State
Rikard confirmed as head of Mississippi environmental agency
AP
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The state Senate has confirmed attorney Gary Rikard
(RYE-card) of Madison as head of the Mississippi Department of
Environmental Quality.
http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/28277924/rikard-confirmed-as-head-of-mississippi-environmental-agency
Halcon assessed $60,000 for taking water
Ernest Herndon
Enterprise-Journal
Thursday, March 5, 2015 2:30 pm
An oil company involved in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale oil play agreed to
pay a $60,000 penalty for withdrawing water from a stream without a permit
and thus denying the public a chance to comment, according to the
Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
http://www.enterprise-journal.com/news/article_83f060ba-c376-11e4-8f97-2b2dfc5fe62a.html
Notes from the field
Clarion Ledger
Cold fronts, wind and rain aren't exactly conditions that bring
fishing to mind, but it will pass and anglers will soon flock to
their favorite fishing holes.
If your spot is the family farm pond, the Mississippi Department of
Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks is offering seminars on how to get the
most from it.
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/sports/2015/03/04/notes-field/24414489/
Senate to propose changes to "no-bid" contracts bill
Clarion Ledger
An omnibus reform and transparency act aimed at cracking down on
"no-bid" contracts, such as those at the heart of a recent bribery
and corruption scandal, suffered what its author called a
detrimental amendment weakening the entire effort.
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2015/03/04/senate-propose-changes-bid-contracts-bill/24406489/
Holloway resigns as Biloxi mayor
Sun Herald
BILOXI -- After 22 years on the job, Biloxi Mayor A.J. Holloway tendered
his resignation Thursday. He will officially step down Tuesday.
http://www.sunherald.com/2015/03/05/6104643_happening-now-aj-holloway-resigns.html?rh=1
Oil Spill
Is BP Responsible For The Deaths Of Over 1,000 Dolphins Along The Gulf
Coast?
WWNO
A report published last month found that an unusually high number of
bottlenose dolphins have been dying all along the Gulf Coast since February
2010. This unusual mortality event, or UME, began two months before the
2010 BP oil spill, but groups including the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration say the spill is responsible for the continued
die-off of this species.
http://wwno.org/post/bp-responsible-deaths-over-1000-dolphins-along-gulf-coast
Gulf of Mexico Turns Deadly for Dolphins
NY Times
Dolphins are dying in great numbers in the northern Gulf
of Mexico.
Since February 2010, 1,308 dead or dying marine mammals —
mostly bottlenose dolphins, including juveniles or aborted
fetuses — have washed ashore on beaches and wetlands from
Texas to Florida, or have been discovered floating in the
Gulf's murky waters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/gulf-of-mexico-turns-deadly-for-dolphins.html?mwrsm=Email&_r=0
Feds hope to reinstate case of ex-BP engineer
AP
New Orleans • Federal prosecutors hoping to win reinstatement of an
obstruction of justice conviction against a former BP engineer will argue
their case next month at an appeals court in New Orleans.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/2253648-155/feds-hope-to-reinstate-case-of
National
Watchdog scrutinizes EPA on employee salaries
The Hill
The Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog said the agency has
not properly justified its decisions to pay 23 employees more than
traditional salary limits for federal workers.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/234720-watchdog-scrutinizes-epa-on-employee-salaries
USGS: More data needed to assess any fracking-pollution link
AP
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - A new study by the U.S. Geological Survey says more
data are needed to be able to assess whether any widespread correlation
exists between unconventional oil and gas development and degraded water
quality.
http://www.kulr8.com/story/28263314/usgs-more-data-needed-to-assess-any-fracking-pollution-link
'Swarms' of earthquakes strike Oklahoma
USA Today
DENVER – Fracking of oil and gas wells is at least partially
responsible for causing a major increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma,
according to state and federal scientists.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/05/oklahoma-quakes-fracking-oil-gas/24444581/
FBI to open office in ND oil country
The Hill
The FBI said it will establish an office in North Dakota's oil country to
address an uptick in criminal activity related to the dramatically
increased oil production of recent years.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/234793-fbi-to-open-office-in-nd-oil-country
Press Releases
Nutrient Pollution Damages Streams in Ways Previously Unknown, UA
Co-Authored Research Shows
ATHENS, Ga. — An important food resource has been disappearing from
streams, without anyone noticing — until now. In a new study published in
the journalScience, a team of researchers, including University of Alabama
ecologists, reports that nutrient pollution causes a significant loss of
forest-derived carbon from stream ecosystems, reducing the ability of
streams to support aquatic life.
