The environment in the news

By Michael Christie

August 4, 2008

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Edouard moved across the northern Gulf of Mexico on Monday, threatening to come ashore on the Texas-Louisiana coast at near-hurricane strength.

Edouard, the fifth tropical storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph (85 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its 7 a.m. report.

The storm, which formed near a major oil- and gas-producing area of the northern Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, was about 80 miles south-southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana, and 285 miles east-southeast of Galveston, Texas.

It was moving west at about 8 mph (13 kmh) and forecasters said it could bring as much as 6 inches of rain.

The Hurricane Center said Edouard was expected to gain strength and could be near the 74-mph (119-kph) threshold for hurricane status when it neared land by Tuesday morning.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi River in Louisiana to San Luis Pass, south of Galveston.

Much of U.S. offshore oil production was in the likely path of the storm, which could also threaten Gulf Coast refineries. Oil companies have been working to strengthen platforms to withstand hurricane-force winds.

Oil and natural gas companies like Exxon Mobil Corp were preparing for possible evacuations of offshore production platforms. So far, the storm has not affected output from the offshore area, which supplies about a quarter of the nation's crude oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.

A series of powerful hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, including Hurricane Katrina, toppled oil rigs and severed pipelines in the Gulf.

The six-month hurricane season, which began on June 1, has already seen two of its four storms strengthen into hurricanes. Last month was the third most active month of July for storms since Atlantic hurricane season records began in 1851.

The early and unusually vigorous activity has given storm experts reason to believe that predictions for an above average season could turn out to be accurate.

Among the storms this year, Hurricane Dolly came ashore on the southern Texas coast on July 23, dousing the area with tremendous downpours but causing relatively little damage.

Hurricane Bertha grazed Bermuda and became the eighth longest-lived Atlantic storm on record before fading over the cool waters of the northern Atlantic, while Tropical Storm Cristobal brought heavy rain to the Carolinas.

Reuters

By Alexandria Sage

August 4, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A wave of porpoise deaths in Northern California has puzzled scientists and more of the dead mammals may wash ashore onto beaches in August, animal researchers said on Sunday.

At least 24 harbor porpoises have been discovered dead and washed ashore since May, according to the Marine Mammal Center. While scientists have diagnosed pneumonia, asphyxiation, trauma, malnutrition and maternal separation as reasons for death in most cases, eight deaths are still unexplained.

"This is the time period every year where we do see porpoises and dolphins washed up ashore, it does happen," said Jim Oswald, a spokesman for the Mammal Center in Sausalito, across the bay from San Francisco. "There are a few more numbers this year."

Researchers are testing those carcasses for domoic acid poisoning from toxic algae in Pacific waters, which can cause neurological damages, such as seizures, in marine mammals.

The center has studied the toxic algae issue since 1998, and learned that sea lions can pass along the poison to their unborn fetuses.

"We want to take a look and see if that's possible (in harbor porpoises) -- is that occurring here?" Oswald said.

The National Marine Fisheries Services cites 13 harbor porpoise deaths last year and 26 in 2006.

The Marine Mammal Center rescues up to 800 ill, injured or orphaned marine mammals annually along the California coast and returns them to the wild after rehabilitation.

Harbor porpoises, which are related to whales, stay relatively close to shore as they feed in shallow waters on fish, squid and crustaceans. They are found in North Pacific and Atlantic waters off the United States.

In 2003, the National Marine Fisheries Services investigated the stranding of 11 harbor porpoises following Naval sonar exercises in Washington state, but did not find evidence of acoustic trauma linked to those operations.

Five of those animals died of blunt-force trauma or illness, the investigation found, but the remaining six deaths could not be explained.

Last year, the World Wildlife Foundation and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society published a report that said the rising temperature of oceans due to climate change was a threat to marine mammals -- from the increased likelihood of toxic algae in waters; to lower populations of krill, a key source of food for these mammals; to lower rates of conception.

That is in addition to the numerous threats the various species already face, the report found, from pollution to ensnarement in commercial fishing nets.

By Karen Howlett and Greg Keenan

August 4, 2008

TORONTO — Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty struck a bargain with the auto sector and leaders of a North American climate change initiative that paved the way for the province to join the group, sources say.

Mr. McGuinty assured auto industry officials last week that he won't adopt California's tough pollution standards for cars, even though Ontario has joined the Western Climate Initiative, a climate-change group led by that state, according to sources familiar with the talks. But in a letter dated July 17 asking to be included in the WCI, Mr. McGuinty praises the 10 provinces and states that are part of the coalition for adopting California's standards.

