• U.S., Canada, Mexico Agree to Jointly Eradicate Mad Cow
  
• Western Governors to Host North American Energy Summit
  
• Missouri River Water Fight Could Go Back to Court
  
• EPA Takes Part of Del Monte Pineapple Site off Superfund List
  
• Iowans Not Warned About Mercury in Fish
  
• New Vessel Will Explore Eastern Coastal Waters
  
• Endangered Mexican Pronghorns Flown to Arizona to Breed
  
• Thawing Siberian Peat Bogs Could Release Climate Warming CO2
  

U.S., Canada, Mexico Agree to Jointly Eradicate Mad Cow

The statement, issued at the conclusion of the first joint meeting of the three countries' top agriculture officials, said maintaining consumer confidence in beef is "fundamental" to the management of the disease.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman hosted Canadian Agriculture Minister Bob Speller, and Mexican Secretary of Agriculture Javier Usabiaga in a discussion of food safety challenges after a case of BSE was identified in the United States in December and a case in Canada identified in May 2003.

The United States closed the U.S. - Canada border last May when the Canadian mad cow was found, and in December Canada and Mexico, along with many other nations, closer their borders to U.S. beef. Resuming North American beef trade was also on the agenda.

The highly integrated nature of the North American beef industry was recognized, and so was the need for a coordinated approach to address both the regulatory and trade aspects of mad cow disease.

Each government agreed at the meeting to appoint a sub-cabinet level agriculture official to coordinate interagency efforts to resume North American trade in beef.

The three officials said they have been working together for months to expand the current dialogue on BSE. Their objective is to update World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) guidelines and "encourage adherence to the science based guidelines and applications for the international trade in safe animal and animal products in the OIE," they stated.

They agreed to the development of global incentives to further the control and eradication of the disease and will focus on, among other things, treating countries fairly and consistently if and when BSE is discovered.

Western Governors to Host North American Energy Summit

Now governor of New Mexico and chairman of the Western Governors' Association (WGA), Richardson and Colorado Governor Bill Owens, WGA vice chairman, Friday announced plans for the summit, which will be held April 14-16 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

"International conflicts, the northeastern blackout, and high natural gas prices make energy one of our nation's biggest challenges," said Richardson, who was energy secretary in the Clinton administration from 1998 to January 2001. "Western governors and our counterparts in Mexico and Canada can play a very big part in addressing North America's energy challenge," he said.

Keynote speakers delegates will include Western governors, Canadian premiers, Mexican governors and Tribal leaders, and U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Owens said, "The time is right for us to have discussions with our counterparts in Canada and Mexico to encourage greater collaboration among all levels of government. Because U.S. energy systems are so integrated with those in Mexico and Canada, it is imperative that our countries work together to meet our common objectives for a robust North American energy system."

The governors said electricity blackouts in the Eastern United States and Canada in 2003, energy shortages and high electricity prices in the West earlier this decade, rapidly escalating natural gas prices, and growing petroleum imports all point to the need for continental energy cooperation.

"The Energy Summit will result in action steps that strengthen our economic ties, increase the use of renewable energy, and protect our electric grid and hydrocarbon energy sources," said Richardson. "We must provide energy for North America while protecting our national security and environment for the long term."

Meeting attendees will participate in breakout sessions to develop recommendations and action items. Workshops will focus on ensuring an efficient and reliable electricity system in the North American West, financing infrastructure development and new technologies, attracting capital, risk management and cross-border cooperation.

Developing renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency, and seeking cooperative action on laws and policies across state, tribal and international borders will be workshop topics.

Other workshops will be held on guiding the future of oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear energy clean technologies, supply and demand, emission and waste strategies, carbon sequestration, coal gasification and transportation.

An associated North American Energy Summit Exposition has set a criterion for displays - they should demonstrate an approach, technology or system that will help meet the energy needs of North America in the 21st century in an environmentally responsible manner. "We are not promoting firms or organizations, rather we are promoting new ideas," organizers said.

