• American Birds Disappearing from Grasslands, Cities
  
• Organic Standards for Milk, Produce Clarified
  
• U.S. Farmers Could Ease Drain on World Water Supply
  
• Pumpkins Can Clean Up Toxic Soils
  
• Fungus Saves Honey Bees By Killing Parasite Mites
  
• New Jersey Industrial Power Generators Face Emissions Cuts
  
• Two Obsolete Dams Removed from Pennsylvania Creek
  
• Scientists Plan Ahead for Coastal Monitoring from Space
  

American Birds Disappearing from Grasslands, Cities

"Like the canary in the coal mine warning the miner of danger ahead, birds are an indicator of environmental and human health," said Audubon President John Flicker. "Birds signal that we are at risk next."

Statistically significant declines were recorded for bird species in five habitat types - grasslands, shrublands, forests, wetlands, and urban areas.

Thirty-six percent of shrubland bird species, 25 percent of forest bird species, 23 percent of bird species in urban areas, and 13 percent of wetland bird species are disappearing.

Compiled by Audubon Scientist Greg Butcher, the "State of the Birds" analysis has prompted Audubon to urge the strengthening of existing environmental protections and stricter enforcement.

Birds are reliable indicators of environmental conditions, Flicker said, and they contribute to the U.S. economy. According to the U.S. Forest Service, 69 million Americans, one-third of all adults in this country, call themselves birdwatchers.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service notes that they contribute at least $32 billion in retail sales, $85 billion in overall economic output, and $13 billion in state and federal taxes, creating 863,406 jobs.

But loss of native grasslands, overgrazing of grassland and shrubland, development of wetlands, bad forest management, invasive species, pollution, and poor land use decisions are making victims of America's native birds.

Keeping birds, and their home habitats, in good condition is not only a good conservation policy, it is also good business, Audubon says.

"Birds also contribute to the bottom line in more subtle ways, providing free pest and weed control, distributing seeds, and pollinating flowers and crops," said Flicker. "We simply cannot afford to ignore the state of the birds."

Organic Standards for Milk, Produce Clarified

Last week, at the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) public meeting in Washington, DC, the USDA verbally "concurred" with three out of the four NOSB inputs on the directives issued by USDA concerning milk, produce and fishmeal.

These directives were publicly rescinded by Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman last May, but there was widespread concern among many groups, including the Consumers' Union, that the interpretations made in the directives remained as the standing policy of the USDA.

USDA officials concurred that antibiotics or other prohibited substances should not be allowed for use on the organic dairy farm.

Prohibited pesticide ingredients cannot be used on crops, officials reaffirmed.

And any synthetics used in fishmeal, as a protein supplement for livestock, are prohibited unless reviewed by the NOSB and approved for organic production.

Consumers Union considers the responses from the USDA to be a positive step in the right direction. But the consumers advocacy organization, which publishes "Consumers' Report" magazine, said that it "does not want to see USDA quietly revisiting these issues as they did this past summer which led to considerable confusion about the status of the directives."

Consumers Union and others have asked the USDA to issue dated written responses and to post them on the National Organic Program website so that consumers, farmers and certifiers are clear about USDA's current interpretation of the organic standards.

A detailed discussion of the three directives is online at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/nosb/meetingbooks/Oct2004/tableofcontents.htm

Consumers Union cautions that until the USDA establishes organic standards for fish farms, for pet food and for personal care products, the claims on labels cannot be relied upon to meet organic criteria, however defined.

CU's advice to consumers is "save your money and don't buy organic fish, pet food or personal care products until the USDA provides additional standards."

The USDA has announced that the first audit of the National Organic Program has been completed by the American National Standards Institute and will be released in mid-November. This audit will provide the public, farmers and certifiers with a report card of how well the USDA is managing the accreditation of certifiers and where improvement is needed.

U.S. Farmers Could Ease Drain on World Water Supply

Pumpkins Can Clean Up Toxic Soils

A greenhouse study by chemist Dr. Ken Reimer and his team suggests that phytoremediation with these plants is a environmentally friendly technique for cleaning up sites contaminated with DDT, PCBs and other harmful compounds.