"The transportation sector is a major source of greenhouse gas pollutants," Mr. McGuinty says in the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by The Globe and Mail. "We recognize the rights and commend the efforts of California, other U.S. states and Canadian provinces to adopt California's rigorous greenhouse gas vehicle standards."

The letter and interviews with sources familiar with the talks reveal the compromise Mr. McGuinty negotiated that allowed the province to gain entry into the WCI, without signing on to California's bid for tough vehicle tailpipe emissions standards and without alienating the auto industry. The auto sector opposes the California standards, which would require car makers to improve the fuel efficiency of their vehicles. Mr. McGuinty is concerned about the impact the standards would have on the industry, the backbone of Ontario's economy.

The WCI was created last year by the governors of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington to fight climate change by pushing for a carbon trading policy - also known as cap and trade - that would allow polluters to buy and sell credits according to their ability to meet emission-reduction targets. The states of Utah and Montana have also joined as well as the provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec.

Ontario's refusal to embrace the California tailpipe plan had blocked it from joining. But the sources said WCI members wanted Ontario on board because the inclusion of Canada's largest province would help build momentum for a cap-and-trade system. The province was invited to join on July 18 after Mr. McGuinty demonstrated that his government was tackling climate change on other fronts, including developing clean sources of electricity.

The WCI says in its statement of goals that a member must adopt the California tailpipe standards. But WCI project manager Patrick Cummins said other factors may also be considered, including an overall commitment to address climate change.

"There was nothing written in stone at the outset about what the criteria would be."

In his letter, Mr. McGuinty says he wants to work with the auto sector to develop clean cars. He also says he wants a single emission standard for all of North America, even if it's stricter than the one proposed by California, which is the subject of legal challenges.

"I favour a happy intersection between the economy and the environment by a single aggressive North American standard," Mr. McGuinty told reporters recently.

David Paterson, vice-president of government and environmental affairs at General Motors of Canada Ltd., said the Premier has given industry players his assurance that he will continue to strongly support the advantages of one national standard.

Mr. McGuinty would rather have the marketplace force auto makers to adapt and change. That appears to be happening as high gas prices roil the automotive market, particularly in the United States, which is the destination for more than 80 per cent of the vehicles made in Canada. Auto makers have severely cut production of trucks and traditional sport utility vehicles and are rushing to produce as many compact cars as they can.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080804.wontclimate04/BNStory/National/

Globe and Mail

Clayoquot partnership rotting away

By Mark Humme

August 2, 2008

VANCOUVER — In Clayoquot Sound, where a towering rain forest has achieved iconic global status, the first logging protests saw environmentalists and natives standing shoulder to shoulder.

At Meares Island, Sulphur Passage and Atleo River, natives and non-natives faced arrest at blockades more than 20 years ago, while forging an alliance that would go on to change the face of British Columbia.

But in that tangled, temperate jungle, where deer ferns stand waist-high and giant trees blot out the sky, environmentalists are now threatening to block a native-owned logging company from cutting trees.

The alliance of natives and environmentalists not only brought a halt to logging on Meares Island in 1984, but in 1993, after a massive protest that drew international media coverage, it celebrated a resounding victory - the stoppage of clear-cutting in Clayoquot Sound.

Is that powerful partnership now over?

On the surface it might appear so. But nothing is ever as it seems in Clayoquot Sound, where dense fog banks can suddenly drift in from the Pacific to completely obscure the rugged, green mountains on Vancouver Island's west coast, near the resort town of Tofino.

The split between environmentalists and natives emerged two years ago when ForestEthics, Greenpeace and other groups attacked two logging companies - native-owned Iisaak Forest Resources Ltd. and Coulson Forest Products, of Port Alberni - for cutting in pristine areas.

The dispute has simmered in backroom negotiations since then, but last week it boiled over as environmentalists threatened blockades and international market boycotts if logging isn't stopped.

"The situation is very serious, and very sensitive," said Valerie Langer, spokeswoman for ForestEthics and a veteran of the 1993 blockades, which resulted in more than 800 people arrested and saw the band Midnight Oil playing to a dancing crowd in a clear-cut.

Ms. Langer refused to comment on the dispute, saying several environmental groups, Clayoquot Sound chiefs and forest company heads have agreed to a news blackout for 10 days, while talks proceed.

