• Rhodia Phosphorus Crimes Draw Largest Montana Fine
  
• Michigan Governor Acts to Protect Great Lakes Water Quality
  
• Inspectors Check Clogged Pipes at Kewaunee Nuclear Plant
  
• Seabird Avoidance Gear Now Required on Alaska Longliners
  
• NASA Satellites Monitor 100 Lakes and Reservoirs
  
• Maryland Battles the Pine Shoot Beetle
  
• Endangered Butterfly Needs Blue Violets for Recovery
  
• No Sex Please, We're Bdelloids
  

Rhodia Phosphorus Crimes Draw Largest Montana Fine

Rhodia Inc. pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal district court in Missoula, Montana to two felonies, for violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The violations took place at Rhodia’s elemental phosphorus manufacturing plant in Silver Bow County, Montana.

Under a plea agreement that is subject to court approval, Rhodia will be required to pay $18 million in criminal fines and restitution. Rhodia will also be required to clean up the site by order of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Silver Bow Plant previously manufactured elemental phosphorus, from at least 1986 until 1996. Elemental phosphorus was used by other manufacturers to produce fertilizer, pesticides and food grade phosphoric acid.

Elemental phosphorus waste is known as a hazardous waste under RCRA, because it can spontaneously ignite when exposed to air, posing a serious threat to the environment and public health. In 1996, the Silver Bow Plant was mothballed, and it was closed in 1997.

Rhodia admitted that from January 1999 until August 2000, after the Silver Bow Plant was closed, it illegally stored elemental phosphorus sludge at the site in a large concrete tank.

Rhodia also admitted that it illegally stored carbon brick and precipitator dust contaminated with elemental phosphorus waste that had been discarded from a furnace at the site.

The illegal activity was discovered in May 2000, when the EPA and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality executed a search warrant at the Silver Bow Plant.

Rhodia has agreed to pay $18 million. Of that, $16.2 million will be paid as a criminal fine, and $1.8 million will be paid as restitution.

The plea agreement also recommends that Rhodia be subject to five years’ probation and that the period of probation be extended should remediation at the Silver Bow Plant take longer than five years.

Sentencing for Rhodia has been scheduled by the court for April 29, 2004. J.P. Suarez, outgoing EPA assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, said, “Besides getting a hazardous site cleaned up, the substantial fine for Rhodia will strongly discourage would-be violators from walking away from hazardous waste sites.”

Present in 150 countries with 114 production units and 38 research centers, Rhodia is a global manufacturer of specialty chemicals and a producer of chemical grade phosphates. In North America, Rhodia has 11 production sites and three research centers, and employs 3,940 people.

On its website, the company describes itself as "a committed contributor to sustainable development."

Michigan Governor Acts to Protect Great Lakes Water Quality

The law would subject all significant water withdrawals from the Great Lakes to review by the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to ensure that Michigan’s water resources are not impaired or compromised.

Michigan touches on four of the five Great Lakes - Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Superior, and Lake Erie.

In addition to the proposed Water Legacy Act that will be delivered to state lawmakers in February, Granholm signed an executive directive Tuesday that prohibits state agencies from approving the open water disposal of contaminated dredge materials in Michigan waters.

"The Great Lakes fuel our economy, color our character, and literally define the shape of our state," Granholm said in her message. "They are our most vital resources which makes their preservation and protection all too important to approach haphazardly."

She announced a second executive directive to be signed later this month that asks the DEQ to protect critical isolated wetlands on state land from harm.

In addition, the governor will ask the Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox to join a number of environmental and conservation groups in a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to compel them to regulate ballast water discharges. Invasive species such as destructive zebra mussels have been introduced into the Great Lakes by ships from other parts of the world dumping ballast water.

Granholm said she will ask state lawmakers to live up to a 2004 budget agreement by approving user fees to fund the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, a critical component in monitoring what goes into Michigan's water.

Finally, the Granholm administration will ask the Bush administration to fund the first installment of a multi-year Great Lakes restoration effort.

"Our waters may be more threatened today than they have ever been. We must begin to live up to the goals set forth in the 1985 Great Lakes Charter where we agreed to manage our water withdrawals," Granholm said. "We need a fair and balanced approach to water withdrawal that will allow us to protect our water resources while also providing a predictable regulatory climate under which businesses and communities can thrive."

