• Quarter-Million Americans Petition for Roadless Rule Reinstatement
  
• Power Increase Approved for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant
  
• Gulf Coast Farmers to Get $63 Million in Hurricane Relief
  
• Florida State Anti-Pollution Enforcers Say They Stifle Concerns
  
• Panel: Federal Standards Needed for Refilling Mines with Coal Ash
  
• Ventilated Auto Seats Improve Fuel Economy
  
• Wisconsin Seeks to Remove "Problem" Wolves
  

Quarter-Million Americans Petition for Roadless Rule Reinstatement

A copy of the letter submitted by the groups supporting the petition drive, and more information on the roadless rule and roadless areas can be found at: www.ourforests.org.

Power Increase Approved for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant

The agency’s review required more than two years and more than 11,000 staff-hours of effort. A related engineering inspection of the plant required an additional 900 hours of work. This is the most extensive uprate review conducted by the NRC to date, the agency said.

U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy and Jim Jeffords of Vermont said in a joint statement, "We expect the NRC to closely monitor this uprate to ensure the plant's increased power generation does not result in safety or reliability problems. The NRC should ensure that all required safety-related changes to the plant's license are made expeditiously. The NRC should also ensure that the power boost at Vermont Yankee is implemented slowly, so the effects on the plant's operations can be fully monitored."

The NRC says power will be increased in small increments at the nuclear plant located in Vernon, Vermont while NRC staff closely monitor the process until the higher power level is reached. The NRC staff also will continue to monitor and evaluate Vermont Yankee’s performance in accordance with the agency’s Reactor Oversight Process.

Senators Leahy and Jeffords say they are concerned that approval for the uprate is being granted before formal hearings have been held as requested by the Vermont Department of Public Service and the New England Coalition, a Vermont anti-nuclear watchdog group.

"The NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) granted those requests in November 2004," the senators pointed out, but the ASLB has not set a hearing schedule yet. They urged the NRC to schedule hearings immediately, saying, "The outcome of the hearings has the potential to affect the terms and conditions of the uprate, and Vermonters have a right to the due process they deserve."

On January 11, the NRC issued a Federal Register notice seeking public comment regarding the staff’s proposed determination that no significant safety considerations are associated with amending Vermont Yankee’s license for the uprate. After evaluating the comments received, the staff has finalized that determination.

Under NRC regulations, that determination allows the staff to issue the license amendment prior to the completion of any pending hearing.

The NRC says while the ASLB has not set a hearing schedule yet, "the hearing is expected to start this summer."

Anti-nuclear advocates warn the production increase would create unnecessary stresses on the reactor, which has shown increasing signs of aging.

Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor for the New England Coalition, said the NRC's 11,000 hours of review represented "11,000 hours of pencil-sharpening."

The NRC says its staff reviewed Entergy’s modifications to the plant’s equipment and the company’s analyses of the uprate, and performed independent calculations and evaluations, before determining Entergy could safely increase the reactor’s power output. The NRC’s approval includes several license conditions Entergy must comply with.

“The staff at Headquarters, our Region I office in Pennsylvania and the resident inspectors at the plant have thoroughly examined this uprate request,” said Jim Dyer, director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. “We’ve taken great care to identify and address technical concerns involved with safely operating the plant at increased power.”

The NRC's safety evaluation of the plant’s proposed power uprate focused on nuclear steam supply systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, accident evaluations, radiological consequences, operations, and technical specification changes. The staff’s safety evaluation will be available through the NRC’s electronic documents database, ADAMS, by entering accession number ML060050028 at: http://adamswebsearch.nrc.gov/dologin.htm.

Gulf Coast Farmers to Get $63 Million in Hurricane Relief

For more information on the Emergency Conservation Program and other USDA disaster aid programs, visit any local FSA office and FSA's website at: http://disaster.fsa.usda.gov/fsa.asp.

Florida State Anti-Pollution Enforcers Say They Stifle Concerns

The disquiet among the DEP Law Enforcement Division parallels a steady decline in pollution enforcement by the agency during the past five years documented in an analysis of agency records compiled by PEER.

The 2005 DEP Employee Climate Survey was conducted by the agency’s Office of Inspector General and completed in late October. The participation rate was about 90 percent, or 3,812 of the 4,253 surveyed employees.

