The Environmental Protection Agency has announced its proposal to toughen up the standards for smog-causing pollutants, which would replace the standards set during the Bush administration.

The Obama administration’s proposal sets a primary standard for ground-level ozone of no more than 0.060 to 0.070 parts per million, to be phased in over two decades. Regions with the worst smog pollution, including much of the Northeast, Southern and Central California and the Chicago and Houston areas, would have more time than other areas to come into compliance [The New York Times]. The previous standard was 0.075 parts per million, set in 2008 despite government scientists’ objection that it was not strict enough. Smog is formed when a stew of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, and methane is baked in sunlight.

The new standard won’t be cheap, but proponents say it will save money, and lives, in the long run. The EPA estimates that by 2020 the proposal will cost $19 billion to $90 billion to implement and will yield health benefits worth $13 billion to $100 billion. The proposal would result in 1,500 to 12,000 avoided premature deaths by 2020, though the precise number depends on what limit the agency adopts [Washington Post]. Smog is linked to a wide variety of heart and respiratory diseases. Currently, a majority of the counties that are required to monitor ozone levels would not meet the new standard. If the 0.070 limit is adopted, 515 of the 675 counties that monitor ozone levels would be out of compliance.

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Mountaintop removal—the aptly-named mining practice that blasts away peaks and leaves piles of rubble—must stop, a group of researchers write this week in the journal Science. Taking an unusually political stance, a group of hydrologists, engineers and ecologists called for an immediate end to the practice.

“Until somebody can show that the water [that runs off mine sites] can be cleaned up . . . this has got to be stopped,’’ said Margaret Palmer, a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science who is the study’s lead author. For now, Palmer said, “there is no evidence that things like this can be fixed” [Boston Globe]. The researchers contend that mountaintop removal destroys forests in the Appalachians and taints water through toxic runoff.

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The big roundup in Nevada has begun. But rather than being fodder for a old-fashioned Western, this one is kicking up a fight. Yesterday the Bureau of Land Management launched its mission to capture 2,500 wild horses from public and private lands across the state.

Contractors in helicopters and on horseback herded some of the mustangs into corrals in the Black Rock Range, a chain of mountains 100 miles north of Reno, according to a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Land Management. Heather Emmons said she did not know how many horses were captured on the first day of the roundup, which will take two months and stretch across 1,750 square miles in the Calico Mountains Complex [Los Angeles Times].

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At the beginning of September in Idaho the first federally sanctioned wolf hunt in 36 years got underway, and since then hunters have reported killing four wolves. Conservationists had been holding out hope that a judge would issue an injunction to halt the hunt on the grounds that the Rocky Mountain wolf population hasn’t recovered enough to survive the hunts, but the judge has now ruled that the Idaho hunt can continue. A second wolf season will open in Montana in just a few days.

However, Judge Donald Molloy also wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service, in continuing to list Wyoming wolves under the Endangered Species Act while delisting them in the two neighboring states, “has distinguished a natural population of wolves based on a political line, not the best available science.” That finding suggested that a coalition of conservation groups would have a good chance of prevailing when its argument for restoring the wolves’ endangered status gets a full hearing [Los Angeles Times].

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80beats: For the First Time in 36 Years, Rocky Mountain Wolves Are in the Crosshairs Again
80beats: Are Wolves Interbreeding Themselves to Extinction?

Image: flickr / Fremlin

This morning hunters in Idaho donned reflective vests and picked up rifles, and set off to track and kill an animal that has been off-limits for more than three decades: the gray wolf. While environmental groups were in court yesterday asking federal judge Donald Molloy to stop the hunt, the judge declared that he needs time to determine whether wolves should be protected from the rifles and returned to the endangered species list. While Molloy considers, the hunt will go on. As of midday Monday, more than 10,000 Idaho hunters had bought licenses allowing them to vie for a wolf trophy.

In March, the Obama administration affirmed a decision by the Bush administration to remove gray wolves from the endangered list, where they had been protected for more than 30 years…. Federal and state wildlife officials say multiple studies have established that the wolf population is healthy and growing and that the management programs put in place by Idaho and Montana will keep the animal from becoming endangered again [The New York Times]. There are now about 1,600 wolves in the Northern Rockies region, but last year Judge Molloy still stopped the wolf hunt planned for Idaho. He has given no indication of how he will rule this year.