DEQ Director Steven Chester agreed that water protection is an urgent issue for the state. "Now is the time to be bold in protecting our most precious resource – water," said Chester. "This comprehensive plan will provide us with the regulatory framework essential to preserving the Great Lakes and Michigan’s lakes and streams."

"We are at a crossroads in determining the future of the Great Lakes," said Granholm. "We can choose to take action and ensure for future generations crystal blue water, rainbow trout, clear babbling brooks, and green productive fields, or we can choose to wait for another state or country to determine the future of our Great Lakes. I choose to act and take the future into our own hands."

Inspectors Check Clogged Pipes at Kewaunee Nuclear Plant

Although no emergency was declared, the plant was shut down on January 16, when routine testing by plant staff uncovered that the heat exchangers used to cool the oil that lubricates the safety injection system pumps were partially clogged by silt and lake weed from Lake Michigan. Seventeen of 20 tubes were found to be blocked.

The safety injection system provides emergency cooling at the plant. This problem could prevent effective cooling of the reactor in certain accident conditions, the commission said.

The NRC inspection team includes a senior inspector from another plant in Region III and a senior inspector from the Region III office in Lisle, Illinois. The team will examine the sequence of events that led to the clogging, and evaluate the immediate and long-term corrective actions taken by the plant.

Managed by Nuclear Management Company, the 30 year old Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant is located along Lake Michigan in the town of Carlton, nine miles south of Kewaunee, and about 35 miles southeast of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

About 15 percent of electricity produced by Wisconsin Public Service Corporation (WPSC) comes from the Kewaunee Nuclear Plant.

On November 7, 2003, WPSC and Wisconsin Power and Light, a subsidiary of Alliant Energy Corporation, announced an agreement to sell the Kewaunee plant to Dominion Resources, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia.

WPSC explains that it does not have enough "experience and focus" to deal with "increased regulatory requirements of operating a nuclear plant and the complications that arise as a nuclear plant ages," and so decided to sell Kewaunee to the larger, more experienced Dominion Resources, which operates several generating units across the country.

After the sale is completed, the two Wisconsin companies will buy the power generated from Kewaunee through 2013, when the current operating license for Kewaunee expires.

The report of the Kewaunee inspection team will be publicly available when it is issued about 30 days after the close of the special inspection. The report will be posted at the NRC’s electronic reading room at: http://nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html under the docket number 05000305.

Seabird Avoidance Gear Now Required on Alaska Longliners

The rule applies to vessel operators in the hook-and-line groundfish fisheries of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands management area and Gulf of Alaska and in the Pacific halibut fishery in waters off Alaska.

This action is intended to avoid interactions with the endangered short-tailed albatross and the threatened Steller's eider, both protected under the federal Endangered Species Act, according to James Balsiger, who administers the Alaska Region of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Fish boat operators must also use a line or lines designed to deter seabirds from taking baited hooks, and they must obey regulations on discharge of fish waste, including removal of hooks from any offal that is discharged.

A special type line to scare the birds away must be used, and while vessel operators may set their lines at night, night-setting is no substitute for using the seabird avoidance gear.

The new regulations require that every reasonable effort be made to ensure that birds brought on board alive are released alive. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service says that live birds should be released on site if they can stand and walk using both feet, can flap both wings and there is no apparent wing droop, are alert and active, are not bleeding freely, wing and tail feathers have not been lost and are in good condition, and if water beads up on the bird's feathers, showing it is waterproof.

If short-tailed albatrosses and Steller's eiders do not meet all of these criteria, vessel operators must consider them distressed, disabled, or dead and report them as to the Anchorage Fish and Wildlife Field Office or other bird rescue organizations soon as possible.

Live birds are to be kept quiet, fed and watered, if possible and shipped door to door to the rescue organization in a cat or small dog carrier in a manner that is least likely to further injure or stress them. Some airlines will carry the birds for free, as a courtesy, often in the crew's compartment. The Anchorage Fish and Wildlife Field Office covers expenses. Even dead birds are to be shipped back to Anchorage.

Fish boat operators must comply with a new reporting requirement too. They must have a written, current Seabird Avoidance Plan onboard the vessel to ensure that vessel crews using longline gear are aware of the need to prevent the incidental mortality of seabirds and that each vessel has an effective plan for using the required seabird avoidance measures.

