Christmas Tree Recycling Begins

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection and state Division of Natural Resources will collect live Christmas Trees from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 5, at the Capitol Market in downtown Charleston.

The annual Christmas Tree recycling event yielded close to 500 trees last year. The DNR takes collected trees and places them in lakes across West Virginia to improve fish habitat.

Each year, existing, rotting habitats are replaced by newly recycled trees and new habitats are created, as well. The trees provide excellent hiding and feeding areas for fish and other aquatic creatures.

This is the ninth year the DEP’s Rehabilitation Environmental Action Plan (REAP) program has coordinated the tree recycling effort. To be accepted, all decorations must be removed from the tree, including ornaments, tinsel and stands.

Those who drop off trees can enter their names into drawings for ski packages at West Virginia resorts.

For more information, contact the DEP’s Sandy Rogers at

(304) 926-0499, ext. 1004, or email Sandra.D.Rogers@wv.gov

West Virginia DEP Offers Sustainability Grants

West Virginia communities interested in advancing their sustainability goals can apply for mini-grants offered through the Sustainability Institute at Bridgemont Community and Technical College and the West Virginia Sustainable Comunitites (WVSC) program.

 

A limited number of small grants will be awarded for technical assistance only, including professional services such as architectural/engineering, marketing/branding, and meeting facilitation. Construction, travel, printing, administrative, equipment, and overhead expenses are not eligible.

The WVSC program was launched by the state Department of Environmental Protection in 2006 to send young people from diverse backgrounds to work with rural communities across the state in order to further community-based sustainability efforts.

WVSC assists communities in locating qualified technical service providers to collaborate on project implementation.

These sustainable development professionals, working in concert with community members, comprise the project’s Sustainability Team. Grant funds are used to support expenses associated with the work of the Sustainability Team. 

Projects should correspond to one or more areas of emphasis such as architectural services to incorporate sustainable design and energy efficiency into an historical building renovation project; hiring a consultant to develop a business plan or feasibility study for a new recycling program; landscape design to incorporate water conservation, native vegetation, and local art into a greenway, trail, or community park project; engaging a professional facilitator for a sustainability planning process or to update an existing plan; and, hiring a consultant to develop a “buy local” campaign.

Eligible applicants range from 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations to grassroots organizations working with a 501

(c)3 fiscal sponsor. Also eligible are local government agencies and quasi-governmental entities

The deadline for grant applications is January 15, 2013.

Grants will be awarded in mid-February. Completed applications must be submitted to jdurant@bridgemont.edu.

For more information, contact Jamie Lyn Durant, WVSC program coordinator, at (304) 734-6710 or jdurant@bridgemont.edu.  Durant is available to review and provide feedback on draft proposals submitted prior to Jan.

7.

Coal To Replace Oil As Top Energy Source By 2017?

It appears  premature to declare the decline of  coal as a world energy source, as some have one of the world's premier energy sources.  The International Energy Agency  announced yesterday that the use of coal continues to increase, and the IEA makes the surprising prediction that coal might surpass petroleum as the world's top energy source by 2017.

Carbon Capture and Sequestration Strikes Out in Europe

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the removal  of carbon dioxide from air pollution emissions and its storage  underground, is widely lauded as the means by which we can continue to burn coal without causing the earth's climate to warm.  It has proven difficult to do on a large scale, though, which calls its feasibility into question.   Guardian (U.K.) reports that a competition by the  European Union to find a CCS process to fund with  275 million euros resulted in no one who could propose an viable project. You can see the story here.

There are serious questions about whether CCS is a practical control technique, and important  legal issues to be resolved as well.  It is not clear who is responsible if the gas migrates or escapes, if there are seismic events triggered, etc.  The West Virginia Legislature formed a Carbon Dioxide Sequestration Working Group to look at these issues,  and it issued a report in July of 2011.  I don't think anything has happened with the report since that time.

Carbon capture has been promoted by some as BACT (Best Available Control Technology) that should be imposed on power plants and other sources of carbon dioxide.  One can question whether it is even needed, in light of the planet's failure to warm in the last 15 years, even as carbon dioxide levels rise.