About 850 wolves are thought to live in Idaho; of those, up to 220 can be killed in this year’s hunt. An additional hunt in Montana scheduled to begin on September 15 may kill up to 75 wolves, and members of the Nez Perce tribe can kill up to 35 animals. The coalition of 13 wildlife conservation groups who sued to stop the hunts has argued that allowing them to go forward could threaten the wolves’ survival by eliminating key connecting corridors among the various populations in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming [Los Angeles Times]. The lawsuit argues that without crossbreeding between the populations, the wolves’ limited genetic diversity will put them at risk of diseases and other health problems, reducing their chances for long-term survival.

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The groundwater of northern India is being drained away by irrigation faster than it can be replenished by the annual monsoon rains, and new satellite data shows that the process is accelerating. In an area that’s home to about 10 percent of the world’s people, that could be a recipe for disaster, policy experts say. A growing population with an increasing standard of living will only boost the demand for groundwater, a trend that could eventually lead to a reduction in agricultural yields, shortages of potable water and an increase in societal unrest [Science News].

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is comprised of a pair of satellites that measure subtle variations in the Earth’s gravity, caused by the movement of water either in the oceans or under the ground. Most famously, GRACE has recorded the shrinking of ice sheets; it has also detected shifting ocean currents, the desiccation of droughts, and the draining of large lakes [ScienceNOW Daily News]. Now two new studies of GRACE’s data have revealed the loss of groundwater from northern India; once water is pumped up from the aquifers for use in irrigation, it either flows away from the region or evaporates.

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The popular “cash-for-clunkers” program instated by the federal government is clearly giving a boost to struggling auto companies by convincing people to trade in their old gas-guzzlers for new, fuel-efficient vehicles: More than 240,000 Americans have traded in their clunkers so far, and the program has already burned through its first round of funding [Time]. But as Congress debates adding $2 billion to the program, some calculations show that it may have only negligible environmental benefits.

The program‘s rules are lenient enough to raise the ire of some environmentalists–new passenger cars must have a fuel efficiency rating of only 22 miles per gallon, and must be only 4 miles per gallon more efficient than the old car being traded in for a consumer to get the $3,500 credit. Still, people have embraced not just the letter but the spirit of the law. Consumers are snapping up fuel-sipping cars, led by the Ford Focus and followed by models from Honda and Toyota. The average mileage of the clunkers was 15.8; the new cars average 25.4 miles a gallon. That’s a 61% improvement—much more than the program’s rules required [The Wall Street Journal, blog].

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The world’s fisheries may be seriously depleted, but a comprehensive new study shows that all is not lost–and suggests that when humans really put the effort into turning the tide, fish stocks can be returned to good health. The researchers found that efforts introduced to halt overfishing in five of the 10 large marine ecosystems they examined were showing signs of success. A combination of measures – such as catch quotas, no-take zones, and selective fishing gear – had helped fish stocks recover [BBC News].

The new study sprang from another report from marine ecologist Boris Worm in 2006, in which he made an alarming prediction: if current trends continue, by 2048 overfishing will have destroyed most commercially important populations of saltwater fish. Ecologists applauded the work. But among fisheries management scientists, reactions ranged from skepticism to fury over what many called an alarmist report [The New York Times]. Eventually the two groups agreed to collaborate on a study that would bring both their perspectives to the table, and which would determine the best ways to revive and manage the ocean‘s fish stocks.

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When a small coal-fired power plant opened in northern Germany last September, it was heralded as the first example of a technology that could save us from the ravages of global warming, while allowing us to keep burning cheap and plentiful coal. The demonstration plant, built and operated by the Swedish power company Vattenfall, was designed to capture its carbon dioxide emissions and to pump them deep underground in a process called carbon capture and storage (CCS). But the project has thus far been a victim of “numbyism” – not under my backyard [The Guardian].

The plant’s managers say they’ve captured about 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide, but they haven’t been able to pipe it underground to the selected underground zone, where scientists say the atmosphere-warming carbon dioxide would instead be trapped in the rocks. Locals, apparently, aren’t so sure about the technology. “It was supposed to begin injecting by March or April of this year but we don’t have a permit. This is a result of the local public having questions about the safety of the project,” said Staffan Gortz, head of carbon capture and storage communication at Vattenfall. He said he did not expect to get a permit before next spring: “People are very, very sceptical” [The Guardian].

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A new political fight is brewing over where to locate a mercury storage facility, as state officials and residents around the seven sites in consideration have grown alarmed at the prospect of the federal government forcing thousands of casks of the toxic metal on them. Ironically, the conflict began when the federal government passed a law to forbid sending the dangerous metal abroad, but nobody seems eager to keep it at home.

