• Mexico Reopens Border to Some U.S. Meat Products
  
• Chemical Treaty Ratifications Tied to Insecticide Act Changes
  
• Governors Call for More Endangered Species Act Funding
  
• Endangered Listing for Green Sturgeon Still Possible
  
• Wyoming Citizens to Address Leaking Landfills
  
• Bush Funds Nature Conservancy Broxton Rocks Project
  
• High-Tech Solar Cell Research Commissioned for Pentagon
  
• Tumbleweed Rover Survives Antarctic Test Roll
  

Mexico Reopens Border to Some U.S. Meat Products

The border was closed December 24 after the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) revealed the existence of a Washington state dairy cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly called mad cow disease. More than 40 countries are still banning the import of U.S. beef.

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman has been working to convince Mexico to reopen the beef trade, and she is gratified with the result of her efforts. "I am very pleased that today Secretary Javier Usabiaga of Mexico is announcing that he is reopening the border to U.S. beef products," Veneman said today.

"We have worked closely with the Mexican officials to inform them of all the actions USDA has taken to further strengthen our food safety and animal health systems since the discovery of a BSE positive animal last December. We have provided to Mexican officials extensive information as requested, and have hosted their technical teams to illustrate that our beef is indeed safe."

Mexico now will admit meat of cows younger than 30 months of age, but meats that were impounded at the border during the ban will not be allowed to enter the country.

Head of Mexico's National Service, Javier Trujillo Arriaga, said that the Mexican government's decision is based on risk analysis carried out under the standards established by the World Organization for Animal Health. He said Mexico was satisfied with the protection measures that the United States he had implemented previously to the detection of the ill animal last December, as well as with the biosecurity measures that the U.S. has put in place since then.

Mexico will continue to ban beef from advanced meat recovery, mechanically deboned beef, beef trimmings or ground beef. Until March 15, entry points will be limited to eight rather than the normal 12 points and hours will be restricted to 10 am to 1 pm daily.

American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle praised the announcement, but expressed hope for further trade expansion.

"We are encouraged that the government of Mexico will seek to restore limited imports of U.S. boneless beef products," he said. “However, we believe full trade in all beef products and in live animals from the U.S. should be restored swiftly.”

The Mexican Ministry of Agriculture also announced that a risk analysis for other products besides boxed beef will be initiated.

In January, the USDA tightened its regulations to help prevent high risk nervous system tissues from entering the human food chain. Since BSE is transmitted by feeding nervous system tissue of infected animals to other cattle, the USDA specified as risk materials skull, brain, trigeminal ganglia, eyes, vertebral column, spinal cord and dorsal root ganglia of cattle over 30 months of age and the small intestine of cattle of all ages. These tissues will be prohibited in addition to brain, spinal column, and intestinal tissue which are already banned for human consumption.

These classifications are consistent with the actions taken by Canada after the discovery of BSE in May 2003 in one Alberta cow.

In an interim final rule, the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service has now required federally inspected establishments that slaughter cattle to develop, implement, and maintain procedures to remove, segregate, and dispose of these specified risk materials so that they cannot possibly enter the food chain, Veneman said. State inspected plants must have equivalent procedures in place.

Chemical Treaty Ratifications Tied to Insecticide Act Changes

Governors Call for More Endangered Species Act Funding

A panel of governors at the National Governors Association (NGA) Winter Meeting late last month differed on the effectiveness of the federal Endangered Species Act, but the panelists agreed that the states, federal government, environmentalists and local landowners must cooperate better to improve species recovery.

After the panel discussion, a full plenary of governors at the winter meeting on February 24 approved a policy change for the NGA's position on the Endangered Species Act, saying the intent of legislation should be to "conserve" listed species.

The Endangered Species Act is "crisis-driven," the governors said. They advise that the act needs a system of incentives to encourage state and local governments to develop comprehensive land-use and development plans that balance habitat preservation and environmental concerns with necessary development and economic growth.

The act also needs to focus more clearly on the protection of multiple species and the habitats upon which they depend. ESA should encourage private landowners to engage in habitat conservation activities. It must identify and prevent problems before they become critical and more difficult to manage, the governors said.

