And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: MARCH 29, 1999 Five Arrested at Three Mile Island Education Hindered by Air Quality Problems in Schools Girls at Greater Risk from Air Pollution than Boys Final Documents Signed for Vast Everglades Reservoir Florida Sierra Club Fights Suncoast Parkway in Court Water Violations Land Steel Mill Manager in Jail Public Comment Welcome on Agency Water Memo Farmers, Government Cooperate on Heirloom Seeds Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 1999 For Full Text and Graphics Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar99/1999L-03-29-09.html FIVE ARRESTED AT THREE MILE ISLAND Pennsylvania State Police arrested five people and charged them with trespassing onto Three Mile Island Nuclear Facility 2.5 miles South of Middletown, Pennsylvania early Sunday morning. Those arrested were part of a group of about 125 people who gathered in a demonstration outside the North Gate to observe the anniversary of the Unit 2 accident. The licensee, GPU Nuclear, reported that the demonstration was peaceful. Three Mile Island Unit 2 is inactivated and defueled following the nation's worst nuclear accident in 1979 when a core meltdown was narrowly averted. At about 4 am on March 28, 1979, a series of malfunctions and errors began draining the cooling water that covered the uranium fuel inside Three Mile Island II, causing it to dangerously overheat. The heat grew so intense that the protective sleeves around the fuel melted, releasing hydrogen gas that then made it more difficult to pump cooling water into the core. Official reports say little radiation escaped. But David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, says investigators overlooked several indicators of a larger release. * * * EDUCATION HINDERED BY AIR QUALITY PROBLEMS IN SCHOOLS Lead, radon, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds, pesticides, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide are among indoor air quality problems found in 20 percent of U.S. schools. Molds and mildews can cause serious allergic reactions. Pollutants may interfere with learning by causing drowsiness, headaches, and a lack of concentration. A January 1999 study done for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory concludes that most indoor air quality problems can be avoided or resolved by providing an adequate amount of outdoor air on a continuous basis, controlling space relative humidity so that it seldom exceeds 60 percent or drops below 30 percent, and using a level of outdoor air filtration efficiency necessary to prohibit most mold spores and fungi from entering the humidity and ventilation air control system. The study conducted by Charlene Bayer, Ph.D., of Georgia Tech Research Institute, Sidney Crow, Ph.D., Georgia State University, and John Fischer, a technology consultant at SEMCO, Inc., Columbia, Missouri concluded that both proper outdoor air ventilation and humidity control are necessary. "Too often in practice, one is obtained at the expense of the other. Packaged systems that provide the outdoor air volume only when the coil is energized improve humidity control but allow indoor contaminants to build to unacceptable levels," the report said. * * * GIRLS AT GREATER RISK FROM AIR POLLUTION THAN BOYS Common air pollutants appear to have subtle, chronic impacts on children's lung health, according to early results from the University of Southern California led Children's Health Study. The decade long investigation, considered one of the nation's most comprehensive studies to date of the long-term effects of air pollution in school-age children, is primarily supported by the California Air Resources Board. Since 1993, researchers with the Children's Health Study have monitored levels of major pollutants in a dozen Southern California communities while tracking the respiratory health of more than 3,600 students. In the first reports, USC scientists show that lung function is lower in children who breathe the most polluted air. These effects may leave children more vulnerable to respiratory disease and may result in their having weaker lungs as adults. Unexpectedly, the scientists also found that boys and girls may respond differently to air pollution, they report in the March issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Study leader John Peters, professor of preventive medicine at the School of Medicine, said, "The preliminary results suggest that girls may be at higher risk of suffering ill effects from air pollution than boys." * * * FINAL DOCUMENTS SIGNED FOR VAST EVERGLADES RESERVOIR Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt Friday joined Governor Jeb Bush of Florida in signing the final agreement for the Talisman land exchange to benefit the restoration of the Everglades. The transactions involve the purchase or exchange of about 95,000 acres of land owned by six sugar producing companies in the Everglades Agricultural Area south of Lake Okeechobee. The complex agreement marks the culmination of more than 16 months of negotiations. The South Florida Water Management District, with funding from federal and state governments, will take title to over 63,000 acres. About 11,700 of this acreage will be available to the District to construct natural storm water treatment areas to filter phosphorus from water flowing off sugar cane fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area before the water reaches the Everglades ecosystem. More than 51,000 acres will be available for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to begin building in 2005 a vast water storage reservoir which will accumulate overflow water from Lake Okeechobee in the wet season for release to the Everglades during the dry season. The Corps is scheduled to complete this part of the restoration program in 2009. "As the Everglades ecosystem restoration project is developed, today's exchange will go a long way toward delivering water at the right time, in the right amount and of