• Alabama Wins Record $11.8 Billion Verdict Against Exxon Mobil
  
• Electricity Supply Predicted to Be Adequate This Winter
  
• Pesticides Pervade Homes of Farm Workers' Children
  
• Bush Carbon Sequestration Plan Called Harmful to Marine Life
  
• Logging on Burned Over Lands Challenged
  
• DuPont, U.S. Mayors Offer Awards for Lead Reduction Strategies
  
• NOAA and Columbia University Create Climate Science Institute
  

Alabama Wins Record $11.8 Billion Verdict Against Exxon Mobil

A state district court jury Friday handed Alabama the record punitive damage award, more than the state had sought. State attorney Robert Cunningham had asked the jury for a record $9.3 billion dollar verdict against the oil company.

"There is one language Exxon Mobil understands and understands real well - money," state attorney Robert Cunningham told the jury on Thursday.

Cunningham said the state did not get $63.6 million in royalties it should have received. He claimed the loss could have grown to $930 million over the 30 year life of the natural gas field in Mobile Bay.

Exxon Mobil's lawyers said the company relied on memos from the state Conservation Department that authorized deduction of the "reasonable direct cost of manufacture and transportation."

"The company did not engage in fraud, no evidence of fraud was established at trial, and fraud should never have been considered by the jury," said Sam Franklin, lead counsel for ExxonMobil. "The punitive award in this case defies common sense."

"In addition to being unjustified, the $11.8 billion punitive award is excessive - more than 180 times the $63.5 million compensatory damages. We intend to appeal this decision to the Alabama Supreme Court in light of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Campbell versus State Farm that limits the size of punitive awards," said Franklin.

Alabama sued Exxon Mobil in 1999, claiming the company had intentionally deducted too much in expenses for operating the wells. Exxon Mobil attorneys said the company was in compliance with its leases with the state for gas wells in state waters.

A Montgomery jury in 2000 ordered Exxon to pay the state $3.5 billion, but that verdict was overturned by the Alabama Supreme Court. That ruling gave rise to a new trial that commenced October 20.

ExxonMobil points to its total capital investment in Alabama of more than $3 billion. The company employs more than 200 people and thousands of contractors in the state.

Last year, the U.S. Interior Department honored ExxonMobil for excellence in mineral royalty and production reporting and compliance.

Electricity Supply Predicted to Be Adequate This Winter

"We have not identified any significant areas of concern for the upcoming season,” he said. NERC's mission is to ensure that the bulk electric system in North America is reliable, adequate and secure.

Gent says that new generating resources have been added in several regions since last winter, and generating capacity margins are greater than those projected for last winter in most NERC Regions.

Peak demand in North America is projected to be 1.1 percent higher than that projected for last winter, but 1.1 percent lower than last year’s actual demand.

The assessment states that transmission systems are expected to perform reliably this winter. But, warns the assessment, operating experience shows that market conditions can, at times, cause large and widely varying flows. "If these conditions occur this winter, congestion management procedures will need to be invoked to maintain transmission system security."

Fuel supplies, inventories, and deliveries are also expected to be adequate, although the report notes that unanticipated equipment problems and high demand caused by extreme weather could combine to create supply problems.

The report cautions that coincident failures of critical equipment, while "highly improbable," could mean a degradation of bulk electric system reliability. Emergency action plans and procedures to safeguard the system under emergency conditions are in place to minimize this possibility, NERC said.

Gent emphasized the continuing need for reliability coordinators and system operators to communicate and coordinate their actions to preserve the reliability of the bulk electric transmission system. “Adequate system reliability will be maintained if identified transmission limitations are not exceeded and operating procedures are implemented as required,” he said.

NERC is a not for profit corporation whose members are 10 Regional Reliability Councils. The members of these councils include investor owned utilities; federal power agencies; rural electric cooperatives; state, municipal and provincial utilities; independent power producers; power marketers; and end use customers. These entities account for virtually all the electricity supplied and used in the United States, Canada and a portion of Baja California Norte, Mexico.

Pesticides Pervade Homes of Farm Workers' Children

Pesticide residues were found on floors, toys and hands of children who lived in 41 farm worker households in four mountain counties in North Carolina and two in Virginia by the researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, the Southwest Research Institute, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). The team looked only at households with children under seven years old.

"People have always said that no one has ever demonstrated that workers in North Carolina and Virginia are exposed to pesticides," said lead author Dr. Sara Quandt, Wake Forest professor of public health sciences, epidemiology. "Now we have."

Adults in these farm worker households often apply chemicals and perform hand labor in fields treated with pesticides, so the team had expected to find the agricultural pesticides.

"As the first study to screen for a large number of both agricultural and residential pesticides in farm worker dwellings, this extends previous research on the exposure of this population," Quandt said.

