• Cooler, Wetter Conditions Help Dampen California Fires
  
• Senate Passes Forest Thinning Bill
  
• Groups Sue Interior Department Over Montana Power Plant
  
• Everglades Judge Will Appoint Expert on Cleanup Compliance
  
• New York Volunteer Farmers Paid to Improve Waterways
  
• Public Interest Lobby Group Objects to Biotech Experiments
  
• University at Buffalo Wins Award for Wind Power Purchase
  
• Tiny Marine Organisms Helped Humans Evolve
  

Cooler, Wetter Conditions Help Dampen California Fires

Forecasters with the NOAA National Weather Service say a strong onshore flow off the ocean heavily laden with moisture has "dramatically raised" the humidity across the area.

Strong southwest to westerly winds of 20 to 40 mph with higher gusts moved inland today with this marine push, said forecasters from the NOAA Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, and NOAA National Weather Service forecast offices in San Diego and Los Angeles.

"Dry conditions are being replaced by the much more humid conditions in most areas," said NOAA senior development meteorologist Phillip Bothwell. "Even the inland areas should see much higher humidities through the next few days."

Fire officials say that the wildfires have destroyed 2,432 homes and forced the evacuation of 95,600 people. More than 58,300 California residents are without power as a result of the firestorms.

The good news is that fire within the City of San Diego has now been 100 percent contained.

A deepening cold trough descending from the north is expected to continue moderating conditions over the next several days, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Winds will lessen over the weekend as relative humidity numbers are expected to be slightly higher.

There is a chance of rain showers just to the north and south of the fire areas Saturday but they are expected to have little, if any, impact on the incidents, fire officials said today. The Grand Prix, Simi Incident, and Piru fires all reported approximately 20 degree cooler temperatures and 20 percent increases in relative humidity this morning.

Around Boulder and Denver, Colorado, where several wildfires erupted Wednesday afternoon, warm dry conditions were replaced today with temperatures in the 20s and 30s with clouds and humidity near 100 percent.

The city of Boulder Fire Department urges residents to be cautious of wildfire conditions in Boulder and around Colorado. Chinook winds - the same wind event as the Santa Anas of Southern California - thick and dry vegetation from the wet spring and dry fall, and steep terrain, are making local conditions similar to the problems in California.

Elsewhere in the United States, strong west to southwesterly winds and low humidity across much of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and southern Colorado are expected, and the fire danger remains high in these areas.

Friday should have less windy conditions across the southwest, although the humidity will still remain low, in the 10 to 15 percent range, from Arizona through New Mexico, the National Weather Service predicts.

Senate Passes Forest Thinning Bill

The deal was brokered by Senators Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican, and Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican.

The compromise will streamline restorative forestry in at-risk and unhealthy forests while preserving public input, protecting old growth, and reining in provisions of wildfire legislation approved earlier by the U.S. House of Representatives.

“This balanced compromise provides an opportunity to protect communities from the catastrophic fires we’ve seen in California, Oregon and throughout the West, boost rural economies, and protect old growth forests for future generations,” Senator Wyden said.

The agreement preserves all current opportunities for public input and appeal, while streamlining the appeals process and eliminating some of its worst abuses, Wyden said. "Not one current opportunity for public comment would be lost under the compromise," he said.

The compromise will require the Forest Service to rewrite their appeals process using the pre-decisional appeals and comment process that has been used by the Bureau of Land Management since 1984. It works by encouraging the public to engage in a collaborative process with the agency to improve projects before final decisions have been rendered upon them by the agency.

"This model places a premium on constructive public input and collaboration," said Wyden, "and less emphasis on the litigation and confrontation of the post-decisional appeals process currently used by the Forest Service."

Interior Secretary Gayle Norton and Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman issued a joint statement this evening in favor of the bipartisan agreement.

“The legislation is needed to help the land management agencies decrease the wildland fire risk to communities by implementing hazardous fuel reduction projects on federal land through a collaborative process," Norton and Veneman said. "It also supports the President’s Healthy Forests Initiative - launched more than a year ago - to address the growing decline in forest and rangeland health caused by the unnatural buildup of hazardous fuels and increasing disease and insect infestations.

