(CNN) — Atrazine, a weed killer widely used in the Midwestern United States and other agricultural areas of the world, can chemically “castrate” male frogs and turn some into females, according to a new study.

New research suggests the herbicide may be a cause of amphibian declines around the globe, said biologists at the University of California-Berkeley, who conducted the study. The findings are being published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers found that long-term exposure to low levels of atrazine — 2.5 parts per billion of water — emasculated three-quarters of laboratory frogs and turned one in 10 into females. Scientists believe the pesticide interferes with endocrine hormones, such as estrogen and testosterone.

“The effects of atrazine in the long term have been shown to demasculinize or chemically castrate [frogs], combined with complete feminization of some animals,” said lead researcher Tyrone B. Hayes, a biologist and herpetologist at the University of Berkeley.

“We need to reconfigure how we evaluate chemicals in the environment and the impact on environmental health and public health,” he said.

Hayes found that 10 percent of the exposed genetic male frogs developed into functional females who copulated with unexposed males and produced viable eggs. The other 90 percent of the exposed male frogs expressed decreased libido, reduced sperm count and decreased fertility, among other findings.

Syngenta, a Swiss company that is the largest manufacturer of atrazine, has challenged the validity of Hayes’ study.

“We haven’t seen these kinds of responses that Dr. Hayes reports,” said Keith Solomon, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, who has served as a consultant to Syngenta. “Some of these studies are poorly conducted and are entirely inconsistent.”

The new study’s implications for atrazine’s effect on humans is unclear. But some scientists are concerned the herbicide may pose risks to reproductive health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last year launched a comprehensive evaluation of the herbicide to investigate any possible links between atrazine and cancer and to determine whether new restrictions are necessary. The EPA’s current safety standard for atrazine in drinking water is three ppb.

The European Union banned atrazine in 2004 because it was consistently showing up in levels higher than 0.1 ppb — its threshold for harmful chemicals — in drinking water.

Farmers in the United States continue to use atrazine on crops.

The herbicide has been a long-standing favorite among corn, sorghum and sugarcane farmers because it is affordable and can eliminate the need for tilling the soil. Tens of millions of pounds of atrazine are used each year in the United States. Syngenta estimates that 60 million pounds were used during 2008, most of it on corn.

A 2006 study by the U.S. Geological Survey found atrazine in approximately 75 percent of stream water and about 40 percent of all groundwater samples from agricultural areas tested between 1992 and 2001.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy organization, released a report in August 2009 that documented spikes of atrazine in the water supplies of Midwestern and Southern agricultural areas where the pesticide is primarily applied.

Home or municipal carbon filters can remove atrazine from water but some water filtration systems in small towns are not equipped to filter out atrazine. Water systems in a handful of states have sued atrazine’s manufacturers in an effort to force them to pay for removing the pesticide from drinking water.

Tim Pastoor, principal scientist for Syngenta, told CNN that the EPA’s current levels for atrazine are safe and that “there is political pressure to get atrazine re-examined.”

“Residues of atrazine and all our crop protection products in water do not pose a health risk for consumers,” Syngenta says on its Web site.

The company also says “ongoing laboratory and field research by university scientists shows that atrazine has no effect on the survival, growth or limb deformities of frogs.”

But Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist with the NRDC’s health and environment program, believes the research by Hayes and the other University of California, Berkeley, biologists is valid.

Sass also is skeptical of Syngenta’s claims.

“Their tactic is to flood the scientific literature with negative data to negate the other studies,” she said. “It’s only their studies that show that atrazine is not an endocrine disrupter.”

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Westlake, Louisiana (CNN) — Gather current and former Mossville, Louisiana, residents in a room and you’re likely to hear a litany of health problems and a list of friends and relatives who died young.

“I got cancer. My dad had cancer. In fact, he died of cancer. It’s a lot of people in this area who died of cancer,” says Herman Singleton Jr., 51, who also lost two uncles and an aunt to cancer.

Singleton and many others in this predominantly African-American community in southwest Louisiana suspect the 14 chemical plants nearby have played a role in the cancer and other diseases they say have ravaged the area.

For decades, Mossville residents have complained about their health problems to industry, and to state and federal agencies. Now with a new Environmental Protection Agency administrator outspoken about her commitment to environmental justice, expectations are growing.

“I’m pretty hopeful now,” say Debra Ramirez, 55, who grew up in Mossville and who lost a sister at 45 of sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease. “I do see her trying to do the right thing.”

Lisa Jackson, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the first African-American administrator of the EPA, this year listed environmental justice as one of her seven priorities.