An agenda for the summit and registration information are available online at: http://www.westgov.org.

Missouri River Water Fight Could Go Back to Court

Three federally listed endangered species inhabit the Missouri River - the pallid sturgeon, the least tern, and the piping plover. But in the past, the Corps has regulated flows on the Missouri to benefit barge navigation.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Acting Secretary of the Army Les Brownlee dated January 14, nine conservation groups say that they are prepared to go back to court in 60 days to get more water flowing down the Missouri River.

After reviewing the amended opinion, conservationists say it would lead to continued decline of the Missouri's native fish and wildlife, does not pass muster as a matter of law, and is likely to prolong the dispute over management of the river rather than resolving it.

"The cover of the cookbook says compromise, but following the recipe leads to more conflict," said attorney David Hayes with the law firm of Latham & Watkins, who represents most of the conservation groups in the litigation. "Without explicit standards for determining river flows each year, there is no end in sight to the crossfire of lawsuits up and down the river."

Last summer, a federal judge ruled that the Army Corps was obligated to restore more natural flows to the Missouri River below Gavins Point Dam in accordance with the Biological Opinion issued in 2000.

The Fish and Wildlife Service amended that document in December 2003 to include two ways that the Army Corps get around allowing more water to flow. First, the Service said that the Corps might make "demonstrat(ion) (of) tangible impacts to other project purposes," to avoid restoring more natural flows.

The conservationists say this provision does not satisfy the legal and scientific requirements of the Endangered Species Act, and could invite further lawsuits challenging the Army Corps' definition of "tangible" and its choice of which purposes to protect.

The Army Corps also might attempt to use language in the amended opinion that appears to invite the Corps to create 1,200 acres of shallow water habitat in the river floodplain and then increase summer flows to "to take advantage of that habitat and more fully meet project purposes."

This provision invites further litigation by failing to provide benchmarks for evaluating the quality of this habitat and whether it warrants flow modifications, the conservationists say.

"After nearly 15 years of delay, it's time that the Corps sets about modernizing management of the Missouri River," said Rick Duncan with Faegre & Benson, Minneapolis attorney for the conservation groups.

The 2003 amendments to the Biological Opinion were prepared by a newly convened team of scientists. They confirmed that the Army Corps dam operations were driving the pallid sturgeon towards extinction, but reversed that finding for the least tern and the piping plover.

The team concluded that this reversal justifies scaling back the recommended modifications in the operations of the dam system.

"We continue to be uncomfortable with a document of such enormous import that was pulled together so hastily," said John Kostyack with the National Wildlife Federation. "The Bush administration owes it to the Missouri River basin to submit the amended document for review by a panel of independent experts immediately."

Conservationists note that as recently as April 2003, state agencies informed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they were not aware of new biological information that would warrant revising the 2000 opinion.

"Economic revitalization and ecological restoration go hand-in- hand along the Missouri River, the Army Corps' stubborn refusal to enter the 21st century is inexplicable," said Paul Hansen, executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America The nine covervation groups are: American Rivers, Environmental Defense, the Iszaak Walton League, the National Wildlife Federation, and the state Wildlife Federations of Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

EPA Takes Part of Del Monte Pineapple Site off Superfund List

The decision to remove part of the site from the Superfund list was made after a public comment period that ended December 1, 2003 during which the EPA received two comment letters in favor of the partial deletion.

Del Monte began growing pineapple on the central Oahu plantation in the 1940s. The Del Monte site consists of the Kunia and Poamoho sections. The Kunia section is south of Wheeler Air Field and Schofield Army Barracks, a separate site removed from the federal Superfund list in 2000. The Poamoho section is north of these facilities.

The main contaminants of concern are the pesticides ethylene dibromide, dibromo-chloropropane, dichloropropane, used from the early 1940s until 1983 to control nematodes that infest the pineapple root, and the solvent trichloropropane.

