• Environmental Risk Seen as New Hemispheric Security Threat
  
• U.S. Scientist Engineers Deadly New Viruses
  
• Missouri River Wrangling Rolls On
  
• DOE: Savannah River Nuclear Fuel Storage Safer
  
• EPA Awards $20 Million for Computer Information Nodes
  
• Florida Acquires Black Bear Habitat for Protection
  
• San Francisco Opens Chinese Language Environment Website
  
• Canadian Firm Wins $1 Million Federal High-Tech Solar Contract
  

Environmental Risk Seen as New Hemispheric Security Threat

At the close of the summit Tuesday, the participants issued a seven page "Declaration on Security in the Americas" that emphasized the need to fight new terrorist threats, "whatever their origin or motivation, such as threats to cyber security, biological terrorism, and threats to critical infrastructure."

In the declaration, the nations expressed their concern that terrorists have the possibility of access to, possession of, and use of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.

The traditional concept and approach to security "should be expanded to encompass new and nontraditional threats, which include political, economic, social, health, and environmental aspects," the declaration states.

In particular, it underlines the need to prepare for natural and human induced disasters, HIV/AIDS and other diseases, and environmental degradation.

On the issue of global climate change, the OAS nations expressed their commitment to "working in coordination in order to mitigate the adverse effects that global climate change could have on our states."

Roger Noriega, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in an October 24 pre-summit briefing that security is a "multi-dimensional characteristic in the Americas."

Noriega said, "We're not just speaking of the traditional threats to security or tensions among and between countries, but also social and security tensions that exist within countries that we all want to address in common and as a community."

In their declaration, the OAS nations also expressed their intention to address "on an urgent basis" extreme poverty, inequality, and social exclusion.

"Overcoming these unacceptable conditions is a primary task of the states of the hemisphere, which requires continued commitment and actions to promote economic and social development, and education," they declared.

"Solidarity among the American states, expressed through their economic, technical, political, legal, environmental, social, and security and defense cooperation, contributes to the stability and security of the states and the Hemisphere as a whole," the declaration states.

U.S. Scientist Engineers Deadly New Viruses

The scientist, Mark Buller, a professor of molecular microbiology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine, has genetically altered the cowpox virus, which infects a range of animals including humans, in a similar way.

The new cowpox virus, which is about to be tested on mice at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, should be lethal only to mice, Buller said. He says his work is necessary to explore what bioterrorists might do.

Cowpox infects people, but Buller says the genetically modified protein is species-specific and would not affect the human immune system. The experiments are being done at the second highest level of biological containment.

Still, some scientists think the latest research is risky and unnecessary. "I have great concern about doing this in a pox virus that can cross species," said Ian Ramshaw of the Australian National University in Canberra on being told of Buller's work.

Ramshaw was a member of the team that accidentally discovered how to make mousepox more deadly, but the modified mousepox his team created was not as deadly as Buller's.

Since then, Ramshaw told "New Scientist," his team has also created more deadly forms of mousepox, and has used the same method to engineer a more deadly rabbitpox virus. But this research revealed that the modified pox viruses are not contagious, he says. These viruses could not cause ecological havoc by wiping out mouse or rabbit populations around the world if they escaped from a lab.

But the discovery also means some bioterrorists might be more tempted to use the same trick to modify a pox virus that does infect humans.

Such a disease, like anthrax, would infect only those directly exposed to it. It would not spread around the world and rebound on the attackers. But there is no guarantee that other pox viruses modified in a similar way would also be non-contagious.

Buller's research is part of the work of what is developing into a multi-institutional Midwest Regional Center for Excellence in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (MRCE).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced September 4 that the MRCE will be funded by a five year, $35 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

The founding members of the MRCE include Saint Louis University School of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and the Midwest Research Institute of Kansas City.

"We see the MRCE as a tremendous opportunity for the region to take the lead in this field and hope it will provide a framework to facilitate collaborative research in biodefense and emerging infectious diseases between academia and industry," says Samuel L. Stanley, Jr., M.D., director of the MRCE and professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. "We hope to have a tangible impact on security in this region."

The Saint Louis University School of Public Health already is home to the Center for the Study of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections. The center is part of a national network formed in 2000 by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to fight bioterrorism - biological weapons, chemical and biological agents - and emerging infections such as new viruses.

