• U.S. Utilities Pledge to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions
  
• New Climate Monitoring Network to Start in January
  
• Suburban Sprawl May Contribute to Obesity Rates
  
• Massachusetts Workers Say Office Move Hampers Enforcement
  
• Construction Managers Offered Online Stormwater Permits
  
• Endangered Sonoran Pronghorn Receives Court Ordered Aid
  
• Ocean Crust Formation Not Only Fast and Slow, But Ultra-Slow
  
• Colorful New Map Shows Hawaii's Ocean Floor
  

U.S. Utilities Pledge to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

By comparison, the UN Kyoto Protocol target for greenhouse gas emissions is an average of 5.2 percent below a 1990 baseline by the year 2012.

Earlier this year American Electric Power, announced the four percent emissions reduction target, and this month the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) approved the goal, admitting the company into the Climate Leaders program as the 50th partner.

Climate Leaders, a voluntary government-industry partnership launched in February 2002, is a key component of the Bush administration's greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy.

According to the EPA, the partnership "challenges businesses to develop a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions inventory and then to set aggressive, emissions reduction goals."

Dale Heydlauff, American Electric Power senior vice president for governmental and environmental affairs, said, "AEP has been addressing the global climate change issue since the early 1990s when we participated in the Department of Energy Climate Challenge Program and have worked with other environmental and governmental organizations on climate change initiatives since then."

AEP expects to meet its greenhouse gas reduction commitment through a variety of actions, that may include power plant efficiency improvements, renewable generation such as wind and biomass co-firing, off-system greenhouse gas reduction projects, and reforestation projects.

The company also expects to purchase greenhouse gas credits through the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), an emissions trading market. AEP is a founding member and the only U.S. utility participating in the CCX. In its first CCX auction in September, 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide was traded for an average rate of just under $1/ton.

Based in Columbus, Ohio, AEP owns and operates more than 42,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States and international markets. Almost five million customers are linked to AEP’s 11 state electricity transmission and distribution grid.

Cinergy, another member of the Climate Leaders program, has pledged to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions by five percent below a 2000 base year during the period 2010 through 2012. The company will spend $21 million between 2004 and 2010 on projects to reduce or offset its emissions.

Cinergy's core operations of power generation and distribution account for about one percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, or about 67 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.

To implement the Climate Leaders program, Cinergy will work with Environmental Defense, a national environmental group that supports the use of market mechanisms to achieve environmental objectives.

Cinergy plans to use a combination of programs that will include new technologies, carbon sequestration, demand management, energy conservation, improved efficiency of its existing generating plants, and emission offsets to achieve its greenhouse gas emission target.

Another company in the Climate Leaders program, FPL Group, announced last month that it intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions rate by 18 percent by the end of 2008 compared to a 2001 baseline.

FPL says it will meet this commitment in part by improving the operating efficiency of its Seabrook nuclear power plant and increasing its output by nearly seven percent.

FPL says it will build or buy electricity from clean natural gas fired power plants to offset older less efficient facilities. The company intends to expand its wind energy portfolio, introduce a green power program, and encourage efficiency and conservation.

FPL Group’s principal subsidiary, Florida Power & Light serves about eight million customers in Florida, and its wholesale generation subsidiary operates power plants in more than 20 states. Total electric generating capability for FPL Group is approximately 28,000 megawatts, 55 percent of which is fueled by cleaner natural gas and renewable energy and 16 percent from nuclear.

But voluntary emissions cuts are not enough for many states, cities and environmental organizations. On October 23, attorneys general from 12 states joined with three cities, one island government and several environmental groups to file a legal challenge to the EPA on its failure to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said, "Five months ago, Massachusetts joined with two other New England states in suing the Bush administration over its failure to take action. Today, 12 states, three major metropolitan cities – including New York City, home to eight million people – the island government of American Samoa, and virtually every major environmental group in the country are calling on the EPA to act."

In August the EPA issued a ruling declaring that it had no legal authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, reversing earlier positions taken by the agency.

New Climate Monitoring Network to Start in January

The U.S. Climate Reference Network (CRN) is intended to "help national government and industry decisionmakers shape policies that are affected by changes in America’s climate," said Gregory Withee, assistant administrator for NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service.

“The CRN will give America a first class observing network for the next 50 to 100 years, and serve as a benchmark for climate monitoring,” he said.

The CRN is based on a plan for 100 automated ground observing stations across the United States that will monitor temperature, precipitation, solar radiation and wind speed.

NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites will transmit the data received from these ground stations in what NOAA calls "near real-time" to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, North Carolina. From there, the data will be available to the public.