“We urge Congress to act quickly and we look forward to working with Congress to secure final action,” the two secretaries said.

Many conservation groups oppose the measure because they say it scales back environmental analysis, protection, and public participation requirements, and say they are being scapegoated by proponents of the bill. Colorado Wild points to an area near Boulder that was analyzed for fuels reduction and went through the full process, including appeal, but was logged for large trees, not just brush and smaller trees.

But Wyden says the measure provides the first statutory recognition and meaningful protection of old growth forests. "Never before has Congress recognized by statute the importance of maintaining old growth stands. Under the compromise, the Forest Service must protect these trees by preventing the agency from logging the most fire resilient trees under the guise of fuels reduction," he said.

Where old growth stands are healthy, as they are throughout much of the forest on the west side of the Cascade Ridge in Oregon, the compromise requires that they be “fully maintained,” Wyden said.

Groups Sue Interior Department Over Montana Power Plant

A newly permitted coal fired power plant in Roundup, Montana will create air pollution and haze at levels that would damage views and air quality in Yellowstone National Park and other regions of Montana, such as the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, the groups contend.

"This was a decision to ignore the scientists who actually understand how to predict impacts on air quality and visibility," says Abigail Dillen, an attorney with Earthjustice, who is representing the plaintiff conservation groups the National Parks Conservation Association, Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and The Wilderness Society.

In December 2002, air experts at the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the proposed Roundup plant would be "a significant contributor" to adverse visibility impacts "severe in both frequency and magnitude" in Yellowstone and the UL Bend Wilderness Area, which is a part of the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge, that is in turn contained within the vast Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge.

Accordingly, the Interior Department issued a formal finding of "adverse impact" under the Clean Air Act.

Although this "adverse impact" finding should have legally required Roundup to reduce or offset its emissions, senior officials at the Interior Department immediately agreed to review the finding in response to complaints from the Roundup Power Company, Dillen explained. Agency air experts undertook further analysis and again concluded that pollution from Roundup would impair visibility at Yellowstone and UL Bend.

But, argues Dillen, after a conference call with the power company, Interior officials sent a letter withdrawing the adverse impact finding and allowing the project to proceed as planned.

According to a briefing statement jointly released by the Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, there were no air quality staff at "the Headquarters, Regional, refuge/park level who were aware that this decision had been reached or that such a letter had been sent," even though agency scientists repeatedly expressed "serious concerns about impacts from this project on visibility at nearby Class I areas."

The Clean Air Act prohibits any degradation of air quality in what should be the nation's cleanest areas, called Class I airsheds.

The Roundup plant will have two 350 MW pulverized coal units located adjacent to the Bull Mountain coal mine. Montana Governor Judy Martz said October 1 that the 700 MW facility will provide low cost power to a region suffering economically from high electricity rates, and from a severe loss of jobs that resulted from many closed industrial facilities over the past 10 years.

Announcing approval of the power plant, Governor Martz, a Republican, says it will provide Montana and the surrounding areas with "a new, clean, natural resource to allow low cost generation of energy supply. It will reduce and stabilize skyrocketing power prices. And it will accomplish this while greatly enhancing Montana’s economy with hundreds of millions of dollars of expenditures in developing and operating the mine and power plant.”

At announcement ceremony, the FGS & Associates President Joe Dickey, former COO of TVA and vice president of FP&L, representing the owners as the overall project manager, said the plant has been designed with "the best available technology for emission controls and with particular consideration for the local region water resource limitations."

But the conservation groups say the power plant could have been made to meet clean air standards. "National Park Service specialists outlined potential pollution control measures for the new power plant that would have protected Yellowstone's air," says Michael Scott of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. "But the administration overrode the recommendations of its own scientists, allowing the power company to avoid making changes that were essential to protect the park."

"It's just common sense that the federal government should require that any new power plant protect air quality and visibility in Yellowstone," Scott said.