But Vicky Husband, an independent environmental advocate and one of B.C.'s leading conservation voices, said environmental organizations were on the verge last week of pulling out "the big clubs" - blockades and international boycotts - they used in the past against industry giants.

That the target this time would have been a small, native-owned company is not surprising, she said, because native bands all over B.C. are getting increased control over land and resources, leading to inevitable conflict with environmentalists.

Ms. Husband said environmental groups continue to work with native groups, as they are now in northern B.C. in a fight against coal-bed methane gas development north of Smithers and Terrace, and hope to get things back on track in Clayoquot Sound.

"People say to me, 'Why would you trust first nations?' And I reply, 'Well, they are like all communities. There are people who are very conservation-minded and some who aren't, and we will challenge the ones who aren't and we'll work with the ones who are,' " Ms. Husband said.

Joe Foy, a director of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, said he isn't upset by the spectre of environmental groups clashing with natives. He noted that WCWC recently fought against a Tsawwassen First Nation plan to withdraw farmland from an agricultural reserve to facilitate a Vancouver port development, and against a proposed hydropower development on the Pitt River supported by the Katzie First Nation.

"I think it's a healthy thing to see environmental groups involved and speaking out and negotiating, whether it's with a first nations government, a federal government, a provincial government or even a government of another country," Mr. Foy said.

"We want a place where ideas are spoken about and we collectively try to get to a good place. That's why the prospect of disagreeing with a first nations government doesn't concern me. ... I'm not freaked out at all. I think this is a healthy situation."

One of the ironies in Clayoquot Sound is that the native company now fighting environmentalists was saved from financial collapse two years ago by Ecotrust Canada - a leading environmental group.

Ian Gill, president of Ecotrust, said a 20-month management agreement with Iisaak ended just this week, with the company now financially strong enough to go it alone. Like the others, he is not surprised by the enviro-native clash.

"The allegiance of first nations and environmental organizations over the past 25 to 30 years has frankly been a bit of an uneasy one," he said. "You know it hasn't always been one where there is an absolute congruent goal. I think what that relationship has been historically based on is a common agenda ... of [seeking] environmental justice and social justice."

Mr. Gill said environmental groups and native bands often joined forces with different end objectives, with one seeking to stop logging to save the forest and the other wanting to stop logging to preserve future options on land subject to treaty claim.

"It's probably up to academics to peel apart whether environmentalists have piggybacked on a set of communities that have had no power, and now that they have power the worm has sort of turned," Mr. Gill said.

"There is something changing. ... There's definitely a power shift that's occurred," he said. "But I don't think that's the death knell for environmentalism, and I don't think it means there aren't agendas in common between environmentalists and first nations."

Mr. Gill's organization favours some logging in Clayoquot Sound, but he openly admits he doesn't know how much is sustainable.

Finding agreement on logging in Clayoquot is difficult because the forest that is left is the last 7 per cent of old growth remaining on Vancouver Island. For Steve Lawson, that forest is a sacred trust, and increasingly he has come to believe the only logging allowed should follow native tradition, where falling even one tree is a rare and special event.

Mr. Lawson is native, though not a member of any local tribe, and national co-ordinator of the First Nations Environmental Network, an organization linking indigenous people nationally and internationally on conservation issues.

From his home on Wickaninnish Island, just off Tofino, he sees the Clayoquot conflict not as non-native versus native but as a clash of values. "[It's] this conflict between economic development that is sound and has a future, and the short-term destructive approach," Mr. Lawson said.

He thinks there is too much cutting in Clayoquot Sound, and that a scientific logging plan that was drawn up following the big protests in 1993 is badly flawed.

"I honestly didn't support the science panel [report] because I read it as soon as it came out and I don't think the environmentalists read the whole thing. There were holes in there big enough to drive 1,000 logging trucks through ... and we're seeing the result of that now," he said.

Mr. Lawson said no matter who wields the saw, it can't be right when swaths of 800-year-old cedar trees are cut down. Many native people feel the same way, he said.

"There is a split within the native communities. ... Everyone isn't on the same page," he said, although that internal conflict hasn't emerged publicly. "It takes a lot in a native community for people to stand up and go against their leadership."

But he thinks that may happen because Clayoquot, a UN biosphere reserve, is facing increased development pressure with a proposed open-pit copper mine on Catface Mountain, a proliferation of salmon farms in the protected inlets, and proposed dams on two rivers.

"Things are going to hell right now. ... This biosphere thing is not working. It's been hijacked [by development interests]," he said.

Mr. Lawson would like to see natives, environmentalists, government and industry working together on a vision for Clayoquot.

