**Washington state ranks fifth in the nation in wind energy capacity and is one of nine with more than 1,000 megawatts (MW) of generating capacity. The largest consumer of wind energy is Belleuve utility Puget Sound Energy, with 425 MW of capacity.
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**Friendlier Fire – According to an article in the July 2009 National Geographic written by Catherine L. Barker the EPA is worried about fireworks.
It’s not so much the noise and smoke that is the problem but the toxic chemical that provides the oxygen needed to burn the fuel.
That chemical is perchlorate and its’s the fear that it could seep into drinking water. After a fireworks blast bits of perchlorate can land in nearby water. Poor cleanup of duds adds to the contamination.
Early research suggests perchlorate may hinder the thyroid’s production of growth hormones, most notably in children and pregnant women. The EPA says it certainly deserves more study.
At this time there are no laws regulating perchlorate.
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**Burpless Cows:
LISA RATHKE
Associated Press Writer
COVENTRY, Vt. (AP) — Vermont dairy farmers Tim Maikshilo and Kristen Dellert, mindful of shrinking their carbon footprint, have changed their cows’ diet to reduce the amount of gas the animals burp – dairy cows’ contribution to global warming.
Coventry Valley Farm is one of 15 Vermont farms working with Stonyfield Farm Inc., whose yogurt is made with their organic milk, to reduce the cows’ intestinal methane by feeding them flaxseed, alfalfa, and grasses high in Omega 3 fatty acids. The gas cows belch is the dairy industry’s biggest greenhouse gas contributor, research shows, most of it emitted from the front and not the back end of the cow.
“I just figured a cow was a cow and they were going to do whatever they were going to do in terms of cow things for gas,” said Dellert. “It was pretty shocking to me that just being organic wasn’t enough, actually. I really thought that here we’re organic, we’re doing what we need to do for the planet, we’re doing the stuff for the soil and I really thought that was enough.”
She learned it wasn’t. The dairy industry contributes about 2 percent to the country’s total greenhouse gas production, said Rick Naczi, a vice president at Dairy Management Inc., which funds research and promotes dairy products. Most of it comes from the cow, the rest from growing feed crops for the cattle to processing and transporting the milk.
To satisfy consumers’ demands for sustainable production, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy in Rosemont, Ill., is looking at everything from growing feed crops to trucking milk to reduce the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. That would be the equivalent of removing about 1.25 million cars from U.S. roads every year, said Naczi, who manages the program.
One way is by feeding cows alfalfa, flax and grasses, all high in Omega 3s, instead of corn or soy, said Nancy Hirschberg, head of Stonyfield’s Greener Cow Project. The feed rebalances the cows’ rumen, the first stomach of ruminants, and cuts down on gas, she said. Another way is to change the bacteria in a cow’s rumen, Naczi said.
When Stonyfield first analyzed its contribution to global warming in the late 1990s, the company thought its factory in Londonderry, N.H., produced the most greenhouse gases.
“And when we got the report and our number one impact on climate change was the milk production, we were completely stunned,” she said.
A study showed that the single biggest source was the cow’s enteric emissions: gas.
The company funded energy audits on farms and research on small manure digesters so farmers could produce energy from methane gas.
But Hirschberg said she had no idea what to do about enteric emissions. Then she learned what Group Danone of France, majority owner of Stonyfield and best known in the U.S. for its Dannon products, was doing about its methane.
By feeding their cows alfalfa, flax and grasses, they were cutting down on the gas passed.
The milk is tested at a lab at the University of Vermont to determine its fat content, a process patented by French nutrition company Valorex SAS, through which the enteric emissions are calculated.
Since January, Coventry Valley Farm has reduced its cows’ belches by 13 percent. At another farm, they’ve gone down 18 percent.
Maikshilo and Dellert have also noticed a difference in Hester, Rosebud, Pristine and their other cows. The coats of the black and white Holsteins and brown Jerseys are shinier and they’ve had fewer foot problems and no stomach ailments, they say.
So far, it hasn’t cost them any more for their custom-made grain, which the cows only get in the winter. Now they’re out grazing on grass in the pasture, getting as many Omega 3s. And the farm’s vet bills have gone down.
It’s a win-win for farmers, said Naczi.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” he said.
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**Washington state air quality risk among worst in nation
By Associated Press & KING5.com
SEATTLE – A new air quality study shows pollution in Washington state may be putting residents at a higher risk of health problems.
The EPA study shows that millions of people living in nearly 600 neighborhoods across the country are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants.
Some analysis of the report puts Washington state behind only New York, California and Oregon for the nation’s most cancer-risky air.
The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution.
The average cancer risk across the country is 36 in 1 million, according to the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, which will be released by the EPA on Wednesday.
That’s a decline from the 41.5 in 1 million cancer risk the EPA found when it released the last analysis in 2006. That data covered 1999 emissions.
“If we are in between 10 in 1 million and 100 in 1 million we want to look more deeply at that. If the risk is greater than 100 in 1 million, we don’t like that at all … we want to investigate that risk and do something about it,” said Kelly Rimer, an environmental scientist with the EPA, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Parts of Los Angeles, Calif., and Madison County, Ill., had the highest cancer risks in the nation — 1200 in 1 million and 1100 in 1 million, according to the EPA data. They were followed by two neighborhoods in Allegheny County, Pa., and one in Tuscaloosa County, Ala.
People living in parts of Coconino County, Ariz., and Lyon County, Nev., had the lowest cancer risk from air toxics. The counties with the least toxic air are Kalawao County, Hawaii, and Golden Valley County, Mont.
“Air toxic risks are local. They are a function of the sources nearest to you,” said Dave Guinnup, who leads the groups that perform the risk assessments for toxic air pollutants at EPA. “If you are out in the Rocky Mountains, you are going to be closer to 2 in a million. If you are in an industrial area with a lot of traffic, you are going to be closer to 1100 in 1 million.”
The analysis predicts the concentrations of 124 different hazardous air pollutants, which are known to cause cancer, respiratory problems and other health effects by coupling estimates of emissions from a variety of sources with models that attempt to simulate how the pollution will disperse in the air. Only 80 of the chemicals evaluated are known to cause cancer, EPA officials said.
The information is used by federal, state and local agencies to identify areas in need of more monitoring and attention.
When looking for Washington state’s cancer-causing hot spots, the EPA report indicates the usual suspects – ports and freeway corridors. These local features show up well in the EPA’s air toxin map of the four-county Puget Sound area. Local EPA analysts say that may be a little misleading.
“You can look at a place like Houston where there are 40 or 50 oil refineries and they have huge emissions of air toxics, so you’d ask, ‘why are the risks up here higher than there?’” said Rick Albright, director of EAP Air Waste & Toxics.”Well I don’t actually believe that they are.”
Local air experts say advanced air monitoring stations are more common and sophisticated than those in other cities. And different states report air quality differently.
Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco-Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products
www.countrymeadowltd.com