The team targeted eight agricultural chemicals and 13 pesticides commonly found in homes in the United States. They wiped toys to detect chemicals there, and used similar methods on children's hands and on the portions of the floor where they were likely to play. The wipes were sent for analysis to the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

Laboratory results showed residues of six agricultural chemicals and 11 residential pesticides. Quandt said other studies had found that pesticide residues can remain on surfaces indoors for long periods of time, "creating a significant exposure for children, especially those young enough to play on floors or to place toys and household objects in the mouth."

"Pesticides pose a greater health risk for children, because of their small body size and rapid development," she said.

All the workers in the tested households spoke Spanish. The researchers found pesticides in 95 percent of all homes sampled.

The team had expected to find organophosphates, the one class of pesticide found in previous studies by others, but others were documented as well. Our findings indicate that all categories of pesticides examined, not just organophosphates, are present in farm worker homes with young children in residence," said Quandt.

She said the team found the agricultural chemicals mostly in those homes that were adjacent to the agricultural fields. The workers most likely tracked the chemicals on their shoes, or had them on clothing.

The team found fewer detectable agricultural pesticides than residential pesticides, and they also found that the quality of the housing predicted the level of home pesticides. "Houses that are harder to clean may provide better habitats for pests, resulting in greater use of pesticides, as well as prevent the removal of pesticide-containing dust," Quant said.

The project was paid for with a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and is published in the current online edition of the NIEHS journal "Environmental Health Perspectives."

Bush Carbon Sequestration Plan Called Harmful to Marine Life

Brad Seibel, assistant professor of marine biology in the University of Rhode Island's Department of Biological Sciences, said that while the Bush administration's plan is still in the experimental stage, enough is known about the biology of marine organisms to say with certainty that the plan will harm the marine environment in significant ways.

"CO2 injection would be detrimental to a great many organisms," said Seibel. "It would kill everything that can't swim fast enough to get out of the way, because in concentrated form it's highly toxic, even to humans. But the Department of Energy seems willing to sacrifice the animals of the deep sea if it will stop global warming."

Increased CO2 in the oceans would decrease the acidity of seawater, resulting in physical changes in many species, said Seibel, who has worked as a marine ecologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Organisms like shelled mollusks and corals are already being affected by the growing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, as it inhibits the ability of shellfish to form shells and causes coral reefs to dissolve, Seibel explained

Deep sea creatures are even more sensitive to environmental changes, he said. In some species, metabolism would become suppressed and causeretarded growth and reproduction, while others would be unable to transport oxygen in their blood.

The government's carbon sequestration plan is designed to collect carbon dioxide emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and store them in underground geologic formations or deep in the ocean.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced in September the creation of seven regional partnerships to establish the framework to develop and deploy the necessary technologies.

In addition, the Bush administration convened a Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum in June where energy ministers from 13 countries discussed the technology's potential.

In the new book "Climate Change and Biodiversity," published in August, Seibel and co-author Victoria Fabry wrote, "From the perspective of marine organisms, deep-ocean sequestration means concentrating an otherwise dilute toxin to well above lethal levels, and placing it in an environment where the organisms are less tolerant of environmental fluctuation in general and CO2 in particular. They wrote, "Localized devastation of biological communities at the injection sites is certain."

Logging on Burned Over Lands Challenged

"Restoration or Exploitation? Post-fire Salvage Logging in America's National Forests," finds that due to global market forces that have produced a current "timber glut" in the United States, the U.S. Forest Service is having increasing difficulties attracting willing buyers for post-fire timber sales.

In 2002, the Forest Service could only sell 69 percent of the post-fire timber it offered for bid, writes author Dr. Timothy Ingalsbee from his office in Eugene. In response, he reports, the agency often changed the sale terms in order to attract potential bidders. The Forest Service reduced minimum bid prices by up to 80 percent, and permitted greater extraction of larger, healthy, more fire resistant and ecologically valuable trees.

When federal treasury costs are added to environmental costs, post-fire logging adds up to an unacceptable loss to the American taxpayer, Ingalsbee says.

Ingalsbee provides examples of 10 of the most devastating timber sale proposals being developed by the U.S. Forest Service following the Bitterroot, Biscuit, Hayman, McNally, Missionary Ridge, Red Star, Rodeo-Chediski, Tiller /Apple, and Toolbox fires.

Post-fire logging causes "extreme damage and often irrecoverable loss of sensitive forest soils," Ingalsbee says. This type of logging "pollutes watersheds, destroys wildlife habitat, reduces natural regeneration, kills or damages surviving vegetation, creates a myriad of future restoration costs, and increases fuel hazards and wildfire risks."

Although billed as a restoration or hazardous fuels reduction management practice, there is little evidence in the scientific literature to support claims that post-fire logging is necessary for restoration, Ingalsbee concludes.

He does report research reviewed by the U.S. Forest Service which concludes that post-fire logging itself may increase the rate of spread, intensity, and severity of fires.

Currently, Congress is working to finalize passage of a bill promoted by the Bush administration, which will dramatically increase logging while decreasing the public's ability to stop environmentally destructive projects.

