• Nuclear Waste Reclassification May Be Allowed in Washington
  
• Pennsylvania Growing Greener Grants Get Scant Funding
  
• Tumbleweeds Absorb Depleted Uranium from Arid Soil
  
• Utah Town Nation’s First Green Power Community
  
• Flood Destroys Rare Documents at University of Hawaii
  
• Recovery Plan for Rare Hawaiian Laysan Duck Proposed
  
• Three Kinds of Sea Squirts May Be New Species
  
• Video for Health Care Providers Covers Drinking Water Dangers
  

Nuclear Waste Reclassification May Be Allowed in Washington

The ruling overturns the decision of a federal judge in Idaho last year who agreed with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Snake River Alliance, the Yakama Nation and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes that reclassification of the waste violated the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

If the waste is reclassified it could be left in tanks at the Hanford Nuclear reservation and mixed with grout, or, it could be shipped to other federal facilities for disposal.

Last month, the DOE attempted to ship high-level waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, which is approved to accept only less radioactive transuranic waste. The state of New Mexico blocked the move.

Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire and her colleagues in three other states in September 2003 described as "wholly unnecessary" a DOE legislative proposal that would give the agency broad latitude in deciding how to categorize and dispose of high-level nuclear waste at Hanford.

"DOE's proposal is simply another attempt to get around what Congress intended for the safe disposal of high-level radioactive waste at Hanford and other nuclear facilities around the country," said Gregoire, whose bid for the Washington governor's post remains too close to call today, six days after the election.

Earlier this year, Congress passed the reclassification measure for South Carolina and Idaho, permitting the waste to be classified as "incidental." The reclassification does not apply to Washington state.

The DOE declined comment on the appellate court's decision.

About 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from plutonium production from the 1940s through 1989 is buried in Hanford's 177 underground tanks. At least 67 of the tanks have leaked radioactivity into the soil, contaminating the aquifer and menacing the Columbia River less than 10 miles away.

The 1989 Tri-Party Agreement, a Hanford cleanup pact, requires the Energy Department to remove as much waste as technically possible from the Hanford tanks, but not less than 99 percent.

Pennsylvania Growing Greener Grants Get Scant Funding

The grant total is down significantly from previous years. Many watershed groups were turned down or had their grants reduced because a $800 million bond initiative to expand and enhance Growing Greener proposed by Governor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, has not been passed by the Republican controlled Legislature.

“DEP has repeatedly testified and the Governor has warned that failing to support Growing Greener II would mean devastating cuts for watershed groups throughout the Commonwealth,” McGinty said.

“The fact of the matter is that without additional resources, prospects for the future are grim: DEP’s Growing Greener is a program in trouble. This recent and very disappointing grant award is proof. It is simply imperative that the Governor’s initiative be taken up and passed as quickly as possible.”

McGinty stressed that more grants would have been awarded and dozens of grants would have received substantially more funding if the Governor’s plan to expand and enhance Growing Greener had been passed. DEP received nearly 450 applications for watershed restoration and protection projects.

McGinty also announced Clean Water and Mineral Resources grants and contracts funded by the federal government. She said $3.7 million is being awarded in Nonpoint Source Implementation Program Grants, funded through Section 319(h) of the Federal Clean Water Act; $5.9 million from the federal Office of Surface Mining; $2.6 million from the Orphan Oil and Gas Well Plugging Fund and the Abandoned Well Plugging Fund; and $1 million in Watershed contracts.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's Growing Greener program also provides the Commonwealth’s required state match for the federal Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. This year, $5 million will be made available to Pennsylvania farmers to participate in this program. McGinty made the CREP announcement in August.

DEP also supports the county conservation districts through Growing Greener. This year, $3.9 million is provided to 64 conservation district watershed specialist positions throughout the state. The secretary announced these grants in July during a tour of the Hick’s Creek Watershed in Luzerne County.

The grants will facilitate environmental improvements that include the plugging of 344 wells; reclamation of 250 acres of abandoned mines; creation or restoration of 21 acres of wetlands; improvement of 15 miles of streams impacted by nonpoint source pollution; planting of 12 miles of riparian buffer; enhancements to 15 miles of stream banks; and formation of three new watershed groups.