It is one of only 10 centers in the country funded by the CDC, and its main task is to prepare emergency response teams, physicians, nurses, health administrators and public health and community officials to respond effectively to health threats.

The new center funded by the National Institutes of Health will concentrate on expanding current research efforts in biodefense. The team's initial research effort will focus on a type of virus in humans called poxvirus infections, which includes diseases such as smallpox.

The centers' ultimate goals are to improve the safety of vaccines and to develop new therapies. The MRCE also is supporting work on the West Nile Virus, the plague and the control of aerosolized bioweapons.

Professor Buller, who is director of the center's Aerosol Biology Core, said that a major area of his research will be the study of air borne infections because this is the method of choice for delivery of weaponized infectious agents.

Missouri River Wrangling Rolls On

The Corps released its draft 2004 Annual Operating Plan (AOP) for the Missouri River’s big dams October 20 and is hosting meetings this week to gather public input on the plan. The first meeting was held Tuesday in Pierre, South Dakota, and the second will be held tonight in Omaha, Nebraska. The third will take place Thursday in Columbia, Missouri, all cities through which the river flows.

If drought conditions persist next year, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) is predicting a shortened navigation season with minimum flows during most of the summer and steady to rising reservoir levels during the spring fish spawn. Without above normal runoff, the Corps’ 2003-2004 Draft Annual Operating Plan predicts minimum navigation flows and a shortened season length.

Dry conditions across much of the Missouri River basin are pushing the big reservoirs to record low levels and show no signs of improving, the Corps reports. Runoff in September above Sioux City, Iowa, was only 42 percent of normal, the fourth lowest in 106 years of recordkeeping.

Steady to rising reservoir levels during the spring fish spawn are expected unless drought conditions are exceptionally bad. All of the Corps’ computer studies show ample storage space in the reservoirs to control flood inflows.

“We are really looking forward to the public’s participation in this process,” said Brigadier General William Grisoli, ACE Northwestern Division commander. “Their input is important. We want people to have an understanding of how our operational decisions are made and help us fully understand the impacts of those decisions.”

The groups contend the Corps is ignoring scientific evidence and opportunities to boost local economies in the Missouri River basin through increased recreation and tourism in favor of higher river flows. Greater amounts of water released from dams controlled by the Corps help barge navigation but hurt one fish and two bird species that are federally listed as endangered - the pallid sturgeon, the piping plover, and interior least tern.

“The decision to sacrifice three endangered species to float two tow boats a day makes particularly little sense since the Corps itself concluded that changing river flows to protect these species would increase the river’s economic benefits,” said Tim Searchinger, attorney for Environmental Defense.

“This 2004 AOP is simply the status quo, and therefore it is dead on arrival,” said Chad Smith, director of American Rivers’ Nebraska Field Office. “This plan is focused on the past, when we need to focus on the future - a healthy river, more hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation opportunities, and a river that actually functions as an economic asset for this basin.”

American Rivers, Environmental Defense, the Izaak Walton League of America, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Federation’s state affiliates in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Kansas sued the Corps last year to force the agency to adopt more natural flows on the Missouri River in compliance with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2000 Final Biological Opinion on dam operations.

The opinion recommends a modest increase in spring flows once every three years to increase fish reproduction and build sandbar habitat, and lower flows every summer to expose sand for nesting birds and provide increased shallow water habitat.

The groups say the Corps' 2004 draft Annual Operating Plan focuses on maintaining flows for commercial navigation and does not include the low-flow period, and no scientific evidence has been presented by the Corps showing why the agency believes high summer flows are good for fish and wildlife.

After resisting a federal court order to reduce summer flows for endangered species recovery, the Corps did finally comply with the order in August. But if dry conditions persist in the Missouri River basin next year, the navigation season will be shortened, and the endangered species may benefit from the resulting lower water levels.

DOE: Savannah River Nuclear Fuel Storage Safer

All of the fuel was moved from the 40 year old underwater storage basin and placed in what the DOE says is "safer interim storage" in a newly modified underwater basin in preparation for RBOF’s closure.

“I am pleased to see the change in landscape of how legacy waste and materials are now handled so that future generations will not be unduly burdened with the hazards and costs of winning the Cold War,” Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said.

Spent nuclear fuel currently stored at the Savannah River Site is from the site’s production reactors, and from domestic and foreign research reactor programs. All of this fuel is now stored in the newer of the two water filled concrete storage basins, which were intended originally for interim storage while spent fuel awaited processing in a chemical separations facility.