Once they have taken up the contaminants, the pumpkins would not be eaten. The pumpkins would be allowed to ripen and then composted with their vines to reduce their volume before they are disposed of in landfills or incinerated.

"Our research has shown that members of the Cucurbita pepo species, including pumpkins, are particularly effective in this regard," Reimer says. "Phytoremediation offers a green solution to cleaning up contaminated sites."

The report is scheduled to appear in the November 15 edition of "Environmental Science & Technology," a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society headquartered in Washington, DC.

DDT was applied widely as an insecticide in North America until it was banned in 1972. Some developing nations still use DDT for protection against typhus and malaria, and it endures for long periods of time in the environment, posing a potential health threat to humans and animals.

Persistent organic pollutants like DDT, PCBs and dioxins are difficult to remove from soils because they are not water soluble, and the difficulty increases with the passage of time. To clean up contaminated sites, it has been necessary to excavate the soil and place it in a landfill or burn it in a high temperature incinerator.

Reimer and his coworkers, Alissa Lunney and Barbara Zeeb, conducted a greenhouse study of five plant species: rye grass, tall fescue, alfalfa, zucchini and pumpkin. The researchers used soil from a site in the Canadian Arctic where DDT had been sprayed to protect workers from mosquitoes.

"The cold temperatures meant that the contamination was virtually identical to the technical grade DDT mixture that had originally been used," Reimer says. The researchers were able to examine the ability of the test plants to remove DDT from soil that had been contaminated for several decades.

Pumpkins took up the largest amount of DDT, while another member of the Cucurbita pepo species, zucchini, came in second at about half the pumpkins’ accumulation.

While the technique is not likely to replace traditional methods any time soon, Reimer says, phytoremediation could offer an inexpensive and environmentally friendly alternative, especially in small communities and developing countries where money is an obstacle to cleanup.

Fungus Saves Honey Bees By Killing Parasite Mites

Varroa mites are parasites that prey on honey bee colonies, sucking blood from the bees and causing weight loss, deformities, diseases, and reduced lifespan. These mites now infest honey bee colonies across most of North America, according to the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Scientists in the ARS Beneficial Insects Research Unit (BIRU) at Weslaco have found a strain of the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae that is pathogenic to Varroa mites.

This potent fungus, which also kills termites, does not harm bees or affect their queen's production. To test it, the scientists coated plastic strips with dry fungal spores and placed them inside the hives. Since bees naturally attack anything entering their hives, they tried to chew up the strips, spreading the spores throughout the colony.

In field trials, once the strips were inside the hives, several bees quickly made contact with the spores. Within 5 to 10 minutes, all the bees in the hive were exposed to the fungus, and most of the mites on them died within 3 to 5 days. The fungus provided excellent control of Varroa without impeding colony development or population size.

The researchers found the fungus just in time. The mite has developed resistance to the only approved chemicals, fluvalinate and coumaphos, now used for control.

"Commercial beekeepers are very edgy about using fluvalinate and coumaphos and are eager to see this natural control get to market," said ARS entomologist Walker Jones, who heads the Beneficial Insects Research Unit.

"While Metarhizium doesn't kill as fast as fluvalinate and coumaphos, the result is the same," said Lambert Kanga, former BIRU research associate who now chairs the Entomology Department at Florida A&M University. "Metarhizium gets the job done, and we won't have to worry about Varroa becoming resistant to the fungus." The honey bee is critical to maintaining natural vegetation, transferring pollen between flowers as it collects the pollen and nectar for its hive. More than 130 agricultural plants in the United States are pollinated by honey bees.

New Jersey Industrial Power Generators Face Emissions Cuts

The new rules and amendments would apply to owners or operators of stationary sources of NOx emissions, including industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers, combustion turbines, and reciprocating engines.

The DEP has begun efforts to adopt new rules to incorporate six regional air pollution control measures endorsed by the Ozone Transport Commission - five measures to address volatile organic compounds and one NOx measure.

The Commission gives states from Virginia to Maine a forum through which they can work together to harmonize their pollution reduction strategies to benefit the whole region - providing air pollution assessment, technical support and

The six measures were previously identified in the state's Ozone State Implementation Plan as ways to reduce the emission of the chemicals that, in the presence of sunlight, combine to make smog, or ground level ozone.