sufficient quality to nourish and restore the network of national parks, refuges and conservation areas that are today suffering a slow death from starvation and pollution," Babbitt said. Governor Bush said, "The proposed reservoir is the lynchpin of Everglades restoration. Together with Secretary Babbitt and the Congress I will do all I can to ensure that construction of the reservoir begins on schedule." * * * FLORIDA SIERRA CLUB FIGHTS SUNCOAST PARKWAY IN COURT The Sierra Club filed suit today in the U.S. District Court in Jacksonville to stop construction of the Suncoast Parkway. The 41.6 mile toll road is slated to run through largely rural parts of West Central Florida. Sierra attorney Lesley Blackner said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers environmental impact statement "totally inadequate." At issue are violations of three federal acts: the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Some of the endangered species affected include the Eastern indigo snake, Florida scrub jay, bald eagle, wood stork, Florida panther and two endangered plants found nowhere else; Cooley's water-willow and Britton's beargrass. The suit sites Tampa's non-attainment of federal clean air rules 34 times in 1998. The suit also alleges that Corps's permit for the Parkway provides inadequate mitigation for wetlands and violates the Clean Water Act. Urban sprawl is the threat. Frank Jackalone, senior regional field representative for the Sierra Club said "We do not want to lose the nature coast to the beast of sprawl and see Tampa turn into Atlanta." * * * WATER VIOLATIONS LAND STEEL MILL MANAGER IN JAIL Charles McNamee, the facilities manager at Syro Incorporated's steel mill in Centerville, Utah, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act and was sentenced on March 12 in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City to three months imprisonment and a $2,500 fine. In November and December 1993, McNamee ordered Syro employees to discharge waste water from production tanks into a floor drain that led to the South Davis Sewer Improvement District sewer treatment works. The wastes contained acids and high concentrations of zinc, a toxic pollutant. Both of these substances can interfere with the proper treatment of sewage and are harmful to fish and other aquatic life. Because of these illegal discharges, the South Davis treatment works incurred additional expenses to dispose of zinc contaminated bio-solids. The company previously pleaded guilty to two violations of the CWA and was ordered to pay a fine of $750,000. This case was investigated by EPA's Criminal Investigation Division and the Utah Attorney General's Office Environmental Crimes Unit and was prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice. * * * PUBLIC COMMENT WELCOME ON AGENCY WATER MEMO The EPA is finalizing an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine how threatened and endangered species will be protected under the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act (ESA). Tim Eichenberg of the Center for Marine Conservation says that the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) will provide better coordination between EPA Clean Water Act programs and ESA consultations by the service agencies. But, he says, the MOA should be strengthened to prevent the incidental killings of threatened and endangered species except when site-specific conservation measures to protect the species have been developed. Eichenberg urges consideration of "the full range of cumulative impacts on threatened and endangered species" when consulting about a permit or water quality program. The MOA provides that EPA will propose amendments to its national water quality standards regulations within 24 months to require that water quality does not jeopardize threatened or endangered species or adversely modify critical habitat. The proposed regs also prohibit mixing zones or variances likely to cause jeopardy, and require that state or tribes adopt site specific water quality criteria necessary to avoid jeopardy. Comments welcome to April 15. Contact Endangered Species Act Clerk, Water Docket (MC4101), U.S. EPA, 401 M Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20460. Attention: Docket Number W-98-32Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or contact Barbara McLeod Tel: 202-260-5681. * * * FARMERS, GOVERNMENT COOPERATE ON HEIRLOOM SEEDS A budding cooperative project of researchers, organic growers and others that began last weekend could help replenish the nation's seed banks and create market opportunities for new public and heirloom crop varieties. The Agricultural Research Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific agency, maintains the National Plant Germplasm System. Its 27 repositories now hold about 437,000 specimens of germplasm - seed, cuttings and other tissue. ARS is cooperating with the Farmer Cooperative Genome Project to test a new way for organic growers, farmer cooperatives and small seed companies to tap into this storehouse of genetic diversity. FCGP members will grow fresh supplies of germplasm, following NPGS guidelines. These ensure, for example, that regenerated seed is true to type - not contaminated by pollen from nearby crops of the same species. FCGP members will also develop marketable new varieties from germplasm they may never have known about otherwise. More than 200 small family farmers, organic farmers, seed producers, breeders and others will participate in FCGP, according to J.J. Haapala, research and education director of Oregon Tilth, a growers' group in Salem, Oregon that certifies organic growers and processors. On March 27 and 28 in Salem at FCGP's first general meeting heirloom varieties and wild relatives of garlic, tomato, lettuce, bean, broccoli, Egyptian onion, radish, blue and other Native American corn, blackberry, strawberry, Turkish grain legumes and little-known herbs such as black cumin were considered. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
