• Explosion, Fire Destroy Texas Petrochemical Plant
  
• Logging Halted in Roadless Tongass Regions
  
• Rat Poison Kills Birds on Anacapa Island
  
• El Niņo Could Rescue Parched Southwest
  
• Energy Department Seeks Ways to Expand Geothermal Power
  
• Black Bear Study Offers Good News
  
• Hybrid Honda Civic Now in Dealerships
  
• Park Service Tests Segway Human Transporter
  

Explosion, Fire Destroy Texas Petrochemical Plant

The accident happened at the Third Coast Packaging plant just outside of Pearland, about 20 miles southeast of Houston. Third Coast packages and distributes a variety of petroleum based products, including brake fluids, anti-freeze, motor oils, transmission fluids, gear oils, hydraulic fluids, engine oils and chainsaw lubricants.

At about 1 am, residents were awakened by a series of explosions that sent flames shooting 800 feet (244 meters) into the air. Cinders up to three or four inches across floated down onto nearby homes and businesses.

Firefighters have so far not determined the cause of the blast, which destroyed a 150,000 square foot warehouse at the plant, along with at least 15 of the company's 91 storage tanks. About five acres of the 15 acre site were involved in the fire.

Volunteer fire departments fought the blaze with trucked in water at first, but later Houston fire trucks brought in foam, which is required to extinguish petroleum based fires. Fire officials said it could take two to three days to put out all the hot spots.

One home and part of a sheet metal shop next to the plant were destroyed by the fire. No water was available to fight these flames because while the city of Pearland is incorporated and has a fire hydrant system, the chemical plant is located in the county outside of the city limits where there are no hydrants.

Tests by fire department personnel found no toxic substances in the smoke from the fire, but the fire department advised that people with respiratory problems may wish to stay indoors until the smoke clears.

The fire department has closed drainage ditches leading away from the plant that might carry oils and other fluids into nearby waterways.

Logging Halted in Roadless Tongass Regions

The sales are barred until a public process to evaluate roadless areas for potential wilderness designation is completed. The U.S. Forest Service is now conducting such a review under a previous court order, and a draft report is expected in May.

U.S. District Court Judge James Singleton Jr. issued the injunction in response to a lawsuit brought by Earthjustice on behalf of The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Sitka Conservation Society, and Alaska Center for the Environment.

The Tongass is a coastal rainforest with centuries old trees providing habitat for wolves, bears, salmon, bald eagles and other wildlife that have disappeared from most other regions of the country. Parts of the Tongass have been logged for decades but there are other areas that are still pristine.

The Roadless Area Conservation Rule issued under the Clinton administration would have protected roadless areas of the Tongass from logging and road building, but the Bush administration has prevented the rule from taking effect. The Roadless Rule was challenged in court by the timber industry and, despite overwhelming support by the American public, the Bush administration has refused to defend it and has initiated plans to weaken it.

"The public recognizes the value of these pristine areas. Over two million Americans commented on the Roadless Rule, the vast majority advocating strong protections for wild areas in the Tongass," said Pat Veesart of the Sitka Conservation Society. "This current wilderness review gives the public another opportunity to tell the Forest Service that it wants wild areas of the Tongass permanently protected."

The court's order halts logging in roadless areas of the Tongass to ensure that these regions are not marred before the public has a chance to have its voice heard.

"The court recognized that for the wilderness review process to have meaning, the Forest Service should not be allowed to bulldoze roads and clearcut forests until the public can be heard," said Tom Waldo of Earthjustice.

Under the court order, new timber sales and logging activities are suspended in places like the Cleveland Peninsula, Gravina Island and Cholmondeley Sound. The order allows timber sales approved before 1999 to be logged.

Public comment on the Tongass wilderness review could affect congressional efforts to protect roadless areas in the Tongass and other national forests.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, has introduced the Alaska Rainforest Conservation Act (HR 2908), which would protect the remaining roadless areas of both the Tongass and Chugach National Forests in Alaska. The bill has 110 co-sponsors.

