• National Uniform Food Act Would Kill State Protections
  
• Judge Rules Energy Dept. Must Buy Alternative Fueled Vehicles
  
• Washington State Hands E-Waste Costs to Manufacturers
  
• BLM Plan Lets Off-Roaders Run Over Arizona's New Monuments
  
• Mercury Levels Still High in Virginia River Fish
  
• Organic Orchard Practices Found to Lower Nitrogen Pollution
  
• Aspen Ski Company Powers Patrol Headquarters with Solar
  

National Uniform Food Act Would Kill State Protections

"Shredding the Food Safety Net" can be found at: http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/factsheets/leg_06030701a.pdf.

Judge Rules Energy Dept. Must Buy Alternative Fueled Vehicles

The judge vacated the DOE's decision and ordered it to engage in a two-step rulemaking process. The Energy Department must first revise the law's petroleum reduction goal to an achievable number and then use the new goal to assess whether to impose alternative fuel vehicle purchasing requirements on private and municipal fleets to help achieve the revised goal.

In passing the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct) after the first Gulf War, Congress intended to replace 30 percent of petroleum vehicle fuel with less polluting alternative fuels vehicles by 2010.

The conservation groups Center for Biological Diversity and Bluewater Network filed suit last year challenging the Bush administration’s failure to implement the law.

Judge Alsup wrote, “If Congress favored inaction, so too could the agency, it is argued. The difference is that Congress enacted a law requiring the agency to act. The agency failed to do so. It violated the law. Congress was not required to pass yet another law to compensate for the agency’s neglect.”

The EPAct requires all federal agencies with light duty fleet vehicles in major metropolitan areas to acquire at least 75 percent alternative fuel vehicles each year instead of petroleum-fueled cars and trucks.

The federal government has over 600,000 vehicles, the largest fleet in the nation. In passing the EPAct, the conservation groups reasoned, Congress sought to harness the purchasing power of the federal government as well as municipal and private vehicle fleets to create a market for the production of alternative fuels vehicles, which include vehicles powered by natural gas, propane, ethanol, and electricity which produce less pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

“In this ruling, the judge recognized that setting lofty goals to reduce petroleum use is not enough. The agency actually has to do its job and help build a market for alternative fuel vehicles,” said Danielle Fugere, Global Warming Program director with Bluewater Network.

In California, over 90 percent of the population lives in regions adversely affected by air quality problems, largely as a result of vehicle exhaust. Long-term exposure to air pollution in four San Francisco Bay Area counties may cause an additional 208 cases of cancer for every million residents, mostly attributable to benzene and butadiene, byproducts of petroleum fuel combustion, the conservation groups point out.

“The Bush administration’s irresponsible and dangerous refusal to take steps to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and greenhouse gas pollution threatens both our nation’s environment and future prosperity,” said Kassie Siegel, Climate, Air, and Energy Program Director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

This ruling follows earlier successes in the case. In July 2005, Judge Alsup ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency was in violation of the EPAct for its failure to make public its compliance or non-compliance with the Act’s purchasing mandates.

At the end of November 2005, a settlement of the purchasing component of this case was reached with four federal agencies, the Departments of Commerce, Labor, Transportation, and Veterans Administration, which admitted violations of the law and agreed to increase their alternative fuel vehicle purchases from 46 percent, three percent, 29 percent, and 24 percent respectively, up to the 75 percent required by EPAct.

“We are pleased that the administration will be forced to realistically discuss how to move our nation from its addiction to oil,” said Jay Tutchton, director of the University of Denver Environmental Law Clinic and attorney for the conservation groups. “Finally, the Department of Energy will be forced to actually consider implementing alternative fuel vehicle programs that make both economic and environmental sense.”

For a copy of the lawsuit and more information about the EPAct, visit: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs/policy/energy/index.html.

Washington State Hands E-Waste Costs to Manufacturers

For bill summary go to: www.e-takeback.org/press_open/info.htm

BLM Plan Lets Off-Roaders Run Over Arizona's New Monuments

The Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, Arizona Wilderness Coalition, Sierra Club, and The Wilderness Society said in a joint statement Tuesday that the BLM is allowing off-road vehicles to run roughshod over the protected areas.

"This monster plan - for all its 3,000 pages - ignores the very reason these places were set aside in the first place and it disregards the public's desire to see them protected," says Jill Ozarski with The Wilderness Society. "Page after page, we're finding that the BLM is promoting more and more off-road vehicle (ORVs) use, rather than protecting the wildlife, ancient artifacts, and wild character of the Monuments."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) too, warned that the proposal would open nine times more public areas to cross-country ORV use.