After two years of testing and calibrating sensors, a pair of observing stations was installed in the Asheville area. There are now 45 stations operating in 26 states, with additional deployments for the next two years planned at a rate of about 27 each year.

“The CRN will give us more answers to the changing climate," Withee said. "It will provide future long term observations of surface air temperature and precipitation that can be compared to past long term observations which will better detect present and future climate variability and change.”

The basis of the network can be credited to Thomas Karl, NCDC director, who proposed 10 climate principles that were adopted by the National Research Council. These principles include: extensive information on instrument status and health, local conditions around the station, assessing changes in the network on monitoring climate variability and change, freedom of access to the data and supporting information.

Karl said a critical aspect of this network is that all stations are located in fairly pristine environments to help eliminate local human influences from confounding the interpretation of any observed changes in climate.

Most of the 50 states, including nine large-scale climate regions, are represented in the network. The observing stations will be established at locations sensitive to climate change, and placed at or near stations having long term historical climate records.

NCDC oversees the science component and the selection of the sites with help from NOAA’s Regional Climate Centers. NOAA’s Office of Systems Development in Silver Spring, Maryland, is managing the field operation and maintenance of the network, and NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory’s Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is developing and installing the instrument suites.

Issues related to science requirements of the network are presented to external scientists and stakeholders, NOAA said.

Suburban Sprawl May Contribute to Obesity Rates

Vandegrift's paper, "Obesity rates, income, and suburban sprawl: an analysis of U.S. States," is published in the current issue of "Health & Place," an interdisciplinary journal covering the study of health and health care in which place or location matters.

Vandegrift suggests that suburban sprawl and new residential location patterns may influence the lifestyle choices of Americans. These choices, Vandegrift found, lead to less exercise and correlate with an increase in obesity.

Looking beyond fatty foods and couch-potato behavior as the only reasons for obesity, Vandegrift questioned why Americans are sitting around more over the past decade than they ever have.

An economist by profession, Vandegrift suggests that the relative price of walking compared to the price of driving in today's suburban neighborhoods is much higher than it was even a decade ago.

With automobiles cheaper and easier to use, and commercial areas being built so that they are more easily accessible by vehicles, it is less and less likely that residents of suburban neighborhoods will make their trips by foot. This, he says, accounts for a significant reduction in exercise.

Vandegrift analyzed per capita income, employment, population density, and land development and use. He was able to correlate several of these factors to the rising level of American obesity.

Currently, more than 44 million Americans are considered obese, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. This reflects an increase of 74 percent since 1991.

Before 1950, urban growth in the United States was centered in cities, with relatively little growth occurring in suburbs. During the 1950s, this settlement pattern began to change, as residents moved to the suburbs in search of cheaper housing. Businesses and industries soon followed. This shift to suburban settlement continues, and today 46 percent of all Americans live in the suburbs.

Massachusetts Workers Say Office Move Hampers Enforcement

The move, made in July due to what NERO terms "budget constraints," placed agency inspectors, engineers and other environmental specialists 15 miles away from the industries that they are regulating.

In mid-October, New England PEER sent a survey to all department employees concerning the effects of the move. Of the 148 surveys mailed, 57 were returned.

Ninety-five percent of the NERO respondents said that the move has hindered the agency from fulfilling its “environmental mission,” 89 percent said the move weakened environmental enforcement, and 88 percent said it hampered DEP effectiveness.

Most respondents say there are now fewer unscheduled inspections and there is now a decreased anti-pollution presence in affected communities.

As one employee explains, “Having a regional office is instrumental to the success of DEP from not only an enforcement perspective but also a public outreach perspective.”

Another respondent said, “When we were located in the region, one could do an inspection in the a.m. and then return to the office. Presently an inspection will book entire days out of the office.”

The Northeast Regional Office now has three facilities - the Boston office, the Salem File Review Center, and the Emergency Response staff group which is now located at the Wall Experimental Station in Lawrence.

Nearly all PEER survey respondents, 98 percent, dispute agency management claims that NERO employees like the move. They cite morale problems that they doubt senior management is trying to correct.

One employee notes that what is missing at DEP is “an acknowledgement that we are not the enemy, we are a part of a team trying to do a responsible job requiring well trained, experienced professionals.”

More than one in four employees that responded to the PEER survey “fear retaliation from my chain of command for advocating strong environmental positions.”

“According to those who should know, the people of Northeastern Massachusetts are less protected from pollution today because the cop on the beat has been moved to Boston,” commented New England PEER Director Kyla Bennett who worked with DEP employees to develop the survey questionnaire.

“The top-down management style of the [Mitt] Romney Administration creates the strong impression that agency leaders do not care what employees think and do not bother to even ask about real world consequences of decisions before they are made.”