"People have to look into their hearts to make it really work," he said. "It's not about political manoeuvring or ego or crusading. It's about making a connection with the land itself, the way the old people did. Communicating with the land and creating a long-term vision. If it can't happen here, it's hard to say where or how it could ever happen."

Few people would disagree with that. But the path to the future may yet be marked by anti-logging protests in which there will be natives and non-natives on both sides of the barricades.

By Keith Doucette

August 2, 2008

HALIFAX — More than three decades after swimming was discouraged in Halifax's notoriously dirty harbour, city officials staged a beach party Saturday aimed at getting people back in the water.

Dozens of people, including city councillors, staff and the simply curious, turned up at a rainy Black Rock Beach in Halifax's south end, to mark the reopening of the supervised swimming area near Point Pleasant Park.

It was the third dip in recent days for Mayor Peter Kelly, as the city continued a public relations campaign to convince a skeptical public that swimming is safe.

“I've had no issues, no skin issues, any issues whatsoever, so if I can do it anybody can do it,” Mr. Kelly told reporters.

However, most of those on hand were simply content to watch as the mayor and several city officials cut a symbolic red ribbon before venturing into the chilly water.

A handful of residents did take part in the short swim, including Paul Jocys, 34, of Halifax.

“I live around here and I want to enjoy the swims again,” said Mr. Jocys.

When asked if he had any reservations about taking the plunge, Mr. Jocys didn't hesitate. “No, I enjoyed it. It's great and I can't wait to do it again.”

Gordon and Jane Richardson of Dartmouth, N.S., took part in the festivities with their son Austin, 5.

“This is where we had one of our very first dates ... when it was lifeguarded,” said Jane, who confessed she never thought she would see the area opened for swimming again.

But her husband, who actually did get in the water, said he never had doubts.

“I've looked forward to it for a long time,” said Gordon Richardson. “We grew up on the waterfront in Dartmouth and as kids we chased rats and stuff like that, but I knew one of these days we'd be able to swim here again.”

Mr. Richardson added his swim was well worth it.

“The water was a little chilly, but it was nice, it seemed clean and it was very pleasurable,” he said.

The reopening of Black Rock Beach and a second swimming area known as Dingle Beach on the harbour's Northwest Arm, comes nine months after the first of three waste water treatment facilities began operating as part of a $333-million project to clean up the historic harbour.

The waterway has seen sewage dumped into it for 250 years. Now officials say the cleanup has advanced to the stage where water once clouded by 200 million litres of waste daily, is clear.

Recently divers spent a day clearing visible garbage from the sea floor near a waterfront boardwalk. They brought up about 1.5 tonnes of junk including tires and shopping carts.

Officials say recent testing now indicates the water quality meets national standards.

Mayor Peter Kelly said regular testing will be carried out by the city and the provincial Environment Department to ensure the water remains safe.

He added that in the week leading up to the opening of the beaches city testing had switched to every day.

“Our tests show very good results, and if not we wouldn't be here,” he said.

Mr. Kelly said the testing is slated to continue on a weekly basis.

And while critics point out the city's “advanced primary” cleanup system is inadequate for dealing with chemical contaminants, Halifax is ahead of other harbour cities like Victoria and St. John's, N.L., who are still building plants.

Mr. Richardson for one, believes the Halifax effort is well on the way to leaving a legacy for his young son.

“Absolutely, I think this is the most exciting thing that's happened to this city in recent memory,” he said.

It's difficult to read cement manufacturing giant Lafarge North America Inc.

On the one hand, the company announced in June that it was working with Kingston-based biotech firm Performance Plants Inc. on ways to grow grasses and woody plants for use as fuel at its Bath, Ont., cement plant.

A variety of grasses, including miscanthus and switchgrass, have been planted on 25 acres adjacent to the plant. Sorghum and maize is also being grown and, in the fall, fast-growing poplar, willow and industrial hemp will be planted.

Performance Plants specializes in enhancing non-food crops so they can thrive on marginal lands. A local farmer is supervising the growing and harvesting of the plants, which will be processed into pellets and used as fuel in Lafarge's cement kilns. The first burn is expected in fall 2009.

"The joint project is part of the company's ongoing public commitment to reduce its carbon footprint including the use of renewable and local fuel alternatives," Lafarge said when the project was announced.

On the other hand, what exactly does "local fuel alternative" mean?