And the EPA held a meeting in Mossville last month formally kicking off a study designed to see if the community qualifies as a Superfund site, reserved for the most polluted places in the United States. Superfund site designation would bring federal funding for cleaning up Mossville.

Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN), the local environmental group, has asked government and industry to relocate residents who want to leave, offer a free health clinic and lower emissions from the plants. Superfund relocates residents only as a last resort.

“There are people that are getting sick; there are people who are dying because of what is happening in our community. These chemicals are killing us. They will destroy Mossville if nothing happens,” says Dorothy Felix of MEAN.

Thousands of pounds of carcinogens such as benzene and vinyl chloride are released from the facilities near Mossville each year, according to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory.

Chemical boom
The industrial boom began in and around Mossville during World War II. Vinyl chloride makers, refineries, a coal-fired energy plant and chemical plants now operate in what was once rural country, rich in agriculture, fishing and hunting.

Robert Bullard, author of “Dumping in Dixie,” says it’s no surprise industry chose Mossvillle, an unincorporated community founded by African Americans in the 1790s.

“What happens is zoning becomes very political, and what happens is people with power, with lawyers and elected officials who can fight for them and make decisions for them, oftentimes will get things placed away from them and placed in locations where other people live” Bullard says.

Without the power, Bullard says, African-Americans have borne the brunt of living near industry, landfills and hazardous facilities.

“African Americans are more than 79 percent more likely to live in communities where there are dangerous facilities that pose health threats,” says Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University.

Bullard says Jackson has breathed new life into environmental justice since she took office last year. During the previous eight years, he says, “environmental justice was non-existent or invisible.”

Mossville fears
Over time, Mossville residents became worried emissions from the plants were affecting their health.

Those fears heightened in 1998 when the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry tested the blood of 28 Mossville residents and found dioxin levels three times the national average.

Dioxins are carcinogens. Volcanoes and forest fires create dioxins naturally. They are also released during vinyl chloride production, at waste incinerators and by wood processing facilities.

Residents were retested for dioxins in 2001, with similar results, but in 2006 the agency concluded that residents did not face a health risk, an assessment echoed by local industry.

“The emissions from the plants are within the standards set by the various agencies, and they are of a level that they have no ill effects on the local community,” says Larry DeRoussel, executive director of the Lake Area Industry Alliance.

DeRoussel speaks for local industry. CNN invited all 14 companies to speak on camera. None of them accepted; some said interviewing DeRoussel would suffice.

DeRoussel points to statistics showing the cancer rate in Calcasieu Parish, the local county, is not significantly higher than the state average.

But Wilma Subra, a chemist from New Iberia, Louisiana, who has worked with Mossville residents, says the statistics are misleading because the parish covers such a large area, more than 1,000 square miles, and more than 180,000 residents. Mossville is a tiny fraction of that, with about 375 homes adjacent to the chemical plants.

“The people of Mossville are like an experiment. They know that they have high levels of dioxin in their blood, and they’re allowed to continue to live there and be exposed,” says Subra, recipient of the MacArthur genius grant in 1999 for her environmental work with communities.

After the EPA announced its Superfund investigation, Felix says she’s hopeful for the first time in years Mossville will be saved.

“This is the first time I’ve had a little hope in EPA,” Felix says.

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Our blog is set up so I just click the Please Update Now link and it is supposed to be updated automatically…..with no glitches.

But we all know….
Glitches sometimes happen….

Here goes….

Update:
Ok..that was really scary!
In past versions all I had to do was click on the Automatic Upgrade link and it did everything it was supposed to…all by itself!

This time however the blog was actually deactivated and I had to manually go through a series of steps to deactivate plug-ins, upgrade the blog, upgrade plug-ins, then reactive the blog.

Thank goodness it appears that everything came out fine!

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

However I’m still going to post the link below for those of you who do.
And no, I didn’t save and print out any recipes.
As I said….
I don’t like hot.

7 Must-Try Hot Wings

Perfect for parties or weekend munchies, these hot wings kick up the heat — and the flavor. Food & Wine’s Grace Parisi makes the best classic buffalo wings — slightly crispy, a bit saucy, and very spicy — then creates six new versions with flavorings like Old Bay, mango, and Jamaican jerk.

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Because steam distilled essential oils are derived directly from plants they are considered ‘natural’ however, those essential oils that are obtained by solvent extraction could very well still have a bit of solvent that is not 100% removed.

Some of my favorites are:
Lavender
Patchouli
Spruce
Rosemary
Thyme (white)

Fragrance oils can be made with a combination of essential oils and synthetics. Fragrance oil blends are considered proprietary and the manufacturer is not required to reveal the exact oils used. Fragrance oils are also highly concentrated and should not be used directly on the skin. Fragrance oils are very versatile and are made to be used in just about every scented product imaginable!