"We could have clean air in Yellowstone, a clean plant, and jobs for more Montanans," says Tony Jewett of the National Parks Conservation Association. "But D.C. politicians are trading away clean air. It's a shameful episode that undermines these places that belong to all Montanans and Americans."

This is a clear case where politics is trumping science," says Bob Ekey with The Wilderness Society. "The administration is ignoring its own experts in favor of an energy company, and at the expense of Americans and our first national park."

Everglades Judge Will Appoint Expert on Cleanup Compliance

U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno said today that within 10 days he would issue an order identifying the person chosen as a special master. The special master will be a scientific expert who is well versed in environmental law, Judge Moreno said.

The South Florida Water Management District is bound by a 1991 settlement agreement to reduce fertilizer running off farms into the Everglades. Phosphorus, a component of fertilizer, is the ecosystem's top pollutant, altering water chemistry and fueling the growth of thickets of cattails that crowd out native sawgrass and close off areas to wading birds and fish.

The special master will help the federal judge to determine compliance with requirements to reduce the amount of fertilizers that are dumped into the Everglades by the sugar farms.

The appointment of the special master was an idea first raised when U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler presided over the case. After overseeing the issue since 1988, Judge Hoeveler was removed from the case earlier this year after lawyers for the sugar industry sought his removal.

Some of the phosphorus comes from fertilizer laden runoff from suburban developments at the edge of the Everglades and from vegetable farms south of Lake Okeechobee. But the largest amount is from the water pumped off the network of sugar farms south of the lake.

"The everglades are a national treasure and a world heritage site. We can' t let the sugar companies ruin it," said David Guest, managing attorney for the Tallahassee office of Earthjustice, a nonprofit, public interest law firm. "The cleanup program has major failings and a special master will find out why and explain it to the court.

Earthjustice has filed a petition to invalidate the Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) rules for waterbodies in a tributary basin of Lake Okeechobee that are polluted by runoff from dairy farms. These rules, proposed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, would allow 19 tons of phosphorus to continue to be discharged into Lake Okeechobee every year.

A lawsuit was previously brought by Earthjustice that required establishment of TMDLs for Lake Okeechobee. But, Guest contends, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection proposed "unrealistic standards, effectively ensuring that the total maximum daily load for the entire lake will continue to be exceeded, and excess phosphorus will continue to flood the ecosystem."

Earthjustice's current challenge seeks to enforce the requirements of the consent decree in that case. Earlier this month, Florida's St. John's River was added to the case.

As part of its campaign to restore the Everglades, Earthjustice's Tallahassee office compelled the Environmental Protection Agency to set standards that will decrease agricultural pollution flowing into Lake Okeechobee by 70 percent. The lake, which once supplied clean water to the Everglades, is polluted by runoff from cattle ranches and dairy farms.

Since 1976, when cattle operations first came to the immediate area, there has been a decline in the populations of largemouth bass, crappie, and most wading birds, Earthjustice says. The lake is so polluted much of its pollution cycle is internal, as phosphorus is recycled within the lake.

Florida's pledge to reduce the phosphorous was pushed back from an original date of 2002 to 2006. In June, Governor Jeb Bush signed a law changing the state's commitment to the 2006 cleanup date and substituting the year 2016.

The special master is expected to help Judge Moreno determine the technical feasibility of achieving the 2006 date. The special master is also expected to help the judge resolve factual disputes about how the cleanup program is working.

Earthjustice attorney Monica Reimer said, "This case will start moving fast because the special master will turn a bright light on why the cleanup is getting stalled."

New York Volunteer Farmers Paid to Improve Waterways

Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, New York State Agriculture Commissioner Nathan Rudgers, and New York State Commissioner of Environmental Conservation Erin Crotty made the announcement during a tour Wednesday of Herrington Farms in Troy, New York.

CREP is a voluntary program that pays participants to implement conservation practices on environmentally sensitive land. In return, participants receive annual rental payments, cost-share assistance and other financial incentives.

Participants will replace row crops with native grasses, hardwood trees and other conservation practices that prevent erosion and reduce runoff containing nutrients and pathogens. Riparian buffers containing trees and shrubs may also be planted on those acres.

