• California's Earthquake Capital Rattled Again
  
• Native Hawaiians Sue to Block Land for Army Strykers
  
• First West Nile Infected Bird Found on Maui
  
• Groups Challenge Logging in Fireproofed California Forest
  
• New Initiative Makes Healthier Housing Affordable
  
• Entergy Earns Carbon Credits Reforesting Lower Mississippi
  
• Fresh Coffee Team: USAID, Starbucks, Conservation International
  
• Making Climate Decisions in a Climate of Uncertainty
  

California's Earthquake Capital Rattled Again

The U.S. Geological Survey's Earthquake Center placed the center of the quake seven miles south southeast of Parkfield, a community known as California's earthquake capital, or about 20 miles south of the nearest large town, Coalinga.

There were no reports of injuries or damage.

People from San Francisco to Los Angeles reported that they felt the quake and dozens of aftershocks, including a strong one with a 5.0 magnitude four minutes after the main earthquake. Three others 4.1 or above were felt shortly afterwards.

Parkfield, population 37, is located on the San Andreas fault.

Earthquakes of about magnitude 6 have occurred on the Parkfield section of the San Andreas Fault at fairly regular intervals - in 1857, 1881, 1901, 1922, 1934, and 1966. The first, in 1857, was a foreshock to the great Fort Tejon earthquake which ruptured the fault from Parkfield to the southeast for over 180 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Waveforms recorded on regional seismographs are strikingly similar for the 1922, 1934 and 1966 earthquakes, suggesting that these earthquakes involved repeated rupture of the same area on the fault.

Parkfield has been the site of an intensive, multidisciplinary earthquake study since the late 1970s. The goal is to observe the fault and surrounding crust at close range at the time before, during and after an earthquake, to better understand the earthquake process and provide a scientific basis for earthquake prediction.

Native Hawaiians Sue to Block Land for Army Strykers

Last month, the Hawaiian organizations filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the Army to comply with National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and consider in its Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) locations besides Hawaii before proceeding with any Stryker-related actions.

Monday's motion filed by ‘Ïlio‘ulaokalani Coalition, Na ‘Imi Pono, and Kïpuka, represented by Earthjustice, seeks to intervene in a condemnation action the United States Department of the Army initiated on September 22, 2004, to acquire Campbell Estate land.

The Hawaiian organizations seek to challenge a settlement filed on Friday, in which the Army and the Campbell Estate agreed to a $15.9 million payment for the condemned land.

The Stryker interim armored vehicle is a 19-ton, eight-wheeled armored vehicle that provides the Army a family of 10 different vehicles on a common chassis. Stryker vehicles have armor protection and can sustain speeds of 60 miles per hour. The Army plans to field a total of 2,112 Strykers to six Stryker Brigade Combat Teams.

The plan for Hawaii is to transform the 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division (Light) to a Stryker Brigade Combat Team.

The EIS makes it clear that the transformation will adversely impact Hawaii's environment and public health. Regarding air quality, it states, "Emission sources associated with the Proposed Action include emissions from construction activities, ordnance use, engine emissions from military vehicle use, fugitive dust from vehicle travel on unpaved roads, wind erosion from areas disturbed by off-road vehicle maneuvers, and engine emissions from personal vehicle use associated with added personnel."

Airborne particulate matter 10 micrometers in size (PM10) will be produced in concentrations that are typically in the range of several thousand micrograms per cubic meter, the EIS says.

"It takes only a few hours of such concentrations to produce a 24 hour average that exceeds the state and federal 24 hour average PM10 standard of 150 micrograms per cubic meter,"acknowledges the EIS, saying, "PM10 emissions are important because the PM10 size fraction represents airborne particles small enough to be inhaled into the lower respiratory tract, where they can have adverse health effects."

Citizens commenting during the EIS process for the Hawaii Stryker transformation, including the three Hawaiian organizations, have repeatedly asked the Army to consider alternatives to fielding Strykers in Hawaii. Alternatives suggested include conducting the brigade transformation on the mainland.

The EIS ignored these requests, yet acknowledged that significant, unavoidable impacts to cultural resources, native ecosystems, endangered species, air quality, recreation, noise levels, and soils would result from bringing the Strykers to Hawaii.

“The Army’s actions just confirm what we saw throughout the EIS process,” said William Aila of Na 'Imi Pono. “The Army couldn’t care less what Native Hawaiians or the people of Hawaii think. They’re the Army and they’re marching ahead, or, in this case, over us.”