The EPA review recommended that the BLM "eliminate open motorized and mechanized cross-country travel due to substantial impacts from this activity on soils, water resources, cultural resources and wildlife."

The new monuments were created in 2000 to preserve the geology, archaeology, and wildlife that distinguish this remote and wild part of the greater Grand Canyon ecosystem.

But critics say the BLM plan sacrifices quiet recreation, wildlife, and irreplaceable cultural resources to ORVs - allowing almost 1,800 miles of ORV routes in the monuments, plus an additional 1,000 miles outside the monuments on other BLM lands that are part of the Strip.

"Our role is to provide the Bureau of Land Management with critical information about the diversity and density of archaeological sites at these Monuments," says archaeologist Peter Bungart of Flagstaff, Arizona. "Looting, vandalism, and even unintentional damage by vehicles are major problems at archaeological sites in this region, and let me be clear, it's going to take careful planning by the BLM to keep these sites protected in the long run."

Wildlife such as mountain lions, mule deer, pronghorn, and the threatened desert tortoise are also vulnerable or ORVs.

"The BLM has proposed protecting only 27 percent of the remaining lands with wilderness character in the Monuments," said Kim Crumbo of the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council. "There are already hundreds of thousands of miles of roads and routes open to dirt bikes, all-terrain vehicles, and other ORVs. There ought to be some wild places where people and wildlife can escape from noise and pollution."

Recreational use of the Arizona Strip is expected to increase over the life of the plan as the population of the surrounding five counties is projected to doubles with the addition of 1.4 million new residents by 2020.

At the same time, the BLM budget has decreased each year for the last five years, and now there are only three law enforcement rangers responsible for the entire Arizona Strip, an area three times the size of Rhode Island.

In addition, the draft plan goes so far as to leave almost 96 percent of adjacent non-Monument lands open for possible oil and gas drilling, even though the plan itself acknowledges, "known oil and gas resources are not significant within the Planning Area, and no economic occurrences of oil or gas have been encountered to date."

The public has until March 17 to submit formal comments to the Bureau of Land Management on the draft plans for Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs National Monuments, and the Arizona Strip lands. Comments can be directed to: Diana Hawkes and Planning Team, Arizona Strip District Office, 345 East Riverside Drive, St.George, Utah 84790, or emailed to Arizona_Strip@blm.gov.

Mercury Levels Still High in Virginia River Fish

RICHMOND, Virginia, March 8, 2006 (ENS) - The amount of mercury in fish collected in 2005 from the South River and South Fork Shenandoah River has not changed significantly since 2002, according to a report issued today by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Many fish species continue to have mercury levels of 0.5 parts per million or higher, which is the action level set by the Virginia Department of Health.

“The health of the South and South Fork Shenandoah rivers is vitally important to Virginia, and DEQ is dedicated to ensuring that people’s exposure to mercury is as low as possible,” DEQ Director David Paylor said. “The good news is that stocked trout from the South River are still safe to eat.”

Mercury levels in rainbow trout stocked in the South River in fall 2004 are no higher than 0.1 ppm, and these trout remain below the level of concern.

Mercury was used by Du Pont Co. in Waynesboro in fiber production between 1929 and 1950. Mercury contamination in the South River was discovered in the 1970s and now extends to the South Fork Shenandoah River.

In a settlement between Du Pont and the State Water Control Board in 1984, Du Pont established a trust fund to support a 100 year monitoring program for mercury. DEQ manages the fund.

Most of the fish with elevated mercury had averages ranging from 0.5 to 1.5 parts per million, the agency reports. Mercury levels are highest in the South River between Dooms in Augusta County and Grottoes in Rockingham County where mercury averages ranged from 1.36 to 2.66 ppm.

DEQ collected smallmouth bass, white sucker and redbreast sunfish at collection stations along the South River, South Fork Shenandoah River and the Shenandoah River in spring 2005. The agency also collected stocked rainbow trout near Waynesboro and Grottoes along the South River.

The existing fish consumption advisories from the Virginia Department of Health remain unchanged. Only stocked trout should be eaten from the South River.

From Port Republic to Front Royal, no more than two meals per month of fish should be eaten from the South Fork Shenandoah. North of Front Royal, carp, channel catfish and white sucker from the South Fork Shenandoah and Shenandoah rivers should not be eaten due to a PCB advisory, and no more than two meals per month of other species should be eaten.