Funding for the Endangered Species Act should be enhanced to address the growing list of threatened and endangered species. Significant funding needs to escalate rapidly, as state and federal agencies increasingly assume ESA management activities and embrace ecosystem management strategies as means to protect species and their habitats.

The governors called for "a clear methodology for delisting recovered species." Even when actual recovery has occurred, species frequently are not delisted. "This failure to acknowledge success aggravates public frustrations generated by the cost and inflexible processes of ESA," they said.

The Endangered Species Act process would benefit from providing more meaningful opportunities for states to comment, participate, or take the lead before the federal government makes any number of decisions - ranging from listing through delisting, the governors recommend.

Senator Michael Crapo, an Idaho Republican who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Water, told the governors that one of the act's primary roadblocks is an inherent lack of trust among "competing interests."

While he predicted that rebuilding trust would be "a long hard road," he said it is important to note that all parties agreed on the basic "objective of the act." "We will only be able to achieve reform of ESA by establishing trust," said Crapo.

ESA has been due for reauthorization since 1993, and there has been indication from Capitol Hill that Congress would take up discussion on possible reforms of the bill later this year.

But the panelists, including Crapo, whose subcommittee has jurisdiction over the act, doubted Congress would reform the legislation in any significant manner before the fall elections. "Nothing will move unless we can achieve consensus," he Crapo said. "Right now, there is simply not consensus to move forward on a broad comprehensive bill."

Crapo applauded many of the solutions and innovations that have originated at the state level. "As we continue, states need to have a much more significant role in the process," Crapo told the governors.

Endangered Listing for Green Sturgeon Still Possible

Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must reconsider its January 2003 decision not to list the species.

The Court concluded that Service "arbitrarily and capriciously" failed to consider "whether lost spawning habitats together constitute a major geographical area in which the sturgeon once was viable, but is no longer."

The court opinion cited a memo by a NMFS scientist in support of accepting the petition and conducting a status review which said, "the most alarming condition is the reduction of spawning range of green sturgeon."

Laporte decided that, "this matter must be remanded for further analysis and decision of the issue of whether the green sturgeon are endangered or threatened in a significant portion of its range."

The successful legal challenge was brought by the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Center for Biological Diversity (CBD), and the Oregon Natural Resources Council (ONRC). The plaintiffs were represented by CBD attorney Brent Plater.

"We are gratified by the court's ruling," said Cynthia Elkins of EPIC. "Between four and seven spawning populations of green sturgeon have already been lost forever. How many does it take before the Bush administration will admit there is a problem?"

Green sturgeon are among the largest and longest living species found in freshwater, living up to 70 years, reaching 7.5 feet in length, and weighing up to 350 pounds.

The ancient fish look prehistoric, with a skeleton of cartilage and rows of bony plates for scales. They have snouts like shovels and mouths like vacuum cleaners that are used to siphon shrimp from sandy depths.

Green sturgeons are anadromous - they migrate to the ocean and return to freshwater to spawn.

The federal fisheries agency has defined two remaining "distinct population segments" of the green sturgeon, drawing a north-south boundary at the Eel River in California. It estimates there are only a few hundred to 2,000 individuals in the southern population. Conservationists have sought Endangered Species Act protection for both populations including the population in northern California and southern Oregon.

Laporte noted that that Service acknowledges the loss of spawning populations and habitat in many rivers, including the San Joaquin, Eel, and South Fork Trinity Rivers in California and the Umpqua River in Oregon.

In her ruling Laporte notes that "despite the scientific evidence of the 'alarming reduction in spawning range of the green sturgeon,' in the words of its own scientist, the Service downplayed the threat" and "failed to analyze whether the species was threatened in a significant portion of its range in reaching its listing decision."

"Green sturgeon were among the fish that perished in the large fish kill that occurred in the Klamath River in September 2002 that also resulted in the death of over 33,000 salmon," said Wendell Wood of ONRC. "The precarious status of this magnificent fish makes it imperative to restore the flows to the Klamath, considered to be the center of the world for the green sturgeon."

Water in the Klamath River has been at issue between farmers who need it for irrigation and fishers and conservationists who see fish perishing due to low water flows, especially in recent years of drought.