A 1977 ethylene dibromide spill at the facility prompted local officials to disconnect the nearby Kunia Well after detecting contamination above safe drinking water levels in the well in 1980. Since groundwater flows south, contamination from the Kunia spill does not affect the Poamoho section.

Del Monte Fresh Produce has agreed to investigate contamination throughout the site, including a former fumigant drum burial site, a closed underground storage tank site, a former fumigant mixing area, and a rag disposal area in the Poamoho section.

”We are pleased to announce that we found contamination levels far below our stringent, health based guidelines,” said Keith Takata, the EPA’s director for the Superfund program in the Pacific Southwest region. “As a result, EPA and the Hawaii Department of Health have concluded that no cleanup is necessary for the Poamoho section of the site.”

The EPA will now focus its efforts on cleaning up soil and groundwater contamination on the Kunia section of the site.

On April 7, 1977, there was an accidental spill of approximately 495 gallons of ethylene dibromide within approximately 60 feet of the Kunia Well, which provided drinking water to about 700 people.

When the contamination was discovered, the University of Hawaii (UH) began studying possible health effects among the people exposed to high levels of ethylene dibromide and dibromo-chloropropane in their drinking water.

That study, "Health Assessment of a Community with Pesticide Contaminated Drinking Water," published by the Hawaii Health Department, found "those who had been exposed to the contaminated drinking water had significantly higher rates of benign, unspecified or malignant neoplasms."

The study found there was a 400 to 800 percent increase in the average annual incidence of cancer among Kunia residents after the spill, but still the study concluded, "The incidence of cancer during the four years after the pesticide spill in 1977 was not significantly greater in residents and employees of Kunia who were exposed to the pesticide contaminated water than in residents of Poamoho who were not so exposed or to the state population as a whole." The study's recommendation for a 10 year followup was not adopted.

A 1994 study by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), conducted in association with listing of the Del Monte Plantation as a Superfund site, said adverse health impacts to the public from the water contamination were not likely.

But residents of Village Park, a community of about 1,800 homes about five miles downhill from the Kunia well, say they have noticed a high incidence of learning disabilities in children, miscarriages, and infertility, among other problems, since the 1997 spill.

ATSDR official Sven Rodenbeck dismissed their concerns, noting that ethylene dibromide and dibromo-chloropropane "are not associated with learning disabilities or birth defects."

After discovery of the contamination in the Kunia Well, Del Monte initiated some cleanup at the site, which included the removal of 18,000 tons of contaminated soil, installing three shallow groundwater extraction wells in the area of the spill and periodically pumping the Kunia Well.

Iowans Not Warned About Mercury in Fish

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) expanded health warnings about the toxic effects of eating fish in a draft advisory set to be finalized this year.

States bordering Iowa using an approved EPA threshold - Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota - have all issued statewide advisories for mercury in locally caught fish, including fish caught in the Mississippi River. Minnesota and Wisconsin have included warnings in their advisories about mercury in canned tuna.

“Surrounding states have issued mercury advisories warning women of childbearing years and anglers about fish caught from waters shared with Iowa, like the Mississippi River, yet Iowa has done nothing, said Roy Overton, Izaak Walton League of Iowa. "The result - local Iowa anglers and women remain in the dark about the hazards of eating too much locally sport-caught fish and commercially sold fish with elevated mercury levels."

Exposure to mercury occurs from breathing contaminated air, ingesting contaminated water and food, and having dental and medical treatments, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Mercury, at high levels, may damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus.

Mercury advisories have been issued by 45 out of 50 states because of health threatening levels of mercury detected in fish. Iowa is one of five which has not issued such an advisory.

Iowa currently uses a Food and Drug Administration level which was set decades ago to protect consumers who eat only store bought fish from purchasing unsafe fish.