The End Of Global Warming?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the international body that was created to report on the extent of global warming, is in the midst of one of its interminable report writing processes.  If it goes like before, the result will be questionable conclusions drawn from spotty data, with an executive summary  that warns of imminent disaster from predicted global temperature increases.  These increases are estimated  from computer models that the IPCC runs, carefully controlling the computer inputs in a way that has resulted in predictions of large increases in the future.

These predictions of large temperature increases  have been made for over 20 years now, and  it would be fair to see how they stack up against the actual temperature data over the past 20 or so years.  It appears they didn't do so well.  Someone has leaked the draft of the most recent IPCC report, and it contains a surprise, seen in the graph below:


Ignore the gray bands, which aren't relevant for our purposes.  Look at the colored bands, which show the range of IPCC model estimates.  The actual measurements are at the low end of the models, at best, and the apparent trend is down, not up.  Read more about it  here.  And remember, this is the IPCC's own  graph, relying on  adjusted temperature data, data  which have been disproportionately adjusted to reduce temperatures in the past and increase them after the model periods began, to exaggerate temperature increases.

The  IPCC computer modeling was a big part of the justification used by EPA to justify limits on greenhouse gas emissions.  Wonder if they'll reconsider now.

Latest Climate Change Conference Ends Without Meaningful Agreement

The Telegraph (UK ) is reporting a deal has been cut on climate change at the most recent international confab on global warming. When one looks at the report, however, it's clear why  these international conferences are less and less meaningful.  The commitments, such as they are, were gaveled through over the objections of  participants:

After several days of deadlocked talks, conference chairman Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah finally rushed through the package of deals which he termed the Doha Climate Gateway, riding roughshod over country objections as he swung the gavel in quick succession proclaiming: "It is so decided."

Observers said Russia had been trying to halt the extension of Kyoto, whose first leg expires on December 31. Moscow objected to the passing of the deal, and noted that it retained the right to appeal the president's action.

It doesn't say much for your agreement if you  have to ram it through in this fashion.  But more importantly, the "deal" only applies to countries with about  15% of the worlds emissions:

An extension of Kyoto was finally approved with the 27-member European Union, Australia, Switzerland and eight other industrialised nations signing up for binding emission cuts by 2020. They represent about 15 per cent of global emissions.  The protocol locks in only developed nations, excluding major developing polluters such as China and India, as well as the United States which refuses to ratify it.

Russia, Japan and Canada have all pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, questioning why their emissions should be limited when the bulk of the worlds emissions are unregulated. 

Lord Monckton's attempt to introduce some sanity into the proceedings was much more instructive and lots more entertaining. 

US Supreme Court Approves Temporary Takings Claims

The US Supreme Court said that even a temporary taking of property through flooding may be the basis for a takings claim under the Fifth Amendment.

Held: Government-induced flooding temporary in duration gains noautomatic exemption from Takings Clause inspection. Pp. 6–15.  

This from the McClatchy News Service: 

The 19-page ruling means that the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission might get paid eventually for the Black River flooding damage that resulted when the Army Corps of Engineers released water from the Clearwater Dam in neighboring Missouri. From 1993 to 2000, the flooding wiped out more than 18 million board feet of timber in a wildlife management area about 115 miles from the dam.

 The decision in  Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v. United States  can be found here.  It would not seem to have much application in West Virginia, but the approval of temporary takings claims may have ramifications in some other contexts.

West Virginia Issues MS4 Storm Water Guidance

This news release about municipal storm water management guidance comes from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.  At 500 pages, this is going to take some time to study. 

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has a new tool to help communities reduce the impacts of polluted storm water on the state’s streams and rivers.

Produced for the WVDEP by the Center for Watershed Protection, the 500-page West Virginia Stormwater Management and Design Guidance Manual is the first of its kind in the state. Both state and federal funds were used for the $150,000 project, which took two and a half years to complete and is based on up-to-date research in the science of stormwater management.

The manual outlines innovative ways to use plants and soils to reduce runoff volumes and pollutants at development and redevelopment sites. The guide can be used as a design resource by any West Virginia community interested in more effectively dealing with the harmful effects of polluted stormwater to the state’s waterways.

The manual’s chief function, however, is to provide design instruction and guidance on implementing stormwater practices in accordance with West Virginia’s small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) General Permit.  Forty-seven West Virginia communities are regulated under the MS4 permit.