DEQ monitors mercury contamination in collaboration with the South River Science Team, of which DEQ is a member. This group’s long-term goal is to manage and reduce the risk from mercury in the river. DEQ will sample fish tissue, water quality and sediments from the South, South Fork and Shenandoah rivers in 2007 during the next phase of its extensive mercury monitoring effort.

Organic Orchard Practices Found to Lower Nitrogen Pollution

STANFORD, California, March 8, 2006 (ENS) - Organic farming has been promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional agriculture, and new research provides evidence to support that claim.

Writing in the March 6 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) , Stanford University graduate student Sasha Kramer and her colleagues found that fertilizing apple trees with synthetic chemicals produced more adverse environmental effects than feeding them with organic manure or alfalfa.

"The intensification of agricultural production over the past 60 years and the subsequent increase in global nitrogen inputs have resulted in substantial nitrogen pollution and ecological damage," Kramer and her colleagues write. "The primary source of nitrogen pollution comes from nitrogen-based agricultural fertilizers, whose use is forecasted to double or almost triple by 2050."

Nitrogen compounds from fertilizer can enter the atmosphere and contribute to global warming, adds Harold Mooney, the Paul S. Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology at Stanford and co-author of the study.

"Nitrogen compounds also enter our watersheds and have effects quite distant from the fields in which they are applied, as for example in contaminating water tables and causing biological dead zones at the mouths of major rivers," Mooney says. "This study shows that the use of organic versus chemical fertilizers can play a role in reducing these adverse effects."

The PNAS study was conducted in an established apple orchard on a four acre site in the Yakima Valley of central Washington, one of the premiere apple growing regions in the United States.

Some trees used in the experiment were raised with conventional synthetic fertilizers. Others were grown organically without pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilization. A third group was raised by a method called integrated farming, which combines organic and conventional agricultural techniques.

During the yearlong experiment, organically grown trees were fed either composted chicken manure or alfalfa meal, while conventionally raised plants were given calcium nitrate, a synthetic fertilizer widely used by commercial apple growers. Trees raised using the integrated system were given a blend of equal parts chicken manure and calcium nitrate.

To measure nitrate levels during the experiment, water was collected in resin bags buried about 40 inches below the trees and then analyzed in the laboratory.

"We measured nitrate leaching over an entire year and found that it was 4.4 to 5.6 times higher in the conventional treatment than in the two organic treatments, with the integrated treatment in between," says John Reganold, Regents Professor of Soil Science at Washington State University and co-author of the study.

"This study is an important contribution to the debate surrounding the sustainability of organic agriculture, one of the most contentious topics in agricultural science worldwide," Reganold says.

"Our findings not only score another beneficial point for organic agriculture but give credibility to the middle-ground approach of integrated farming, which uses both organic and conventional nitrogen fertilizers and other practices. It is this middle-ground approach that we may see more farmers adopting than even the rapidly growing organic approach."

Washington State produces more than half of the nation's apples. In 2004, the state crop was worth about $963 million, with organically grown apples representing between five and 10 percent of the total value.

Aspen Ski Company Powers Patrol Headquarters with Solar

The system provides enough energy annually to run an average home for six months, the company says. In the summer, when the building is not occupied, the system runs the electric meter backwards, creating a credit for the following year.

Aspen Highlands Mountain Manager Ron Chauner says, “The building site was selected to take advantage of the stunning views of the Maroon Creek Valley and portions of the Highland Bowl as well as the solar gain the structure collects during a sunny day. Now that the solar panels are in operation the vision for this building to be as self sufficient as possible is complete.”

The 2.3 kilowatt solar array produces 9.6 kilowatt-hours per day, or 3,500 kWh per year. A kilowatt-hour is the amount of energy it takes to run a dishwasher through one cycle.

This clean energy production keeps 7,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, out of the atmosphere annually.

The project cost approximately $23,000 to complete. Aspen Skiing Company received grants from Holy Cross Energy and the Community Office of Resource Efficiency to pay for 40 percent of the installation costs.

Funds from Holy Cross Energy were provided through their WE CARE (With Efficiency, Conservation And Renewable Energy) rebate program. Holy Cross Energy Member Services Supervisor, Steve Casey says, “The Highlands PV system demonstrates that small scale projects can provide lasting benefits to the environment."

Aspen Skiing Company operates the four mountains in the Aspen/Snowmass area - Snowmass, Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands and Buttermilk.