This Seabird Avoidance Plan form is available online at: http://www.fakr.noaa.gov/protectedresources/seabirds/torilines/form.pdf

The new regulations are effective February 12, 2004.

NASA Satellites Monitor 100 Lakes and Reservoirs

These water level measurements then are employed by analysts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) to develop their assessments of drought duration, the amounts of water available for irrigated farmland in arid regions and, as a result, how much of a crop any particular region is able to produce.

These analyses are fed in turn to the officials who make decisions affecting U.S. agriculture, trade policy, and food aid.

"The partnership between NASA and FAS is an example of how we extend the benefits of Earth science missions to meet the needs of our operational partners," said Ed Sheffner of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise.

NASA and the University of Maryland are providing the Foreign Agricultural Service with observations and data products from instruments on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites and from the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellites.

NASA satellites collect data twice daily, Terra in the morning and Aqua in the afternoon. NASA's Rapid Response System processes and delivers observations to the Foreign Agricultural Service usually less than four hours after it is collected.

NASA data products allow FAS analysts to distinguish between different crops such as wheat and rice and permit them to measure other features like surface temperature and snow cover.

The TRMM satellite provides near real-time observations about precipitation for mid-latitudes. Rainfall has a large impact on both rain-fed and irrigated crops. The tropical rainfall data helps analysts gauge planting and growing conditions and predict the size of harvests with greater reliability.

Frequent satellite observations help analysts assess how natural disasters such as fires, volcanic eruptions, floods, storms, and extreme temperatures, affect crops.

Scientists at the University of Maryland are creating an archive and an interface that enables analysts to compare current and historical conditions. Analysts can gauge the health of agriculture by comparing recent and historic data, information that can be important to international food aid organizations.

For information about FAS satellite data on the Internet, visit: http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer

Maryland Battles the Pine Shoot Beetle

The pine shoot beetle, Tomicus piniperda, is a potentially severe pest of pine trees in North America that could hurt production and trade of pine nursery stock, greenery, and pine logs in areas where it is detected. Maryland's multi-million dollar Christmas tree industry is at risk.

“During the winter months evergreen trees such as pines become more important and visible to Marylanders, but the pine shoot beetle remains largely unseen,” said Robert Trumbule, the entomologist with the Maryland Department of Agriculture responsible for coordinating the pine shoot beetle management program.

“It is our job to look for the beetle and to work with the nursery, logging and Christmas tree industries, to make sure that trees produced in Maryland are free of the pest.

The pine shoot beetle is a European species that was inadvertently introduced into the Great Lakes Region and discovered in 1992. Since then, this pest has been found in 12 states, most at Christmas tree farms and pine tree nurseries.

The beetle’s detection has resulted in a federal domestic quarantine to regulate the movement of pine nursery stock, cut pine Christmas trees, greenery, and pine logs from areas where it is established.

Before regulated products can be shipped to areas free of pine shoot beetle, tree growing sites must be surveyed and found free of the insect. Maryland Department of Agriculture surveys first detected the pine shoot beetle in Maryland in 1995. The insect pest has since been found in Garrett, Allegany, Washington, Frederick, and Montgomery counties, all in western Maryland.

Adult pine shoot beetles spend the winter in the thick bark at the base of living pine trees. In late winter to early spring, beetles fly to pine stumps, logs or weakened trees where they bore through the bark and lay eggs. By early summer, the new generation of adults emerges and flies to the shoots of healthy pines.

Beetles bore into and hollow out the centers of pine tree shoots. Infested shoots become discolored, die, and often hang from the branch ends of infested trees for several months.

The beetle prefers Scotch pine but will feed on most species of pine that have needles arranged in clusters of two and three. White pines are not attacked, and the beetles will not infest spruces and firs.

Trapping and/or visual inspections are conducted at all nurseries and tree farms that request certification of Christmas trees and pine products within the quarantine area, and at pine production plantations and log marshalling yards throughout the state.

Endangered Butterfly Needs Blue Violets for Recovery

The Service issued a draft recovery plan that outlines ways to save the little known, federally endangered Behren’s silverspot butterfly, Speyeria zerene behrensii, now found only at Point Arena, California.

The Behren’s silverspot is a coastal subspecies of the Zerene silverspot butterfly and is a member of the brushfoot family.

The Zerene silverspot species is comprised of six subspecies that are found in Washington, Oregon and California. Three of the Zerene subspecies, the Behren’s, Myrtle’s and Oregon silverspot butterflies are federally protected.