A bipartisan group of representatives is seeking co-sponsors for another bill that would enact the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, adopted by the Forest Service in January of 2001, into law.

"It's important for people to send in comments on the Tongass wilderness review and let the Forest Service and Congress know that the public demands protection for the roadless areas of the Tongass," said Nicole Whittington-Evans of The Wilderness Society.

Rat Poison Kills Birds on Anacapa Island

In its Migratory Bird Treaty Act summary report of the effects of the poisoning, the NPS listed 27 different species of protected birds who were found dead after the bait was spread, including white-crowned sparrows, golden-crowned sparrows, Western meadowlarks, an American kestrel, and a burrowing owl.

A coalition of conservation and animal rights groups attempted through court action to prevent the use of brodifacoum on the island, citing the poison's track record of killing non-target birds and animals, but were unsuccessful.

"This report confirms what we have known all along: that the use of a deadly and indiscriminate poison would kill target and non-target animals alike," said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of The Fund for Animals. "This poisoning was illegal, biologically reckless, and a million dollar fleecing of taxpayers."

Markarian noted that the government plans to use the poison on West and Middle Anacapa Island this fall, and to replicate this poison project on San Miguel Island and the Farallon Islands.

The poison distribution was part of a restoration by several federal agencies aimed at removing invasive black rats from Anacapa Island. Non-native rats are responsible for an estimated 40 to 60 percent of bird and reptile extinctions in the world, and on Anacapa, they prey on birds, reptiles, plants and invertebrates.

"The purpose of this project is to protect rare seabirds and other native wildlife on the island," said Channel Islands National Park superintendent Tim Setnicka. He notes, "On Anacapa, rats eat the eggs, chicks, and adult Xantus' murrelets, a small seabird whose worldwide distribution is extremely limited."

But wildlife groups question the project's methods, arguing that the non-target death toll from the poisoning is probably much higher than that measured by the NPS, because many of the birds killed may have died over open waters.

Brodifacoum causes slow death by internal bleeding, and death may not occur for three to 10 days. The NPS halted its collection and counting of poisoned migratory birds after two weeks, when the body count was at its peak.

Moreover, the NPS collected birds only from East Anacapa, while the slow acting poison allowed birds to fly to nearby islands, to the mainland, or out to sea before dying. Independent documentary filmmakers attempted to record the aftermath of the poisoning, but the NPS barred public access to the island for three weeks.

"The poisoning project is propped up on bad science," said Scarlet Newton of the Channel Islands Animal Protection Association. "The NPS report minimizing the number of birds killed has no credibility because there was no independent review of the NPS's analysis. It is appalling that the NPS would indiscriminately slaughter wildlife to satisfy its own experimental whim and the contractor's financial gain."

The groups also expressed concern over the potential for the toxic rat poison to enter the environment. Keith Zandona, president of the Surfrider Foundation's Santa Barbara chapter, said, "the NPS report admits that the poison did enter the water column. We will never know the full extent because the only people permitted to do the monitoring were the people doing the poisoning."

Christine Underwood, co-chair of the environmental affairs board at the University of California at Santa Barbara noted that brodifacoum "has several properties in common with DDT: bioaccumulation, long half life, and non-water solubility. A half century later, we're still mopping up after DDT."

A number of other conservation groups, however, endorsed the poisoning project.

"The Anacapa Island project is precisely the type of well designed, extensively researched, and responsibly implemented program that the American Bird Conservancy supports and encourages," said American Bird Conservancy president George Fenwick. "The long term benefits of rat eradication on Anacapa Island are enormous for the conservation of one of North America's most distinctive ecosystems."

El Niņo Could Rescue Parched Southwest

The announcement was made this week by researchers at the Climate Diagnostics Center, run by researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. CIRES is headquartered on the CU-Boulder campus.

El Niņo is the periodic warming of water in the tropical Pacific Ocean that influences climate throughout the world. Scientists said earlier last week that the United States could start feeling the impacts of the developing El Niņo as early as mid-summer 2002.