In the Ontario context, it seems to mean burning car tires, plastics and other local waste as fuel. The Ministry of Environment gave Lafarge approval to do just that, a decision that has faced stiff opposition from Kingston-area groups, including band members from the Tragically Hip. The two sides have been battling it out for five years.

There are arguments out there that "tire-derived fuel" contains fewer heavy metals than coal but packs 25 per cent more energy. In fact, tires contain roughly the same amount of energy as oil, but as a waste product are dirt cheap.

With oil at $125 (U.S.) a barrel, Lafarge's interest in burning tires obviously has more to do with economics than the environment.

Make no mistake: Burning rubber is still a dirty business and does nothing to reduce the company's carbon footprint. Tires can be recycled into usable products, and that's what the Ontario government should be focusing on. If Lafarge is allowed to burn tires it can get at a fraction of the cost of oil, what incentive does it have to burn cleaner, carbon-neutral biomass?

Citizen groups appealed the ministry's decision and in June an Ontario Divisional Court confirmed their right to an Environmental Review Tribunal hearing in September. Lafarge has appealed as well, but last month said it will scrap its plans if unsuccessful.

Citing its desire to avoid a "lengthy and expensive" hearing, maybe Lafarge has decided that developing fuels based on biomass is a better use of time and money.

The cement and concrete industry has a reputation to clean up. It's responsible for 5 per cent to 7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a major contributor to climate change.

Roughly half the carbon dioxide that results from manufacturing cement comes from the tremendous amounts of heat energy required to operate kilns. The other half comes from chemical reactions that take place inside the kiln, which essentially decomposes limestone – a key ingredient in common Portland cement – through a process called calcination. Even more CO2 is emitted when that cement is mixed with other materials to make concrete.

For the cement industry, reducing the "carbon footprint" of their product can happen at a number of stages. Lafarge, by relying less on fossil fuels and more on renewable, carbon-neutral biomass, can lower its overall emissions dramatically.

Another approach is to change the recipe of cement, which California startups CalStar Cement and Celera are attempting to do. Marc Porat, founder and chief executive of CalStar, says the recipe for Portland cement has been roughly the same since 1824.

"Everything in the built environment can be reinvented," Porat said in a recent presentation. CalStar has kept quiet on its approach, but it appears to involve using less limestone (calcium carbonate) and more fly ash.

Others, such as iCrete LLC of Beverly Hills, are focusing more on changing the recipe for concrete. It has come up with a way to mix in more slag and other aggregates, reducing the need for cement – and by association, the emissions that come from cement production – by up to 40 per cent. This recipe is already in use in a number of building projects, including the new Freedom Tower and architect Frank Gehry's Beekman Tower in New York City.

"It is widely accepted that using reclaimed industrial by-products such as fly ash, silica fume, and slag, commonly called 'supplementary cementing materials,' can reduce the amount of cement needed to make concrete," says Eco-Smart, a non-profit foundation in Vancouver that helps the building industry adopt new technologies.

EcoSmart has its own concrete recipe, which was used in the construction of The Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building.

Still, others are focusing on the precast concrete market, which accounts for up to 15 per cent of cement used in North America.

The interesting thing about concrete is that, left alone for hundreds of years, it slowly reabsorbs some of the CO2 that cement manufacturing releases from calcination. This opposite process is called carbonation. Halifax-based Carbon Sense Solutions has come up with a concrete curing approach that can do in just an hour or two what happens naturally over centuries.

CEO Robert Niven says 60 tons of CO2 could be "sequestered" in every 1,000 tons of concrete, which also becomes much stronger as a result of CO2 absorption.

That equates to far more CO2 than a typical precast operation emits, so an ideal situation is to have a precast facility also use CO2 from a neighbouring industrial facility

"If you can have a concrete producer next to a cement plant, that's a perfect combination," says Yixin Shao, associate professor of civil engineering at McGill University, which has studied such approaches for more than 10 years. He says the goal is to make cement and concrete production a closed-loop when it comes to CO2. "Cement releases CO2 and we capture that CO2 and squeeze it back into the final product."

Innovation isn't the problem. The issue is how quickly the cement and concrete industry will embrace these new approaches.

The pace of action so far is, well, like watching concrete dry.

By Sandro Contenta

WASAGA BEACH, ONT.–The return of piping plovers to the beach here proved a harrowing lesson in the fragility of endangered species.

Their saga kept bird lovers fluttering between joy and horror, an adventure reflected in efforts to save birds across Canada.

