Posted by: lfreilich
in MyBlog on May 27, 2010
Tagged in: Untagged
Manor St. George Journal:
Youtube video:
OBSERVE THE POND BEFORE AND AFTER A SPRAYING IN THIS VIDEO CLIP:
Posted by: Jessica
in MyBlog on Apr 17, 2010
DEC takes action to protect aquatic life, limit water intake by certain industrial facilities
Policy Would Make Closed Cycle Cooling the Preferred Choice for Meeting BTA Mandates.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) today released a new proposed (draft) policy that will add significant protections for New York’s vital fisheries by slashing water intake at certain power plants and other industrial facilities, Commissioner Pete Grannis said.
DEC released its plan to implement “best technology available” (BTA) requirements under the federal Clean Water Act. The proposal calls for power plants and other facilities that use water for cooling purposes to recycle and reuse that water through a process known as “closed cycle cooling” technology. This will greatly reduce the amount of water withdrawn from New York rivers or other water bodies and, correspondingly, minimize the amount of fish, fish eggs and larvae destroyed in the process.
The proposed policy is being published in today’s Environmental Notice Bulletin and may be
accessed through the DEC website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/fish_marine_pdf/drbtapolicy1.pdf. DEC is accepting public comments through June 8th. (Details on how to comment are listed below.)
Posted by: Jessica
in MyBlog on Feb 18, 2010
by Linda Freilich, Water Sentinel Administrator for Long Island
Strontium 90 is a radioactive isotope; in fact, there are 16 isotopes, 12 of which are radioactive. Sr 90 is the most important radioactive element that is found in the environment. It behaves chemically like calcium so it is readily taken in by the body. It is a short lived decay product. It is particularly dangerous for children and is believed to be a cause of leukemia and bone cancer. It’s half life is 29.1 years. Sr 90 is used as a tracer in medical and agricultural studies. It is found in waste from nuclear reactors.
It was discovered by Adair Crawford in 1790. It may have entered via ash at dump sites. We want to know: has it entered ground water, was it in the dump sites, is it in any of the known groundwater plumes. The best way to find out is citizen testing. Suffolk County Water Authority knows about Sr 89 and Sr88, but they are not testing for Sr 90.
Posted by: testuser
in MyBlog on Feb 18, 2010
Tagged in: Untagged
Phosphate phaseout is opportunity for chemical suppliers. On July 1, everything changes for U.S. manufacturers of automatic dishwasher detergents (ADDs). That's when bans on phosphates in ADDs go into effect in about 15 states. Chemical & Engineering News
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/88/8804cover2.html
Posted by: Jessica
in MyBlog on Dec 10, 2009
For more than a decade, 57-year-old roofer and writer Joseph Jenkins has been advocating that we flush our toilets down the drain and put a bucket in the bathroom instead. When a bucket in one of his five bathrooms is full, he empties it in the compost pile in his backyard in rural Pennsylvania. Eventually he takes the resulting soil and spreads it over his vegetable garden as fertilizer.
"It's an alternative sanitation system," says Jenkins, "where there is no waste." His 255-page Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure is in its third edition and has been translated into five languages, but it has only recently begun to catch on. His message? Human manure, when properly managed, is odorless. His audience? Ecologically committed city dwellers who are looking to do more for the earth than just sort their trash or ride a bike to work. (See reusable toilet wipes as one of the top 10 odd environmental ideas.)
"It's one of those life-changing books," says Erik Knutzen, 44, an eco-blogger in Los Angeles. "You read it, and the lightbulb just goes on." Now he eschews his porcelain potty for a big bucket with a toilet seat. He "flushes" by tossing in a scoop of sawdust, which not only neutralizes smells but also helps speed the breakdown of material for compost. Like many back-to-basics sophisticates, he believes Jenkins' humanure system is more sanitary and more rational than the conventional alternative. "Human waste is a perfectly good source of an important resource, nitrogen," Knutzen observes. "Water is a valuable resource too. Why mix the two and turn all of it into a problem?"
Wastewater treatment is much more energy-intensive than composting, which needs little more than time (about a year) for complete decomposition and pathogen elimination. In Austin, Texas, a sustainably minded nonprofit called the Rhizome Collective succeeded this year in getting the city to approve what may be the first legal composting toilet in the U.S. "The hypocrisy is amazing," says Lauren Ross, 54, a civil engineer involved in Rhizome's four-year battle to get a permit. "The city will buy you a low-flow toilet, but they'll fight you all the way if you want to build one that uses no water at all."
It's an idea that you, dear reader, might be asked to take seriously. Not long ago, Nance Klehm, 44, a self-described radical ecologist in Chicago, invited her neighbors to stop using their toilets and start saving their poop. More than half of them — 22 of the 35 households — accepted her proposal. In three months she picked up 1,500 gal. (5,700 L) of excrement, which she'll give back to participants this spring after she and Mother Nature have transformed it into a rich bag of fertilizer. "I've sent a sample in for a coliform test," Klehm says. "There is zero detectable fecal bacteria." (Read a brief history of toilets.)