“The law requires the Army to do a bona fide analysis of alternatives before committing to any course of action,” said attorney David Henkin of the public interest law firm Earthjustice, which is representing the three groups. “How can the Army genuinely consider alternate locations when it’s committing millions of dollars to transformation in Hawaii?”

The Hawaii Stryker Brigade Combat Team EIS is found at: http://www.ttsfo.com/sbcteis/

First West Nile Infected Bird Found on Maui

Over the past two weeks, the state has tested 68 birds from the Kahului airport, and the sparrow is the only one that tested positive.

Still, the Hawaii Health Department fogged the Kahului Airport again last night after the airport closed to reduce the likelihood that mosquitoes infected with the virus would survive.

Those same buildings were sprayed Friday and Saturday night after the test results came back positive.

To date Hawaii had been free of the West Nile virus although it has occurred on the mainland for the last five years.

West Nile Virus is a disease that is usually passed between mosquitoes and birds, but it can also affect humans, horses, and other vertebrates. Most people who are bitten by an infected mosquito will show no symptoms. The majority of those that do display symptoms will have West Nile fever, a mild disease characterized by flu-like symptoms, which typically lasts a few days.

On rare occasions, WNV infection can result in severe and sometimes fatal illness known as West Nile encephalitis. Encephalitis is the inflammation of the brain and/or the membrane around the brain. Symptoms include headache, high fever, stiff neck, stupor, tumors, coma, convulsions, paralysis and death.

Until the summer of 1999, when it was found in New York City, West Nile virus had not been detected in the Western Hemisphere. Since then, it has affected humans, birds, horses, and other vertebrates in most of the mainland United States, as well as Canada and Mexico.

So far this year, 40 states have reported 1,784 human cases of West Nile virus to the Centers for Disease Control, resulting in 56 deaths.

Groups Challenge Logging in Fireproofed California Forest

A mature forest stand, a few hundred yards from the Meadow Valley community, which was recently thinned and prescribed burned is now proposed for clearcutting. Only one tree per acre would remain on this unit after logging, and flammable logging slash debris would be left behind. (Photo courtesy Earthjustice)

The lawsuit seeks to compel a more thorough assessment of these projects, including an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that considers their cumulative effects on rare old-growth dependent species in the region.

The Forest Service failed to prepare an EIS for the project and has never considered and evaluated the cumulative impacts of these adjacent projects on the California spotted owl and other imperiled species in the Meadow Valley project area.

The plaintiff conservation groups support the use of established wildfire risk reduction strategies, including prescribed burning, thinning by selective removal of small diameter trees and brush removal. Their lawsuit does not seek a halt to continued undergrowth thinning in the project area.

"With consistent, continued management efforts, this land could be a model of success for taxpayer-supported forest fire prevention strategies," said John Preschutti of the Plumas Forest Project. "But cutting the fire-resistant older trees out of a fireproofed forest runs counter to everything we understand about forests and wildfire. American taxpayers should be outraged that this is happening."

New Initiative Makes Healthier Housing Affordable

The solution is affordable housing that is environmentally friendly, and on Tuesday, the Green Communities Initiative was launched to supply more than 8,500 healthier homes.

The initiative will offer financing, grants and technical assistance to developers to build affordable housing that promotes health, conserves energy and natural resources and provides easy access to jobs, schools and services.

The five-year, $550 million commitment is a partnership of The Enterprise Foundation/Enterprise Social Investment Corporation (ESIC) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), along with the American Institute of Architects, the American Planning Association, as well as corporate, financial and philanthropic organizations.

Five million dollars will be awarded as grants to assist in planning, designing and building Green Communities homes.

Fifty million will go to low interest loans to enable developers to acquire sites and start construction.

And $500 million will be used for equity investments to fund rehabilitation and construction through ESIC.

"Too many Americans live in unhealthy, inefficient and poorly sited housing that hinders them from reaching their full potential," said Bart Harvey, chairman and CEO of The Enterprise Foundation and chairman of ESIC.

"Enterprise and NRDC have forged an unprecedented alliance of housing, health and environmental organizations - supported by visionary corporate institutions and foundations - to ensure smarter, healthier homes are available to Americans with limited incomes," he said.

"We will assist developers that are already building green housing and encourage hundreds more to come on board," said Patricia Bauman, vice chair of NRDC's Board of Trustees. "Our project will make thousands of affordable green developments bloom."