“This is a resource tool for state stormwater officials, engineers and designers who are required to implement the provisions of the MS4 permit,” said the WVDEP’s Sherry Wilkins, project manager for the Guidance Manual. “By meeting these performance standards outlined in the permit, the MS4 communities will effectively improve the water quality of our streams and rivers and that benefits everybody.”

The WVDEP plans to distribute the manual to the state’s MS4 communities first. It will be available on the agency’s Web site by the end of December. Go to: 

http://www.dep.wv.gov/WWE/Programs/stormwater/MS4/Pages/defa

ult.aspx.

Why the Ethanol Waiver Would Not Work

The following was copied from the ABQ Journal and was written by John Stewart / President, Stewart Management and Consulting Inc., Albuquerque on Mon, Dec 3, 2012.  You  can see it here.

By way of background, ranchers and consumer advocates,  about the price of corn and other grains following this year's drought, asked EPA to waive the requirement for ethanol as an oxygenate in fuel.  Corn is the primary feedstock for ethanol production.  The idea was to reduce demand for corn and thereby drive down its  price so  that cheaper feed would be available for livestock and humans.  I thought Mr. Stewart offered an interesting   explanation of the origin of the use of ethanol as an oxidizer in fuel, and the  (non)effect that granting the ethanol waiver would have had. I have no idea whether he's right, but it's a perspective I hadn't seen. 

Clean Air Act Led to Mass Use of Ethanol

By John Stewart / President, Stewart Management and Consulting Inc., Albuquerque on Mon, Dec 3, 2012

Regarding the editorial in the Nov. 23 Journal titled “EPA Denial of Ethanol Waiver Is Bad Policy,” I would like to make two things clear at the beginning. First, I do work as a consultant in the agribusiness industry, which includes corn processors.

Second, I feel the EPA and its head, Lisa Jackson, have frequently over-reached in their rule making. That being said, I agree with the EPA’s decision not to waive the Renewable Fuel Mandate for a very important reason. Since the inception of the mandate and up to now, ethanol use in gasoline has always exceeded the mandate.

What is poorly understood is that the explosion of the corn starch ethanol industry is a result of the Clean Air Act’s removal of tetra ethyl lead from gasoline, not the renewable fuel mandate.

When the petroleum industry’s preferred substitute for lead, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) was found to be polluting groundwater, its only practical replacement as an oxygenate and octane enhancer was, and still is, ethanol. The only substitutes for ethanol are the so-called “aromatics” such as benzene, toluene and xylene. They are much more expensive for blenders than ethanol, and benzene is a known carcinogen.

The sudden demand for ethanol as an oxygenate and octane enhancer created a spike in the ethanol price, which made ethanol production hugely profitable. As a result, billions of dollars were spent to create the corn processing ethanol industry because the only feedstock available to produce ethanol in sufficient quantity was, and still is, corn.

To establish a cellulosic industry necessary to produce the amount of cellulosic ethanol mandated in EISA (Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007) would require many billions of dollars. The fact that BP, which is one of the few players that could risk large amounts of capital, has recently terminated its effort to build a cellulosic processing plant tells us that commercial production of ethanol from cellulose is far from reality and may never happen.

I suggest you read the EPA’s Notice of Decision which can be accessed at this website http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/notices.htm. I specifically recommend that you read pages 27, 28 and 49. EPA clearly states, correctly, that a waiver of the mandate would have no effect on the quantity of ethanol used in motor fuel.

You should also be aware that there is no ethanol subsidy. When the corn starch ethanol industry was in its infancy there was a subsidy. This subsidy, as is the case with most government programs, stayed in place far too long. Once ethanol became the octane enhancer of choice, there was no need to continue the subsidy, and it was finally eliminated in 2011.

Wild Horses Invade Mine Land

From WYMT in  Kentucky, this news about wild horses on a strip mine site in Harlan County.  My colleague, Marsha Kauffman, saw a similar site on a trip to a strip mine in Mingo County.  She was amazed at the number of horses that were simply moving about  in large herds.  She was told that the horses were  often left there by their owners to forage until someone came to get them.  Others were  just free-roaming and had no owner.

Evidently the horses in Harlan County, like the mustangs  in the West that are rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management, are overgrazing their land.  Mine operators are having trouble maintaining the grasses that are necessary to allow them to get bond release. With no large natural predators, it's not surprising  that the herd has grown out of control.