As public awareness grows, the battleground to save birds is likely to spread well beyond Wasaga Beach, especially since Queen's Park has given the forestry industry a year-long pass before it has to obey the new Endangered Species Act, which became law June 30.

In late May, two pairs of piping plovers landed on a prime stretch of Wasaga Beach, made two nests and filled each with four eggs. No happy hour from nearby bars could match the delight of birdwatchers.

Piping plovers – Charadrius melodus to the highly initiated – had not nested successfully in Ontario since 1977, until a pair hatched eggs in nearby Sauble Beach last year. Suddenly, their long absence from Wasaga was also history.

Provincial park officials sprung into action, cordoning off 1.5 hectares of beach around the nests. After being driven to near extinction by development and the flopping of half-naked bodies on nesting grounds along the Great Lakes, the tables had finally turned.

A group of 70 "guardians" volunteered to work shifts from dawn to dusk around the perimeter. The giddiness when the first four eggs hatched in mid-June was infectious.

"They were basically all legs and fluff," said park superintendent John Fisher. "They were very cute, but very vulnerable."

The first chick disappeared in the clutches of what some believe was a Merlin, popularly known as a pigeon hawk. The next threat also came from the sky. It darkened, and hail stormed down like a biblical plague.

"It was unbelievable," said guardian Fiona Ryner. "All I could see was a wall of hail."

The birds made a run for it. They seemed to be trying to reach the boardwalk for shelter, but hit a groove in the sand. The 10-day old chicks took their last breaths buried in ice.

"Everybody was so heartbroken. It was like, `How could mother nature do that?'" said Ryner, who retired to Wasaga from Brampton five years ago.

Mother nature wasn't done yet. In the middle of the hailstorm, the four eggs in the second nest started to hatch. One chick barely lived long enough to see the light of day. And then there were three – until a gull made short work of one of them.

When the Star visited in early July, the guardians were alert and apprehensive. The mother bird had already migrated. Her sand-coloured partner dashed and scurried about while the young birds spread their wings in practice, hovering briefly on gusts of wind. Now and then a gull gave a half-hearted chase, causing much trepidation.

On July 18, one chick became limp from a mysterious illness and died. But the remaining chick survived and the plovers are expected to migrate to the Gulf of Mexico any day now. On Tuesday, park officials took down the enclosure.

The sight of an endangered species up close rallied many at Wasaga Beach, as it did residents near Sauble Beach, where a pair also nested this spring. Some groaned about the loss of sunbathing territory, and about dogs no longer being allowed to roam the beach. But accommodation, and enforcement by park officials, won the day.

The bird, known for faking a broken wing to distract predators from its nest, was on the brink of extinction in the Great Lakes region when U.S. officials made their breeding grounds around Lake Michigan off limits to bathers and developers. Numbers are slowly rising, but with only 55 pairs left in the region, the birds remain on the endangered list in Canada and in several U.S. states.

About 1,200 of the world's bird species – one in eight – face extinction, according to Birdlife International, a coalition of conservation groups.

Some estimates indicate that half of songbirds have disappeared in the last four decades. Public awareness is growing and so are the battlegrounds to save birds.

"Every time you turn around there's another fight," said Kevin Seymour, president of the Toronto Ornithological Club.

"People want to make money. When we look at the economic models in the world, the natural habitats of birds usually don't have a dollar value on them," said Seymour, whose group is working to conserve the few specks of marshlands left in the Toronto area.

The battle became overtly political when the Ontario government granted a last-minute, one-year exemption to the forest industry in the new Endangered Species Act. Caroline Shultz, executive director of the Ontario Nature coalition, called the exemption "appalling." She said some birds protected under the old law, such as the bald eagle, are now at the mercy of the forest industry for the next year.

Until then, the news for bald eagles in Ontario was getting better. Almost wiped out by the widespread use of DDT, bald eagles began a creeping recovery after the pesticide was banned in the early 1970s. There are now 40 pairs in southern Ontario, according to Jody Allair, a biologist with Bird Studies of Canada, a research centre in Port Rowan, Ont.

But adult eagles are still turning up dead with high levels of lead or mercury contamination, Allair added.

"The big question is, `Where are they getting this?'" he asked. "History will repeat itself, if we're not careful."

Throughout Canada, populations of grassland birds and "aerial insectivores" are falling sharply.

They include what used to be some of the country's most common birds.

Now their days may be numbered, says Jon McCracken, director of national programs at Bird Studies of Canada.

"When the most common species in the landscape start to plummet, it can't be good," McCracken said.