“The FDA limit was set long ago to protect a person from the buying and eating commercially sold fish with unhealthy levels of mercury, not the sport angler or high fish diet consumer,” said Eric Uram, regional representative of the Sierra Club’s Midwest Office.

“More current research, reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences, shows more people exposed at lower levels are threatened," said Uram. "FDA is rethinking their warnings, Iowa must as well.”

While Iowa lags behind the national mercury warnings issued by the FDA, there are critics of the national warning who say it is not strong enough.

On December 22, 2003 the Environmental Working Group filed a legal challenge to block the FDA from issuing its proposed health advisory for mercury in seafood. The organization says the guidance is too vague and could actually cause an increase in the number of women of childbearing age with unsafe levels of the toxic metal in their blood.

The FDA's draft advisory released last December says pregnant women, women of childbearing age and children should limit consumption of all fish to 12 ounces per week and not to eat four species known to have high mercury levels - shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tile fish.

But the advisory does not list which fish species are low risk and high risk for mercury content and offers no specific guidance for children.

And the FDA's proposal does not recommend limiting intake of any other particular species. Rather it calls for people to eat a variety of seafood and avoid eating just one kind of fish or shellfish during a week.

The Environmental Working Group says the draft advisory ignores ample evidence that at risk populations should be advised to limit consumption of particular fish known to be of higher risk of mercury contamination.

Coal fired power plants currently emit some 48 tons of mercury each year and are the nation's largest source of new mercury emissions, contributing some 40 percent of the U.S. total.

There are currently no regulations to limit mercury emissions from coal fired power plants, but the federal government has reined in the two other large sources of the toxic metal - medical and municipal waste incinerators.

Regulations developed under the Clean Air Act have reduced emissions from these two sources by more than 90 percent in less than a decade, and environmentalists believe the law sets an appropriate course for reducing mercury emissions from power plants as well.

Under terms of a court approved settlement agreement with environmental groups, the EPA is required to issue proposed regulations limiting mercury emissions from power plants by December 15, 2003 and issue final rules by December 15, 2004.

New Vessel Will Explore Eastern Coastal Waters

Two million dollars will fund construction and outfitting of the new vessel, with the remaining $1 million to be used for endowment to support coastal research.

"The need for a small, capable vessel for coastal research and instrument testing has been recognized since the founding of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution," said Richard Pittenger, vice president for WHOI Marine Operations. "The new, very capable boat will represent a significant improvement over existing capabilities. I expect it to enable and energize researchers and educators alike."

Construction of the new coastal vessel began in April 2003, and delivery is expected in March 2004. It expected to provide efficient and quick access to coastal waters including Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket sounds and Massachusetts Bay.

"Support for access to the sea is a high priority within the Institution," said WHOI President and Director Robert Gagosian in announcing the gift. "Our scientists, engineers and students need capable research vessels to transport them into the ocean to conduct research, whether it be the coastal zone or the deep sea."

Designed by Roger Long Marine Architecture, Inc. of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, the R/V Tioga will offer researchers a cruising speed of 20 knots. It can operate within a narrow weather window, as little as four hours, for distances up to 350 miles, which would enable it to reach New York harbor and the Gulf of Maine, where institution staff are conducting research projects.

Tioga will provide diver support, it will handle complex instrument arrays and coastal moorings, and its versatile fantail and booms will enable scientists and engineers to tow new instrument systems.

Among the standard instrumentation planned for the vessel are a flow-through water sampling system, a full suite of meteorological measurement systems, an acoustic doppler current profiler and conductivity/temperature/density with winch for physical oceanographic measurements, and clean power.

Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, Woods Hole is a private, independent marine research and engineering, and education organization located in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean's role in the changing global environment.

Endangered Mexican Pronghorns Flown to Arizona to Breed

Part of a cooperative captive breeding project with wildlife authorities on both sides of the border, the animals will be placed in a large, predator proof natural enclosure on the Cabeza Prieta Refuge where they are expected to breed. Their offspring will be released into suitable habitat in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico in four to six years to boost the dwindling pronghorn population.