There are those people who insist on promoting the misconception that fragrance oils are bad for you (because they are not ‘natural’) but as of yet I have not seen anyone provide proof (scientific abstracts) to substantial their claims. All fragrance oil manufacturers must follow guidelines using GRAS (generally recognized as safe) ingredients and are not allowed to use ingredients known to cause harm.

Why use one over the other?
While essential oils can be very nice by themselves or in blends you are limited as to what you can create.

I can guarantee you, you will not be able to create a strawberry or lilac scented product using essential oils (there isnt a strawberry or lilac essential oil!!!). Be very wary of others selling any type of product that states they use an essential oil that so obviously cannot be distilled (ie: banana, apple, almond, buttercream etc.). If they do not know the difference between an essential oil and a fragrance oil they are either being misleading or they simply have not done their research and should not be selling their product in the first place!

Even though we offer a small selection of soap scented with essential oil blends I much prefer using fragrance oils! There are literally hundreds of premade blends out there ready to try and when you take those premade blends and start combining them for your own signature scent you could come up with thousands of different combinations!

I hesitate to list my favorite fragrance oils!
I really don’t like to comment on specific scents as smell is highly subjective from person to person. What is very strong to one person may be very weak to another. Smell can also be affected by mood. I know when I have a headache or am not feeling quite up to par there are certain scents that I have to stay away from. I also know that a scent that I love one day I could leave 3 days later!

Right at this very moment my favorite scents are:
Satuma Guava
Ginger Lime
Sandalwood Vanilla
Crystal Blue
That however could change tomorrow!

Scents I hate:
I can, without doubt, tell you what scents I hate (which is why we don’t make products with them!).

Lemongrass
Eucalpytus
Years ago we used to make votive candles using these two essential oils in combination. It finally got to the point that it was literally making me sick that I had to discontinue them…which was too bad as they were a great seller!

Other than those two scents/essential oils I can pretty much say I can handle just about everything else!

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

The hardest part will be trying to schedule a beach trip!

If you love sea glass then check out Mermaid’s Purse Sea Glass Jewelry!

My personal favorite is the Hermosa Collection…..I just love that green!

Mermaids Purse Sea Glass

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Many things to do this weekend and even though it’s supposed to hit 60 degrees (or maybe higher?) tomorrow it is still a little to damp to start working out in the yard.

Hubs did mention a few weeks ago that he wanted to pull up the crappy crabapple tree in the front yard with the jeep. Maybe tomorrow would be a good day for that….and it would give me something to video!!

With that I will leave you with these  links:

Ignore Expiration Dates
“Best by,” “Sell by,” and all those other labels mean very little.

$238 billion loss for U.S. mail
Saturday delivery may end

Scathing Review
‘Alice’ in Blunderland

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

James Cameron’s Avatar continues its march toward box-office domination: As of this weekend, its sixth since being released, it’s become the highest grossing film of all time (not adjusted for inflation). What happens to all those 3-D glasses after they’ve been used to goggle at floating mountains and blue aliens?

They usually get washed or recycled. There are a number of manufacturers battling for control of the 3-D market. Most of these companies make reusable glasses, though the market leader, RealD, primarily makes single-use spectacles. (RealD has also launched a line of reusable designer glasses.)

Reusable glasses are generally collected in trays and then cleaned in a dishwasherlike machine (or, in some cases, in an actual dishwasher). IMAX Corporation has its own, proprietary washers that exhibitors are required to use on-site. Dolby Laboratories demands that theaters use a commercial-grade dishwasher. XpanD Cinema says that most of their exhibitors use commercial dishwashers, too, but that any kind of dishwasher and detergent is fine as long as temperature is kept below 140 degrees and you use a nonammonia cleanser. (Otherwise, you could damage the lenses’ liquid-crystal display or discolor the plastic.) XpanD also says that some of its exhibitors, like the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, have a staff member hand-clean each pair with a cloth and some light soap, whereas others choose not to clean the glasses at all—instead, they hand out individual disinfecting wipes to each customer.

RealD established a recycling program for its disposable glasses in November 2008 and has collection containers in each theater with a RealD screen. When containers are full, they’re sent to a recycling center, where the glasses are cleaned using heat and other cleaning agents, checked manually and by machine for quality assurance, and then individually repackaged. In an April 2009 presentation (PPT) at the ShoWest exposition, the company noted that approximately 70 percent of theaters “actively participate” in the recycling program.