The Receiving Basin for Offsite Fuels (RBOF) began receiving fuel in the early 1960s. As the RBOF basin neared capacity, L-Basin was modified to become the primary receiving facility in 1997. In order to continue to meet the long term objectives of the research reactor fuel program, a variety of facility improvement projects continue to be implemented.

To reduce long term facility operating cost, a project is underway to consolidate fuel storage into one facility. Plans are to de-inventory the RBOF storage basin by shipping fuels currently stored in RBOF to L-Basin by 2007.

The RBOF de-inventory project fuel consists of three major components. They include the shipment of Aluminum (Al) based fuels, shipment of non-Al fuels, and shipment of processable fuels to the site’s chemical separations facilities for processing and disposal.

The bulk of the aluminum based spent nuclear fuel shipment was completed between February 1997 and May 2001 with the movement of approximately 3,800 Material Test Reactor assemblies and 14 High Flux Isotope Reactor cores.

During the 1990s, experts forecast that L-Basin would reach full capacity in FY2002. A project was started in FY2000 to design and install new fuel storage racks in L-Basin to provide adequate storage capacity through FY2009.

Spent fuel from Savannah River Site operations is also stored in the K Area Disassembly Basin. In addition, studies are underway to find alternative technologies, such as dry cask storage, for the spent fuel.

Secretary Abraham said today, “I am especially proud of our workers in the field who are driving hard to move from a culture of risk management to one of risk reduction while keeping safety paramount.”

EPA Awards $20 Million for Computer Information Nodes

The grants will fund continued work on the National Environmental Information Exchange Network by 43 states, two U.S. territories, and 16 Native American tribes, said EPA Acting Administrator Marianne Horinko.

When the network is complete, states, territories and tribes will no longer have to spend time and money to resolve hardware or data incompatibility problems in order to transfer data to the EPA, they will not have to transmit the data at all.

Instead they will establish nodes, special computers where they will store their environmental data, and the EPA will collect the data using a universal format software language.

"For too long, states and other EPA partners have shouldered a disproportionate share of the work and costs of exchanging environmental data," said Horinko. When the network is complete, the federal government will be able to obtain needed information without the states and other partners incurring high costs, she said.

Creation of the network is part of a Bush administration agenda which mandates that the federal government take advantage of modern information technology to make data more accessible to citizens and other interested parties.

Horinko said the EPA anticipates that Congress will continue to fund the grant program for a third year in FY 2004.

The largest grants, of $1 million each, were awarded to the Environmental Council of the States and to the California Environmental Protection Agency, which also received a separate grant of $810,000.

Other states received amounts in the $500,000 - $200,000 range.

Four tribes received $100,000 each to improve their readiness to participate in the network - the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation, Oregon; the Hualapai Indian Tribe of the Hualapai Indian Reservation, Arizona; the Department of Natural Resources, Navajo Nation Arizona, New Mexico and Utah; and the Environmental Protection Agency, St. Regis Band of Mohawk Indians of New York.

Florida Acquires Black Bear Habitat for Protection

The state began acquiring property in the Wekiva-Ocala Greenway in the 1960s and has now acquired approximately 42,000 acres of the Florida Forever project, over half the total lands needed to complete the greenway.

When complete, the 75,000 acre greenway will form a continuous corridor linking the Wekiva Springs State Park, Rock Springs Run State Reserve, Lower Wekiva River Aquatic Preserve, Hontoon Island State Park and the Ocala National Forest.

"Conserving land around one of Florida's largest metropolitan areas creates open space for recreation and protects endangered wildlife," said Department of Environmental Protection Secretary David Struhs. "Today’s acquisition helps sustain the Florida black bear population by linking habitat and providing black bears that inhabit the greenway with a natural pathway to a larger population in the Ocala National Forest.”

Expansion of the greenway protects the region's springs, rivers and lakes and provides habitat for about 50 Florida black bears. Close to the booming Orlando metropolitan area, the greenway provides the public with access to natural areas for camping, swimming, hiking and canoeing.

The governor and cabinet also Tuesday agreed to expand a land corridor stretching from the marshes of the St. Johns River to Tiger Bay State Forest. Florida is acquiring one-third of a 12,198 acre tract recently purchased by the St. Johns River Water Management District and Volusia County.