The Sonoran pronghorn is now one of the most endangered mammals in the world. Its population has declined in the last century due to habitat loss, unregulated hunting in the early 1900s, and natural causes.

In the spring of 2003, surveys showed the U.S. population of Sonoran pronghorn had dropped to only 21 animals following a series of unusually dry years in which few fawns were born and fewer survived.

This capture is considered essential to the survival of the Sonoran pronghorn. Bruce Taubert, an assistant director with the Arizona Game and Fish Department says that without the introduction of new pronghorns into the U.S. population, those remaining will suffer from the negative effects of inbreeding, increased predation and drought.

“Without intervention, Sonoran pronghorn would most assuredly become extirpated in Arizona. This across the border effort is aimed at bolstering pronghorn numbers so future generations on both sides of the border can enjoy these amazing desert speedsters,” says Taubert.

The Sonoran pronghorn was listed as endangered in 1967 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act. The Sonoran pronghorn population in Mexico, although larger than that in the U.S. is still endangered.

This project is based in part on a successful captive breeding program developed by Mexican biologists to help the related and also endangered peninsular pronghorn in Baja California.

Arizona State Veterinarian Dr. Richard Willer’s knowledge of the livestock disease incidence in northern Sonora, Mexico was instrumental in designing an import protocol, while avoiding undue risk to the pronghorn’s safety.

The captive breeding program is a cooperative effort between the United States and Mexican governments, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Arizona Department of Agriculture, other partnering agencies and organizations and many volunteers.

All the agencies and individuals in the project have worked smoothly together. “This demonstrates that agriculture and fish and wildlife agencies can work together for the benefit of the animal, despite our rather disparate missions,” says Willer.

Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge wildlife biologist and Sonoran Pronghorn Recovery Team Coordinator Dr. John Morgart and biologists with the Arizona Game and Fish Department are excited about the prospects for success in the recovery effort. “This is a highly significant action toward the continuing welfare of the species,” said Morgart.

Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1939 to help protect dwindling populations of desert bighorn sheep. Today Refuge management focuses on the Sonoran Desert ecosystem and its wildlife.

Thawing Siberian Peat Bogs Could Release Climate Warming CO2

A study by a team of U.S. and Russian scientists published in the January 16 edition of the journal "Science" warns that the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane are present in enormous amounts in the Siberian bogs, but have not yet been accounted for in computer models of future climate change.

Laurence Smith, an associate professor at the University of California-Los Angeles and a primary author on the paper, said, "There are natural sources of greenhouse gases out there that are potentially enormous that we need to know about."

The bogs cover an area of roughly 603,000 square kilometers (233,000 square miles). For between 11,500 and 9,000 years, the researchers say, they have absorbed and held vast amounts of carbon dioxide, while releasing large amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

"Up until now, the bogs have been more or less a sink for CO2, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere," said Smith. "In an extreme scenario, not only would they stop taking up CO2, they would release a lot of the carbon they have taken up for centuries."

Smith's work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.

The U.S. and Russian teams spent three seasons in the Siberian Arctic, drilling several meters down into the sphagnum moss to produce the peat samples for analysis.

Smith acknowledged that the team searched their peat samples for evidence that such a drastic release of gas occurred in the past, with inconclusive results. But, he said, as other research into Earth's ancient climate yields evidence of earlier changes, accounting for unknowns such as the carbon and methane balance in the Siberian bogs becomes more important.

"It emphasizes a point that has been emerging over the past few years - the idea that the climate system is highly unpredictable and full of thresholds that can trigger greenhouse gas sources and sinks to abruptly switch on and off," he said. "The more of them we can identify, the more accurately we can model and anticipate changes in the future."

The bottom line, Smith said, is that, "Siberian peat lands may be a bigger player in climate change than we knew before."