Tumbleweeds Absorb Depleted Uranium from Arid Soil

Utah Town Nation’s First Green Power Community

In August, the City of Moab, Castle Valley, Pack Creek Ranch, and Spanish Valley, Utah became the first community in the nation to meet and exceed the EPA Green Power Partnership’s minimum benchmark for green power usage with voluntary purchases.

Moab was officially recognized by the EPA’s Green Power Partnership at the Annual Moab Folk Festival. Matt Clouse, director of the EPA’s Green Power Partnership, presented the Mayor of the City of Moab and the Mayor of Castle Valley with the award.

“We are honored and excited to be first in the nation as a green power community,”said Moab Mayor David Sakrison. “This designation clearly symbolizes our community’s commitment to both the development of renewable energy technologies and protecting our environment.”

The green power campaign in the Greater Moab Area was led by the Moab Green Power Steering Committee, which is made up of citizens, business leaders, and public officials and was aided by Utah Clean Energy and Utah Power.

Green power is electricity generated from renewable energy sources.The Moab Area Community is purchasing green power generated from wind power.

By having four percent of the Moab Area Community’s electricity offset by green power, the EPA estimates the environmental benefit is equivalent to avoiding the generation of four million pounds of carbon dioxide or planting roughly 750 acres of trees.

Flood Destroys Rare Documents at University of Hawaii

An eight foot wall of water breached the banks of Manoa Stream and rushed through the campus, flooding the basements of some science and library buildings where historical documents were stored.

Today, the power is still out in many buildings, and the university's troubles are far from over. Electric power on the Manoa campus went out on Saturday morning in the same buildings that were affected by the outage that followed last weekend’s flooding. By late morning Saturday, power had been restored to many buildings, but others remain dark or are running on temporary generator power.

Many buildings were damaged by the flood and while progress is being made, several buildings are still without power including Biomedical Sciences, Sherman Laboratory and Agricultural Sciences and the Hamilton Library.

Cleanup workers wearing facemasks are battling against mold and mildew, and the university has called in flood cleanup experts from the Texas company BMS Catastrophe, which has handled emergencies, including at the Pentagon after 9/11.

Some of the equipment and 35 BMS personnel are being flown in from Florida and the Bahamas, where they have been doing hurricane cleanup. BMS personnel began work Saturday and may eventually utilize as many as 225 people, including the National Guard.

Under a $1.75 million contract that could reach $5 million as expenses pile up, BMS officials said they will have the four most heavily flood-damaged buildings cleaned and sanitized within 45 days.

University administrators said it is too soom to estimate total damages, but a state insurance policy with a $25 million flood cap is in place.

Recovery Plan for Rare Hawaiian Laysan Duck Proposed

Written by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey's Pacific Islands Ecosystem Research Center and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the plan focuses on actions that will reduce the risk of extinction by addressing threats to the population, protect and enhance habitat quality, and establish additional wild populations.

This draft recovery plan revises the original 1982 recovery plan and is designed to incorporate the most current scientific information on the species.

The endangered Laysan duck, Anas laysanesis, until now had the smallest geographical range of any duck species in the world and consisted of a single population of approximately 500 birds. This was changed in October when a population of 20 young birds was established on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.

"The recent translocation of birds from Laysan to Midway is a landmark event for recovery of the species," said Gina Shultz, acting field supervisor for the Pacific Islands Fish and Wildlife Office. "As indicated in the plan, the establishment of additional wild populations is essential to the ducks' survival and serves as an insurance policy against extinction."

Previously found only on the remote island of Laysan in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, this species is one of only two ducks still found in Hawaii, that are found nowhere else on Earth. The other is the Hawaiian duck or koloa, Anas wyvilliana.

Until 1995, the Laysan duck was believed to occur only on Laysan Island, but in 1995 evidence from bones revealed that the duck once inhabited the islands of Hawaii, Molokai, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai. It was found historically on neighboring Lisianski Island, but was extirpated in the early 20th century.

