• Governors Create Council to Improve Disaster Response
  
• Mirant Potomac River Ordered to Meet Clean Air Standards
  
• Consumers Union Publishes New Canned Tuna Warning
  
• Los Angeles Seeks Permit to Inject Biosolid Waste Underground
  
• University of Hawaii Will Assign Taro Patents to Native Hawaiians
  
• Costco Fined $75,000 for Not Closing Hawaii Cesspools
  
• EPA Exempts Oil and Gas Fields From Stormwater Permitting
  

Governors Create Council to Improve Disaster Response

The council is convened by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.

"The nation's state homeland security advisors are charged with the critical mission of protecting the residents of their state 365 days a year. These men and women are on the front lines every day and have a wealth of expertise and knowledge that should be part of any national dialogue about America's security," said National Governors Association (NGA) Chairman Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Republican.

"This council is a unique opportunity for states to have a unified voice in the ongoing dialogue about how best to prevent and address homeland security and disaster concerns," Huckabee said.

As state homeland security organizations are relatively new entities, the NGA views the council being a forum for discussion, setting priorities and planning action to combat domestic threats at all levels of government.

The council was created to address needs identified in the second annual NGA Center survey of state and territorial homeland security directors. The survey responses, compiled in an April 2006 issue brief, detailed the challenges states face related to terrorism, natural disasters and developing threats such as pandemic influenza.

The council is charged with improving cross-state and regional communications; assisting communications between state and federal agencies; identifying and setting priorities; developing a unified state and territorial voice to inform governors of the impacts of federal homeland security legislation, regulations and policies on the states; and sharing ideas and best practices, identifying emerging issues and reviewing and analyzing the impact of federal homeland security activities.

"Planning and coordination at the local, state and federal levels are the keys to ensuring we are prepared to protect America," said NGA Vice Chair Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat. "Governors learn from their colleagues at NGA meetings and believe the council will be an excellent forum for state homeland security directors to share best practices and collaborate on issues of concern to all states."

The council, an advisory organization to the NGA, will be led by a bipartisan, eight-member executive committee. Four members of the executive committee will be chosen by NGA leadership; the remaining four members will be chosen by the council membership at large.

Members of the executive committee will elect a chair and vice chair whose governors' party affiliation will correspond to those of the chair and vice chair of NGA. The council will meet twice yearly, once in Washington, DC and once in a state, and conduct regular conference calls and host online forums.

Mirant Potomac River Ordered to Meet Clean Air Standards

In December 2005, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued an order to Mirant requiring operation of the Potomac River plant as necessary to prevent the possibility of blackouts in the central DC area.

The EPA requires Mirant to meet federal standards for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM10), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the Potomac River power plant.

The EPA is requiring Mirant, among other things, to use SO2 emission controls, conduct daily modeling runs based on weather conditions, and install and operate six new SO2 monitoring stations in the vicinity where elevated pollutant concentrations have been predicted.

The plant is allowed to operate only where the daily modeling run demonstrates that it will be in compliance with the national ambient air quality standards.

In addition, if at any time the installed SO2 monitors show that the plant is within 80 percent of the federal limits for SO2, Mirant must take measures to reduce its emissions, including the reduction of output, until measured ambient SO2 levels are reduced.

Under the DOE’s order, during periods when one or more of the transmission lines that supplies power to the central DC area is out of service, the plant is required to operate at higher levels to avert the possibility of blackouts.

Considering the possibility of these line-outage situations, EPA’s order requires that the plant take steps to limit the emission of sulfur from each boiler while meeting the emergency demand.

EPA expects the emergency situation identified in DOE’s order should be resolved by June 2007, when PEPCO intends to run additional transmission lines to avoid the need for the Potomac River plant as a backup during power outages.

Last year, air quality modeling revealed concerns about SO2, NO2 and PM10 at Mirant’s Potomac River plant. In response to the urging of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, Mirant shut down the plant on August 24, 2005.

The plant restarted on a limited basis on September 21, 2005, when subsequent air quality modeling indicated that the limited operation of one boiler – instead of all five boilers – did not cause a modeled violation of any national ambient air quality standard.

Consumers Union Publishes New Canned Tuna Warning

That finding raises new concerns about the safety of canned tuna for pregnant women, says the organization, which publishes the warning in the July issue of its "Consumer Reports" magazine.

"We scrutinized the results of FDA tests posted recently on its website and, as expected, found that most cans of light tuna had only a third as much mercury, on average, as white tuna, also known as albacore," Consumers Union says.

But the organization points out that six percent of the light-tuna samples contained at least as much of the metal - in some cases more than twice as much - as the average in albacore.