This proposed rule for additional NOx control measures is the last of the six measures, and the proposal constitutes a proposed revision to the state’s Ozone State Implementation Plan (SIP).

If approved, these new rules and amendments would apply to owners or operators of stationary sources of NOx emissions, including industrial, commercial, and institutional boilers, combustion turbines, and reciprocating engines.

Owners or operators of these power sources would be required to achieve the emission rate limit specified in the rules or to comply instead with alternatives if technically or economically infeasible.

These rules also would regulate emissions from distributed generation - the use of small scale electric generating technologies installed at, or near, the end user's location.

The proposed new rules would seek better control on diesel electric generators and encourage the use of cleaner technologies, such as fuel cells and microturbines.

The rulemaking aims to cut NOx emissions to help the state attain the National Ambient Air Quality Standard.

The rule is also intended to address the fact that New Jersey still emits too much NOx to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard, and to implement New Jersey's Ozone SIP commitment to the EPA.

A public hearing on the proposal is set for Thursday, October 28, 2004 at 12:30 P.M. until close of comments and 6:00 P.M. until close of comments. The hearing will take place at the Department of Environmental Protection Building, Public Hearing Room, 1st Floor, East Wing, 401 East State Street Trenton, New Jersey.

Two Obsolete Dams Removed from Pennsylvania Creek

On Monday, federal officials, local leaders and community partners celebrated in Reading with Dr. Timothy Keeney, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, who toured the restoration site.

The citizens of Reading "now have an improved environment and excellent community resource, and they can now be held up as a national example of conservation working on a local level," Keeney said. "I am proud that NOAA can be associated with such a wonderful group of partners and with a project that benefits citizens at the local level."

"On Wyomissing Creek, we can share with our children the works of our ancestors and the times that they lived in," said Ann Mills, executive vice president for American Rivers. "Before long, we will share the experience of watching magnificent fish spawning in the streams of their ancestors."

The restored area is adjacent to the Reading Museum, which maintains a landscaped walking trail beside the creek. Peter Poncheri, director of buildings and grounds for the museum said, "This project would not be possible without the unwavering support and cooperation of federal, state and county regulatory agencies." He thanked the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission and the Pennsylvania government's Growing Greener Program, and NOAA.

Since 1996, NOAA has provided over $33 million for nearly 900 projects around the nation through the community based Restoration Program for such projects as dam removal, fish passage improvements, and coastal wetland restoration.

Two additional dam removal projects in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are scheduled for completion this fall.

The NOAA Restoration Center works with organizations and governments to support locally driven habitat restoration projects in marine, estuarine and riparian areas. NOAA funds on-the-ground habitat restoration projects that offer educational and social benefits for citizens and their communities and provide long-term ecological benefits for fishery resources.

To date, projects have been implemented in 26 states using NOAA funding and leveraged funding from national and regional habitat restoration partners.

Scientists Plan Ahead for Coastal Monitoring from Space

The device called the Hyperspectral Environment Suite will include a capability to image all U.S. coastal waters and is expected to provide critical data to resource managers and researchers studying climate, fisheries, coastal ecology and oceanography.

The instrument is scheduled to go into space onboard the next generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES-R).

Scientists from NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Navy are working towards the launch as part of the Coastal Ocean Applications and Science Team, COAST, which is a new effort to ensure that GOES-R data meet stringent research and application criteria to better monitor and study coastal waters.

"NOAA is working with other government agencies, academia and the private sector in efforts to build an integrated ocean observing system, a shared collection of data that the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy strongly recommends as a critical step in improving ocean and coastal resource management," said Richard Spinrad, assistant administrator of the NOAA Ocean Service. He considers data from the new imaging instrument to be "a critical component" of building the ocean observing system.

"Having the best possible management of coastal waters will have a positive impact on America's marine economy and better protect citizens who live in coastal communities," said Gregory Withe, assistant administrator of the NOAA Satellites and Information Service. "The imageries data will also provide coastal officials improved information, enabling better decisions."

"Because it's stationary," said Withe, "GOES can stare at an area of interest for long periods, taking advantage of openings in the cloud cover to capture developments in coastal waters from start to finish."