During the past two decades, insectivore populations of bank swallows, common nighthawks, chimney swifts and barn swallows have fallen by more than 70 per cent. Those of cliff swallows, olive-sided flycatchers, eastern wood-pewee, northern rough-winged swallow, eastern kingbird, and purple martin by more than 50 per cent.

McCracken is still looking for the cause, but notes that drops so precipitous are usually man-made. He suspects a decline in the birds' food supply – insects – and says pesticides might be the bug killer.

Grassland birds – the burrowing owl, the northern bobwhite and Henslow's Sparrow, to name only three – are instead being hit by disappearing habitat and industrial farming, which works land too frequently for birds to nest.

For many, the possible extinction of a beautiful species is reason enough to act. McCracken says less sensitive souls should consider the potential economic impact.

If birds are dying because insect populations are falling, a sharp drop in pollinated plants and disruptions of global food supplies might not be far off.

OTTAWA–The Harper government might be overestimating how much its climate-change plan will lower greenhouse gases, says a federal advisory panel.

Flaws in government calculations could skew projections around the Tories' green policies, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy says in a report to be released today.

"Some problems persist with how individual policy measures are calculated and with their projected emission reductions," the report says. "Individual policy measures continue to be presented without these sources of overestimation adequately being taken into account."

However, a spokesperson for Environment Minister John Baird said the government is confident in its estimates.

"The modelling that the government of Canada uses ... is just that, modelling. It changes year by year, depending on the different data that we get," Amanda Galbraith said.

The roundtable did praise the Conservatives for being more transparent in their climate-change reporting this year and for fleshing out their policies.

The government has pledged to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 20 per cent below 2006 levels by 2020 through a handful of measures. But it has abandoned Canada's commitment to the Kyoto protocol, which requires much deeper cuts.

Part of the Tory plan calls for "intensity targets" on big emitters starting in 2010 and lasting until at least 2017. Intensity-based targets link greenhouse-gas reductions to a company's industrial output, meaning overall emissions can still rise if a producer is, for example, getting more energy-efficient use out of a barrel of oil.

Companies that fall short of those targets will be able to buy exemptions several different ways.

August 4, 2008

August 4, 2008

LANSING -- More than 1,000 supporters lined up this morning to hear presumed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's scheduled 11 a.m. address on U.S. energy policies, an issue that has heated up the campaign in the face of $4-a-gallon gas and sniping with Republican foe John McCain over offshore oil drilling.

Dave Newbury, 39, of Lansing, was among the ticket holders. He said he's a longime Democrat who'll also vote for Obama because "I'm half black like he is, so I like that."

Newbury said he would support a windfall profits tax on oil companies. "It seems like the oil companies are price-fixing to avoid national competition, and they shouldn't," he said. "We should tax them a little bit."

But John Lee, 40, of DeWitt, a pharmaceutical salesman, said he opposes a windfall oil profits tax because it makes unnecessary scapegoats out of large companies and will not solve the nation's energy issues.

Outside the Lansing Center, the site of the event, Republican supporters mockingly handed out free automobile tire gauges to those in line, mocking Obama's statements that Americans can reduce oil consumption by keeing their tires properly filled for better gas mileage.

"Sure, I'll take one," laughed Kevin Kelly, 58, a retired letter carrier from Lansing. But, he said, it won't change his vote for Obama.

Anna Carbona, 58, of East Lansing, said she's wary of Obama's slight shifts in his stance on oil production and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said she opposes offshore drilling, but realizes Obama has to compromise somewhat, but only in return for a stronger policy on alternative energy.

She said she disagrees with his call for shifting more U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan to deal with growing attacks there by terrorist factions.

"I want the troops home now," Carbona said.

Lee said he's an independent voter who is looking forward to seeing Obama in the flesh to help him make up his mind.

"The fact is, we've dropped the ball, we should have been exploring alternative energy sources for a long time," he said. "We should focus on energy of the future, not go around bashing companies and blaming people."

Ann Lawrence, 62, of Grand Ledge, stood in line outside the Lansing Center with a ticket she obtained early Saturday morning. She said she was a supporter of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, but has thrown her support fully behind Obama.

She said she'd like to see Obama choose Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, but added, "I will support him no matter who he chooses."

Phyllis Burton, 55, of Lansing, stood nearby and agreed. She's an Obama supporter, and said she'd like to see him choose Clinton as well.

"That would truly be the dream team," Burton said.

Obama’s visit comes a day before McCain holds an event at DTE Energy Co.’s Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Monroe County.