Last year, then-Senator Barack Obama sponsored a bill to bar mercury exports beginning in 2013, and President Bush signed it. The bill also requires the Department of Energy to identify a safe, long-term storage site for up to 17,000 tons of mercury, which is so dense that it would fill less than half of an Olympic-size swimming pool. That includes stockpiles held by the federal government, as well as commercial supplies [AP]. The seven sites in consideration for the storage facility are scattered across the country, in South Carolina, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada, Idaho, Texas, and Washington.

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Nike, the world’s largest maker of athletic shoes, said yesterday it is adopting a policy that prohibits the use of leather from cattle raised in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. The announcement came after a Greenpeace statement released about a month ago citing cattle farming as the main driver as deforestation in the region, and a significant contributor to global warming, as ranchers clear vast stretches of land for grazing.

The company established a formal Amazon leather policy and will give its leather suppliers until the first day of next July to “create an ongoing, traceable and transparent system to provide credible assurances that leather used for Nike products is from cattle raised outside of the Amazon Biome” [AP].

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In one week, the Interior Department has issued two bold new rules that reverse decisions on mining and old-growth forests that were made during the Bush administration. In the first ruling, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday called for a two-year “timeout” on new mining claims on nearly 1 million acres near Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona [Los Angeles Times]. That directive overrides the Bush-era decision to open land near the park to uranium mining claims.

The moratorium on new mining claims near the Grand Canyon will give the Interior Department time to study the environmental effects of mining in that area; the department then has the option of banning mining there for 20 years. Grand Canyon Superintendent Steve Martin has said previously that he was concerned that uranium could get into the watershed and affect the fish in the Colorado River at the bottom of the gorge — and the bald eagles, California condors and bighorn sheep that depend on the canyon’s seeps and springs [Los Angeles Times].

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The burgeoning 150,000-snake python population in Florida’s Everglades National Park threatens crops, livestock, and native animals. And, as the July 1 story of the toddler killed by a pet python demonstrates, the snakes can also threaten human lives. The snake overpopulation began when python owners discarded their unwanted pets in the wild; now, lawmakers are pushing for legislation to combat this invasive species. Not surprisingly, there is disagreement over the best way to do it.

Florida Senator Bill Nelson, who filed a bill in February to ban the importation of Burmese pythons, told a Senate panel on Wednesday that the snakes are slithering their way into a wider geographical area. Then he explained in graphic detail how a pet python… strangled a toddler in her crib last week in a town northwest of Orlando. ”It’s just a matter of time before one of these snakes gets to a visitor in the Florida Everglades,” Nelson said [Miami Herald]. Nelson said he’s been pestering the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for three years to halt the growth of the snake population, but the agency has not yet taken action. In addition, an environmental scientist at the panel emphasized the need to majorly restructure the policies that regulate and control import of exotic species like the python.

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In a 219-212 vote, the House of Representatives passed on Friday a climate bill designed to decrease U.S. dependence on oil and create “green” jobs. It’s now up to the Senate to pass or veto the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which also proposes a cap-and-trade system to impose historic limits on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

The bill has been tweaked since it was approved in May by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and it remains unclear how much progress the Senate will make on the bill. In it, U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would be reduced 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. That is less ambitious than the 20 percent initially sought, but slightly more aggressive than the approximately 15 percent Obama proposed. The legislation sets further pollution reduction goals — 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050, with the latter just slightly higher than Obama suggested [Reuters]. The bill also speeds up the administration of $346 million in stimulus funds for the development and implementation of energy efficient technology.

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The state of Louisiana is losing its coastal wetlands to the Gulf of Mexico, and a new study suggests that conservationists won’t be able to turn the tide. If engineers don’t divert sediment-rich waters from the Mississippi River to help replenish a sinking river delta, about 10 percent of [the] state will slip beneath the waves by the end of this century. However, even if the engineers do try to abate the subsidence, the Mississippi doesn’t carry enough sediment to offset more than a small fraction of that loss, a new analysis suggests [Science News].

Before American settlers subdued the Mississippi and its tributaries, the river periodically overflowed its banks and spilled muddy water, thick with sediment, into surrounding wetlands. But the new study found that the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers today carry only half the sediment they did a century ago — between 400 million and 500 million tons a year then, compared with just 205 million tons today. The rest is now captured by more than 40,000 dams and reservoirs that have been built on rivers and streams that flow into the main channels [The Times-Picayune].

So even if Louisiana officials embark on an all-out campaign to restore the marshes through controlled levee breaks and diversion projects that bring back river water, it wouldn’t be enough to save the land–especially since sea levels are rising due to global warming. “We conclude that significant drowning is inevitable” [The Guardian], the study’s authors wrote.

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