Explainer thanks Joshua Gershman of Dolby Laboratories, Rick Heineman of RealD, Jackson Myers of IMAX Corporation, and Michael Williams of XpanD Cinema.

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

By Charles Duhigg and Janet Robert
The New York Times

Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators.

As a result, some businesses are declaring that the law no longer applies to them. And pollution rates are rising.

Companies that have spilled oil, carcinogens and dangerous bacteria into lakes, rivers and other waters are not being prosecuted, according to Environmental Protection Agency regulators working on those cases, who estimate that more than 1,500 major pollution investigations have been discontinued or shelved in the last four years.

The Clean Water Act was intended to end dangerous water pollution by regulating every major polluter. But today, regulators may be unable to prosecute as many as half of the nation’s largest known polluters because officials lack jurisdiction or because proving jurisdiction would be overwhelmingly difficult or time consuming, according to midlevel officials.

‘Huge step backward’
“We are, in essence, shutting down our Clean Water programs in some states,” said Douglas F. Mundrick, an E.P.A. lawyer in Atlanta. “This is a huge step backward. When companies figure out the cops can’t operate, they start remembering how much cheaper it is to just dump stuff in a nearby creek.”

“This is a huge deal,” James M. Tierney, the New York State assistant commissioner for water resources, said of the new constraints. “There are whole watersheds that feed into New York’s drinking water supply that are, as of now, unprotected.”

The court rulings causing these problems focused on language in the Clean Water Act that limited it to “the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters” of the United States. For decades, “navigable waters” was broadly interpreted by regulators to include many large wetlands and streams that connected to major rivers.

But the two decisions suggested that waterways that are entirely within one state, creeks that sometimes go dry, and lakes unconnected to larger water systems may not be “navigable waters” and are therefore not covered by the act — even though pollution from such waterways can make its way into sources of drinking water.

Some argue that such decisions help limit overreaching regulatory efforts.

“There is no doubt in my mind that when Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972 they intended it to have broad regulatory reach, but they did not intend it to be unlimited,” said Don Parrish, the American Farm Bureau Federation’s senior director of regulatory relations, who has lobbied on Clean Water issues.

Widespread uncertainty
But for E.P.A. and state regulators, the decisions have created widespread uncertainty. The court did not define which waterways are regulated, and judicial districts have interpreted the court’s decisions differently. As regulators have struggled to guess how various courts will rule, some E.P.A. lawyers have established unwritten internal guidelines to avoid cases in which proving jurisdiction is too difficult, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former E.P.A. officials.

The decisions “reduce E.P.A.’s ability to do what the law intends — to protect water quality, the environment and public health,” wrote Peter S. Silva, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator for the Office of Water, in response to questions.

About 117 million Americans get their drinking water from sources fed by waters that are vulnerable to exclusion from the Clean Water Act, according to E.P.A. reports.

The E.P.A. said in a statement that it did not automatically concede that any significant water body was outside the authority of the Clean Water Act. “Jurisdictional determinations must be made on a case-by-case basis,” the agency wrote. Officials added that they believed that even many streams that go dry for long periods were within the act’s jurisdiction.

But midlevel E.P.A. officials said that internal studies indicated that as many as 45 percent of major polluters might be either outside regulatory reach or in areas where proving jurisdiction is overwhelmingly difficult.

And even in situations in which regulators believe they still have jurisdiction, companies have delayed cases for years by arguing that the ambiguity precludes prosecution. In some instances, regulators have simply dropped enforcement actions.

In the last two years, some members of Congress have tried to limit the impact of the court decisions by introducing legislation known as the Clean Water Restoration Act. It has been approved by a Senate committee but not yet introduced this session in the House. The legislation tries to resolve these problems by, in part, removing the word “navigable” from the law and restoring regulators’ authority over all waters that were regulated before the Supreme Court decisions.

But a broad coalition of industries has often successfully lobbied to prevent the full Congress from voting on such proposals by telling farmers and small-business owners that the new legislation would permit the government to regulate rain puddles and small ponds and layer new regulations on how they dispose of waste.

“The game plan is to emphasize the scary possibilities,” said one member of the Waters Advocacy Coalition, which has fought the legislation and is supported by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Association of Home Builders and other groups representing industries affected by the Clean Water Act.

“If you can get Glenn Beck to say that government storm troopers are going to invade your property, farmers in the Midwest will light up their congressmen’s switchboards,” said the coalition member, who asked not to be identified because he thought his descriptions would anger other coalition participants. Mr. Beck, a conservative commentator on Fox News, spoke at length against the Clean Water Restoration Act in December.

