Re: [Biofuel] Help put a ban on nicotinoid pesticides
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0120/Bye-Bye-Blackbird-USDA-acknowledges-a-hand-in-one-mass-bird-death Bye Bye Blackbird: USDA acknowledges a hand in one mass bird death One in a series of mysterious mass bird deaths in the past month was the product of a USDA avicide program, which began as operation Bye Bye Blackbird in the 1960s. By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / January 20, 2011 Atlanta It's not the aflockalyptic fallout from a secret US weapon lab as some have theorized. But the government acknowledged Thursday that it had a hand in one of a string of mysterious mass bird deaths that have spooked residents in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Kentucky in the last month. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) took responsibility for hundreds of dead starlings that were found on the ground and frozen in trees in a Yankton, S.D., park on Monday. The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana. Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans. In addition to the USDA program, a so-called depredation order from the US Fish and Wildlife Service allows blackbirds, grackles, and starlings to be killed by anyone who says they pose health risks or cause economic damage. Though a permit is needed in some instances, the order is largely intended to cut through red tape for farmers, who often employ private contractors to kill the birds and do not need to report their bird culls to any authority. Every winter, there's massive and purposeful kills of these blackbirds, says Greg Butcher, the bird conservation director at the National Audubon Society. These guys are professionals, and they don't want to advertise their work. They like to work fast, efficiently, and out of sight. Bird kills turning too zealous? The depredation order, however, is under review for its impact on the rare rusty blackbird, which roosts with more common species. Ornithologists also suspect that the mass killings may be a factor in declining populations of those species in the US. While the USDA keeps tabs on the number of birds the program euthanizes, the total death toll isn't known because private contractors operating under the depredation order aren't required to keep count in the case of blackbirds, cowbirds, grackles, and starlings. My biggest concern is we don't know how many birds are being killed, and we don't have a sense of how at risk the rusty blackbird is because of depredation events in their range, says Mr. Butcher. Yankton animal control officer Lisa Brasel told KTIV-TV that she first believed a cold snap had killed some 200 European starlings that were found dead in Riverside Park, reminding some residents of the final scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, The Birds. But then she said she received a call from a USDA official who said the agency had poisoned a roost of starlings 10 miles south of Yankton. Usually such poisonings result in flocks falling directly out of their tree roosts. But in this case, the birds traveled a fair distance before falling. They were surprised they came to Yankton like they did and died in our park, said Brasel, according to KTIV-TV. How birds plague farmers Carol Bannerman, a Wildlife Services spokeswoman, said such kills are carried out at the request of farmers who can prove the birds are a nuisance. The farmers also help pay the cost, according to the agency. One example of nuisance birds are European starlings, a non-native species, at US dairies, where a flock of 5,000 can eat 200 pounds of feed a day while soiling equipment and dairy cows. It's not that we have anything against starlings, but our charge is to help protect agriculture ... and protect property and human health or safety, she says. And the fact is, in a lot of rural settings, people say, 'It's just birds, what's the problem?' Ms. Bannerman added, however, that the agency takes care to notify local public-health and law-enforcement agencies before a scheduled kill, and noted what went on in Louisiana and Arkansas, that was totally outside of what we're doing. We're quite concerned that people not connect those. Two mass bird deaths in north Alabama this week are being investigated,
Re: [Biofuel] Help put a ban on nicotinoid pesticides
USDA: Blackbirds, Red-Winged - killed, intentional: 965,889 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/prog_data/2009_prog_data/PDR_G_FY09/Basic_Tables_PDR_G/Table_G_FY2009_Short.pdf And the rest... http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/0120/Bye-Bye-Blackbird-USDA-acknowledges-a-hand-in-one-mass-bird-death Bye Bye Blackbird: USDA acknowledges a hand in one mass bird death One in a series of mysterious mass bird deaths in the past month was the product of a USDA avicide program, which began as operation Bye Bye Blackbird in the 1960s. By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / January 20, 2011 Atlanta It's not the aflockalyptic fallout from a secret US weapon lab as some have theorized. But the government acknowledged Thursday that it had a hand in one of a string of mysterious mass bird deaths that have spooked residents in Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, South Dakota, and Kentucky in the last month. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) took responsibility for hundreds of dead starlings that were found on the ground and frozen in trees in a Yankton, S.D., park on Monday. The USDA's Wildlife Services Program, which contracts with farmers for bird control, said it used an avicide poison called DRC-1339 to cull a roost of 5,000 birds that were defecating on a farmer's cattle feed across the state line in Nebraska. But officials said the agency had nothing to do with large and dense recent bird kills in Arkansas and Louisiana. Nevertheless, the USDA's role in the South Dakota bird deaths puts a focus on a little-known government bird-control program that began in the 1960s under the name of Bye Bye Blackbird, which eventually became part of the USDA and was housed in the late '60s at a NASA facility. In 2009, USDA agents euthanized more than 4 million red-winged blackbirds, starlings, cowbirds, and grackles, primarily using pesticides that the government says are not harmful to pets or humans. In addition to the USDA program, a so-called depredation order from the US Fish and Wildlife Service allows blackbirds, grackles, and starlings to be killed by anyone who says they pose health risks or cause economic damage. Though a permit is needed in some instances, the order is largely intended to cut through red tape for farmers, who often employ private contractors to kill the birds and do not need to report their bird culls to any authority. Every winter, there's massive and purposeful kills of these blackbirds, says Greg Butcher, the bird conservation director at the National Audubon Society. These guys are professionals, and they don't want to advertise their work. They like to work fast, efficiently, and out of sight. Bird kills turning too zealous? The depredation order, however, is