The initiative will provide or help arrange technical assistance and training with experienced consultants. Planning activities for green projects such as initial architectural, engineering and environmental reviews will be funded.

In addition, the Green Communities Initiative will encourage government agencies to make their affordable housing programs healthier. The partners will work with state agencies to dedicate part of their federal housing tax credits to healthy, energy-efficient affordable housing sited near public transportation to avoid the unhealthy and expensive consequences of sprawl.

"For many families, asthma, injuries and lead poisoning are just symptoms of the underlying problem," said Dr. Megan Sandel, an expert on housing's impact on children's health at the Boston University School of Medicine. "Inadequate housing is the real disease. Safe, decent affordable housing is the best preventive medicine low-income families can get."

The U.S. Green Building Council supports the Green Communities Initiative. Partners include: Bank of America, Blue Moon Fund, BP America, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Global Green USA, The Home Depot Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, The Kresge Foundation, Low Income Housing Institute, Merrill Lynch Community Development Company, M&T Bank, National Center for Healthy Housing and Washington Mutual.

Entergy Earns Carbon Credits Reforesting Lower Mississippi

The partnership combines the science of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere with land conservation, and is expected to play a key role in protecting the threatened floodplain of the Lower Mississippi River.

On Tuesday, the Entergy Corporation, the Trust for Public Land, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the addition of 2,208 acres of land to Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge in Tallulah, Louisiana.

Entergy has invested over $1 million to partially fund the purchase of this tract of land, to reforest the property with native bottomland hardwood trees and to compensate the Service for maintaining the new forest for the next 70 years.

Entergy will retain the right to report carbon sequestration credits that will result from the reforestation. Carbon sequestration is the long term storage of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere, underground, or the oceans.

Scientists estimate that one acre of reforested bottomland hardwood forest of the Lower Mississippi River floodplain can take up 400 tons of carbon over 70 years.

Entergy's reforestation of the Tensas project will result in 600,000 tons of sequestered carbon dioxide over the next 70 years. This equates to removing 200 cars off the road for one year, or avoiding emissions from 61 million gallons of gasoline, the partners said.

The Trust for Public Land purchased the property from Chicago Mill and Lumber Company in February 2004. Now the Fish and Wildlife Service will purchase the first 2,208 acres of land from the trust.

This is the first phase of a multi-year, $15.7 million initiative to protect the entire Chicago Mill property. Once complete, the project will add roughly 11,000 acres to the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge, and reforest more than 8,600 of those acres.

"As a conservation tool, carbon sequestration gives us the opportunity to address critical issues relating to the atmosphere while at the same time saving and restoring wildlife habitat," said Don Morrow, Trust for Public Land's project manager. "The public/private partnership accomplishes this at a savings to the American taxpayer."

The lands added to Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge will connect two sections of the refuge, providing a wildlife corridor for the threatened Louisiana black bear, rare forest breeding birds, and waterfowl.

The Lower Mississippi River floodplain forest is one of the country's most threatened ecosystems. Encompassing portions of Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the floodplain has lost more than 17 million acres of forestland since the early 1900s due primarily to timber harvest and conversion to agriculture.

Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1980 and covers 67,000 acres in northeast Louisiana along the upper Tensas River basin. The refuge protects one of the largest continuous blocks of bottomland hardwood forest left in the Lower Mississippi River Valley.

Since 1999, Entergy and other utility companies have participated in the reforestation of more than 65,000 acres in the Lower Mississippi River Valley, and more than 20,000 acres have been added to the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Entergy owns and operates power plants with 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.6 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

In May 2001, Entergy committed to stabilize CO2 emissions from its power plants at year 2000 levels through 2005, and dedicated $25 million to achieve this target over the five year period.

Company CO2 emissions of 53.24 million tons in the baseline year of 2000 fell to 49.58 million tons in 2001. In 2002, emissions declined further to 44.20 million tons and in 2003 they went down to 36.8 million tons.

"This project not only fits in perfectly with Entergy's Greenhouse Gas Stabilization Commitment, but also helps restore a critical habitat for the threatened Louisiana black bear, as well as making improvements to land that is highly valued by the communities we serve," said Mark Savoff, Entergy's executive vice president of operations.

Fresh Coffee Team: USAID, Starbucks, Conservation International

With a focus on Central America and Mexico, the Alliance promotes private-sector approaches that are environmentally sensitive, socially responsible and economically viable.