Construction Managers Offered Online Stormwater Permits

The U.S. Environmental Protection AGency (EPA) has developed the Electronic Notice of Intent (eNOI) for construction sites that need to apply for coverage under the EPA's Construction General Permit.

The Construction General Permit requires a seven day waiting period from the time an notice of intent is posted on the EPA's website until coverage under the permit begins. During this time, notices of intent can be reviewed by the EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The online system was created to serve the larger number of construction sites that must now filed notices of intent with the federal government under new EPA stormwater rules.

In July, the second phase of EPA's stormwater rules came into effect. The rules require smaller construction sites disturbing between one and five acres to implement stormwater management controls and to obtain permit coverage. Sites disturbing five or more acres are regulated under a previous phase of the stormwater program.

The EPA expects the new eNOI system will save construction companies of all sizes time and money with what the agency is calling a "simple, fast and accurate application process." The agency says that using eNOI will eliminate at least two weeks in processing time.

Before beginning a stormwater eNOI, a construction project's certifying official must develop a stormwater pollution prevention plan, complete the endangered species certification for the project site, and determine whether stormwater from the site will reach a waterbody with an established Total Maximum Daily Load of pollutants.

Currently, eNOI is available to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Idaho, Alaska, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, many of the territories, Indian country, and other areas where the EPA is the NPDES permitting authority.

In the future, EPA plans to add additional features to the eNOI system and make it available to the states that operate the NPDES stormwater permitting program under delegated authority.

The eNOI application forms are online at: http://www.epa.gov/npdes/enoi

The public can view the status of eNOI applications at: http://www.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/noisearch

Endangered Sonoran Pronghorn Receives Court Ordered Aid

On February 12, 2001 the court ruled that the 1998 Recovery Plan fails to establish criteria for delisting Sonoran pronghorn and does not provide estimates of the time necessary to carry out recovery actions necessary to achieve the Plan’s goal.

In response to the court order, the new changes, a final Supplement and Amendment, apply specific recovery efforts to appropriate listing and delisting factors, and provide estimates of time necessary to carry out these efforts - between one and 10 years.

The Service believes these recovery efforts will in the short term lead to downlisting the Sonoran pronghorn from endangered to threatened, and in the long term, will contribute to the delisting of the species.

One of the most disturbing conditions for the pronghorn is the use of airspace over their habitat for military overflights. The U.S. Air Force has recently completed a study evaluating the effects of military overflights on Sonoran pronghorn. This study, as well as data from other sources, is being used to further refine the USAF’S monitoring and operating procedures in order to reduce military impacts on Sonoran pronghorn, the Fish and Wildlife Service says.

Additionally, portions of two military areas will be closed to public use in the spring and early summer of each year to decrease disturbance to adults and fawns.

The fastest land mammal in North America, the pronghorn inhabits the open plains and deserts from southern Canada to northern Mexico and is capable of sustained speeds of 40 miles per hour with short bursts up to 50 miles per hour.

The Sonoran pronghorn is an endangered subspecies of pronghorn native to the hot, dry Sonoran Desert of southwest Arizona and northern Sonora, Mexico.

Critically imperilled in both countries, the Sonoran pronghorn was first designated as endangered in the U.S. in 1967 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, which was later affirmed by the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Sonoran pronghorn may have once freely ranged over more than 35,000 square miles in the U.S. and Mexico. The currently occupied habitat is now thought to be less than 10 percent of its former size.

The world population of Sonoran pronghorn was estimated at just over 300 animals in December 2002, down from an estimated 445 in December 2000. These animals occur in two distinct subpopulations in Mexico and one in the U.S. with little or no interchange.

The December 2000 and 2002 population for the U.S. was 99 and 21 adult animals respectively. Numbers in the U.S. are down from a population high of over 200 recorded in March 1994.

A significant factor in the decline of this population, the Service says, is poor fawn survival with minimal or no fawn recruitment in five of the last seven years. Poor fawn survival is directly correlated with timing, duration, and distribution of critically important rainfall during the winter months and summer monsoon and its effects on plant growth.

The severe decline experienced in 2002 was directly tied to a period of extreme drought that extended from August 2001 to September 2002. During this time period, less than an inch of rain fell in an area that on average receives upwards of nine inches.

Sonoran pronghorn biologists have initiated an aggressive program of water developments, forage enhancements, seasonal area closures, and a semi-captive breeding enclosure to help reverse this decline.

Conversion of habitat to other uses and barriers to movement caused by roads, canals, train tracks, and fences make life difficult for the remaining Sonoran pronghorns.

Overgrazing, diseases brought in with domestic livestock, and overhunting, particularly during the first half of the 20th century, are also mentioned by the Service as contributing to the Sonoran pronghorns' decline.