At one point, Klehm invited her "nutrient loopers" to a potluck and was surprised to see who had agreed to participate. "It was the white collar people, not the ragtag anarchists. Mostly, they were delighted that they got this wacky proposal," she says. "They didn't know how to connect with the earth, but they could s___ in a bucket."
Meanwhile, over in California, the Marin Composting Portable Odorless Outhouse Project, a.k.a. MCPOOP, is doing Klehm one better. The goal of MCPOOP (which is pronounced the Irish way as opposed to the rap-star way) is to get the government into the night-soil business and put humanure toilets in county parks and town squares. The group is less than a month old but already has the support of the local environmental establishment and Marin County supervisor Steve Kinsey. "The whole thing is like a good acid flashback," says Kinsey. "We approved several experimental permits like this in the '70s." He estimates that a small-scale municipal demonstration project could be under way in less than a year. (Read "Is It Time to Kill Off the Flush Toilet?")
MCPOOP was founded by a couple in their 50s. "We're on a mission to re–potty train America!" says John Wick, a rancher in the western part of the county. "We're going to start by replacing those nasty blue loos," says his wife Peggy Rathmann, referring to two chemical toilets on their town's main square. If that goes over well, they'll replace the chemical toilets around Tomales Bay that kayakers often use. And then, who knows? Wick and Rathmann don't see why every home in Marin County shouldn't be humanure equipped.
To Joe (Mr. Humanure) Jenkins, nothing could be better news. "On a small scale, my system works like a dream," he says. "But in order to do more research and development, I need to to collect humanure on a larger scale."
MCPOOP and other projects are eager to help on the supply side. "We're going to have plenty," predicts Rathmann. "Tons of tourists come to West Marin, and they all leave us their poop!"
This is an expanded version of an article that originally appeared in the Dec. 14, 2009, issue of TIME
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1945764,00.html#ixzz0ZIzKYqOa
Posted by: Jessica
in MyBlog on Nov 29, 2009
Tagged in: Untagged
Long Island Water Sentinels Year End Report - November 25, 2009
This quarter the Long Water Sentinels added four test kits, restocked three test kits, and will soon be receiving supplies for an eighth test kit. We have also requested nets for tributary cleanups.
In charge of our test kits in the field are:
Captain Janine Bendicksen of the Sweetbriar Nature Center and the Kings Park High School students, testing the North Shore's Nissiquogue River.
Captain Joe Aurelio, testing Greens Creek on the South Shore.
Posted by: Jessica
in MyBlog on Nov 9, 2009
Why a New Water Plan May Make Philly One of the Greenest Cities Yet
by Tara Lohan, AlterNet
September 29, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/142985/
Finally, a city that really wants to work with nature and not against it.
Philadelphia has announced a $1.6 billion plan to transform the city over
the next 20 years by embracing its storm water - instead of hustling it down
sewers and into rivers as fast as possible.
The proposal, which several experts called the nation's most ambitious,
reimagines the city as an oasis of rain gardens, green roofs, thousands of
additional trees, porous pavement, and more.
Like most cities, Phili has an issue when it rains too much. Overflow
"gushes from 164 pipes directly into the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and
Tacony, Pennypack, and Cobbs Creeks. Bacteria levels skyrocket." So, in
looking for solutions to having to pay to treat stormwater and to deal with
overflows of toxic waste, the city has gone away from the typical route of
building new tunnels and massive infrastructure and instead chosen an
incredibly ambitious and incredibly green plan that will hopefully be
followed through on. They've also projected some added benefits:
The Water Department says the city's greening would result in more jobs,
higher property values, better air quality, less energy use, and even fewer
deaths - from excess heat.
Here's how it would work:
The idea now is to "peel back" the city's concrete and asphalt and replace
them with plants - with rain gardens, green roofs, heavily planted curb
extensions, vegetated "swales" in parking lots, and mini-wetlands.
Everything from impervious streets to basketball courts would be replaced
with paving made out of larger particles that let rainwater flow through and
leave no puddles behind.
And what about commercial and residential properties?
As for commercial properties, the city now requires that large developments
or redevelopments - ones that disturb 15,000 square feet of land or more -
install systems to capture runoff.
For many projects, that means a green roof, which costs more but reduces
heating and cooling costs and lasts longer. The one installed on the
Philadelphia Museum of Art's parking garage - with one to five feet of soil
- supports a sculpture garden.
In July, the Water Department will begin phasing in commercial rates based
not on how much water a facility uses, but on how much impervious surface it
has.
For a parking lot with, say, three acres of asphalt and two bathrooms, the
rates will jump, giving owners incentive to repave.
As for residences, officials are hoping rain barrels on household downspouts
become as common as the city's blue recycling buckets.
All this stuff in their plan has been done before and it's highly effective.
But at a citywide level, this is super encouraging. Kudos to Phili, let's
hope they become an example others cities will follow.
Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.
“Breaking ground with a $1.6 billion plan to tame water,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 27, 2009, http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20090927_breaking_ground_with_a__
1_6_billion_plan_to_tame_water.html?page=1&c=y
Posted by: Jessica
in MyBlog on Sep 3, 2009
http://www.rivernetwork.org/introduction-cwa-course
introduction from link above:
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