On Monday, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Tony Garza, hosted the official signing of the memorandum of understanding in Mexico City launching the Alliance.

“Instead of destroying productive land, coffee cultivation is now an engine of conservation. Instead of slash and burn, we are conserving biodiversity,” said Garza, addressing businessmen and coffee growers at a Starbucks café. “The partnership model we are honoring today is the business model of the future.”

Representatives from Chiapas coffee cooperatives joined Starbucks President Orin Smith for the signing ceremony. The USAID Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean Adolfo Franco took part in the ceremony along with the Vice President of Conservation International Glenn Prickett.

Franco said, "This Alliance approach is a new, creative way of doing business. It combines market forces and business interests to help improve the lives of rural people and the environment worldwide."

CI works directly with farmers to promote environmentally responsible growing practices such as water and soil conservation, crop diversification, and chemical fertilizer and pesticide reduction that help protect the surrounding forest, streams and wildlife.

"By uniting the strengths of the government, conservation and private sectors, we are breaking new ground in supporting small-scale coffee farmers and raising the scale of biodiversity conservation in Mexico and Central America," said Prickett.

Starbucks works with CI and the cooperatives providing farmers with financial support, technical assistance to raise the quality of their coffee and a market for their crops. Last year, Starbucks purchased 1.8 million pounds of Conservation Coffee at price premiums ranging from 60 to 200 percent higher than local prices in Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

Conservation International also manages the $6 million Verde Ventures fund which provides debt and equity financing to coffee cooperatives and other small businesses contributing to biodiversity conservation in CI's priority areas. In January 2004, Starbucks announced a $2.5 million direct loan to help capitalize the fund.

The Alliance brings to community level conservation efforts what they call a “field-to-cup” approach that includes all aspects of producing, processing and marketing specialty coffee.

Through economic incentives and technical assistance to small farmers, the goal of the Alliance is to expand the areas of coffee fields using the best practices for conservation and making more high quality green coffee available to roasters. Building on the success of a six-year partnership between Starbucks and CI, the Alliance will focus on projects in Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama.

Over three years, the U.S. government will provide $1.2 million and Starbucks will contribute $1.5 million to fund the Alliance.

Making Climate Decisions in a Climate of Uncertainty

Insurance managers exposed to the risks of climate change and low-carbon energy technologies have choices to make.

Electric utility managers are facing investment decisions affected by climate change risks. Arctic decision makers are trying to balance economic development and preservation of traditional lifestyles.

Soon, decision makers will get some scientific help, even before all the climate facts are in. Five interdisciplinary research teams will share some $25 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) over the next five years to study making decisions about climate change under conditions of uncertainty.

Research centers will be located at Arizona State, Carnegie-Mellon and Columbia universities. Other interdisciplinary teams will be conducting research at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California.

At Carnegie Mellon University’s Climate Decision Making Center, researchers will focus on how to deal with irreducible uncertainties - the limits that exist to accurate predictions of climate change and its impacts, including costs and policy decision implications. The center will create, illustrate and evaluate decision strategies that incorporate uncertainties. It will focus on the real problems of groups such as forest, fisheries and ecosystem managers in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada.

Cheryl Eavey, NSF’s program officer for the Decision Making Under Uncertainty projects, says, “NSF expects these teams to produce new insights of interest to the academic community, generate significant educational benefits and develop new tools that will benefit policy makers, decision makers and many different stakeholders.”

The Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University will use nearby Phoenix as a laboratory for studying adaptation strategies, particularly related to water management in an arid climate. Results are expected to provide support to decision makers in similar situations throughout the world.

At Columbia University, a new Center for the Study of Individual and Group Decision Making Under Climate Uncertainty will integrate psychological insights with those of other social sciences. Research findings will influence design and testing of decision tools, institutional strategies and educational interventions such as segments for the Weather Channel, which will be produced by program participants.

The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Science Policy Assessment and Research on Climate team will examine decision makers’ expectations about what science can deliver, whether policy makers can use available information, and what future information might be useful to them.

The Rand Corporation research team will conduct fundamental research on different characterizations of uncertainty and develop quantitative tools on decision making, drawing upon interactions with decision makers from long-term management of water supplies in California, and in the design of observation systems to provide warning of abrupt climate change.

For more information on NSF's Human and Social Dynamics priority area, see: http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/hsd/start.htm

For information on the Climate Change Research Initiative, see: http://www.climatescience.gov/about/ccri.htm