• Fire Rips Through Canyons Near Las Vegas
  
• Ecosystem Wildfire Risk Assessment Needs Improvement
  
• Orchid Smuggler Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison
  
• New Jersey Funds Low Interest Clean Water Loan Program
  
• National Renewable Energy Lab Breaks Ground on Research Facility
  
• Genomic Testing Casts Light on Flesh–Eating Bacteria
  
• Commerce Department Spends $15 Million on Marine Projects
  
• Enviro Satellite of the Future Moves Data 100 Times Faster
  

Fire Rips Through Canyons Near Las Vegas

Named for the Robber's Roost hiking trail, the fire is burning on Mount Charleston, in a recreational area popular with Las Vegas residents and visitors alike.

The fire has forced the evacuation of four campgrounds - Hilltop Campground, Spring Mountain Youth Camp, Deer Creek Community, and Stimpson Church Camp. About 130 Girl Scouts and 100 youths from the juvenile facility were forced to leave, the first time the Girl Scout camp has been evacuated in its 50 years of operation on the mountain.

Communities in Kyle and Lee canyons have been advised to evacuate, and officials have closed the state roads winding through those canyons. Soon after the fire started, police set up a blockade at Kyle Canyon Road and at first barred residents from entering, even to check on children or pets.

Later Monday afternoon police led a convoy up Kyle canyon, allowing residents to get their pets and a few essential items from their homes.

Most of the residents who were on the mountain when the fire broke out were not forced to leave, but they are encouraged to do so, Las Vegas police spokesman Jose Montoya told reporters.

Some 125 people are working to control the fire with fire engines, air tankers, helicopters, water tenders, and hand crews. There is no firm estimate of when it might be contained.

Ecosystem Wildfire Risk Assessment Needs Improvement

At the request of nine Republican senators, the General Accountability Office (GAO) surveyed 20 wildland fires that burned over 158,000 acres of federal land and had "complex, wide-ranging, and sometimes contradictory, effects on both individual resources, such as trees and streams, and ecosystems," the report states.

For example, the short term effects of the Missionary Ridge fire in Colorado that burned almost 50,000 acres of trees and other vegetation included increased debris and sediment that affected water quality in some areas. Yet in other areas, officials said even dramatic changes to streams would not be detrimental in the long term.

The Forest Service and BLM gather specific information on the environmental effects of individual wildland fires, such as soil erosion. But the agencies do not, gather comprehensive data on the severity of wildland fire effects on broad landscapes and ecosystems, the GAO found.

The agencies recently developed a monitoring framework to gather severity data for fires, but they have not yet implemented it. "These data are needed to monitor the progress of the agencies’ actions to restore and maintain resilient fire-adapted ecosystems, a goal of the National Fire Plan," the GAO said.

The report recommends that the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior, after consulting with the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC), direct the Forest Service and BLM to:

• develop a monitoring plan to implement the agencies’ framework approved in May 2004

• include a pilot program for testing on Forest Service and BLM lands the burn severity mapping and data tool developed by the National Park Service

• develop and issue guidance that formalizes a framework for systematically assessing landscape level risks to ecosystems from wildland fires

• clarify existing guidance on the risks of environmental effects associated with not conducting fuel reduction projects

In response to the GAO report, Mark Rey, undersecretary for natural resources and environment in the Agriculture Department, and Lynn Scarlett, assistant secretary for policy, management and budget in the Interior Department, said their agencies are already doing much of what the GAO recommends.

"The Wildlife Fire Leadership Council has endorsed an accelerated schedule to complete the LANDFIRE project which will set nationally consistent data sets to aid in the selection of fuels treatments. At its May meeting the WFLC approved a nationwide monitoring program," the officials wrote in a June 9 letter to the GAO's Director of Natural Resources and Environment Barry Hill.

But Rey and Scarlett state that they do not agree with the GAO that it is possible to develop a calculation of systematic risks to ecosystems, natural resources and societal values associated with treating or not treating fuels at both project and landscape scales.

The GAO report was provided to the nine requesting senators on June 24 and released to the public on Tuesday.

Read the report online at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d04705.pdf

Orchid Smuggler Sentenced to 21 Months in Prison

Manuel Arias Silva earlier had pleaded guilty to his role in a conspiracy to import into the U.S. protected orchids, including specifically specimens of the genus Phragmipedium, commonly known as Tropical Lady’s Slipper Orchids.

All species of orchids are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Arias Silva admitted selling several shipments of orchids to George Norris between January 1999 and October 2003. Arias Silva allegedly would obtain a CITES permit for the shipment that authorized the export of a certain numbers of artificially propagated specimens of particular species of orchids.

At the alleged instruction of Norris, Arias Silva would then allegedly include in the shipment specimens of species not included on the CITES permit, which he would falsely label as a species listed on the permit.

Arias Silva would then allegedly provide to Norris a code that would provide a means for deciphering the false labels and identify the true species of the orchids. In some instances, Arias Silva allegedly shipped orchids that were collected from the wild rather than artificially propagated.

One shipment in February 2003 allegedly included some 1,145 specimens, of which 490 were of species not authorized for export by the accompanying CITES permit.

The investigation of this case was led by Special Agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, with assistance from the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection Service.

Norris, Arias Silva’s co-conspirator, is scheduled to be sentenced on September 2.

New Jersey Funds Low Interest Clean Water Loan Program

National Renewable Energy Lab Breaks Ground on Research Facility

NREL Director Richard Truly, who hosted the event, said, "We have had a long standing need for more state-of-the-art laboratory space here at NREL, and that's what this innovative facility will provide us. Our emphasis with this facility is squarely on shortening the time it takes to get beneficial technologies into the marketplace."