under review for its impact on the rare rusty blackbird, which roosts with more common species. Ornithologists also suspect that the mass killings may be a factor in declining populations of those species in the US. While the USDA keeps tabs on the number of birds the program euthanizes, the total death toll isn't known because private contractors operating under the depredation order aren't required to keep count in the case of blackbirds, cowbirds, grackles, and starlings. My biggest concern is we don't know how many birds are being killed, and we don't have a sense of how at risk the rusty blackbird is because of depredation events in their range, says Mr. Butcher. Yankton animal control officer Lisa Brasel told KTIV-TV that she first believed a cold snap had killed some 200 European starlings that were found dead in Riverside Park, reminding some residents of the final scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller, The Birds. But then she said she received a call from a USDA official who said the agency had poisoned a roost of starlings 10 miles south of Yankton. Usually such poisonings result in flocks falling directly out of their tree roosts. But in this case, the birds traveled a fair distance before falling. They were surprised they came to Yankton like they did and died in our park, said Brasel, according to KTIV-TV. How birds plague farmers Carol Bannerman, a Wildlife Services spokeswoman, said such kills are carried out at the request of farmers who can prove the birds are a nuisance. The farmers also help pay the cost, according to the agency. One example of nuisance birds are European starlings, a non-native species, at US dairies, where a flock of 5,000 can eat 200 pounds of feed a day while soiling equipment and dairy cows. It's not that we have anything against starlings, but our charge is to help protect agriculture ... and protect property and human health or safety, she says. And the fact is, in a lot of rural settings, people say, 'It's just birds, what's the problem?' Ms. Bannerman added, however, that the agency takes care to notify local public-health and law-enforcement agencies before a scheduled kill, and noted what went on in Louisiana and Arkansas, that was totally outside of what
[Biofuel] Urban [im]Mobility Report 2010
The average Washington area driver loses 70 hours a year - almost three full days - crawling along in traffic, tying the region with Chicago for worst in the country. Los Angeles, the perennial king of congestion, comes in third, with 63 blown hours. The total amount of wasted fuel in 2009 topped 3.9 billion gallons -- equal to 130 days of flow in the Alaska Pipeline. Urban Mobility Report 2010 http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/20/AR201101256.html?hpid=newswell Washington area tied with Chicago for traffic congestion, study finds By Ashley Halsey III Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 20, 2011; 12:05 AM The rush-hour commute stinks, but you know that. There are too many cars on the road, but that's obvious. What you don't know is that you're twice as likely to encounter someone caught up in a bout of road rage and that nobody in the nation spends more time stuck in traffic than you do. The number of drivers in the Washington region who say they frequently feel uncontrollable anger toward another driver has doubled in the past five years, according to a Washington Post poll taken last year. Almost a third of drivers said they're overcome with that wild rage from time to time. One reason for that boiling frustration is contained in a report released Thursday, which found that Washington ranks first in the nation when it comes to hours wasted stuck in traffic. The most sophisticated number crunching done on traffic congestion says the average Washington area driver loses 70 hours a year - almost three full days - crawling along in traffic, tying the region with Chicago for worst in the country. Los Angeles, the perennial king of congestion, comes in third, with 63 blown hours. The news came in the annual national traffic survey done by the Texas Transportation Institute, a highly regarded research group based at Texas AM University. The nexus of road congestion and road rage might prove tenuous, but the fact that frustration can lead to anger is not. Very often, according to an earlier study by AAA's Foundation for Traffic Safety, the traffic incident that turns violent is the straw that broke the camel's back for someone living a stress-filled life. Very slow or stationary traffic situations present typical conditions in which driver aggression can be allowed to reach detrimental levels, the foundation concluded. As traffic has gotten more congested in Washington, the number of people who say they've felt uncontrollable road rage either frequently or occasionally has risen from 22 to 32 percent. There is something of a silver lining to the news that Washington is at the top of the heap as far as big-city traffic congestion. We haven't been hit as hard by the recession as other major areas like Los Angeles, said Ron Kirby, transportation planning director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Maybe we should be happy to be moving up the list because it means we're going a little bit better than a lot of other places when it comes to job growth and the economy. Overall, the Texas Transportation Institute report concludes that congestion cost Americans $115 billion in 2009, up from $24 billion in 1982 when calculated in 2009 dollars. Engines idling in traffic gobbled up 3.9 billion gallons of gasoline. Nationally, congestion cost the average commuter $808, up from an inflation adjusted $351 in 1982. And the average time lost to congestion nationwide was 34 hours, up from 14 hours in 1982. Researchers said the depth of the data used in this year's study far surpassed the quality of information used in past years, giving the results an unprecedented degree of accuracy. Past surveys used traffic volume data provided by the states to calculate the relative degree of congestion in major urban areas. The same information was collected for this report, but a vast volume of data compiled by a private firm also was figured into the mix. The company, known as INRIX, places data-gathering devices on 3 million trucks, taxis, fleet vehicles and delivery vans. It also offers an iPhone application that provides users with real-time travel information in return for anonymous tracking of the users' travel. INRIX information, which is used by Kirby's planners, provides a 24/7 picture of traffic patterns, not just the peak-hour data previously available. Now we have the middle of the day, too, said Tim Lomax, the TTI researcher who co-wrote the report. That's of critical importance because that's when freight moves. It's not just about people taking more time to get places, it's about freight and the economy. Instead of just rush hour, Lomax can now see weekend traffic issues on the Capital Beltway, around malls and for special events. When Stephen Strasburg is on the mound, there's going to be traffic backing up around Nationals Park, Lomax said. Clearly,