The scientists cautioned that the strength of the expected El Niņo is still unknown.

"If a full blown El Niņo occurs it will be good news for the Southwest, since El Niņo typically brings wetter than normal conditions for that region," said Martyn Clark, a CIRES researcher and project leader of the Western Water Assessment (WWA).

River basins throughout the Southwest are short of water. Accumulated precipitation in the Gila River basin in Arizona, for example, is just 26 percent of normal.

The Salt River basin in Arizona is at 30 percent of normal, the Escalante River in Utah is at 46 percent, the Upper Rio Grande basin in Colorado is at 45 percent and the San Juan River headwaters in southwestern Colorado are at 46 percent of normal.

"In eight of the last 10 El Niņos, the Southwest has experienced higher than normal annual runoff," Clark said. "Of course, climate prediction is an uncertain business, but I like the odds."

The same odds also suggest a drying trend in the Pacific Northwest, which has rebounded from drought conditions two years ago, Clark added.

Until increased precipitation materializes in the Southwest, the wildfire danger in the region will continue to be high, and already low reservoirs will be hard pressed to satisfy thirsty populations, said Clark.

"The four fastest growing states in the nation - Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Utah - are all experiencing drought," said Doug Kenney, a WWA researcher based at the Natural Resources Law Center at CU-Boulder. "Many new residents have never experienced anything like this."

Energy Department Seeks Ways to Expand Geothermal Power

On Monday, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced the selection of two firms to develop and demonstrate an Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) in California. The DOE will provide $4.5 million over the next five years to support the $12 million effort by the University of Utah's Energy and Geoscience Institute (UU-EGI) and Caithness Energy, LLC to increase energy production in the Coso geothermal field.

"Developing and demonstrating this enhanced geothermal system technology advances the president's National Energy Plan goals of deploying next generation technology and increasing renewable energy production on Federal lands," Secretary Abraham said. "The new system is expected to add about 15 megawatts of electrical capacity - enough to power 11,250 homes - to the 270 megawatts now being generated at the site."

This cooperative agreement will develop new EGS techniques to improve the productivity of the Coso geothermal field, located about 25 miles north of Ridgecrest, California on the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station.

UU-EGI and Caithness will pump water under high pressure into a portion of the Coso field to fracture subsurface rocks and create channels for hot water to move from the geothermal reservoir to existing geothermal wells. The process, called hydrofracing, is often used in oil and gas production.

The Coso geothermal plant operates under agreements with the U.S. Navy and the Bureau of Land Management, paying production royalties to the federal government.

The cooperative agreement, the first award in a three part program, will demonstrate the potential for expanding an existing geothermal reservoir. The DOE is now seeking applications for stage two, which is designed to improve unproductive geothermal fields.

During stage three, DOE will develop technology for locating new geothermal fields in the United States where EGS technology can be applied.

EGS is expected to more than double the amount of economically recoverable geothermal energy in the U.S., and extend the productive life of existing geothermal fields.

More information is available at: http://www.eren.doe.gov/geothermal

Black Bear Study Offers Good News

However, in many areas, further action is needed to address poaching, illegal trade, and monitoring of legal hunting in order to fully protect black bears, says the study by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring program of World Wildlife Fund and IUCN-The World Conservation Union.

The report was compiled from responses to a detailed set of survey questions submitted to wildlife management agencies at the state, provincial, and territorial level in the United States and Canada. The study covers a period of almost 10 years, and provides a comprehensive, long term look at black bear population trends in North America.

Among the good news the study reveals is that the estimated black bear population in the United States grew by some 25 to 35 percent during the survey period, from about 253,000-375,000 in 1988 to an estimated 339,000-465,000 in the mid-1990s. During the same overall period, Canada's black bear population estimate increased from 372,500-382,500 to 396,000-476,000.

Black bear populations in Mexico were difficult to assess because of the lack of available data. The study also notes that some populations, such as the Louisiana black bear subspecies, remain threatened.