The findings show that the in-stream residence time of carbon from forest
matter like leaves and twigs, which provide much of the energy that fuels
stream food webs, is cut in half when moderate amounts of nitrogen and
phosphorus are added to a stream.
"This study shows how excess nutrients reduce stream health in a way that
was previously unknown," said Dr. Amy D. Rosemond, associate professor in
the University of Georgia's Odum School of Ecology and the study's lead
author.
Stream food webs are based on carbon from two main sources. One is algae,
which produce carbon through photosynthesis. Nutrient pollution has long
been known to increase carbon production by algae, often causing nuisance
and harmful algal blooms. The other source is leaves and bits of wood from
streamside forests. This forest-derived carbon typically persists
year-round, making it a staple food resource for stream organisms.
"It's very apparent when excess nutrients lead to algal blooms in rivers
and other aquatic ecosystems," said Dr. Jon Benstead, associate professor
of biological sciences at UA and a co-author. "But their impact on
accelerating the breakdown of dead organic matter, such as leaves and
twigs, is a significant but under-appreciated effect on the health of
freshwater ecosystems across large areas of the world."
UA's Dr. Keller Suberkropp is also a co-author.
The nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus play essential roles in the breakdown
of carbon by microbes and stream-dwelling insects and other invertebrates,
but cause problems when they are present in excess amounts—as they
increasingly are. Nutrient pollution is widespread in the U.S. and
globally, due primarily to land use changes like deforestation, agriculture
and urbanization.
Its effects on algal carbon are well known and highly visible, in the form
of algal blooms. Little was known about how nutrient pollution affects
forest-derived carbon in stream food webs, however, so the researchers
devised a set of experiments to find out.
Working at the Coweeta Hydrological Laboratory, a U.S.D.A. Forest Service
and National Science Foundation Long Term Ecological Research site in North
Carolina, they set up a system to continuously add nutrients to several
small headwater streams. The first experiment ran for six years in two
streams, and the second for three years in five streams, with different
combinations of nitrogen and phosphorus to mimic the effects of different
land uses.
The researchers found that the additional nutrients reduced forest-derived
carbon in whole stream reaches by half.
"We were frankly shocked at how quickly leaves disappeared when we added
nutrients," said Rosemond. "By summer, the streams looked unnaturally
bare."
"Most people think of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in streams as
contributing to algae blooms," said Diane Pataki, program director in the
National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which
funded the research.
"But streams contain a lot of leaf litter, and this study shows that
nutrient pollution can also stimulate carbon losses from streams by
accelerating the breakdown of that litter," Pataki said. "That helps us
better understand how fertilizer runoff affects carbon transport and
emissions from streams and rivers."
Rosemond likened the impact of the loss of forest-derived carbon to the
doubling of algal carbon that nutrient pollution can cause.
"But this is not a zero-sum game," she said. "Increasing one form of carbon
and decreasing another does not equate; these resources have unique roles
in stream food webs and nutrients are affecting their relative
availability."
Many streams lack sufficient light for algae to grow, making forest-derived
carbon their main source of energy. But forest-derived carbon is more than
a source of food.
"Leaves and twigs and the microbes that live on them are also particularly
important in taking up pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus," Rosemond
said. "Ironically, by stimulating the loss of these resources with
nutrients, we lose a lot of their capacity to reduce the nutrients'
effects. This means that more nutrients head downstream where they can
cause problems in lakes and estuaries."
Rosemond said she hopes the study's findings will be incorporated into
policies aimed at reducing nutrient pollution, which currently focus on
algae.
"There has been limited national progress in efforts to reduce the impact
of nutrient pollution in the U.S., according to a U.S.G.S. study," she
said. "Our results provide a more complete picture of nutrient effects in
streams, suggesting that increased efforts at addressing their impacts can
now improve stream health in more than one way."
Support for the study, which is available online at
http://www.sciencemag.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aaa1958, was provided
by the National Science Foundation.
Besides Rosemond and the UA College of Arts and Sciences' researchers,
coauthors are Phillip M. Bumpers, David W.P. Manning, and Dr. J. Bruce
Wallace, all at the Odum School of Ecology; Dr. Vladislav Gulis, of Coastal
Carolina University; and Dr. John S. Kominoski of Florida International
University.
http://uanews.ua.edu/2015/03/nutrient-pollution-damages-streams-in-ways-previously-unknown-ua-co-authored-research-shows/?utm_medium=twitter
