Oil Spill
RESTORE ACT OFFERS INFLUX OF CASH TO GULF STATES
LEGISLATION PROVIDES REAL FUNDING—AND REAL HOPE—FOR HABITAT REPAIR IN THE
GULF OF MEXICO.
Audubon Magazone
BY MICHELE BERGER
Published: 08/07/2012
Eighty. For Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, that's the
magic number: the percentage of Clean Water Act fines BP will eventually
pay that are now legally required to go to Deepwater Horizon oil spill
restoration work.
http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/conservation/restore-act-offers-influx-cash-gulf-states
State News
Air quality suit filed
DeSoto Times
By ROBERT LEE LONG
Published: Tuesday, August 7, 2012 9:33 AM CDT
DeSoto County by virtue of its legal counsel has filed a formal appeal to
the Environmental Protection Agency over the federal watchdog agency's
recent decision to list the area as "non-attainment" on ozone levels,
lumping in DeSoto County with Shelby County, Tenn., and Crittenden County,
Ark.
http://www.desototimes.com/articles/2012/08/08/news/doc50205bd4e2179275982450.txt
Mississippi Power fires contractors building Kemper County power plant
(updated)
Tuesday, August 07, 2012, 8:26 PM
By The Associated Press
JACKSON, Mississippi -- Mississippi Power Co. has fired a joint venture of
KBR and W.G. Yates & Sons Construction that was building part of the $2.8
billion Kemper County power plant. The project is more than $400 million
over budget and has struggled to stay on schedule.
http://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-news/2012/08/mississippi_power_fires_contra.html
Grant to Help Clean Up Illegal Dumps in Noxubee
WCBI
Posted by Steve Rogers | August 07, 2012 / 01:19pm
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has awarded
Noxubee County a solid waste assistance grant of $10,143 that will be used
by the county to clean up illegal dump sites.
http://www.wcbi.com/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1344363577&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2,6,45&
Companies required to submit hazardous list online
WTVA
LEE COUNTY, Miss. (WTVA) --Facilities that use or handle hazardous
materials are now required to submit a list of their hazardous material
inventories online.
http://www.wtva.com/news/local/story/Companies-required-to-submit-hazardous-list-online/EWhnIcGDfESHJWjYJvUOEg.cspx
Sea turtles a window into Gulf ecology
Animals caught, studied and released
Hattiesburg American
The 14 rehabilitated Kemp's Ridley sea turtles released into the
Mississippi Sound Tuesday would have been nearly half of those incidentally
captured if it was still 2011.
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20120808/NEWS01/208080321/Sea-turtles-window-into-Gulf-ecology?odyssey=tab|
topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
National News
Vitter: EPA gives La grant to help fight dead zone
The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — U.S. Sen. David Vitter says the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency will award a $100,000 grant to the Louisiana Coastal Protection and
Restoration Authority to help fight the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone."
http://www.sunherald.com/2012/08/08/4112439/vitter-epa-gives-la-grant-to-help.html
Obama regulations chief pressed attacks on ozone standards
The Hill
By Ben Geman and Kevin Bogardus - 08/08/12 05:00 AM ET
The outgoing White House regulations chief circulated industry attacks on
proposed smog standards among high-level advisers to President Obama,
emails released to The Hill through a FOIA request show.
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/242667-obama-regs-chief-pressed-attacks-on-ozone-standards
U.N. Climate Change Goals: U.S. Reaffirms Support After Criticism
Reuters | Posted: 08/08/2012 4:17 am
OSLO, Aug 8 (Reuters) - The United States reaffirmed support for a U.N.
goal of limiting global warming after criticism from the European Union and
small island states that Washington seemed to be backing away.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/un-climate-change-goals_n_1754657.html
Opinion
Plant target of shortsighted politics
Op-Ed – Bill Crawford
Shortsighted politics is bad for business. Those states desiring economic
prosperity restrain shortsightedness and leverage long-term business
investment. They pragmatically gauge regulation against opportunity,
taxation against job creation, and liability against competitiveness.
http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20120808/OPINION/208080301/Plant-target-shortsighted-politics
Press Releases
EPA Announces Funding for Research to Improve Air Quality, Protect Health
Release Date: 08/06/2012
Contact Information: Latisha Petteway (News Media Only),
petteway.latisha@epa.gov, 202-564-3191, 202-564-4355; En español: Lina
Younes younes.lina@epa.gov,202-564-9924 , 202-564-4355
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded five
grants totaling almost $2 million to academic institutions for research on
innovative processes to further improve air quality in the U.S. and help
track the effectiveness of pollution control measures. Pollutants such as
ozone and fine particles are linked to a variety of serious health effects,
including aggravation of asthma and other lung diseases, heart attacks,
increased hospital admissions and medication use, and premature death.