"American black bears are doing well throughout most of their current range," said Craig Hoover, deputy director of TRAFFIC North America. "On the whole, wildlife management authorities responsible for black bear conservation should receive credit and acclamation for this success."

However, the TRAFFIC surveys found that in many states, laws and regulations to address poaching, illegal trade, and monitoring of hunting and commercial activities involving bears could be improved. Bear parts continue to be in demand, especially the gallbladders and paws, which are used in Asian markets as medicine and food.

Illegal killings continue to be reported throughout the black bear's range, though the report found no indication that the number of bears involved threatens the overall status of the species.

States, provinces and territories have tightened restrictions on trade in recent years, with a growing number banning the sale of gallbladders and other parts. Yet four U.S. states - Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana and Iowa - and one Canadian province, Prince Edward Island, have no laws governing the bear trade.

"Wildlife agencies and legislative bodies need to close the existing legislative and regulatory gaps in current black bear management efforts," Hoover said. "Fortunately, because of the relative health of North America's bear populations, we have the opportunity to take action before there is indication of a crisis, such as an increase in poaching pressure. But action is clearly needed and this positive news should not dictate complacency."

Hybrid Honda Civic Now in Dealerships

The Model Year 2003 Hybrid Civic performs well against clean car standards published by the federal government and a variety of conservation groups. The Hybrid Civic gets 49 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving, and meets federal ultra-low emitting vehicle tailpipe standards.

By contrast, the same Civic with a conventional engine gets about 39 miles per gallon on the highway and 32 in the city.

Hybrids run on regular gasoline, and never need to be plugged in. Its electric battery, which supplements the power provided by its gasoline engine, is recharged every time the driver uses the car's brakes.

The Hybrid Civic can travel for more than 600 miles (965 kilometers) on a tank. It costs $19,550 with a manual transmission, or $20,550 with an automatic transmission.

This is the first time that a car meeting these environmental performance criteria has been available as an optional version of an already popular vehicle line. Honda plans to sell 2,000 Hybrid Civics per month.

Toyota plans to increase sales of its hybrid Prius, a five seat sedan, to almost 1,500 per month. The Honda Insight, the first hybrid vehicle to hit the market when it was introduced two years ago, seats two people, and gets about 70 miles to the gallon in highway driving.

Ford Motor Company plans to offer a hybrid version of its small sport utility vehicle, the Escape, by late 2003.

Park Service Tests Segway Human Transporter

The Segway Human Transporter (Segway HT) is the first self-balancing, electric powered personal transporter. It is designed to increase the distance people can travel and the amount they can carry in pedestrian environments, providing a non-polluting, low impact, short distance travel solution.

The Segway HT, which runs on two independent electric motors, can reach 10 - 12.5 miles per hour, and run from about nine to 17 miles before needing to be recharged. Using technology similar to that used by hybrid car engines, it uses the energy released by braking to recharge its battery.0

NPS staff and U.S. Park Police will test five Segway units in various locations within National Capital Parks-Central in Washington, DC.

The Segway HT, which runs on two independent electric motors, can reach 10 - 12.5 miles per hour, and run from about nine to 17 miles before needing to be recharged. (Photo courtesy Segway LLC)

It is considered an environmentally friendly transportation device that will not reduce air quality. The safety and risks associated with the machines' use will be a primary concern during the testing process.

"The National Park Service is dedicated to preserving the heritage and beauty of our country's parks," said NPS Director Fran Mainella. "We will evaluate the Segway HT during this trial to determine if it is something that will enable park staff or U.S. Park Police to increase productivity while navigating our sites without interrupting the natural environment or visitor use."

The device was invented by entrepreneur Dean Kamen to provide a new solution for short distance travel. The transporters are manufactured by Segway LLC, Kamen's New Hampshire business.

"The Segway HT is the perfect mobility solution for the National Park Service, as it seamlessly fits into park landscapes to increase productivity with a low environmental impact, " said Kamen. "We believe our device can help them further their mission of preserving our national parks and are looking forward to working with them to realize all the advantages of the Segway HT."

More information about Segway is available at: http://www.segway.com