The first humans known to live on Laysan came in the 1890s to mine phosphate rich bird droppings. They killed some 300,000 seabirds in six months. Humans introduced rabbits that devastated the vegetation, turning the island into a desert and leading to the extinction of three endemic landbirds - the Laysan rail, the Laysan honeycreeper, and the Laysan millerbird.

The Laysan duck was also hunted for sport and for food, but it was the devegetation caused by the rabbits that drove the duck close to extinction. Its total population was recorded at 11 birds in 1911.

The duck was listed as endangered in 1967. The draft recovery plan says the Laysan duck may be considered for downlisting from endangered to threatened status when:

• the Laysan Island population is stable or increasing when averaged over a continuous period of at least 15 years

• and a total of at least 920 potentially breeding adults exists in at least five stable or increasing populations on a combination of predator-free Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, including Laysan, and predator-controlled sites on main Hawaiian Islands.

• and a successful captive or semi-captive breeding program using wild source eggs is established.

• and a plan to promote gene flow between wild source populations through inter-island translocations is developed and implemented.

• and island specific management plans for each population that are sufficient to reduce threats and increase populations to recovery levels are developed.

Three Kinds of Sea Squirts May Be New Species

The creatures are types of sea squirts, also known as tunicates, bottom dwelling invertebrate animals.

"The fact that the three animals have never before been described by science and may well be new species is an exciting discovery," said Gray's Reef Sanctuary Manager Reed Bohne. More samples will have to be examined before scientists can definitively say they have a new species, but the animals are unlike any known tunicates.

"It makes you wonder if these species exist in other places. It suggests that we have something unique to Gray's Reef," said Daniel Gleason, associate professor of biology at Georgia Southern University (GSU). "That makes it even more worthwhile to conserve that habitat."

Gleason and fellow GSU scientists Alan Harvey and Stephen Vives have worked for three years to document all the invertebrates at Gray's Reef in a field guide. So far, 350 specimens have been collected and photographed. The guide eventually will be available online for use by both other scientists and recreational divers who are interested in identifying what they see at Gray's Reef.

The new tunicates were collected by Gleason and four students under a special permit to conduct scientific work in the sanctuary. It is against sanctuary regulations to collect invertebrates from the sanctuary without a permit.

When Gleason and his students could not fully identify the mysterious tunicates, they turned to Russian tunicate expert Karen Sanamyan for assistance. Out of dozens of samples from Gray's Reef, Sanamyan identified the three as being previously undescribed species.

Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary is one of the largest near shore live-bottom reefs off the southeastern United States, encompassing approximately 17 square nautical miles. The area earned sanctuary designation in 1981. Gray's Reef consists of a series of sandstone outcroppings and ledges up to ten feet in height, in a predominantly sandy, flat-bottomed sea floor. The live bottom and ledge habitat support an abundant reef fish and invertebrate community.

Loggerhead sea turtles, a threatened species, also use Gray's Reef year-round for foraging and resting, and the reef is within the known winter calving ground for the highly endangered Northern Right Whale.

Video for Health Care Providers Covers Drinking Water Dangers

“Tap into Prevention: Drinking Water Information for Health Care Providers,” was developed in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

This video explains potential health risks from exposure to microbial and chemical contaminants in drinking water and demonstrates positive actions health care providers can take in their communities.

The video provides case studies of the1993 cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Milwaukee, a city-wide testing program for lead in drinking water in Philadelphia's schools and the efforts of public health nurses in rural Minnesota who educate expectant parents about the importance of testing well water for nitrates and bacteria.

The EPA presented excerpts of the video at the Groundwater Foundation’s Annual Conference in Washington, DC, on Friday and at the American Public Health Association’s Public Health and the Environment Conference in Washington, DC today and Tuesday.

Continuing education credit is available to those health care providers who watch the video and then complete an online test and evaluation.

The video is among a number of EPA's activities to educate health care providers about environmental issues. Those include funding a multi-year nursing education program, "Protecting Children from Environmental Threats," developed by the American Nurses Association and the University of Maryland School of Nursing.

To order the drinking water video and to view additional resources about drinking water for health care providers, visit: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/healthcare