The grants announced today are focused on generating better data and tools
to enable regulatory authorities to more effectively ensure that the air we
breathe is healthy. The information gathered through this new research will
help inform policy decisions that affect air quality, including the way
states and cities address short-term air quality challenges.
"These grants will encourage innovative solutions for incorporating new
information, technology advances, and current scientific understanding into
air quality management," says Bob Kavlock, deputy assistant administrator
for EPA's Office of Research and Development. "This research will help
improve our efforts to respond quickly to short-term air pollution issues
such as heat waves or seasonal impacts on air quality."
The funding covers projects that will examine links between short-term air
pollution drivers and existing management strategies, development of
decision-making models, and air quality forecasting techniques. The five
grantees include:
University at Albany-SUNY, Albany, N.Y., will help incorporate short-term
forecasts of emissions from electricity generation and traffic into
modeling and air quality forecasts.
University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, will include the design and
testing of innovative methods to link electricity generation and emissions
pricing for the prevention of air pollution episodes.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Ga., will develop a system for
estimating and minimizing the impacts of prescribed burning on air quality,
particularly in Georgia.
Texas A&M University-Kingsville, Kingsville, Texas, will address the issues
of multi-pollutant air quality management and develop integrated
decision-making models for air quality policy making.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, N.C., will
develop new tools for linking air quality modeling and forecasting with
forecasts of electricity demand.
These grants are part of EPA's Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program,
which supports human health, ecology, economics, and engineering sciences
through grants, centers, and fellowships. EPA provides air quality and
environmental information to the public through websites including AIRNow,
Window to My Environment, and Envirofacts. These tools help educate the
public and increase their participation in decisions that affect air
quality.
More information on the grantees: http://www.epa.gov/ncer/dynair
More information on the EPA's STAR program: http://www.epa.gov/ncer
More information on AIRNow: http://www.airnow.gov
More information on Window to My Environment:
http://www.epa.gov/enviro/wme/
More information on Envirofacts: http://www.epa.gov/enviro/
EPA Awards $2 Million to Small Businesses to Support Environmental
Innovation, Protect Health
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded seven
contracts totaling more than $2 million to small businesses across the
nation to develop new technologies to keep the environment clean and
healthy. Companies won the contracts through the highly competitive annual
Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program competition, which
encourages small businesses to explore and develop environmental
technologies from concept to commercialization.
"The innovation, passion, and commitment of these small businesses will
have a lasting impact on our country by creating jobs, increasing economic
competiveness, and protecting people's health and our environment," said
Lek Kadeli, acting assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Research and
Development.
In the last ten years SBIR has funded over 200 of these small companies,
helping them grow and extend their capabilities. One such company is
Ecovative Design, LLC, which after winning one of EPA's SBIR contracts, was
able to leverage that success to obtain $6 million in capital investment
funding. Ecovative Design develops biologically based substitutes for
polystyrene packaging and sustainable insulation. For packaging, Ecovative
uses locally available waste, such as rice and soybean hulls as filler
inside custom grown mushroom roots that can be made into a customizable
shape to fit each customer's particular need. The venture capital funding
is helping Ecovative grow to meet the needs of corporate American customers
such as Dell Computer and Ford.
The winning companies submitted their innovative ideas during the first
phase of the SBIR competition in 2011, and received SBIR Phase I contracts
of up to $80,000 to develop their concepts into technologies addressing key
environmental areas. Winning the SBIR Phase I competition made these
companies eligible to apply to the program's Phase II competition this
year. As Phase II recipients, these companies have received around $300,000
to further develop their technologies for the market place.
Phase II recipients include:
• FBS, Inc., Pennsylvania for technology addressing detection of defects in
water pipelines using ultrasonic guided waves
• Lynntech, Inc., Texas, for developing automated, field deployable
environmental monitors that promote clean up strategies for restoring
contaminated sites to productive use
• TDA Research, Inc., Colorado, for technology using waste gas from
anaerobic digesters on farms to generate energy while preventing
groundwater contamination and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions
• Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., Illinois, for technology treating
new types of contaminants in drinking water
• Adherent Technologies, Inc., New Mexico, for a pollution control
technology reducing particulate pollution emitted by outdoor wood-fired
boilers by more than 50 percent
• Faraday Technology, Inc., Ohio, for a drop-in green chrome plating
process that replaces conventional carcinogenic plating technology
• OPTRA, Inc., Massachusetts, for a technology capable of trace level air
quality, process monitoring, and chemical and biological threat detection
To be eligible to participate in EPA's SBIR program, a company must be an
organized, for-profit U.S. business and have fewer than 500 employees.
More information on program eligibility: http://www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir
More information on the 2012 Phase II SBIR recipients:
http://www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir12ph2
More information on the SBIR Program: http://www.SBIR.gov
