure to maintain all air pollution emission capture and abatement equipment in good working order, failure to conduct visual emission observations, failure to meet design and performance specifications for emission monitoring systems and flow rate sensors, and failure to comply with regulations when modifications were made to the plant which resulted in net emission increases in sulfur dioxide, VOCs, NOx, and CO.

An earlier violation was issued in August of 2000 and was used to calculate an increase in the final penalty amount. In addition, complaints were received on several occasions from June 2000 to January 2002 for odors and excessive black and yellow smoke from the stacks.

As part of the agreed order with TNRCC, Holcim will pay $111,562 to contribute to the Midlothian Fire Department for the purchase of emergency response equipment. Holcim will provide protective gear, equipment used to contain and stop releases of hazardous materials, worker rescue equipment, emergency response communication equipment, and a truck to tow the hazmat trailer.

The purchase of this emergency response equipment is coordinated as a Supplemental Environmental Project (SEP), an innovative program designed by the TNRCC to benefit communities where environmental violations occur. The remainder of the $223,125 fine has been paid in full.

Construction Corporation Fined for Water Pollution

New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) commissioner Bradley Campbell announced Monday that Kaplan and Sons Construction Corporation, which is responsible for the La Mer residential development, allowed these problems to impact local wetlands.

"Kaplan's failure to incorporate environmental safeguards into his company's development practices is illegal, irresponsible, and dismissive of the public's right to a healthy environment," said Campbell. "We will no longer tolerate a situation that has languished far too long and resulted in ongoing damage to protected wetlands."

The La Mer residential development is being constructed in phases along natural bluffs on Ernston Road in Sayreville, adjacent to Cheesequake State Park. As part of the site development, Kaplan Construction clear cut property along the bluffs and did not provide for proper stormwater control measures, which has resulted in serious soil erosion that is draining into wetlands and nearby Cheesequake Creek.

The DEP has made repeated attempts, beginning with the issuance of a Notice of Violation (NOV) to Kaplan Construction in August 2000, to seek stormwater control compliance and alleviate the severe erosion occurrences.

On December 12, 2002, DEP inspected the La Mer development project and issued NOVs for failure to provide both temporary and permanent stabilization measures at two stormwater retention basins, and for failure to maintain temporary erosion controls to mitigate soil runoff and silt build up affecting area wetlands.

During a follow up inspection on January 22, the DEP found that the stabilization of the basins was insufficient. Hay mulch was applied to two of the three basin embankments, but not the basin bottoms.

Additional areas of soil disturbance also were discovered at the site, and the DEP says there is a lack of erosion and sedimentation controls required under the site's DEP permit.

Kaplan Construction is required by its DEP site permit to submit an Annual Report and Certification one year after receiving authorization for a project. For the phase of development impacting the bluff area, Kaplan failed to submit reports required by June 13, 2001 and June 13, 2002.

The DEP's penalty assessment of $208,500 is based on violations of the New Jersey Water Pollution Control Act, including failure to maintain soil erosion and sedimentation controls. The penalty assessment includes a $35,000 fine for Kaplan's failure to obtain proper permits for clearing and grading activities, and a $3,500 fine for failure to submit annual reports and certifications.

North Carolina Zoo Launches Conservation Website

Field Trip Earth, located on the Web at: http://www.fieldtripearth.org, is the result of more than a year of work by a team of zoo and aquarium educators, Web developers, public and private school teachers, wildlife researchers and other conservation organizations.

The site offers ways to integrate conservation information into courses on language arts, mathematics, fine arts, natural and social sciences and technology in K-12 classrooms around the world. In addition to communicating information about key issues such as species endangerment, habitat protection and captive management, the website encourages students to better understand how they, and their day to day decisions, affect the world around them.

Field Trip Earth is the zoo's third conservation Web site and comes on the heels of the successful and award winning Elephants of Cameroon and Red Wolves of Alligator River sites launched in 1999. Like the zoo's previous educational Web sites, Field Trip Earth provides learners with an extensive library of background readings about various wildlife conservation projects, about the species under study and about the regions where that work is taking place.

Teachers and students can use the information to gain an initial understanding of each project, or "field trip," featured on the site.

Field Trip Earth also makes it easy for students to participate in field based wildlife conservation programs. Rather than just reading about wildlife researchers at work, students can use the Web site to communicate with the field scientists, as well as with other classrooms using the site, to form a community of learners around the project.

Field Trip Earth offers a variety of learning resources, including narrative articles, photographs, maps, data sets, artwork, video and audio clips, discussion groups, teaching strategies, personal stories and other interactive tools.

In addition to resources offered on the zoo's red wolf and elephant sites, Field Trip Earth highlights two other programs, including a multi-faceted look at Atlantic sea turtle conservation efforts, including nest and hatchling protection, turtle rehabilitation and satellite tracking.

The other new program is a study of black bear population dynamics in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina to determine how that species is affected by accelerating changes to the Appalachian forest ecosystem. Launched in 1969, the black bear study is one of the longest running wildlife research programs in the United States.

A number of other field conservation programs - focusing on species ranging from white-winged wood ducks to Mexican wolves to Przewalski horses taking place in places like Sumatra, Sri Lanka, and Mongolia - are under development and will be added to the site in the coming months.

Visit Field Trip Earth online at: http://www.fieldtripearth.org