The new laboratories are designed to allow researchers from different disciplines to interact and share data while they work. The facility will allow individual labs to be combined to form large, open spaces for collaborative research.

The Science & Technology Facility features advanced energy efficiency and green building concepts. The architecture makes use of natural light wherever possible, and is coupled with an automated system that pares electric use by dimming unnecessary supplemental lighting. Heating, cooling and ventilation systems are designed for efficiency.

David Garman, Department of Energy (DOE) acting under secretary of energy and assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, said, "This new facility will extend DOE's and NREL's research capabilities and hasten the day when we reach our goal of providing the kind of clean, affordable energy solutions that can be used by all Americans."

Middle school students from area schools joined the dignitaries to wield shovels that turned the first dirt on the project. The young people are past winners of DOE sponsored science competitions or have participated in NREL education programs.

James Spigarelli, chairman and CEO of Midwest Research Institute, which with Battelle, operates NREL for the Department of Energy, said "It is most fitting that our sons and daughters are helping break new ground for our energy future. They are the ones who will continue what we have started here today."

Genomic Testing Casts Light on Flesh–Eating Bacteria

Now, new research using a dozen different genomic testing procedures has revealed unprecedented detail about the molecular characteristics and virulence of group A streptococcus.

The research was conducted by an international team led by RML scientist James Musser, M.D., Ph.D., at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML) in Hamilton, part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Musser identified previously unknown genetic distinctions in M3 strains of GAS, revealing why only some strains rapidly expand to cause epidemics. All GAS strains can cause serious infections, Dr. Musser says, but the M3 strains are unusually virulent.

Musser and Stephen Beres, Ph.D., his colleague at RML analyzed hundreds of patient cultures obtained over 11 years and worked with a research team from Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada.

"We proposed an extensive collaboration that would mesh the RML GAS genomic analysis information with the Ontario patient samples and epidemiologic information to provide new understanding of these two GAS epidemics," Musser says.

Using the new genetic tools, the team discovered previously unknown genetic shifting and the evolution of new M3 strains, particularly in the peak epidemic years of 1995 and 2000.

For the first time, scientists were able to unravel, on a genome-wide basis, the complex molecular events underpinning the emergence of new epidemic waves of bacterial infection.

The discoveries should help scientists develop better ways to control GAS infection, including vaccine development and new therapies.

GAS infections can range from mild skin infection or strep throat to invasive, life-threatening conditions such as toxic shock syndrome and necrotizing fasciitis, the flesh-eating disease.

The study will appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online sometime this week.

Commerce Department Spends $15 Million on Marine Projects

NOAA awarded $1.39 million to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to support programs to construct screens and fishways in the Idaho Columbia River Basin.

A parallel grant of $1.7 million goes to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to support construction of screens and fishways in the Columbia River Basin in Oregon

The projects provide protection for migrating juvenile salmon through the construction, operation and maintenance of screens on irrigation diversions, and funds the operation and maintenance of fish ladders to allow the passage of adult salmon and steelhead over previously impassable waterfalls or other obstructions to migration.

A $4.68 million grant goes to the University of Mississippi to support undersea research through its National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology (NIUST).

NIUST will use the funding to develop biotechnologies from the sea and engineered technologies for exploring the sea’s harsh and extreme environments with remotely operated vehicles. The goal is to establish a national repository of marine samples for use by the biotechnology research sector and on the research and development of remote sensor and direct sampling technologies for the investigation of the deep sea.

A $2.92 million grant was awarded to the Washington State Department of Ecology to continue administration of its federally approved Coastal Zone Management Program, which covers Washington’s 3,025 mile coastline.

The Washington program balances the demands of industries such as fishing, shellfishing, shipping and tourism, with the need to protect the long-term health of the environment. It provides state programs to conserve coastal habitat, improve coastal water quality and counter coastal erosion, flooding, and the degradation of wetlands, and gives grants to local governments for shoreline planning.

NOAA granted $555,000 to the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources to support the state’s estuarine research reserves. The grant will help the state operate and manage four reserve sites in Curritcuck Banks, Rachel Carson, Masonboro Island and Zekes Island. The funding will support research, education, monitoring and stewardship activities.

A commercial organization won a $3.67 million grant to help market domestic shrimp, consistent with NOAA's status as an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce. Wild American Shrimp, Inc., an organization that assists the domestic shrimp industry, will use the funding to educate the public about the nutritional value, preparation and palatability of domestic shrimp. To provide the consumer with a way to identify the American shrimp, an emblem will be created and advertisements proclaiming their benefits will be purchased in major markets.

Enviro Satellite of the Future Moves Data 100 Times Faster

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials Tuesday said the chipset, developed as the first of its kind for space applications, will be used in the future National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) set to launch in 2009.

“This new chipset has the potential to catapult space based communications and data transfers to a level not seen before,“ said Gregory Withee, assistant administrator for NOAA’s Satellites and Information Service. “Using this chipset technology aboard NPOESS spacecraft, for years to come, will give us reliable data about long term changes in the environment.”

A team of engineers from NOAA, NASA and the Department of Defense began the development phase in February 2001, then contracted with Northrop Grumman to produce the new chipset and enabled it for use in space.

Frederick Ricker, vice president and NPOESS program director for Northrop Grumman Space Technology, said, “This chipset permits plug-and-play networking between sensors and the spacecraft, so it was important that all parties to this network participate fully in the design and test of the chipset hardware and software.”

The National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System will combine existing NOAA and Defense Department polar-orbiting satellite systems under a single national program. Polar-orbiting satellites are key in collecting data on the Earth’s weather and environment, which help scientists develop long range weather and climate forecasts.