The legislation seeks to expedite forest thinning projects on some 20 million acres of federal land considered most at risk from wildfire and runs in tandem with several administrative rules proposed by the Bush administration to streamline the removal of trees and underbrush from public lands.

Critics worry the vagueness of the bill and the broad authority it grants federal agencies will encourage logging of valuable timber, not the underbrush most in need of clearing.

American Lands says the Bush administration will apply the bill to most post-fire logging projects in 2004 by calling them "restoration" or "hazardous fuels reduction" projects.

DuPont, U.S. Mayors Offer Awards for Lead Reduction Strategies

Cities can qualifty for either of two awards programs - the USCM-DuPont Spotlight on Excellence Awards, or the Lead-Safe for Kids' Sake grant program. Each series of awards will disburse $500,000 for a total of $1 million.

Building on the successful Cities United for Science Progress partnership between the Conference of Mayors and DuPont, the Spotlight on Excellence Awards will recognize 18 cities throughout 2003-2004 for outstanding strategies to make cities lead safe.

"We have seen the tremendous impact of direct funding to cities in addressing lead safety issues through our USCM/DuPont Cities United for Science Progress Lead-Safe...For Kids' Sake Grant Program," said Tom Cochran, executive director of the Conference of Mayors.

"The USCM-DuPont Spotlight on Excellence Awards strengthen public-private partnerships and provide much needed resources to our nation's cities," he said.

Lead is highly toxic, especially to young children. Excessive exposure causes reduced intelligence, impaired hearing, reduced stature, and many other adverse health effects, according to numerous federal government studies. A large body of evidence shows that a common source of lead exposure for children today is lead based paint hazards in older housing and the contaminated dust and soil it generates.

To stimulate creative and effective strategies that create cleaner cities, the USCM-DuPont Spotlight on Excellence Awards will be given through six separate competitions every two months throughout the year, each covering a specific aspect of lead safety.

For each competition throughout 2003-2004, three awards will be given - a first prize award of $35,000, a second prize award of $25,000 and a third prize award of $20,000.

The first competition announced today by Cochran and DuPont Public Affairs Manager Mary Kate Campbell, will focus on housing rehabilitation. Cities will submit 750 word executive summaries outlining innovative and effective strategies to rehabilitate housing in their communities in an effort to make them lead safe.

"By recognizing and rewarding cities bi-monthly, we hope to address the immediate needs of mayors and cities throughout the year," said Campbell. "Our goal is to provide cities with a network of lead safety best practices that can be easily implemented into any city."

Submissions for the inaugural USCM-DuPont Spotlight on Excellence Awards must be postmarked by December 16, 2003. To apply, visit: http://www.usmayors.org

NOAA and Columbia University Create Climate Science Institute

Columbia University has been awarded a research grant for the Cooperative Institute for Climate Applications and Research (CICAR), to be headquartered at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Obseratory. This five year grant carries a funding ceiling of $50 million from NOAA under a cooperative agreement for interdisciplinary climate modeling and applications.

At a lecture delivered today at the Lamont Doherty Campus, NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher explained the importance of collaborative partnerships for the advancement of scientific knowledge.

“The pressing socioeconomic challenges of the 21st century will call for new scientific and operational capacity within the institutions and agencies that work to understand the physical, biological, and chemical cycles that characterize the Earth's natural systems,” he said.

“This will require creative partnerships to understand and manage ecosystems in a global manner - the same interrelated manner as the environment that we observe, while recognizing the link between the economy and our planet’s environment.”

CICAR, hosted by NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey, part of NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, will collaborate with NOAA scientists to advance climate research, education and outreach. GFDL conducts research on weather and hurricane forecasts, El Niño prediction, stratospheric ozone depletion, and climate change.

CICAR will be NOAA’s 13th joint or cooperative institute. "Partnerships like this one with Columbia University are essential as we work to have a better understanding of Earth’s climate system and how to prepare for and cope with its variabilities,” said GFDL Director Ants Leetmaa.

The new institute will focus on the modeling, understanding, prediction and assessment of climate variability and change. It will explore the development, collection, analysis and archiving of instrumental and paleoclimate data and the application of climate variability and change prediction and assessment to provide information for decisionmakers.

Investigators with the institute will apply this information to the task of assessing climate change risks to water resources, agriculture, and health.

"The human effects on our environment present potential risks of enormous complexity," said Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute. "Most dramatic, but still very imperfectly understood, are the human effects on long-term climate, which could disrupt vast biological, geochemical and social systems in future decades. This award allows Columbia scientists to continue their path breaking work in uncovering the complex processes of long term climate change."

The CICAR director, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Senior Research Scientist Yochanan Kushnir said collaboration is key to understanding the complexities of climate science.

“Both these research communities have long been tied in a common goal to document, understand and model Earth’s climate history and to predict its behavior on a broad spectrum of time scales,” said Kushnir. “It is our common intention to continue work towards these goals and invigorate our collaboration through joint scientific research and educational activities."

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory is a member of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, which conducts integrated studies of Earth, its environment, and society.