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Tiny foreign mussels assault drinking water sources in California and Nevada. A deadly fish virus spreads swiftly through the Great Lakes and beyond. Japanese shore crabs make a home for themselves in Long Island Sound, more than 6,000 miles away.

These are no exotic seafood delicacies. They're a menace to U.S. drinking water supplies, native plants and animals, and they cost billions to contain.

Yet Congress is moving to address the problem at the pace of a plain old garden snail.

With time for passing laws rapidly diminishing in this election year, two powerful Senate committee chairmen are at loggerheads over legislation to set the first federal clean-up standards for the large oceangoing ships on which aquatic invasive species hitch a ride to U.S. shores.

The dispute is between Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Boxer is blocking a clean-up bill passed by Inouye's committee over concerns it would pre-empt stronger standards in California and a handful of other states; Inouye believes a single national standard is needed. Boxer also insists the clean-up program be governed in part by the Clean Water Act — which would give environmental groups the right to sue to enforce it — while Inouye's bill keeps the program in the hands of the Coast Guard.

Similar clean-up legislation has already passed the House, but advocates on both sides are pessimistic about breaking the impasse before Congress finishes up work for the year.

Experts say there's no time to waste.

"We are working against the clock, not just politically but out there in the real world, because every year that passes we get more invasions and those invasions stay forever," said Jennifer Nalbone, invasive species campaign director for Great Lakes United.

It's "clearly a national crisis," Nalbone said.

Most aquatic invasive species travel in the ballast water that large ships take on for balance when they're not carrying cargo. Ballast water picked up near Japan and dumped off the coast of California, for example, can bring with it hundreds of foreign species ranging from microscopic bacteria to weeds, fish, crabs and mussels.

Some of these new arrivals establish themselves quickly, and with devastating effect.

Among the best-known cases: Little quagga and zebra mussels from Eastern Europe were discovered in the Great Lakes two decades ago, likely having boarded ships from Europe. In the first six years after their arrival the creatures wreaked as much as $500 million in damage on the regional economy, clogging water intake pipes and gobbling algae at the base of the aquatic food chain.

Then the mussels began to spread, making their way to Lake Mead in Nevada, where they were discovered just last year, and to Southern California. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California anticipates spending upward of $15 million annually just to quell quagga mussel infestations in its Colorado River aqueducts.

There's agreement that the current method for dealing with aquatic invasive species is inadequate. Under Coast Guard oversight, ships are supposed to dump out their ballast water 200 miles from U.S. shores and take on new water. This is meant to wash out invasive species along for the ride.

But the program is not closely enforced, and not all invasive species are eliminated, since some just sink to the bottom of the tank and don't wash out.

"By the time the ship finally makes it into shore most of what you got rid of will have regrown," said Joel Mandelman, vice president and general counsel of Nutech 03, Inc., a company working on technology to clean ballast water by blasting it with ozone. And "you don't know what new or additional invasive species you'll pick up."

The pending legislation would set standards for how many invasive organisms can be in ballast water when it arrives in port. That's meant to drive development of technology such as Mandelman's that would clean ballast water directly.

"There is no doubt that ballast water legislation that stems the tide of invasive species entering our waters from ships needs to be passed immediately," Inouye said through a spokesman. He declined to comment directly on Boxer's opposition, but said he was "disappointed that we have not yet been able to move this bill out of the Senate."

Under Senate procedures, opposition from a single senator is enough to stop a bill. But Boxer said in an interview that she still hoped for a deal.

"I think we can make this work, and all I care about is the end result," Boxer said. "And I'm here for one reason — I've got to protect the health of the people I represent."

But Inouye doesn't support letting states set their own standards stricter than federal rules, as Boxer insists upon. For the shipping industry and companies working on ballast water technology, that's a nonstarter. They say they need a uniform standard to build to.

Leading environmental groups including the National Wildlife Federation are behind the federal legislation, saying it's important to put strong, national standards in place now. But the Natural Resources Defense Council and others prefer the status quo, especially after environmentalists won a federal appeals court ruling in July that requires the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate ballast water discharge under the Clean Water Act.

The EPA is finalizing a permit that enshrines the Coast Guard procedure already in place — ballast water exchange 200 miles offshore. Supporters of federal legislation say that's much too weak, but opponents view the ruling as a starting point that will allow states to maintain existing programs, and give environmentalists the right to sue for stronger rules going forward.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/sns-ap-invasive-species,0,6124045.story
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ROWA Media Update

5 August 2008

UAE