The polling registered high overall levels of satisfaction, but results for the Division of Law Enforcement were significantly and consistently more negative than agency-wide results.

Almost half (45%) of enforcement staff say that employees are not “free to speak up and say what they think; and more than a third (36%) admit “fear of reprisal” for bringing concerns up their chain-of-command.

The Division of Law Enforcement, which includes the Bureau of Environmental Investigations, the Park Patrol, and the Office of Public Education & Training, also reflected high regard for field supervisors but low regard for political appointees in departmental leadership:

More than half (54%) of the Park Patrol and 40% of the entire Law Enforcement Division feel that the DEP “Executive Leadership Team” does not provide “effective leadership."

Half of enforcement staff does not see clear communication from management, with high numbers reporting “conflicting instruction from different levels of management.” Nearly a third (31%) believes that management practices are not “conducive to organizational success.”

“These survey results point to politics as the biggest pollution threat facing our state,” said Florida PEER Director Jerry Phillips, a former DEP enforcement attorney who obtained the full survey results under the state’s Sunshine Act.

Phillips said a major topic of employee essays about how to improve agency performance was the intrusion of politics into decisionmaking.

See the survey results for the Division of Law Enforcement versus DEP-wide results at: http://www.peer.org/docs/fl/06_1_3_survey_results.pdf

Panel: Federal Standards Needed for Refilling Mines with Coal Ash

WASHINGTON, DC, March 3, 2006 (ENS) - Coal combustion in the United States leaves behind enough coal ash residue to fill a million railroad coal cars each year, and the volume continues to grow along with rising energy demands and improved pollution control measures.

Filling mines with those residues is a viable way to dispose of these materials, provided they are placed so as to avoid adverse health and environmental effects, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies' National Research Council. Enforceable federal standards are needed to guide the placement of coal ash in mines to minimize health and environmental risks, the report says.

The residues left after coal is burned to generate power - called coal ash - consist of noncombustible coal matter and material trapped by pollution control devices.

Most of this ash is disposed of in landfills and surface impoundments, but it is increasingly being used in mine reclamation. In addition, about 38 percent of the residues are currently used to make cement, wall board, and other products. The report encourages the continued use of some residues in industrial applications as a way to reduce the amount requiring disposal.

"Because the amount of coal combustion residues is large and increasing, we should pursue productive uses for them," said Perry Hagenstein, chair of the committee that wrote the report and president of the Institute for Forest Analysis, Planning, and Policy in Wayland, Massachusetts.

"When such uses are not feasible, putting residues in mines as part of reclamation provides an alternative to landfills and surface impoundments, although potential health and environmental risks must be addressed," he said.

The residues provide filler for mine reclamation efforts that restore land use conditions at a site, and putting these residues in mines lessens the need for new landfills. The residues may also neutralize acid mine drainage, lessening the potential for some contaminants from mines to enter the environment, the committee said.

Little is known about the potential for minefilling to adversely impact groundwater and surface water over long time periods. Because information from minefilling sites is limited, the committee assessed potential risks by examining data on adverse environmental effects from surface impoundments and landfill sites.

They found that adverse environmental impacts can occur when coal ash containing toxic chemicals has contact with water or when the residues are not properly covered. The report recommends that minefills be designed so that movement of water through residues is minimized.

The committee recommends improved characterization of mine sites and of the residues before they are placed into mines - testing the potential for hazardous chemicals to leach into the environment, and developing a clear understanding of groundwater flow patterns in mine sites.

The report also recommends a stronger monitoring program for mine sites where coal residues have been placed.

Under the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, states are responsible for regulating the management of coal combustion residues during mine reclamation. While general enough to cover putting residues in mines, the Act does not specifically regulate the practice, leading some states to say they lack the power for more explicit regulation.

The committee recommended development of enforceable federal standards that would give the states such authority, while allowing sufficient flexibility for adapting requirements to local conditions.

Ventilated Auto Seats Improve Fuel Economy

GOLDEN, Colorado, March 3, 2006 (ENS) - Ventilated automotive seats keep drivers and passengers cooler, so they need less air conditioning to be comfortable, reducing fuel consumption, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has demonstrated.

NREL’s Vehicle Ancillary Loads Reduction team has been working with industry to try to reduce fuel consumption from air conditioning in cars and trucks. The use of ventilated seating is one way to cut air conditioning, and recent research shows that it works.