The organization theorizes that some canned light tuna may contain yellowfin, which tends to have much more mercury than skipjack, the type usually found in cans labeled as light.

The nervous system is very sensitive to all forms of mercury. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances says exposure to high levels of metallic, inorganic, or organic mercury can permanently damage the brain, kidneys, and developing fetus. Effects on brain functioning may result in irritability, shyness, tremors, changes in vision or hearing, and memory problems.

The FDA has not warned consumers about those occasionally higher mercury levels because it believes the levels don't pose any significant threat, according to David Acheson, M.D., the chief medical officer at the agency's Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition. "If you eat a single can of something that's a little higher than the average, it's not going to do any acute harm," Acheson said when Consumers Union asked him about fetal safety.

But Consumer Reports' fish-safety experts note that some cans are much higher in mercury than average. And they say there is enough uncertainty about the safety of even brief exposure of the fetus to such higher mercury levels that a more cautious approach is warranted.

To help guide pregnant women and others who wonder whether tuna and other fish are still safe to eat - and if so, how much - here are CR's answers to 10 crucial questions about mercury in fish. Note that all of the following recommendations for weekly or monthly fish consumption assume that no other mercury-containing seafood is eaten during that time.

The U.S. Tuna Foundation, an industry trade group, issued a statement saying Consumer Reports "has done a great disservice in discouraging canned tuna consumption through inaccurate and incomplete facts."

"The article in Consumer Reports really is a very extreme article," said Dr. Luis Sullivan, MD.

The former secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and president emeritus of the Morehouse School of Medicine is now a consultant for the Tuna Foundation.

"I question the wisdom of that article because it's quite severe. It has "unnamed experts" and it refers to data which is not presented," Sullivan said. "This should be in a scientific discussion or in a scientific publication before coming out with such a drastic recommendation."

Sullivan has testified that canned tuna is an excellent source of protein that has the added benefits of possessing high levels of omega-3 fatty acids that are recognized as having multiple health attributes.

Tuna species that are large and eat other smaller fish have the most mercury in their tissues because the mercury is concentrated the further it moves up the food chain. Other fish are considered to be safer for pregnant women and children. Health experts say that any fish that can fit whole into a frying pan has safe levels of mercury because they are too small to have accumulated very much of the neurotoxin in their flesh.

Los Angeles Seeks Permit to Inject Biosolid Waste Underground

The proposed permit would allow the city, over a five-year period, to drill three wells - one for injection and two to monitor the effectiveness of the project - injecting up to 400 tons of biosolids per day. The proposed biosolids injection system would not affect drinking water supplies.

This proposal is an alternative to the city’s current practice of applying its treatment plant biosolids to agricultural fields in Kern County, California. The city trucks about 500 tons of treated biosolids daily to its farm in Kern County where the material is applied as fertilizer for non-food crops.

Detailed information, including the draft permit and related documents, are available at http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/groundwater/uic-permits.html#la

Copies are also available at the EPA Regional Office and the locations listed below. Public comments are welcomed through July 19, 2006. Please forward comments to USEPA Region 9 Ground Water Office (WTR-9), 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94105, or by email to robin.george@epa.gov.

University of Hawaii Will Assign Taro Patents to Native Hawaiians

HONOLULU, Hawaii, June 8, 2006 (ENS) - The University of Hawaii at Manoa said Wednesday that it will assign three patents related to development of hybrid disease resistant taros to the greater Native Hawaiian community.

The purple root vegetable is made into the Hawaiian staple food, poi.

The patents in question arose from work conducted by a UH faculty member in the 1990s, at the request of Samoan taro growers, to address the near eradication of their taro crops to a leaf blight.

The researcher developed a number of cultivars from crosses of Hawaiian and Palauan taro strains. The Palauan strains were obtained specifically for this purpose with the consent - including proper permitting - of Palauan taro growers and Palauan government officials.

Using traditional breeding techniques, the UH researcher produced three strains that were shown to have increased disease resistance. The patents were granted in 2002.

Native Hawaiian groups object to the manipulation of taro varieties, whether by hybridization or genetic engineering. Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte of Molokai, says nothing in Hawaiian culture is more sacred than the taro. The groups have staged an number of demonstrations protesting the patents.

The Hawaiians object that farmers who wish to grow these patented taro must license them from UH and are prohibited from selling, distributing, breeding or conducting research on them. They must allow UH personnel to enter their property and sample their taro to make sure they are not illegally breeding UH's property.

On May 18, Ritte and other Hawaiian men locked and chained the doors to the UH Board of Regents meeting room and stood before the doorway barring the Regents' way, to gain attention for their cause. After an hour, they unlocked the doors, but their point had been made.