Wyoming Citizens to Address Leaking Landfills

Nineteen of the state’s 53 operating municipal sanitary landfills are leaking and contaminating groundwater, according to the DEQ. These landfills are all owned by local governments - cities, counties and solid waste disposal districts, and because these local governments have limited resources the needed groundwater cleanups are not proceeding fast enough, the agency says.

Delays in cleaning up these contaminated areas will ultimately increase cleanup costs, which are borne by the public. In addition, as more and more of these landfills become subject to DEQ’s requirements that landfills must be lined, landfill costs will rise.

The agency believes that in many parts of Wyoming it would be more economical for communities to work together and use better designed and safer regional landfills, than to continue to operate smaller individual community landfills.

DEQ intends to develop recommendations for actions that can be taken to speed the pace of cleanups at these leaking landfills, and recommendations for incentives that can be made available through executive and legislative actions to encourage communities to use regional landfills. The agency says it intends to consult with the citizens’ advisory group as it develops those recommendations.

To help conserve landfill space, the advisory group will be asked to consider ways to improve Wyoming’s recycling rate. Recycling in Wyoming is voluntary, and across the state the recycling rate varies between one and five percent, with some communities achieving as much as 10 percent. By comparison, the national average recycling rate is 30 percent.

The DEQ says it will seek the views of a wide range of people who are interested in, and familiar with, solid waste issues.

Bush Funds Nature Conservancy Broxton Rocks Project

"Broxton Rocks has been a priority conservation site for the Nature Conservancy for many years. We are pleased that the President recognizes it as a priority landscape and has proposed funding for its continued protection,” said Tavia McCuean, Nature Conservancy vice president and Georgia Chapter director.

If approved by Congress, the Forest Legacy funding will be used in Georgia towards the acquisition of 3,801 acres adjacent to the Conservancy's Broxton Rocks Preserve near Douglas.

The Georgia Department of National Resources will own the new property and manage it as a wildlife management area accessible to the public. This acquisition will create a vital habitat corridor, which enhances the Conservancy’s efforts to protect the fragile ecosystem of Broxton Rocks, the organization says.

The Forest Legacy Program is a partnership between the U.S. Forest Service, state governments and private landowners that identifies and protects ecologically important forests for conservation. Program objectives are met through land acquisition or the use of conservation easements, which protect working forests while meeting conservation goals.

In fiscal year 2004, the Forest Legacy Program budget funded $1.481 million for the Broxton Rocks project.

"This project would not be possible without the enthusiastic support of several of Georgia's leaders, including Congressman Jack Kingston and Senators Saxby Chambliss and Zell Miller," said McCuean. "They understand the need to protect such an important part of Georgia’s natural heritage, and they have helped to secure vital funding to do so.”

"I'm pleased that President Bush included this funding which will help expand and protect one of Georgia's natural treasures," said Kingston, a Republican. "The sandstone outcrop at Broxton Rocks is truly amazing and something that everyone should see. This new addition will be open for hunting, fishing, hiking, water activities and eco-tourism, while at the same time preserving this valuable resource and protecting endangered animals and plants in the area."

Sculpted over centuries by the waters of Rocky Creek into a myriad of fissures and shallow ravines, the Broxton Rocks shelters globally rare and endemic plants and animals. There are more than 525 species of plants found at the site, 26 of which are rare, the Conservancy says.

The Conservancy's existing 1,534 acre preserve protects a rugged sandstone outcrop that extends for four miles in southeastern Georgia.

The rock system is the largest single extrusion of the Altamaha Grit, a band of subsurface sandstone that underlies about 15,000 square miles of Georgia's Coastal Plain. This preserve is one small piece of a remarkable landscape that covers approximately 35,000 acres in southeast Georgia.

The federally threatened eastern indigo snake and state threatened gopher tortoise are found here as well as over 100 species of birds, which either nest or migrate through this landscape.

The Nature Conservancy now manages this land using prescribed fire to enhance the longleaf pine wiregrass community and the many rare plants and animals that depend upon this habitat.

Nature Conservancy supported projects included in the Bush 2005 budget proposal will protect 385,446 forested acres in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Minnesota, Maine, Montana, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

High-Tech Solar Cell Research Commissioned for Pentagon

To that end, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded a contract in excess of $6 million to Konarka Technologies, Inc. of based in Lowell, for basic research in developing new materials for hybrid photovoltaic cells that convert light to energy at a high rate of efficiency.