“If all passenger vehicles had ventilated seats, we estimate that there could be a 7.5 percent reduction in national air-conditioning fuel use. That translates to a savings of 522 million gallons of fuel a year,” said John Rugh, project leader for NREL’s Vehicle Ancillary Loads Reduction Project.

NREL has developed a suite of thermal comfort tools to help the automotive industry design smaller and more efficient climate control systems in vehicles.

Using the tools and subjective test data, NREL measured improvement in human thermal sensation for the ventilated seats and the potential for a seven percent reduction in air-conditioning compressor power.

A one-of-a-kind thermal comfort manikin called ADAM (ADvanced Automotive Manikin) - which actually breathes and sweats - helps the researchers assess the effectiveness of new climate control designs.

Information provided by ADAM together with a physiological model and psychological model help researchers assess comfort in a transient, nonhomogeneous environment. Rugh says the system is an improvement over other commonly used models based on steady-state, uniform environmental data.

W.E.T. Automotive Systems Ltd. provided NREL with ComfortCools® seats for testing. Each seat is equipped with two fans that pull air from the seat surface and out from underneath the seat. General Motors currently offers this ventilated seat as an option for the Cadillac STS.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for the Energy Department by Midwest Research Institute and Battelle.

Wisconsin Seeks to Remove "Problem" Wolves

The measures are proposed to help control wolf damage to livestock and pets in Wisconsin, according to the assessment developed by Wildlife Services, a program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The agencies are seeking public comment on the draft assessment through April 3, 2006.

Arguing that allowing removal of problem wolves helps ensure that illegal killing of gray wolves is minimized, and public tolerance of wolves in general is maintained, the agencies are recommending an integrated management program that would provide for permits allowing removal of wolves that are killing livestock or pets.

If adopted, the agencies would use an integrated approach including both lethal and non-lethal measures on private and public lands in Wisconsin.

"A full range of legal and effective methods would be used to adequately address the damage problem while minimizing harm to other wildlife, humans, the general wolf population, and the environment," the agencies said in a joint statement.

Gray wolves in Wisconsin are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act; they are classified as a State Protected Wild Animal under Wisconsin state law.

Permits for the management of federally listed endangered species are provided for under the federal Endangered Species Act. To implement the wolf damage control program, permits would be issued to the state of Wisconsin; control actions would be carried out by the state of Wisconsin and Wildlife Services, acting as an agent for the state.

Other alternatives examined in the draft environmental assessment include a program using only non-lethal control methods; technical assistance from federal agencies; and no federal involvement in wolf damage management in Wisconsin.

All of Wisconsin and adjacent states was once inhabited by gray wolves. Killing by humans and declining numbers of prey - bison, elk, and white-tailed deer in the south and moose, deer, caribou, and beaver in the north - caused wolf declines. Bounties paid for dead wolves began during the 1800s and by the early 1900s wolves were gone from southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. By 1960 wolves were nearly eliminated from Wisconsin.

Adrian Wydeven of the Wisconsin DNR says soon after the wolf was listed as federally endangered, wolves began re-establishing themselves in Wisconsin, entering the state from adjacent Minnesota. The Wisconsin DNR began monitoring wolves in 1979 using trapping and radio-collaring, winter track surveys, and summer howling surveys.

When monitoring began, 25 wolves were documented in the state. During the mid-1980s wolf numbers reached a low of 15, probably due to an epidemic of canine parvovirus which apparently killed many wolf pups. Wydeven says. Wild wolves seemed to develop natural resistance and wolf numbers increased after 1985.

Since then, the Wisconsin wolf population has steadily increased. Estimated wolf population counts taken in late winter increased from 83 wolves comprising 18 packs in 1985 to 373 wolves comprising 109 packs in 2004.

Recovery criteria for the wolf, as established in the Fish and Wildlife Service Recovery Plan, specifies a population of 100 or more wolves in Wisconsin/Michigan for a minimum of five consecutive years.

The draft environmental assessment can be reviewed at: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/wolf. Written comments will be accepted through April 3, 2006, and can be submitted by email to: PermitsR3ES@fws.gov.

A final environmental assessment with a selected action for wolf management is expected within one to three weeks after close of the comment period.