The officials said that through the program, buffers planted along New York stream banks and rivers will filter an estimated 72,000 pounds of phosphorus, 38,000 pounds of nitrogen and 105,000 tons of sediment per year. The new vegetation will also provide shelter, nesting areas and food for wildlife.

Veneman said, “Since New York’s major watersheds traverse through multiple states, this conservation initiative will eventually improve the natural resources in other areas of the country, including the Chesapeake Bay.”

Signup for the New York CREP begins December 1 and will be continuous through December 31, 2007. Land enrolled in the program will remain under contract for a period of 10 to 15 years, as specified in the contract. During this period, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will contribute an estimated $52 million into the program and New York State will fund an additional $10 million.

The state and federal agencies set a goal to enroll 40,000 acres into CREP over the next four years. This acreage would protect nearly 4,600 stream miles and 473,000 surface water acres.

Producers can obtain more information on CREP from their local Farm Service Agency (FSA) offices and on FSA’s website at: www.fsa.usda.gov.

Public Interest Lobby Group Objects to Biotech Experiments

Twice as many field tests of genetic engineering experiments involving plants combined with genes from humans, chickens, cows, mice, and other animals were authorized by the USDA between 2001 and mid-2003 than were authorized during the entire first 13 years of USDA recordkeeping, according to the report.

The PIRG report, "Weird Science: The Brave New World of Genetic Engineering," documents ways in which scientists are manipulating nature and highlights the differences between genetic engineering and traditional plant breeding. It also examines the unpredictability of genetic engineering, detailing examples of some unexpected results that have already occurred in field tests.

As part of their fourth annual Kraft Week of Action, U.S. PIRG and the Genetically Engineered Food Alert coalition called on the Kraft food company to remove genetically engineered ingredients from their products, and join in the call for stronger regulations of genetically engineered crops, including mandatory pre-market safety testing and labeling.

"Open-air plantings of bizarre gene combinations in common food crops are unpredictable and potentially dangerous," said U.S. PIRG environmental advocate Richard Caplan. "The biotechnology industry, the food industry, and the U.S. regulatory system are failing to protect human health and the environment."

The report highlights field tests of unusual gene combinations such as:

• Corn and Hepatitis B and Simian Immunodeficiency Virus - ProdiGene genetically engineered a corn with genes from a number of viruses, including hepatitis B virus and the simian immunodeficiency virus. Simian immunodeficiency viruses are lentiviruses that cause illnesses similar to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in susceptible macaque monkeys and are used in the study of AIDS, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control.

  USDA issued a permit in 2001 for ProdiGene to field test this pharmaceutical corn on 53.5 acres in Nebraska.

• Safflower and Carp - Emlay and Associates created safflower that produces pharmaceutical proteins by genetically engineering the safflower with growth hormones from carp. The USDA agreed in June that this crop may be grown on 11 acres in North Dakota and Nevada.

• Wheat and Chickens - The University of Nebraska acquired three permits to grow field trials of wheat genetically engineered with chicken genes to produce fungal resistance. The field tests were authorized to occur between March 2002 and August 2003 in Nebraska.

• Rats and Soybeans - The University of Kentucky used the genes of the Norwegian rat to alter the oil profile of soybeans. The test was authorized to begin in May on an acre in Kentucky and can continue until May 2004.

An APHIS scientific reviewer evaluates the possible environmental impacts of the proposed field test. The possible impact of new plant varieties on endangered or threatened species is considered. Non-target species, those not meant to be directly impacted by the new plant, are also taken into account.

In an effort to streamline the permit process, most applicants can now use a simplified procedure in which they notify APHIS before they plan to move or field test a biotech crop. APHIS then has 30 days to review the notification prior to any testing. These field tests are still required to meet all the same safety standards as trials that are approved through the permit process.

But PIRG says the agency does not guard the public sufficiently against the adverse effects of genetic engineering.

"Despite very visible gaffes by the biotechnology industry, such as illegal corn in taco shells or unapproved genetically engineered livestock in the food supply, it is shocking to learn about experiments that put rat genes in soybeans and chicken genes in corn," saidd Caplan. "Because genetically engineered crops are poorly regulated and resulting food products carry no consumer label, consumers are all test subjects in a vast food experiment."