Copies of the final supplement and amendment to the 1998 Final Revised Sonoran Pronghorn Recovery Plan are online at: http://ifw2es.fws.gov/. Search under the electronic library for Sonoran pronghorn documents.

Ocean Crust Formation Not Only Fast and Slow, But Ultra-Slow

Previously, earth scientists recognized only two major classes of ocean ridges - fast and slow. Fast ridges can grow to half a mile in height as hot magma from the Earth's interior erupts to form new seafloor.

Slow spreading ridges are marked by canyons more than a mile deep where the sea floor is rifted apart with regularly spaced volcanoes.

The ultra-slow ridges also have a deep rift valley, but the ridge volcanoes are widely spaced between long stretches where cold mantle rock is pulled directly to the seafloor.

Marine geologist Henry Dick of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says this newly recognized class of ultra-slow spreading ridges constitutes a 12,000 miles of the 30,000-mile global ocean ridge system.

"This discovery means the total mass flux from the interior of the Earth at ocean ridges is significantly less than scientists assumed, and the total volume of basaltic ocean crust is significantly smaller," said Dick.

Dick, along with WHOI marine geophysicists Jian Lin and Hans Schouten, have published their results in this week's issue of the journal "Nature."

The WHOI team found the ultra-slow ridges when investigating the far south Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the sea floor beneath the Arctic icecap. Basically, Dick said, you could describe fast, slow, and ultra-slow spreading ridges in terms of the mantle temperature beneath them: hot, cool and cold ridges, respectively.

"These results are a wonderful example of the unexpected discoveries that often occur in science," said David Epp, director of the marine geology and geophysics program at the National Science Foundation, the federal agency that funded the research.

"This work will increase our understanding of mid-ocean ridge processes; marine geology textbooks will be rewritten," Epp said.

Seafloor spreading occurs at ocean ridges where new ocean crust forms along the margins of the Earth's great tectonic plates as geologic forces pull the plates apart. Elsewhere, the crust is destroyed as it is driven back down into the deep earth at island arcs and continental margins. Heat and mass are exchanged among Earth's interior, oceans and atmosphere through those processes.

The discovery of ultra-slow ocean ridge formation may allow scientists to see what a tectonic plate boundary looks like in the early stages of continental breakup and continental drift. Dick says it has been difficult to fit models for slow and fast spreading ridges with the seismic images of North American and European continental margins where the common land mass broke apart millions of years ago.

Scientists are already noting similarities between the structure of ultra-slow spreading ridges and the deep structure of those continental margins.

Colorful New Map Shows Hawaii's Ocean Floor

All prominent geologic features of the sea floor, including landslides, seamounts, fracture zones, and volcanic fields are portrayed in color and illuminated from the northeast to show sea-floor relief.

The map is the result of cooperation among the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Hawaii, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Research Institute, and the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC).

JAMSTEC funded and led a four year collaborative survey of the sea floor, utilizing manned and unmanned submersibles, rock dredges, and sediment piston cores to sample and observe the sea floor at specific sites. Ship based sonar systems were used to map the bathymetry from the sea surface.

The depth to the sea floor is portrayed by color shading. The topography of the islands is in shades of gray.

All lava flows erupted since written records were kept are shown in red - all of these flows came from Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea volcanoes. The map is up to date through summer 2003.

The map shows how active the sea floor is next to the islands. Fields of blocky debris indicate the presence of underwater landslides that peeled off the volcanoes in the past, most recently about 100,000 years ago from part of the Kona coast.

Another prominent slide, little known but striking on the map, is the South Kauai Slide, which reaches almost 60 miles southeastward from the island of Kauai.

Surrounding most of the islands are prominent submerged terraces, shown in orange and yellow that reflect the sinking of the islands.

Submarine rift zones, the sites of past and, in Kilauea’s case, future eruptions, are immediately apparent on the map. The most striking is the broad Hana Ridge, which reaches nearly 80 miles east from Hana, Maui and ends at a depth of 16,000 feet with two sharp ridges.

Not related to Hawaiian volcanism but among the most obvious features of the map are large seamounts that are about 100,000 years old. These large mountains formed by underwater volcanic activity at the East Pacific Rise and drifted along with the Pacific Plate to their present locations. Some of these peaks are 13,000 feet high.

The new map was compiled by Barry Eakins, a postdoctoral fellow with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California.

The colorful map measures 25 by 28 inches and is printed on heavy poster paper, suitable for hanging and display. The map will be sold for $7.95 by the Hawaii Natural History Association at Kilauea Visitor Center and Jaggar Museum. It is also available for downloading from the Internet at: http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/i-map/i2809