The primary threat to these closely related butterflies is development or conversion into farmland of the butterfly’s coastal prairie habitat, and the subsequent disappearance of early blue violets.

All of the federally protected Zerene subspecies rely on violets as larval host plants. Fire suppression, vegetation succession, and encroachment of non-native vegetation also account for major habitat changes in the Behren’s silverspot butterfly’s range.

The Behren’s silverspot butterfly was formerly known from six locations in northern California, but only one metapopulation is believed to remain at Point Arena. Little is known about its status or population trends because few historical records exist that mention the butterfly.

The draft recovery plan recommends a monitoring program with repeated surveys to establish metapopulation and subspecies trend baselines.

The draft plan outlines specific recovery actions that would allow for the reclassification of the Behren’s silverspot butterfly from endangered to threatened status under the Endangered Species Act in about 20 years, and possibly delisting by 2034.

Those actions include: establishing three metapopulations in Mendocino County and one in Sonoma County within its historic range; protecting the four sites in perpetuity; maintaining a minimum of 500 adults at any single recovery site; and securing adequate funding to put the plan into action.

The draft plan describes additional actions needed to recover Behren’s silverspot butterfly, such as actively managing existing habitat, further determining the subspecies’ ecological needs, preventing inbreeding, and preventing intentional and unintentional mortality.

The total recovery cost for the butterfly over the next 30 years is expected to be more than $10 million.

The goal of the Endangered Species Act is to recover listed species to the point where they are secure, self-sustaining members of their ecosystems and no longer need federal protection.

A recovery plan is a blueprint providing guidance for actions by federal, state and other public agencies and private interests that will lead to the recovery and delisting of a species. Recovery plans are only advisory. They do not obligate the expenditure of funds or require implementation of actions.

The Behren’s silverspot butterfly draft recovery plan is available at http://pacific.fws.gov/ecoservices/endangered/recovery/default.htm. Public comment on the draft plan ends on March 22, 2004.

No Sex Please, We're Bdelloids

While almost all multicellular organisms reproduce sexually, but this form of reproduction is less efficient than asexual reproduction, or mitosis, whereby females make clones of themselves.

The bdelloid rotifer, a microscopic animal found throughout the world in almost all aquatic habitats, appears to have given up sex 50 million years ago, yet the organism has evolved into 370 described species.

Although asexual organisms can enjoy short term success against their sexual ancestors, they are rarely found as higher-order taxa, implying that they cannot survive in evolutionary time.

To confirm that these tiny animals reproduce without sexual interaction, biologists at the Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) studied the

In a paper to be published in next week's "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," MBL scientist Jessica Mark Welch and her colleagues David Mark Welch and Matthew Meselson provide the strongest evidence to date that a higher-ranking taxon has evolved without sexual reproduction.

"Sex and genetic recombination are obviously tremendously important for life," says Jessica Mark Welch, "but we don't understand why they are so important. When we do eventually understand, it could have practical consequences we can't yet imagine."

The researchers previously had demonstrated that bdelloid genomes contain two or more divergent gene copies, indicating long-term asexual reproduction, but they had not been able to detect nearly identical gene pairs, as might result from inbreeding or other rare forms of sexual reproduction.

To overcome this methodical shortcoming and demonstrate that bdelloids are, in fact, completely asexual, Mark Welch and her colleagues analyzed the genome of the bdelloid species, Philodina roseola.

Using a method called fluorescent in situ hybridization, they analyzed the genome, looking for chromosome partners.

Identification of chromosome partners would be an indication of sexual reproduction, as each member of the chromosome pair is derived from a different parent.

The researchers identified four copies of a target P. roseola marker gene, however each gene was on a separate chromosome and all were different from each other.

These results, consistent with asexual reproduction, eliminate the possibility that bdelloids reproduce sexually and thus confirm that the organism has evolved without sexual reproduction or genetic exchange for tens of millions of years.

Mark Welch and her colleagues will continue to study bdelloids to better understand how these microscopic animals have evolved without sexual reproduction and escaped extinction.

"We can now use belloid rotifers to test the theories about why sex is important," says Mark Welch. "Any good theory will now have to account for why the bdelloids are an exception."

Founded in 1888, the independent, nonprofit Marine Biological Laboratory is the oldest private marine laboratory in the Western Hemisphere.