The state and county acquired the parcel as an addition to the Volusia Conservation Corridor Florida Forever project. The project preserves low-lying flatwoods, swamp, indigenous plants and endangered animals, including the Florida black bear, bald eagle and wading birds.

When complete, the 33,625 acre conservation corridor will span Volusia and Flagler counties, linking the Tiger Bay State Forest to the east with the Heart Island Conservation Area to the north. The state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Division of Forestry is managing the property as an addition to the Tiger Bay State Forest.

The 10 year, $3 billion Florida Forever program established by Governor Bush conserves environmentally sensitive land, restores water resources and preserves important cultural and historic resources. Visit www.floridagreenwaysandtrails.com for more information.

San Francisco Opens Chinese Language Environment Website

"Diversity is what makes San Francisco the jewel of the West. Our Chinese language website will help us increase recycling, but more importantly it will help us bring important information about how to reduce toxics in the home in language that the users understand," explains SF Environment Director Jared Blumenfeld.

The Asian community is San Francisco's single largest minority population, and there are nearly 20,000 households in the city where Chinese is the only language spoken, SF Environment has recognized.

The new Chinese language website, online at: http://www.sfenvironment.org, will is tailored to the needs of this linguistically isolated community.

The website addresses frequently asked questions about the environment, and coversdetails about SF Environment programs for residents and businesses in the areas of recycling, composting, toxic materials reduction and disposal, and energy efficiency tips and services.

Users can navigate the site for information, or contact SF Environment for more details. The website lists drop-off locations for various recyclable and reusable products, and informs the user about participating in the city's innovative recycling program, Fantastic Three.

The website also provides details about city programs for businesses and residents to dispose of potentially dangerous materials from used oil and latex paint, to solvents and old computers. Many of these services are free, and for seniors and the housebound, all of these services are free.

SF Environment will add new information to the site monthly.

SF Environment's Chinese Website was developed in conjunction with SINA Corporation, an online media company and information service provider for Chinese communities locally and has an estimated 77 million registered users worldwide. The company also has a branded network of localized websites, which include online media, wireless, email, e-commerce, and other services.

Blumenfeld looks ahead to a future that is multi-lingual. "Our next step is to develop a similar website in Spanish, which we plan to have online within the fiscal year."

Canadian Firm Wins $1 Million Federal High-Tech Solar Contract

An inverter is needed to convert the direct current (DC) energy generated by solar modules into alternating current (AC) energy, which can be sent to the electricity grid.

The project is part of the U.S. Energy Department Solar Energy Technologies' initiative to increase the use of photovoltaic power systems by improving reliability, reducing cost and increasing performance.

Xantrex develops, manufactures and markets advanced power electronic and control products for the distributed, mobile and programmable power markets. The company's products convert raw electrical power from any central, distributed, or backup power source into the form of power required by electronic and electrical equipment.

Privately owned with 600 employees and revenues of US$105 million in 2002, Xantrex is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia and has other facilities in Arlington, Washington; Livermore, California; Miami, Florida and Barcelona, Spain.

Under the Sandia contract, Xantrex will complete the design and development of a high reliability 5 kilowatt inverter and 40 amp maximum power point tracking charge controller as well as other accessories for the solar and distributed power markets.

Xantrex is building on its own proof of concept designs with the goal of achieving products with an exceptionally long field life, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

"Our goal is to encourage adoption of solar and other renewable energy systems by significantly improving the reliability of power electronics used in renewable energy production," said Ward Bower of Sandia National Laboratories.

"We expect this program will result in a mature product series of inverters with designs that can lead to scalable outputs ranging from two to 500 kVA (Kilo Volt-Amps)," said Bower.

"Xantrex is excited to have Sandia's support to develop next generation technologies and successfully deliver them to the marketplace," said Ray Hudson, Xantrex vice president of Advanced Technology. "We are confident the high reliability inverters we develop will form the key building blocks for off-grid, back up and hybrid power systems in years to come."

The first production units are expected to be introduced in 2005.

Sandia is a U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratory and is managed by Lockheed Martin Corp. Sandia partners with a variety of government, industry and academic institutions to accomplish its work. Xantrex has worked with Sandia's Solar Technologies Department on a number of successful projects in the past.

Sandia National Laboratories' Solar Programs and Solar Technologies Departments are involved in a wide range of national research, design and development projects focused on a "systems driven approach" to improving component and system performance, reliability and cost for photovoltaic technologies.