“The University of Hawai‘i has a strong desire to maintain appropriate respect and sensitivity to the indigenous Hawaiian host culture,” said UH Manoa Vice Chancellor for Research Gary Ostrander. “Taro is unique to the Hawaiian people in that it represents the embodiment of their sacred ancestor. As such, it is appropriate to make an exception to our standard policy of holding all patents.”

Discussions are under way within the Hawaiian community on the appropriate entity to receive the patents.

Costco Fined $75,000 for Not Closing Hawaii Cesspools

KONA, Hawaii, June 8, 2006 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached a settlement that requires Costco to install wastewater treatment and pay a fine of $75,000 for failing to close and replace three large capacity cesspools at its Kona facility on the Big Island, the Costco Warehouse in Kona, on Hawaii Island.

A large capacity cesspool is one that discharges untreated sewage from multiple dwellings, or a non-residential location that serves 20 or more people on any day. The regulations, which prohibit large capacity cesspools as of April 2005, do not apply to single-family homes connected to their own individual cesspools.

“Today’s settlement is part of our continuing effort to close large capacity cesspools and protect drinking water sources on the Big Island,” said Alexis Strauss, director for the EPA’s water division for the Pacific Southwest region. “We will continue to encourage all large capacity cesspool owners to meet the requirements by closing large capacity cesspools promptly.”

Costco is ordered to install dual chamber septic tanks with effluent filters.

Costco must also install grease interceptors on their other injection wells that receive food processing wastewater; and monitor wastewater quality before and after treatment for at least six months to determine if treatment is working.

In addition, the company must provide periodic reports to the EPA on wastewater quality and injection well operation and maintenance.

The public has until June 29 to provide comments to the EPA on this settement agreement.

Cesspools discharge raw sewage into the ground, which results in disease-causing pathogens and other contaminants – such as nitrates – polluting groundwater, streams and the ocean.

Cesspools are used more widely in Hawaii than in any other state. Many are owned by county, state, and federal agencies. However, there are numerous other cesspools serving restaurants, hotels, office complexes, and multiple dwellings, such as duplexes, ohana homes, apartments and condominiums.

For more information about the public notice and comment period, go to: http://www.epa.gov/region9/water/drinking/dw-enforcement.html

EPA Exempts Oil and Gas Fields From Stormwater Permitting

WASHINGTON, DC, June 8, 2006 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized revisions to stormwater regulations to clarify that uncontaminated stormwater discharged from oil and gas field activities does not require a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.

Effective June 12, the new rule implements an amendment to the Clean Water Act passed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

This amendment expanded the scope of oil and gas related activities that are exempt from the requirement to obtain an NPDES permit for stormwater discharges to include most stormwater discharges from construction activities associated with oil and gas field operations.

Under this final rule, stormwater discharges from construction activity associated with oil and gas field operations are exempt from NPDES permitting requirements, except in situations when the activity results in the discharge of a hazardous substance or oil in “reportable” quantities or in situations when the discharge of a pollutant other than sediment contributes to a violation of an applicable water quality standard.

The amendment provides that sediment discharged from construction activities at oil and gas sites does not trigger the requirement for NPDES permit coverage.

Until passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the EPA had taken the position that stormwater discharges from oil and gas construction activities were not eligible for the NPDES permit exemption in the Clean Water Act.

In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, however, Congress addressed the issue and specifically included construction activities among the types of oil and gas field operations eligible for the permitting exemption.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 achieved this by adding a new paragraph to the Clean Water Act to redefine the term “oil and gas exploration, production, processing, or treatment operations or transmission facilities” to mean “all field activities or operations associated with exploration, production, processing, or treatment operations or transmission facilities, including activities necessary to prepare a site for drilling and for the movement and placement of drilling equipment, whether or not such field activities or operations may be considered to be construction activities.”

This final rule both codifies this new definition and specifically exempts from NPDES permitting stormwater discharges of sediment from oil and gas construction activities. While the Energy Policy Act amendment does not specifically address sediment, that pollutant naturally falls within the newly created exemption from NPDES permitting.

The new final rule encourages voluntary application of best management practices for oil and gas field construction activities to minimize erosion and control sediment to protect surface water quality during storm events. It also retains the right of states to regulate these activities under other laws and authorities.

EPA says staff will work with government, citizens, and industry to promote the importance of stormwater management at oil and gas sites as it implements its rulemaking activities.

For more information contact Jeff Smith, Water Permits Division, Office of Wastewater Management (4203M), Environmental Protection Agency, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20460; telephone: 202-564-0652; fax: 202-564-6431; smith.jeff@epa.gov..

Information on permitting of stormwater discharges: http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/oilgas.cfm