Hybrid cells are at the intersection of dye-sensitized cells developed by Dr. Michael Graetzel, and polymer cells developed by Dr. Alan Heeger, a recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

"New materials and their manipulation into new morphologies will be required in order to achieve significantly higher levels of performance. Konarka is heading-up a team that is at the leading edge of photovoltaic technology," Dr. Heeger said.

Konarka will lead a consortium of academic and national laboratories to develop new materials for hybrid photovoltaics. Konarka will manage the contract and will share the award over five years with research and development partners including: Arizona State University; National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL); University of Delaware; University of Massachusetts, Lowell; and U.S. Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts.

"We are certainly pleased that DARPA has recognized Konarka’s leadership and expertise in the development of advanced photovoltaic technologies, and we look forward to offering breakthrough products that will convert light to energy," said Dr. Bill Beckenbaugh, Konarka's chief technology officer.

"The funding to conduct research in new materials for high efficiency hybrid cells will enable Konarka to bring low cost, environment friendly cells to market faster, and that has significance for both military and civilian applications," he said.

"Hybrid photovoltaic cells build on the breakthroughs we have already achieved with dye-sensitized cells and polymer cells. The hybrid cells will incorporate unique forms of polymers and semiconductors in the cells’ active layers," said Dr. Russell Gaudiana, Konarka vice president for research and development.

"This funding will accelerate our development of hybrid cells that turn light into electricity with an estimated efficiency of more than 20 percent, which is a significant improvement over existing cells," Gaudiana said.

"Konarka’s process technology, coupled with our library of photoactive chemistries, places us in a leadership position in next generation photovoltaics," said Daniel Patrick McGahn, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Konarka. "The hybrid cell chemistry is one in our arsenal and represents a path to very high efficiency cells.

In 2005 Konarka will go to market with its first product based on dye-sensitized cell chemistry which is on an efficiency par with today’s commercially available thin-film solar cells.

To understand more about the technology of dye-sensitized solar cells, visit: http://www.solideas.com/solrcell/howworks.asp

Tumbleweed Rover Survives Antarctic Test Roll

Along the way, the Tumbleweed Rover, roughly six feet in diameter and weighing 88 pounds, used the global Iridium satellite network to send information about its position, the surrounding air temperature, pressure, humidity and light intensity to a ground station in California.

The Tumbleweek Rover is being developed at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

The Tumbleweed rolled away from the National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on January 24, completing its traverse of Antarctica's polar plateau in eight days.

The test was designed to confirm the rover's durability in an extremely cold environment. NASA is looking at using Tumbleweed devices to explore the Martian polar caps and other planets in the solar system.

The rover's design allows it to act as a parachute while descending through an atmosphere, an air bag on landing, and, ultimately, as an unmanned vehicle equipped with an package of scientific instruments.

Tumbleweed is the brainchild of several JPL scientists, including Alberto Behar, a researcher with JPL's robotic vehicles group.

In just three days at the South Pole, Behar unpacked, assembled, inflated, tested, and deployed the rover. He says that the efficiency of the deployment is testament to Tumbleweed's cost-effectiveness and ease of use.

Onboard instruments were kept warm enough to function with excess heat from the instrument electronics circulated by an air pump.

Tumbleweed reached speeds of 10 miles per hour and rolled at an average speed of 3.7 mph. Because winds were unusually low during the test, the overall average speed achieved by the rover was 0.8 mph.

NASA scientists are well pleased with this speed, which is not attainable by mechanical rovers now on Mars - Spirit and Opportunity. They average little more than 0.03 mph on flat, dry ground.

Behar said the rover's design is especially well suited for polar missions that use instrument packages to look for water beneath the surface of an ice sheet, a task that cannot be done accurately from orbit.

Design refinements for the next deployment late this year or in early 2005 are likely to focus on reducing the rover's weight and rolling resistance to lower the minimum winds needed to propel the rover and enable it to travel farther and adapting the payload to include a ground-penetrating radar or magnetometer to conduct ice surveys.