University at Buffalo Wins Award for Wind Power Purchase

"The University at Buffalo has demonstrated two qualities shared by the individuals who have received this award - outstanding leadership and the ability to have a significant positive impact," said Val Washington, executive director of Environmental Advocates.

"Almost as soon as wind energy became available, the university became the largest purchaser in the state, a choice that means cleaner air for all New Yorkers," Washington said. "We are proud to name the University at Buffalo our Environmentalist of the Year."

This year, UB has purchased eight million kilowatt hours of wind energy from Community Energy, Inc. and will purchase 12 million kilowatt hours in 2004.

"The significant dollar savings achieved through UB's energy-conservation program have provided us with the opportunity to make a meaningful purchase of clean wind energy," said Michael Dupre, UB associate vice president for university facilities and a member of the UB Green energy team that made the purchase a reality.

The UB wind energy purchase was facilitated Governor George Pataki's June 2001 exeutive order that directed state agencies, the State University of New York and other state entities to be more energy efficient and environmentally aware. The order by Pataki, a Republican, mandates that 10 percent of the electricity consumed by state agencies be from "green" renewable sources by 2005, and 20 percent by 2010.

"UB's green power purchase will provide significant environmental benefits by reducing pollutants associated with electricity generation," said John Russo, UB utilities manager.

UB estimates that in 2004, its wind energy purchases will reduce carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions by more than eight million, 92,000 and 36,000 pounds, respectively, contributing to reduced smog, acid rain and climate change.

"While the executive order did not formally require us to buy green power at this time, we felt that it was important for UB to step out, buy wind power now and help build the New York green power market," said Walter Simpson, UB energy officer.

Another of UB's newest green initiatives include development of a large, comprehensive energy retrofit project for the South Campus. A similar project on the North Campus in the 1990s resulted in approximately $3 million in energy savings for the university.

A collaborative effort with other state agencies has produced UB's High Performance Building Guidelines, which will direct green building design for new construction at UB and are anticipated to have an impact statewide.

Tiny Marine Organisms Helped Humans Evolve

In a paper titled "Carbonate Deposition, Climate Stability and Neoproterozoic Ice Ages" published in the October 31 edition of the journal "Science," researchers Andy Ridgwell and Martin Kennedy from the University of California-Riverside, along with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate scientist Ken Caldeira, say that these marine organisms helped prevent the ice ages of the past from turning into a global deep freeze.

"The most recent ice ages were mild enough to allow and possibly even promote the evolution of modern humans," Caldeira said. "Without these tiny marine organisms, the ice sheets may have grown to cover the Earth, like in the snowball glaciations of the ancient past, and our ancestors might not have survived."

The researchers used a computer model describing the ocean, atmosphere and land surface to look at how atmospheric carbon dioxide would change as a result of glacier growth.

They found that, in the distant past, as glaciers started to grow, the oceans would suck the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, making the Earth colder, promoting an even deeper ice age.

When marine plankton with carbonate shells and skeletons are added to the model, ocean chemistry is buffered and glacial growth does not cause the ocean to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

But in Precambrian times, which lasted up until 544 million years ago, marine organisms in the open ocean did not produce carbonate skeletons. Ancient rocks from the end of the Precambrian geological age indicate that huge glaciers deposited layers of crushed rock debris thousands of meters thick near the equator.

If the land was frozen near the equator, then most of the surface of the planet was likely covered in ice, making the Earth look like a giant snowball, the researchers said.

Around 200 million years ago, calcium carbonate organisms began helping to prevent the Earth from freezing over. When the organisms die, their carbonate shells and skeletons settle to the ocean floor, where some dissolve and some are buried in sediments. These deposits help regulate the chemistry of the ocean and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

In a related study published in the journal "Nature" on September 25, Caldeira and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist Michael Wickett found that unrestrained release of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into the atmosphere could threaten extinction for these climate stabilizing marine organisms.