‘Deluge your senators with calls’
The American Land Rights Association, another organization opposed to legislation, wrote last June that people should “Deluge your senators with calls, faxes and e-mails.” A news release the same month from the American Farm Bureau Federation warned that “even rainwater would be regulated.”

“If you erase the word ‘navigable’ from the law, it erases any limitation on the federal government’s reach,” said Mr. Parrish of the American Farm Bureau Federation. “It could be a gutter, a roadside ditch or a rain puddle. But under the new law, the government gets control over it.”

Legislators say these statements are misleading and intended to create panic.
“These claims just aren’t true,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland. He helped push the bill through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “This bill,” he said, “is solely aimed at restoring the law to what it covered before the Supreme Court decisions.”

The consequences of the Supreme Court decisions are stark. In drier states, some polluters say the act no longer applies to them and are therefore refusing to renew or apply for permits, making it impossible to monitor what they are dumping, say officials.

Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis, N.M., for instance, recently informed E.P.A. officials that it no longer considered itself subject to the act. It dumps wastewater — containing bacteria and human sewage — into a lake on the base.

More than 200 oil spill cases were delayed as of 2008, according to a memorandum written by an E.P.A. official and collected by Congressional investigators. And even as the number of facilities violating the Clean Water Act has steadily increased each year, E.P.A. judicial actions against major polluters have fallen by almost half since the Supreme Court rulings, according to an analysis of E.P.A. data by The New York Times.

The Clean Water Act does not directly deal with drinking water. Rather, it was meant to regulate the polluters that contaminated the waterways that supplied many towns and cities with tap water.

The two Supreme Court decisions at issue — Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. United States Army Corps of Engineers in 2001 and Rapanos v. United States in 2006 — focused on the federal government’s jurisdiction over various wetlands. In both cases, dissenting justices warned that limiting the power of the federal government would weaken its ability to combat water pollution.

“Cases now are lost because the company is discharging into a stream that flows into a river, rather than the river itself,” said David M. Uhlmann, a law professor at the University of Michigan who led the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department during the last administration.

In 2007, for instance, after a pipe manufacturer in Alabama, a division of McWane Inc., was convicted and fined millions of dollars for dumping oil, lead, zinc and other chemicals into a large creek, an appellate court overturned that conviction and fine, ruling that the Supreme Court precedent exempted the waterway from the Clean Water Act. The company eventually settled by agreeing to pay a smaller amount and submit to probation.

Some E.P.A. officials say solutions beyond the Clean Water Restoration Act are available. They argue that the agency’s chief, Lisa P. Jackson, could issue regulations that seek to clarify jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act.

Mrs. Jackson has urged Congress to resolve these issues. But she has not issued new regulations.

“E.P.A., with our federal partners, emphasized to Congress in a May 2009 letter that legislation is the best way to restore the Clean Water Act’s effectiveness,” wrote Mr. Silva in a statement to The Times. “E.P.A. and the Army Corps of Engineers will continue to implement our water programs to protect the nation’s waters and the environment as effectively as possible, including consideration of administrative actions to restore the scope of waters protected under the Clean Water Act.”

In the meantime, both state and federal regulators say they are prevented from protecting important waterways.

“We need something to fix these gaps,” said Mr. Tierney, the New York official. “The Clean Water Act worked for over 30 years, and we’re at risk of losing that if we can’t get a new law.”

This story, “Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Hampering E.P.A.,” originally appeared in The New York Times.

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Chocolate or Cheese? 6 Dreamy Fondue Recipes

It’s fondue season, and we’ve got a variety of hot, melty chocolate and cheese for your dipping pleasure. Food on a stick never had it so good! Chocolate fondue calls for a bevy of cut-up fresh fruit as well as cubed pound cake of any flavor, while cheese fondue is best served with cubed baguette bread or breadsticks and cut-up fresh veggies.

This one sounds interesting!

Whiskey-Cheese Fondue

Ingredients
1 pound(s) extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 pound(s) Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
2 tablespoon(s) cornstarch
2 clove(s) garlic, halved
1 cup(s) dry white wine
3 tablespoon(s) whiskey
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Crusty bread, breadsticks and carrot sticks for serving

Directions
In a bowl, toss the cheddar and Jack cheeses with the cornstarch. Rub the garlic cloves on the inside of a saucepan, then discard. Add the wine to the saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the cheese mixture in 4 batches, whisking constantly over moderate heat and letting it melt completely between additions. Add the whiskey and stir just until the fondue begins to bubble, 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper; serve hot with bread, breadsticks, and carrots.

Rebecca
Country Meadow Ltd.
Eco Friendly Shea Butter Spa Products

www.countrymeadowltd.com

Electric Fondue Pot